Looking through the posts there is no lack of people trying to make diligence more streamlined, cost less, and go faster. There's money to be made and they've made it this far, right? SBA requires a Quality of Earnings and your investment team won't let you proceed without a Legal and Tax analysis of the business. Maybe a round of Technology Due Diligence if it's a FinTech, AI, or SaaS business. Your checks go through clean or with minor blemishes you reprice...or they turn up something significant and maybe you walk away from the deal. In the bad case, you walk away from the deal having put significant 5-figures into the would-be deal and killed it before you're bound to the business and it's liabilities. In the good case, you move to close on a business that went through your diligence unscathed. There may be a few things you reprice, but for the most part your value thesis for the business survives those forms of due diligence without indicators that it won't work. Congratulations, you've acquired a business! Now is where the worst case becomes possible. The change of ownership resets all the agreements that made their earnings possible. The transition resets the business' position of preference among your key clients. The new leadership loses key employees because their loyalty and comfort level was with the Seller. The licenses needed to keep quoting and delivering work at no longer in the business. The systems require relationships you don't have, experience you don't have, and/or skills you don't have...those are going to walk out the door in 6-12 months. Suddenly your PMI, your Operating Partner, or you find out the business you bought is not the business you acquired. That can delay your value thesis by months or years. That can cost you 6-figures to 7-figures of repair and retooling just to get back to the level the business was before the deal closed. That C.O.S.T. came with the business but because due diligence on the Operations wasn't a priority and considered too expensive, these things are hitting you right when you have far fewer options to deal with them...plus you're carrying debt the previous owner didn't have. As extra as it may seem while you are selecting targets, doing other diligence, and negotiating final price and terms, doing Operational Diligence can be the most cost-saving thing you do before pursuing ETA. Like buying a car, you can have the cleanest windows, the sleekest tires, and the best sports-shifter...but if what goes on under the hood isn't working, you won't go far and you won't go fast. For more on this subject, see my article: The C.O.S.T. to be the Boss (redacted