Answers to Recurring FAQs from Current and Prospective Searchers

This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Oberle Risk Strategies⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Insurance Broker and Insurance Due Diligence Provider for Search Funds and Other Small-to-Medium-Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Profit Line: The Outsourced Finance & Accounting Department for Small and Medium Sized Businesses⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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Many searchers understandably tend to have very similar questions and areas of uncertainty. Indeed, in most instances, I had these very same questions and areas of uncertainty myself prior to raising my own search fund in 2012. As a result of the frequency with which I'm asked these questions, I've presented each of them in today's episode, and have also included my opinion on what the answers may be. Some of the questions include:

• Constructing a cap table
• Differences between the Canadian and US search ecosystems
• Is the search fund market too crowded/saturated
• The trade-off between price and business quality
• What the best searchers do in their first 3-6 months
• Proprietary vs. brokered deal flow generation
• When to visit a prospective seller
• Success rates of industry agnostic searches
• Having an industry & geographic focus
• Homogeneity among search investors re: industry preferences
• How to spend your first week as a new CEO
• Should I create a 100-day plan?
• How to communicate the ownership change to customers