3 years in as a searcher, 5 things you might be able to find useful

Three years ago, I started my first search solo, looking for small SaaS businesses to acquire. Today, that has evolved into a private equity model with 21 acquisitions completed and team of 2 (myself and another professional). For anyone early in the search journey, here are five lessons I wish I understood earlier. First, deal sourcing and due diligence are not the real bottlenecks. Discipline is. There are always deals to look at. The hard part is staying honest about the metrics that make your model work: retention, margins, customer concentration, growth durability, churn, owner dependence, and realistic post-close cash flow. Second, be very clear about your value-add. If you are buying a business at 3x EBITDA, what gives you the right to believe it can become a 6x+ EBITDA business? Is it sales execution, marketing expertise, pricing discipline, operational efficiency, offshore talent, product expansion, or better systems? “I’ll work harder” is not a strategy. Third, the idea that every seller has hundreds of buyers lined up is mostly a myth. In my experience, most serious sellers are comparing one or two credible buyers. Fit matters. Culture matters. Location, legacy, employee treatment, timing, and trust all matter. You are not always competing against the highest price. Often, you are competing on certainty and alignment. Fourth, seller financing and SBA loans can work very well for the first one or two deals. But after that, they can start to constrain you. Covenants, personal guarantees, lender processes, seller expectations, and structural limitations can reduce flexibility. At some point, your capital strategy has to evolve if your ambition evolves. Fifth, you may not need a traditional three- or four-person team anymore. With AI, automation, good operating partners, and disciplined systems, one person can now handle sourcing, initial diligence, reporting, operating metrics, outreach, and portfolio monitoring far longer than before. In fact 1 person teams are better in this new AI age. Search is still hard. But the playbook is changing. If you are looking at SaaS, digital services, or marketing-related acquisitions and want to compare notes, I’m happy to connect.