After seeing 302 business acquisition deals over the last 14 months, there's an area of due diligence we don't think gets nearly enough attention: how the searcher actually makes decisions. As minority investors, we don't have operational control. We win when the searcher wins - which means everything depends on their judgment. So we watch closely. The green flags are what you'd expect from someone who will thrive as an operator: 1. They build their models and fundraising decks with genuine human thought rather than outsourcing their thinking to AI. 2. They share their reasoning in detail - not just what they've decided, but why, often in writing. 3. They demonstrate mastery of the details and the logical connections between them. A searcher who notices that Days Sales Outstanding is rising sharply during diligence and immediately knows to adjust the working capital peg from trailing 12 months to trailing 3 is telling us something important about how they think. The red flags are subtler but just as telling: 1. Making a decision first and then constructing supporting logic - not the other way around. 2. Focusing on what's possible while underweighting what's probable, especially with foreseeable risks. 3. Choosing options that create short-term benefits at the cost of long-term problems - a habit that compounds in the wrong direction once someone is running a business. We're not just underwriting the deal. We're underwriting the person making decisions about it every day for the next decade. Plus: - Great insights from a successful searcher, Tamar Schreiber-Daniel, on one of the toughest parts of a business acquisition: re-earning the trust of customers loyal to the brand. - Sam Rosati's SMBootcamp - the tactical in-person training that has helped 400+ searchers close 70+ acquisitions - is leaving Tampa for the first time and coming to Denver, with PROX Search Capital's Adam Markley co-hosting. If you're in the Mountain West and want the same practical, no-fluff curriculum searchers have been flying to Florida for, this is worth a look. Register here. - SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler is calling for the 7(a) and 504 loan caps to be raised from $5 million to $10 million - and if it happens, it would solve a real problem we see in the market today: businesses with $2 million to $3 million in earnings that fall into a "donut hole" where SBA debt is too small and non-SBA debt isn't readily available. Changes require an act of Congress, but Loeffler believes it could happen as part of a Defense Authorization bill. Full article here.redacted