Advice needed: self-funded vs. bringing on an investor

I’ve been actively searching for about 6 months now and could use some perspective from people further along. Background-wise, I come from financial services + sales/bizdev/marketing leadership. A lot of my experience is around revenue generation, client relationships, and growth. I also have a pretty strong network on the public markets side (family offices, hedge funds, investment banks, etc.), but I’m not sure how relevant that actually is in this world. I’m based in Yorba Linda and focused on SoCal (OC, LA, Riverside, SB, parts of SD). Mainly looking at manufacturing/fabrication, but generally open to blue-collar businesses that don’t require contractor licensing. All my lifelong hobbies and interests are "blue-collar-friendly" (powersports, watercraft, offroading, etc.), so it feels like a natural transition. So far I’ve reviewed hundreds of deals, gone through ~40 CIMs, and had real conversations on ~10. Passed on a handful after digging in—mostly due to heavy owner involvement, questionable add-backs, very small teams, or equipment/operational issues. My current range has been driven by my own capital: ~$200–350k SDE ~$600k–$1M ask < $120k liquid from me Open to SBA / seller financing What I keep running into is that a lot of these smaller deals feel like I’m buying a job, even if they look fine on paper. Trying to avoid stepping into something where I’m the entire operation from day one. Ideally I’m looking for something with real SDE (not add-back magic), some operational depth, long track record, and obvious room to improve sales/marketing without having to overhaul everything. However, lately I’ve been thinking about bringing on an investor and moving up-market a bit—maybe targeting ~$750k–$1.5M SDE / ~$2–3.5M EV—where the businesses seem a bit more built out. My hesitation isn’t really giving up equity, it’s more that I don’t fully understand how those partnerships actually work in practice: how people structure these deals what roles look like post-close how control typically works whether it actually leads to better outcomes or just more complexity For those who’ve gone either route— would you do it the same way again? Feel free to message me or email me at redacted Appreciate any thoughts.