Building in Public as a Competitive Advantage in operating iSearchFund

searcher profile

September 11, 2024

by a searcher from Stanford University in San Mateo, CA, USA

First of all: What is Building in Public?

Now, a question: Has anyone tried #BuildingInPublic with Search Funds? We didn't find any examples, so my partner Matthew Chesky and I decided to be the first.

Here's why: We have a secret weapon called iSearchFund, and we're planning to power our new Search Fund called The Glowsides Company (Glowsides) with this new FinTech AI engine.

So here goes: Consider this the first post, one that I had not planned to write until just now.




Prologue:

Glowsides is designed as a network acquisition company (NAC) to roll up a complete ecosystem within the target vertical.

We decided to also add brand equity by using a consumer-friendly name. We picked the premium cigar industry for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that Amazon and Co are not planning to enter the tobacco category any time soon. Glowsides is meant to be a vertically integrated platform that also provides services to 3rd-parties, starting with wholesale. Glowsides will then add retail, manufacturing, and other business and technology services companies to round out the strategy.


Alpha:

Project Alpha is the codename for the first acquisition under the Glowsides NAC, and in the spirit of #BuildingInPublic, we will share our LOI-in-the-Works here with the community. The target is a friendly team of veterans, and this deal will form a great foundation for the Glowsides ecosystem. Since Mike and I go back several years with the founding team of the target company, we're fortunate to not have to look at it purely as a financial deal but as a strategic partnership to help realize our dream of creating a top premium cigar maker.


Thoughts?

So what do you think of this whole approach? Pros, cons, suggestions, or other feedback and comments?


Community

Regardless, if you are at all connected to the premium cigars industry, we're hoping you'll join this conversation and the soon-to-be-launched community platform. Stay tuned!

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Reply by an admin
from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Portland, OR, USA
We encourage everyone to share their journey on Searchfunder, so please feel free to continue to share as you move forward. Authentic long format posts are often the most engaging, particularly if you can share the lows in addition to the highs (see www.searchfunder.com/post/just-closed-on-my-first-deal-reflections-and-takeaways-for-other-searchers)

Very few people, including ^redacted‌, have mentioned vertical integration here, so that would be an interesting topic to explore further. have

^redacted‌, & ^redacted‌ are the only other folks to mention Building-in-Public, but I suppose that's what we've been doing at Searchfunder all this time.

You are also the very first person to mention Cigars on Searchfunder and only ^redacted‌, ^redacted‌, ^redacted‌, ^redacted‌, ^redacted‌, & ^redacted‌ have mentioned tobacco.

If anyone else has something to share about their Search Journey, or related topics, please post them and I'll do my best to get them going.
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