Failed Search — What Next

After 2+ years of part-time searching across a number of industries in my geo, my search has ended in... keeping my day job. Oops. Instead of disappearing, I wanted to share a few reflections, because I've gotten a lot from the community and I'd like to pay it forward. This wasn't a failure to find deals. I found a lot of interesting businesses. I absolutely see the value prop — incredible wealth and legacy for the right person who can pull it off. I'd still recommend the path. Random niches I explored: industrial ball manufacturing, museum exhibit design, ditch maintenance, sneeze guard manufacturing, mulch, water testing. The #1 appeal of ETA for me was stewarding a legacy. I met owners with family in the business ready to inherit not just cash, but a cash machine. That's still the dream - my son can't inherit my W2. It was a failure to tolerate risk. I could have closed on a number of deals. But I never solved for the house. With a young family, I wasn't willing to put my primary residence on the line for an SBA loan and potentially make us homeless. zero risk tolerance when it comes to my house. I tried everything to get around it (HELOC, lease backs, ABL, etc). And I also wasn't willing to relax my geo constraint to raise a traditional fund...so I got stuck in a catch-22. New searchers: move to Texas to protect your primary residence ;) Advice for part-time searchers: 1. Stay employed. It's about your BATNA — having a paycheck means you can actually walk away from a bad deal. I walked from deals I probably would have done if I'd been full-time and watching the clock on my runway. 2. Take breaks Conventional wisdom says no, but part-time search is a multi-year slog, not a sprint. Pacing yourself is how you stay in the game. 3. Use interns I'm so impressed by the young talent who can hustle and do deal work. I got 100+ good-quality intern applicants in 2 days when I posted on Searchfunder - insane. In retrospect I should have hired more. The real value was having thought partners and a rhythm. Interns also made it less lonely. I told my interns our job was answering two questions — "is this a good business?" and "is this a good deal?" Despite my MBA, only searching taught me how to answer. 4. Automate earlier Search is an incredibly tedious B2B sales motion with an unbelievably low conversion rate. You need to automate, especially if you're not full time. Unfortunately, my systems were poor. Embarrassing, but time constraints meant I never got around to building the automations needed. Off-the-shelf solutions were too expensive and only solved part of the puzzle; DFY search firms wanted $10k-$100k+. Excited to watch AI change the game. What next? I'm still running a 30 person AI/ML automation team. Use me as a free resource if needed for questions about AI & automation. I'll help cut through the hype. If other searchers relate — I'm building the AI tooling I wish I'd had. Example: a brokered deal scraper that scores against your buy-box, pitches you the deals, and writes the outreach for ones you approve. It's nearly done — I'll drop the link in the comments here in a few days. I will also post it here -> www.smbexcel.com Happy searching!