A few days ago, I reconnected with a family office, and they reminded me of one of my favorite investing maxims—one Warren Buffett credits to Charlie Munger: "It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price." I couldn't agree more! The challenge, of course, is that finding a wonderful company was never easy, though it is increasingly harder in recent years. And finding one at a fair price, even more so. When I was searching full-time 12 years ago as a traditional searcher, it was already difficult to acquire a quality business at decent multiple and price. Since then, the market has become exponentially frothier. Private equity has continued moving downstream, and we now see institutional capital competing for businesses frequently that are less than a million of EBITDA. That has led me to a view that: for many aspiring entrepreneurs through acquisition, the most attractive path may be a self-funded search focused on businesses in the $500K–$750K EBITDA range. Why? Because self-funded searchers aren't constrained by investor mandates or nuances. If you can acquire a solid business at a reasonable price, operate it well, steadily grow EBITDA, and pay down debt, the long-term financial outcome can be exceptional—even if the business isn't "wonderful" at the onset. I've seen some posts suggesting franchising as an attractive alternative. I understand the appeal—I own a franchise myself. But in my experience, achieving meaningful scale is not easy and is time consuming. I'm curious whether what others are seeing and doing: - Has the search market become much more difficult over the past decade? - If you were starting your search today, would you pursue a traditional search, a self-funded search, or a franchise —and why?