I've gotten to know several searchers well who have worked their tails off, only to fall short of securing a deal before their funding dried up. Given that most searchers, by definition, want to be a CEO running their own show, I have a novel idea: try joining a direct marketing company (aka direct selling or MLM). 

I never thought much about the business model until 2010 when I invested in one. It was fascinating to get to understand just how these work. Unfortunately for us, we picked the wrong product, but I learned enough to understand what the "right" kind of product is. 

A case in point is Young Living Essential Oils, started by Gary and Mary Young 25 years ago who never raised any debt or equity on their way to $1.5 billion in sales and 2 million members. Essential Oils are the perfect choice for a direct selling model because they are consumables (check mark), used mainly by woman (checkmark), and require a lot of education (checkmark). My wife joined 18 months ago and now has over 200 people on her team. She's beginning to bring in meaningful levels of income that in the next few years (if the trajectory continues) will be six figures of passive, willable income per year. All this for $165 for the starter kit. More importantly, she's doing good, a lot of it. 

I am not suggesting buying or starting a direct selling company (that's really, really hard). But if there are direct selling companies with products you believe in, then do yourself a favor and forget the heavy lifting, join up and build as big a team as fast as you want. Be your own boss, without having to worry about making or delivering the product. The skills you learned as a searcher will come in very handy (reaching out to large numbers of people). 

I don't expect this message to resonate with many people on this list, but for the one or two it does, I'm happy to discuss further.