The conference provided us with a ton of value. Fortunately, one of our team members was able to attend and took some great notes:

• HBS defines Entrepreneurship as “The relentless pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.” [How to be successful = Relentless, opportunistic, resourceful] • Collaboration – Searchers old and new want to be helpful. See this as an important and growing asset class that provides a meaningful opportunity for bright, talented motivated searchers. • There is ‘riches in the niches’ find something quirky that has the attributes of great industry/company and you will be rewarded. • Lenders – need to pick the right one. Huge variance in responsiveness, quality and ASSET vs. CF. Need CF lenders! Engage early, run them through a few deals, be proactive. [Live Oak = were impressive] • Focus on quality deals. Run hard, kill quickly, move on. Sunk costs are sunk – need to dust yourself off and keep moving. Being able to quickly ascertain whether an owner is a motivated seller is KEY. • Need to develop the right funnel process; learn the grunt work yourselves, then leverage interns and iterate on the process to ensure max efficiencies and shared learning. • Varying degrees of sophistication on Sourcing strategies. Need to make lots of contacts. Even a ‘low touch’ approach means 1,000 emails…use the many great software tools available. • A-Players are expensive. And worth it! Success rates for key position hires: hovering around 50% range. Hire slow, fire quickly. The key early hires Controller, Operations, Sales. • Your Support network is critical. There will be ups/downs ebbs/flows…ensuring you have the right support across spouse, friends, family, Board/investors is crucial. • Network like MAD – it works. Do not get trapped in thinking ‘productivity’ is sending emails from behind a computer… • Be clear about what you want. Buy a company that you will enjoy running. • Industry-focused searches bring efficiencies and allow you to be more credible with buyers. • Richard Reese @ Iron Mountain…what a LEGEND. Great story.

I would like to thank [redacted]‌, [redacted]‌, and [redacted]‌ for sponsoring the HBS EtA conference this past weekend.

Overall, the conference proved well worth my time. As someone currently exploring whether to go down this path, the conference's agenda did well to provide great insight and perspectives into what to expect.

Besides all of the tips shared by past and current searchers over the day, I believe my greatest takeaway was understanding the mindset and commitment required to make it through the journey. Respecting most everyone on this forum has the mental aptitude to search effectively, it seems that many will face experiences that they have not encountered in their careers thus far. And for that, you will need to be mentally ready.

Conference was great and as an active investor in search was great to see some of the legends (Thorndike, Sharpe, etc) speak.

Couple notes I took:
-Takes an average of 3 LOIs to close a deal
-CEOs should spend 25% of time on systems. Examples - OKR, Rockefeller Habits
-Proprietary deals can be tough as you also informally serve as "the broker* - teaching them the process, what's "market", - lower likelihood to close
-50% of MBA students are female. Higher % of female business owners than female searchers. Starting to see more female searchers but still behind - opportunities for that to change next few years.
-It's a different CEO role in traditional search vs self-funded search due to size & larger company. Requires different skills, what do you want to do , and understand "what am I good at"
-Multiple expansion is a real opportunity - multiples change once get to $5M EBIDTA.

thanks for sharing

Thanks for sharing!

thanks!!!!

thanks!

You all should most certainly sponsor the conference again ^[redacted]‌...the value given what second to none. What I took away was the need for patience as the amount of deals that will be screened is many. Knowing by understanding your own search criteria you can weed out those deals that waste time. Another aspect was being confident to know that there is more than enough capital for the deal. And post-acquisition be ready to WORK!!! Most of us know that but to really dig down and work the intricates of the business, knowing the staff and operations completely. Thank all those who were involved on putting on such an event!

Thanks for sharing!

Hi Karen and thank you for sponsoring such fantastic event - is was worth every cent and more.
I especially enjoyed industry thesis think tank session with couple of key notes:
- Once you identify nice - sprint over it, spend 4-6 weeks of full day calls around with industry participants to see if that bears any fruit and interesting connections, but if not - know when you should switch over
- One of biggest mistakes is falling in love with a niche that doesn't really work with search fund model or anchoring yourself to sector that has some flaw. As an engineer at the beginning of my career I completely understand what they talk about - sometimes one can have such a beautiful engineering solution that from business point of view has no sense
- Talking to industry specialists and participants can identify new interesting niches - moving across value chain should help to find very attractive opportunities in-between sectors