Is it Worth Hiring an Intern for Deal Sourcing?

September 08, 2025

by a searcher in Rio de Janeiro, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I’m considering hiring an intern to help with deal sourcing but unsure if it’s worth it. My concern is whether they can actually find high-quality deals versus just creating more work filtering low-quality ones. Has anyone here done this? Was it helpful or more of a distraction? Any tips on making it work would be appreciated.

0 Likes

21 Replies

405 Views

Replies

Reply by an investor
from Harvard University in Dallas, TX, USA

Two of my interns ended up being ceos of our operating companies. They also made millions in stock. I was searching in 2009 when the financial crisis was on and when search funds were a very minor thing . I hired via Craigslist ads. But it was unpaid. The difference in quality of unpaid vs when we offered an hourly rate was astonishing. We mainly had people in their 20s and I was teaching them the entire deal process. The broker flow was pretty useful for that. My outreach was physical letters that took a lot of individual effort. It still works today (I send letters to business owners that I personally am interested in buying). But they would tailor them, research the companies and personalize the content. I had interns do the initial letter, the follow up letter, the email (2 week delay between each) and then attempt to call and then schedule my attempted call. The best process i ever say was interns managing interns. Nathan Israel who later searched was the lead intern managing interns. Im sure there's all kinds of perspectives on paying (how much? Benefits? Etc etc) but thr experience they get is a big part of it. The best ones came to meetings, traveled etc.

Reply by a searcher
from University of Southern California in Austin, TX, USA

I have a couple and I think if you have a good process, they can be very helpful to increase funnel size and reach, while you're hopefully focused on selling you. Yes, you have to put time in to teach them, but if you get good ones, they can help each other and the machine moves. AI is making things "faster" in the search process, but it's changed the competitive landscape as well, so having good interns with AI makes productivity higher, imo. To be fair, in my first search, I wasn't very good at utilizing interns, but after operating for a decade, it's a lot easier to onboard now.

+19 more replies.

Join the discussion