Partnered searchers are 2x more likely to make multiple acquisitions than solo operators

Hello Searchers, Just like a lot of you guys I love the Acquiring Minds podcast. So I had to pull 450 data points from it over the last few weeks. Not that surprising, honestly. But worth saying out loud, because the default in search is still "go alone until you can't." I went alone for the first two years at Pocket Fund. Here's what I learned the hard way about why partnership actually drives the multiple. 1. Bandwidth split One person runs a live deal while the other sources. Solo searchers do these sequentially. Partners do them in parallel. I tried doing both for the first year, sourcing and running Sourcely simultaneously. Deal flow died every time I had a live deal in the pipeline. The only thing that broke me out was building a team in India who could source while I operated. That's bandwidth split with extra steps. Partners get the same effect without the org chart. 2. Capital access Two networks = two LP bases. Twice the creative minds for seller-finance structuring. Deals that were unfundable solo become fundable. 3. Operator complement Most searchers are strong at finance OR ops. Rare to be both. Partner with the inverse and you've covered the exact gap that kills most post-close stories. Partnership is only worth it if your partner is handling things you cannot. There has to be a clear division of responsibility. The searcher who closes the deal is rarely the right person to run it on day 90. 4. Decision quality Solo searchers fall in love with deals. Partners kill them. The friction of having to convince someone is the cheapest DD you'll ever run. Pre-Pocket Fund, I met 500+ sellers and sent 50+ LOIs before closing one. A lot of those LOIs were me convincing myself a marginal deal was great because I'd already spent two months on it. A partner would've killed half of them on the second call. That's not a bug, that's the system working. 5. Capacity for deal #2 This is the real driver of the 2x. Once you close one, a partner gives you the bandwidth to integrate AND source the next one. Solo operators disappear into operating for 2-3 years and never come back to the funnel. The minute one person owns both sourcing and operating, deal #2 dies. Honest pushback: partnership has its own failure mode. Mismatched expectations on time, capital, comp, and decision rights kill more partnerships than bad deals do. The 450 data points don't count the ones that blew up before deal #2. Two questions for the room: 1. If you're searching solo right now, what's actually holding you back from partnering? Not finding the right person, or not wanting to give up control? Curious which one's more common. 2. If you've partnered, what's the one thing you wish you'd put in writing before you started?