Preparing for self funded ETA whilst balancing committments/obligations

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March 07, 2021

by a searcher from INSEAD in Singapore

Any one here (either themselves or know of someone) who pursued ETA without leaving their pre-existing full time work/income initially? Or along that spectrum e.g. searching whilst working. If so, what are the insights, advice, tips or caution you would give to someone considering this?

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Reply by a searcher
from The University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA
Kenny, I’ve been doing a search along with a full time job for the last 6 months or so. Depending on how flexible your “full time” job is, this could be manageable for you as well. It would have been impossible for me to do this without my job moving to WFH during the pandemic and allowing me to take calls and do outreach as necessary during business hours.

I resigned myself to a mostly non-proprietary search. I am doing no cold outreach to potential sellers and instead relying on brokers and personal networking to generate deal flow. I expect my search to take longer than if I was doing it 60+ hours a week instead of 20 or so possible now. However, I see the upside of getting my paycheck, health insurance, etc to support my family as outweighing the dilution which would occur if I raised capital to pay for my search. I plan on financing any deal with personal savings and bank/sellers debt, but your situation may be different.

If another 6-12 months goes by without my process bearing fruit, I will probably reassess its effectiveness!
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Reply by a searcher
from University of California, Santa Barbara in Cincinnati, OH, USA
Kenny, I took a bit of a hybrid approach. Kept my full-time job for the first 5-6 months to get the administrative work and search thesis together (set up website, get PPM and other marketing materials together, make contacts with brokers, set up CRM/email automation, vet lawyers/CPAs/bankers, do industry research, develop my search thesis, etc.). I also did some initial brokered CIM analysis and propriety outreach to get my feet wet and refine my approach. You can do a lot of this on your own time, even if it's slower with a full time job, and doing this while employed let me explore all options without being under the gun of no salary.

Then, when I felt that the search was truly ready for launch, I left my job, and am now dedicating myself full-time to the search. I agree with the searchers above who say finding a business is a full-time job to do it right.
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