proprietary search engine

Member resources:

Frequent asked questions:

What is Searchfunder.com?

Searchfunder.com is an online community of searchers, investors, lenders, brokers and other professionals. Over 80% of those involved in searchfunds maintain a Searchfunder account to help them network, hire, and mentor others.

What are the benefits of membership?

In addition to accessing the most active online network of business buyers, Searchfunder licenses research that is simply not cost effective for individuals. Access over 15,000 industry reports and 50,000 transaction financials. You also get monthly credits for contact information for your company sourcing campaign with the option to purchase more at drastically discounted rates. Searchfunder has pre-purchased access from these data providers in order to empower individual buyers and to help searchers level the playing field versus private equity.

Do you have deals?

While we are primarily a buy-side network, we do have hundreds of brokers that regularly post deals to the community.

Can I find an internship on Searchfunder?

Absolutely! We have the industry's largest intern job board. If you are considering a search, the first step is to help another business buyer so you can hit the ground running.

What does it cost?

Searchfunder is a subscription service. We offer flexible monthly, annual and lifetime memberships.

Monthly

$79 / month

Annual

$19 / month

Lifetime

$432 / once

Those who maintain an account with us for over 4 continuous years are permanently added to the community without the need for a membership.

Do I need an MBA to join?

While a large number of our members come from dedicated programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, Chicago Booth, and other top programs, searching is no longer reserved for the elite. With the current abundance of dry powder in private equity, and an increasing number of business owners reaching retirement age, good deals rarely go unfunded.

Post a question, deal, job, etc...

Make a post...

Complete registration to post.

by a searcher from Harvard University - Harvard Business School
in Los Angeles, CA, USA

8mos ago

proprietary search engine

What are some good resources for setting up the pipes of a proprietary search engine? I'm curious about things like tech stack, process flows, email domain health, sequence of calls and emails, templates, etc... I'm more familiar with the best practices for software companies and agencies doing outbound sales, and I'm interested in comparing these with search. Happy to aggregate resources and share if we get a lot on input.

1 Like

195 Views

reply by a professional 8mos ago
in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

From my experience working with 20+ searchers, we have observed that the tech stack has always been widely varied. Most of the time, they have tried different tools based on what works for them and decide that this would be good for them. Most of the time, it is different only. Process flows go something like this: They identify the type of companies they go after, and they use my team of Virtual Assistants to build the prospecting list. Sometimes, they get the list from somewhere, and my team helps filter out potential companies to reach out to. Contact information is then found, and a series of emails starts being sent out, along with cold calls sometimes, and a few have sent physical mail as well. I do not have access to templates, but the sequence varies again. I have seen typically three emails and two calls. A few people have also visited the companies they had a strong interest in if it was within the range. Hope this helps.

reply by an investor 8mos ago
from McGill University in San Diego, CA, USA

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "proprietary". The typical traditional searcher will use Grata/SourceScrub/Zoominfo to collect contact information of business owners in an industry, and will then send cold emails. Because this is a high volume approach, they will also use a CRM (like Pipedrive or Hubspot), a software tool to verify email addresses (like ZeroBounce), and an email outreach tool (like SalesLoft or Instantly). If you want to talk about what a high touch approach looks like, feel free to DM me