Since starting my self-funded search for music and audio product companies, I’ve been balancing search efforts with part-time consulting work to keep income coming in. Starting around October of 2024 and continuing to-date, consulting work has been harder to come by, and I feel I now have to make a decision:

1. Invest significantly more time prospecting for consulting work to keep self-funding my search, at the cost of reducing my search efforts
2. Raise a search fund to extend my runway and enable myself to truly search full-time
I’ve raised capital before and have maintained relationships with those prior investors, keeping them abreast of what I'm working on, as well as a other individuals who may be interested in my future deals. That said, I have no committed capital today as it hasn't felt appropriate to ask people for money when I don't have a deal to discuss. I'm building a rollup, targeting small companies that make their products in the USA, with long-term durable demand and lifecycles, at least some being manufacturing companies. I have an IOI out to a prospective first acquisition, but even in the best-case scenario, it would be months before closing. That leaves me facing this decision now. I’d love to hear from those who have raised a search fund, and especially anyone who transitioned from self-funded to traditional search, or gave serious thought to it and didn't follow through. What were the biggest trade-offs? What did you wish you knew before making the switch? Thanks!