Searching for a Medspa/Healthcare Platform in the DMV — Broker and Seller Intros Welcome

Hi everyone, I’m Heidi Faust, LCSW, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with 20+ years of healthcare and behavioral health leadership experience. I first heard about ETA from a fellow female C-Suite colleague and close friend, a Harvard MBA whose work ethic, intellect, and data-driven leadership style I deeply admire. When I told her about my startup idea, she encouraged me to consider the ETA path and pointed me to the Acquiring Minds podcast. At the time I stayed focused on my startup, but when a founder mentor later gave me the same advice to recognize my financial worth in the marketplace, rethink my model, and pursue a platform company rather than launching from scratch, it clicked. He also recommended Buy Then Build and the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, which gave me a strong foundation. After 13 years as an executive at Thriveworks, where I most recently served as Chief Clinical Officer and helped grow the company from one location to more than 350 nationwide, I began exploring ETA more seriously. While this will be my first acquisition as a buyer, I previously owned and sold two franchises and participated in multiple due diligence processes, including Thriveworks’ two private equity transactions with Regal Healthcare Capital Partners and Wellington Management, as well as our acquisition of Synchronous Health. I also helped manage Thriveworks’ buyback of roughly 20 franchises into the company and earlier in my career served as Director of Franchise Support, where I coached franchisees through operations and sales to outside buyers. I am pursuing this first acquisition through SBA 7(a) financing and personal capital. I’m currently focused on acquiring a medspa or related healthcare services platform in DC, Maryland, or Virginia, with goals to grow it and apply the scaling experience I built at Thriveworks. Listings on BizBuySell are light in this niche locally, so I’d love to hear from others who have searched in fragmented industries. How much of your pipeline came from brokered listings versus direct outreach? If anyone has had good experiences with specific brokers in the medspa or healthcare space, particularly in the DMV area, I’d be grateful for introductions or recommendations. I’m also curious if anyone has encountered sellers who were not open to private equity or larger financial buyers but preferred to sell to an individual operator who aligned with their vision, mission, or values. If so, I’d love to hear how you approached those situations. And I’d be glad to connect if you come across medspa or healthcare service owners in the DMV who are looking for an operator-buyer. Looking forward to connecting and learning from this community.