I am seeking an opportunity to speak with people who experienced "hiccups" or more serious issues in their search fund journey and would be willing to share. All in the spirit of learning from your experiences and helping a new searcher be equipped to seeing red flags early. Please PM me if you are willing to have a confidential chat. Thank you in advance - I know that re-counting these experiences is not always easy. I am well aware that this has been asked before.
Some more background (my profile and examples of negative experiences) below.
My profile:
I am in the very initial stages of raising a traditional search fund (starting to draft a PPM, planning to fund raise early in 2024) focused on Poland. I have background in consulting, private equity operations and small business management. I am decided and excited to get going. I have done the work (books, podcasts, meetings with people in the ecosystem) but I still feel like I have a gap in understanding when it comes to things that can go wrong, or even very very wrong.
Examples of potential situations (not exhaustive) which I have heard off anecdotally and I would like to explore:
1. Difficulty raising a fund (e.g., not getting a good response despite seemingly tested market and good searcher profile)
2. Not finding the right company/willing seller (e.g., running out of time/money, too narrow search parameters/"picky" searchers)
3. Not being able to acquire the company (e.g., acquisition funding not coming through)
4. Not generating expected value in acquisition (e.g., bad market, surprises post acquisition, getting fired by the Board)
5. No successful exit (e.g., lack of alignment on timing/type of exit, lack of market interest)
6. Issues with investors (e.g., challenging relationships: searcher-investors and intra investor group)
7. Issues with other stakeholders (e.g., sellers, employees, banks etc.)
8. Bias in search (e.g., negative perceptions you had to deal with as a women)
Seeking to speak with people who had negative search experiences
by a searcher from INSEAD
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We maintain partnerships with database providers that make searching more effective, efficient and affordable along with features that help searchers find deals and investors and vice versa.
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