Most of us got into this space because of the same macro pitch: boomers retiring, businesses needing buyers, thin competition below the PE threshold. Fair enough — the wave is real. But “lots of sellers” isn’t an investment thesis. What matters is why these businesses trade below intrinsic value, because each cause points to a different edge for the buyer. I break it into five forces: 1. Missing demand floor. Sub-$2M EBITDA is below the institutional check size, and heirs largely don’t want the family business. Both natural buyer pools are absent. This is the competition edge — but it’s also the most cited and least differentiated. 2. Generational oversupply. Boomers outnumber Gen X. More exits than entrants for a decade. This sets the backdrop but doesn’t tell you which deal to do. 3. Not exit-ready. Personal expenses through the P&L, undocumented key-person knowledge, financials that take real work to normalize. This is where the actual discount lives — uncertainty gets priced, and a buyer with a disciplined diligence system gets paid for resolving it. Messy books ≠ bad business, but you have to be able to prove which one you’re looking at. 4. Seller timeline pressure. Health, energy, the next downturn. Sellers with options negotiate price; sellers on a clock negotiate certainty. Credible, well-structured closes beat higher headline numbers from buyers who can’t perform. 5. Refusal of the logical buyer. The natural acquirer is a competitor, and owners won’t sell to them — fear of asset-stripping, staff cuts, and the humiliation of conceding to a 30-year rival. This is the one I think is most underweighted. It’s an emotional market inefficiency, and it means a continuity-first outside buyer isn’t just another bidder — they’re the exit the seller actually wants. That shows up directly in structure: seller notes, earnouts, transition involvement.