Traditional searchers...How did you approach building a thesis?

January 31, 2025

by a searcher from Michigan State University in Los Angeles, CA, USA

I'm interested in learning how others have approached their research when building industry theses in the early days.

I'm currently running a self-funded search and started quite broad with industries because of my geographic constraints. I'd like to narrow this a bit. I'm not looking to steal anyone's work. Just want to learn about ways to approach this and get feedback on my current process.

Reply by a searcher
from University of Pennsylvania in San Diego, CA, USA

I found it best to start with industries where you have existing experience and networks as you also need to demonstrate a “right to win” in those sectors. As for narrowing down a thesis, research into macro trends driving growth in a few sub-sectors is where I started and then I identified a few areas where I thought SMBs might struggle (and therefore could be opp for value creation) based on desk research and discussions with people who run businesses in those sub-sectors.

Reply by a searcher
from Brigham Young University in Yorba Linda, CA, USA

I really like Walker Deibel's approach in his book Buy Then Build - focus more on what skill sets (marketing, sales, finance, operations, etc.) you have that you can deploy to grow / improve the business, much more so than what industry to buy in. Highly recommend reading or re-reading his book as you build your thesis.

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