Hi, ^[redacted]‌ - I look forward to the responses you receive. In the meantime, you may find our interviews helpful. We ask for lessons learned in every interview. To locate these, in the search posts field enter "searchfunder interview" using quotation marks. Let me know what you think.

Two main things for me: 1) Cash is king 2) Size matters.

On the cash piece, I knew the old trope that "cash is king" but never considered it from an operator's perspective - e.g., $200k of EBITDA in a given month does not mean you will have $200k of cash at the end of the month. Depending on the business model you may have more, but on the other hand if you have increases in working cap (A/R goes up or a vendor requires a big down payment on equipment or software order) and/or CapEx, you could end the month with nothing. So until I was in that situation, I didn't really appreciate the importance of cash. Now we track our cash levels on a daily basis and when we do additional deals we typically calculate how much cash we'll need for the deal and 1.5x it.

For size, my firm started off with too small of an acquisition because we thought we could quickly grow into a sustainable size. We did grow, but the growth was costly and we didn't have the cash flows to fund it the way we would have liked. In hindsight, it's obvious that a larger company has more stable and reliable cash flows and a little more room to breathe - probably one of the reasons the relationship between EBITDA and purchase multiples is not linear.

I"ll discuss a bit of the, pre-launch things to reiterate:

1) It's hard. And a huge grind. Like, I know every book has got the "are u sure u want to do this" paragraph. But really. It's hard. And a grind. And miserable. I can't stress that enough. You have to be willing to put in the time, effort, and frustrations that come with the process. Know what you're getting into.

2)Do not hold the GSB primer and HBS book as the golden bibles for how to conduct the search process. There are actually different ways you can customize your search parameters -- how you fund raise, how you structure your fund, what type of deals you look for. Don't be afraid to be creative about how you go about. Take the time to talk to people, and figure out what will work for you and what won't. Don't just blindly follow the template because some professor at Stanford in 2005 said that's what people have been doing.

3)Also, the search fund community is great and super helpful! SFunder is a great community to commiserate, and share tips/experiences. I highly encourage you to use it as a resource.

+1 on the responses above.

Match your search to your personal and financial goals / constraints. Have a spouse/family in a specific geography and need to find a business there? Likely you’ll need to self-fund your search, be flexible on industry and be comfortable with a smaller sized business. Need income while searching? Then you’ll need to be traditionally funded, which means you should be ok moving anywhere around the country post-closing. Prefer to be the sole/majority owner, or do you have a “big fish in small pond” preference? Buy a smaller business with SBA 7(a) and own a controlling interest. The traditional model means you’ll be a “hired gun” with accompanying perks/benefits, but your equity percentage is limited. Know if you are a "growth/sales" personality or a "efficiency/back-office" personality and make sure your post-closing role will match your personality.

There is no right way for everyone, but there is a right way for you. Know yourself, then customize your search to match.

Talk to your spouse and make sure he/she is ready for the ride.

Have your 30-second elevator pitch down pat, you’ll give it a million times. If your parents don’t get it, neither will sellers.

And have your M&A lawyer, CPA, lender(s) and advisors/investors all ready to roll, you have to be able to move fast.

I wish I knew how unaware investors were about the Search Fund Process in the Caribbean.......

1) Know your own strengths and weaknesses - look to partner with those who are strong in areas in which you are weak. If your target business needs functions that aren’t strengths of yours, then ensure the business has the resources (read money) to hire people who can provide those functions.

2) Growth is much harder than it seems... and much more expensive and it will likely take longer than expected (or desired).

3) This doesn’t apply to all situations, but as a buyer you have way more power in the negotiation than you might think.

4) The less existing ownership is doing in the business, the better, because it means systems are in place to run basic functions.

Learn how to do it before trying to do it.