Take Five #039: The 2023 Self-Funded Search Study, with data from 250 searchers, and more

Five takeaways we loved at Kumo this week

Subscribe to Take Five to get our top 5 quick weekly reads on the world of SMB, M&A, and EtA from the team at Kumo. Kumo aggregates hundreds of thousands of deals into one easy-to-use platform so that you can spend less time sourcing, and more time closing deals.

Before we jump into our Take Five: our beta for Kumo is LIVE! Try it for free now at withkumo.com

What is Kumo?

Kumo is a powerful deal aggregator to help supercharge your deal sourcing.

What can you do with Kumo?

1. Browse 100,000+ deals from hundreds of brokers and every major marketplace, with 700+ unique deals added daily.

2. Save time and stop reviewing duplicate deals. Kumo matches identical deals across hundreds of sources so you can view unique business opportunities, even if they’re slightly different across different websites.

3. Get a daily or weekly summary of deals that match your search criteria

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Take Five #039: The 2023 Self-Funded Search Study, with data from 250 searchers, and more

1. The 2023 Self-Funded Search Study, with data from 250 searchers

A very insightful search fund study just released by SIG, with self-reported data from more than 250 individuals. Link to the study is here, free to download:

Robert Graham @Robert_E_Graham

The 2023 Self-Funded Search Study is now available for download and our podcast on Acquiring Minds is live. 72 pages of insightful content and never before known stats on the self-funded path of ETA: Download the study: searchinvestgroup.com/study Podcast:

acquiringminds.coThe Wealth Potential of Self-Funded SearchKey findings from SIG’s new study on self-funded search: financial outcomes, deal costs & terms, search lengths & more.

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2. Those critical first 60 days after buying a business

12 steps from a 8-time business buyer: “This first 60 days is critical for your success so you gotta be all-in.”

Kriss Berg @KrissBergTweets

🚨🚨 THE FIRST 60 DAYS AFTER BUYING A BUSINESS 🚨🚨 A lot of talk about the buying process, what about right after you close?? *gulp* I've bought 8 businesses, here are some lessons for 1st time buyers from the school of hard knocks...

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3. 5 Predictions for SaaS in 2023

Looking to acquire a SaaS (Software as a Service)? Janelle Teng is a VC at Bessemer, and here are her top 5 predictions for SaaS in 2023:

I. More macro stabilization

II. De-stigmatization of flat or down rounds

III. Increased vendor consolidation and re-bundling

IV. Mainstream adoption of FinOps and productivity optimization tools

V. Explosion of generative AI continues across more vectors and ushers in fundamental shifts

Read the full article here:

SaaSy Predictions for 2023

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4. How to negotiate SMB deals more productively

Aka how not to have the deal die during the grind of due diligence.

BuySellSMB @BuySellSMB

I’ve seen a lot of SMB deals that end up looking like hostage negotiations. Normally, it’s the buyer’s fault. Here are some thoughts on negotiating SMB transactions productively:

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5. 4 companies, same $1M EBITDA. How should we value them?

Heather Endresen @EndresenHeather

Numbers📊 vs. Stories 📖 Let's say we have 4 different SMBs, each has $1 million EBITDA. Should we value ea. the same, is the same capital and leverage structure right for each of them? Of course not, because the story behind that $1 mln is more important than the # itself 🧵

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Upcoming Events in the SMB & Business Acquisition Space

(A ✨new✨ section in our newsletter: we’ll be adding to this list weekly, so send over any events you think we’ve missed!)

January 11th, 5pm: Pacific Northwest Holiday Party for the Search Fund Community, hosted by Live Oak Bank. Link to save the date on Searchfunder.

SMBAcquisitionAttorney @SMB_Attorney

🚨 Dallas SMB Meetup this Saturday🚨 Location: Rustic (Uptown) @ 7 pm Join @ClintFiore, @KHendersonCo, @CTW_SMB, @ConnorAbene, @SBA_Matthias, @MrJoshFro, @sbabmarks and many others 150+ people set to attend! RSVP here: eventbrite.com/e/dallas-smb-m…

eventbrite.comDallas SMB Meetup 1/14Dallas SMB Meetup January 1/14 Details: - @ The Rustic - 7PM till ? - Everyone welcome. Buy your own food/drinks

Lisa Forrest @LisaGForrest

Self-Funded Equity: Common and Preferred structures for SBA SAVE THE DATE! 1-19-2023 @ 9 PST / NOON EST ZOOM links to follow @EndresenHeather @BenBortner @smblawgroup & Investor Cat Littell of Halstatt Legacy

Chris Sundberg @chrissundberg

Organizing an Austin searcher meetup/happy hour January 20, 2023. DM if you’d like a calendar invite. Would love to see you there @J_M_Vogt @thomasince @bentigg .

Josh Schultz @joshuamschultz

I'm doing another SMB Brunch in Austin on Jan 28th My Home Amazing Brunch Spread Great Conversation Guest Speaker: Creating Inbound Deal Flow (from someone that has created a massive pipeline) Come for the community, learn something new, make new friends. Whose interested?

Reece Elmer @RLElmer

❄️ ❄️ SMB Ski Day❄️❄️ Where: Brighton (UT) Ski Resort When: Tuesday 24 Jan @ 9am Who: Searchers, operators, investors, brokers, etc. We’ll ski/board for a while, have lunch, and maybe ski some more or take off if you need to. Please RSVP w/me & I’ll send more details!

Reece Elmer @RLElmer

🚨 CALLING ALL (UTAH) SEARCHERS & SMB OPERATORS🚨 Let’s get together for a ski day (I mean..important meetings)! ⛷️ Maybe..sometime the fourth week of January @BrightonResort? DM me if you’re interested and we’ll tack down specifics when we have an idea of who’s coming! https://t.co/5MpQFMnRcL

Pursuant Capital @PursuantCapital

Applications are OPEN for the first two Search Fund Bootcamps of '23: -February 8-10 -May 17-19 @PursuantCapital's Bootcamp is a 3-day, intensive, in-person training course with Pursuant, its Deal Team (SBA lender, QofE, Legal, Insurance, Tax), ETA investors & Searcher CEOs.

Sam Rosati @Sam_Rosati

Golfers of SMBTwit: My buddy @rondebarber and I are on the Board of the @ValsparChamp, the PGA Tour event in March in Tampa. We are hosting a SMBTwit meetup to watch the tournament, and a separate "Monday after the tournament" round of golf on the course the pros are playing...

SMBash @SMB_ash

🚨SMBash ‘23 Announcement🚨 We’re excited to share the theme for SMBash ’23! This year, we’re zeroing in on search with two days devoted to finding, acquiring, and investing in SMB/Micro-PE deals. Here’s a quick summary:👇

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