f you're looking to raise money from investors for your self-funded acquisition, or you are considering investing in this asset class yourself, listen closely to this roundtable with 3 self-funded search investors.

Niklas James of Minds Capital (my partner), Tony Cappeart of Workbench Capital, and Adam Borcz, an investor in both self-funded and traditional search, were the panelists on a recent Acquiring Minds webinar.

The conversation was so rich and wide-ranging that I thought it deserved being a proper episode of the podcast.

Here's but a sampling of the many topics discussed:

• How these investors evaluate self-funded searchers
• How they think about searchers with no experience in their target acquisition's industry
• Do you really know what you're getting yourself into, and your need to demonstrate that you do
• Embracing the suck, and your need to demonstrate that you can
• What’s more important: operational chops or finance chops?
• Self-funded deal terms: where they've been & where they're going
• Are terms too favorable for searchers?
• The rise of offering self-funded investors a put option so there is a well-defined path to getting their money out of your deal
• The needle you need to thread when pitching investors
• Off-putting assumptions to avoid making in your financial model
• The risk/reward profile of investing in self-funded search versus traditional search funds or independent sponsor deals

As an investor myself now via Minds Capital, I realize how stark the difference is in how investors see search deals and how the entrepreneurs themselves do.

Hopefully this conversation sheds light on investor thinking, something that hasn't gotten a lot of attention and which I would like to remedy going forward.

Please enjoy this roundtable with Niklas James, Tony Cappaert, and Adam Borcz:

• Listen on Spotify
• Listen on Apple
• Or, listen to the episode in the player at the top of the page ☝️☝️