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: