Search Party

Franchising businesses have become mainstream ETA targets, and the three-tier ecosystem of franchisors, franchisees, and suppliers offers talented operators more entry points than most investors realize, says Graham Weihmiller, managing partner of Pioneer Equity Partners.

"When franchising is done well, it's a team sport," Weihmiller tells Search Party. "The customer and the franchisee are at the top of the org chart, the franchiso...

With his entrepreneurship tracing back to charging kindergarten classmates fifty cents for drawing lessons, Jason Williford has spent decades backing small businesses and building a sense of what it takes to lead one.

Williford, a board member and executive advisor to Culture Index, tells Search Party that the riskiest small businesses he encounters are led by CEOs who have failed to surround themselves with smart advisors.

Among t...

The ETA search has grown into a more professional asset class over the years, but its reliance on mentorship makes it hard to scale to the size many institutional investors require, says Susan Pohlmeyer, co-founder and partner of Futaleufu Partners, as well as a former investor at the Stanford Management Company. 

In a conversation with Search Party, Pohlmeyer explains the fundamentals of the entrepreneurship-through-acquisiti...

Cory Prott, an ETA searcher who acquired and became CEO of HRtoGo, had to engineer a cultural overhaul after discovering he inherited a workforce that had an antagonistic view of their employer. This was one of numerous challenges he faced that an advanced degree in accounting did not prepare himself for, he details in this episode of Search Party. 

Joined by Dustin Sellers of NCL Partners and Burton Francis of ECA Partners, t...

When ETA entrepreneurs finally reach the exit they've spent years grinding toward, the tax decisions made in that moment can cost them millions — or save them millions. 

Boulay Wealth Partner Nathan Faith breaks down the strategies many financial advisors don't know exist, from Flex SMAs that harvest losses, to the Section 1202 exclusion. If you're an ETA searcher anyhere on the journey — buying, running, or appro...

Chris Sigala took an unconventional path through ETA — no MBA, no traditional search fund syndicate, and a relatively brief search in a very specific healthcare niche.

Sigala has now completed an ETA round trip, having sourced and acquired Renvio - which serves dialysis clinics by streamlining how they operate - led it it as CEO, and exited to a financial partner. 

Sigala shares his journey in a fascinating conversation ...

Sure, searching for a lower-middle-market business to acquire and run is challenging, but have you tried doing it while pregnant? Entrepreneurs-through-acquisition Ania Aliev and Courtney Dunn share their own searching-while-pregnant stories in a fascinating, inspiring and touching conversation with Search Party's Lauren Farkas.

Aliev, now CEO of Life Support Systems, and Courtney Dunn, now VP Customer Success at Cerbo, began their...

Having acquired many small businesses over the years, entrepreneur Keith Burns observed a growing problem in the lower-middle-market - even the most talented CEOs have very little understanding of the evolving threats and opportunities around cybersecurity. 

"People don’t recognize how much of their value is left exposed by not having the right security posture in place," Burns tells Search Party. "It’s basically l...

An Entrepreneur-Through-Acquisition is like the captain of a ship meant to deliver rewards to many constituants, and yet those rewards are uncertain and variable based on decisions made early in the life of the investment. 

In particular, the personal wealth-building of an ETA searcher may be compromised if certain tax consequences are not considered at the outset of the journey, a panel of experts tell Search Party.

In this e...

Artificial intelligence has reached the lower-middle-market, as seen in the case study of Haley, an AI agent deployed by Entrepreneur-Through-Acquisition (ETA) Tyrel Sulzer to win customers for his commercial driving school, TransTech.

In a fascinating conversation with Search Party, TransTech co-CEO Sulzer and his investment partner, Dustin Sellers, Managing Partner of ETA private equity firm Next Coast Legacy, share details of Ha...

Curt Black, CEO of a growing SaaS business, was a successful Google executive before deciding to pursue the path of Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition. His ETA journey introduced him to the founder of Aproove, who agreed to be acquired by Black and partners, then called the whole thing off. 

Black finally managed to acquire the Aproove business in January 2025. 

Through deal-search twists and turns, Black tried to diffe...

A board of directors should hold the CEO accountable and evolve with the company's growth, say veterans of lower-middle-market business building.

In a conversation with Search Party, Megan Webster of law firm Mayer Brown, Max Artz of Peterson Partners and Anthony Walker of Next Coast Legacy share observations about the positive impact a board can have on a lower-middle-market business, and the challenges the Entrepreneurship-Throug...

A decline in email response rates is forcing deal searchers to be more creative, says Entrepreneur-Through-Acquisition searcher Christine Koval, currently on the hunt for a lower-middle-market, back-office services business to acquire. 

In an interview with Search Party, Koval notes the increasing competition to find deals in the vast US lower-middle-market, as well as the ubiquity of powerful business-outreach platforms that...

Professionalizing the finance function of a lower-middle-market business is one of the most impactful forms of value-creation a new CEO can pursue, according to a panel of Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition (ETA) market experts.

To learn the importance of the finance function in ETA investments, Search Party convened a conversation between Anthony Walker, Managing Partner at Next Coast Legacy, Sam Swan, CEO of TaskRay, Eric Lough...

Small insurance brokerages make for "great" Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition deals, provided the acquirer has a deep understanding of the industry, says August Felker, an ETA searcher turned CEO of Oberle Risk Solutions.

In an interview with Search Party, Felker shares his personal ETA journey to becoming the CEO of a leading lower-middle-market insurance brokerage, starting with being raised by a father who ran a St. Louis, Mi...

The relationship between lender and lower-middle-market CEO is a critical factor in the success of ETA deals, say veterans of the Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition strategy. This episode of Search Party is about how to get the most from your lender over the lifecycle of an ETA investment, with expert commentary from Castle Capital Managing Partner and ETA veteran Chandos Mahon, Conor Tidgwell of Avidbank and Anthony Walker of

As a growing number of MBA students become interested in Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition (ETA), a proper understanding of the challenges involved in finding and running a business is essential, say Austin Fruchter and Rohit Datta, Co-Presidents of the Columbia Business School ETA Club. 

The Columbia ETA Club provides students with exposure to the ETA process, connecting them with investors, operators, and service provider...

Failing to strengthen the sales function can undermine the growth of a newly acquired business, a CEO stumble made worse in a leveraged environment, three veterans of the lower-middle-market tell Search Party.

Founder-led small businesses often lack structured, scalable sales systems—and the ETA searchers-turned CEOs who acquire them must rapidly diagnose and improve how EBITDA is generated, according to a panel of experts co...

Shortly after acquiring security-camera service EyeQ Monitoring nine years ago, Markus Scott had no way of knowing he’d eventually grow revenue by a factor of 24. He was too busy dealing with “a whole list of terrible things” that indicated the business was doomed. In an interview with Search Party, Scott says, before detailing these tribulations: “This is the place where I should be pouring bourbon.”

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