Thursday afternoon, Barcelona.

A room at IESE. 771 people on the attendee list. 240 of them looking for a business to buy.

On stage: the researcher behind the Stanford search fund study. Thirty years of data on everyone who has tried this model.

43%.

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Stanford has tracked 862 search funds since 1984.

A search fund is one person, sometimes two, who raises a bit of money to go find a business, buy it, and run it.

Of the ones that started between 2021 and 2024, 48% actually bought something.

The rest closed without a deal.

Then they split it:

Searchers with a partner bought 58% of the time.

Searchers on their own: 43%.

43 ÷ 58 = 0.74. Going alone, your odds are about three-quarters of a pair's.

Here's the part that got me:

73% of recent searchers go alone.

Most people pick the version that works less often.

I'm one of them.

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Stanford doesn't count me.

The study only covers searchers in the US and Canada who are backed by a group of investors. I'm searching in India, with Italy on the side, my own way.

So 43% isn't my number. It's just the only number anyone has measured.

And the partner might not even be the reason. Pairs tend to raise more money and bring more experience.

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The study has another number I like more.

Searchers who signed a letter of intent in their first six months went on to buy a business 74% of the time.

Across the whole group: 48%.

A letter of intent is your first written offer. Not the deal. It's the moment you stop browsing and put a price on paper.

The ones who bought signed their first one, on average, in month seven.

And 2.5 of them along the way.

And when searchers were asked why one fell through, 79% named something they found in due diligence.

So the job isn't finding the perfect business.

It's getting to a price early, doing it more than once, and expecting most of them to die.

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I started searching in August.

Six months is February.

So, honestly:

Letters of intent signed: zero.

Businesses I'm seriously looking at: none.

What I do have is a much more clear thesis. A small Italian business that manufactures for luxury brands, under €10 million in revenue. And a few brokers and advisers in Italy who know exactly what I'm looking for.

Two and a half months of meetings. Not one deal on paper.

By Stanford's numbers, that's normal.

By my own standards, it's a failure.

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Last issue I asked if you'd run a business yourself or hire someone to.

This one's easier:

Would you search alone, or with a partner?

One word is enough. Hit reply, I read everything.

– Dev

P.S. - Three in four searchers go alone. I'm one of them.

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Selling a business? [email protected] - tell me what it does and what it makes.

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