The Curriculum

Where the curriculum starts: the three careers that get lumped together as search, the record of the person teaching, and the rules every number on this site has to follow before it is stated.

The opening argument. The market you were shown is not the market that exists. This part grades the industry's recruiting claims against primary sources and maps who in your deal is paid on what.

The failure record before flight hours. Nine detailed cases of acquisitions that failed, what the interview corpus of failed buyers says in aggregate, and the patterns that become the first checklist.

Build the machine once. A one-person deal team runs four jobs alone; this part fills the seats with an AI-first operating system that lives in files you own, governed by conversation rather than configuration.

The readiness gate comes before the machine. Personal runway and family alignment, the credible buyer profile a seller actually picks, the thesis and buy box at the data layer, capital pre-work, and the deal team you hire knowing their incentives.

Most businesses that change hands were never listed. This part teaches sourcing as an outreach process you own: the three layers where deals live, the find-enrich-reach loop, public data first, and how the broker channel actually works.

Ten minutes with a CIM is a decision, not a reading assignment. The quick screen, the canonical red flag library, rubric scoring, screening a target with no financials at all, and reading a sell-side document for what it is.

Find the real earnings, then price them. Reading the statements as a buyer, add-back tiers, the do-it-yourself quality of earnings, the three valuation lenses, the plain-English LBO, the walk-away price, and a full worked deal.

From letter of intent to funds flow. Exclusivity, reading the seller, diligence beyond the numbers, structure under the current SBA rules, the capital stack and the guarantee, the paper that can kill you, the close, and what to do when a deal dies.

Every advisor's revenue stops at close. Yours starts. The first ninety days, the cash reality, what an operating cadence looks like when it works, what to do when it does not, and the exit you should be building toward from day one.

The sponsor vehicle and sector specialization. Deal-by-deal capital, the quiet raise, and diligence methods for sectors where contract data can be verified externally.