Part I
The Real Map: Folklore and Market Structure
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 Folklore Ledger
- L1.1.1
The Silver Tsunami, Debunked
The retirement-wave pitch rests on a misread demographic statistic and a report nobody can locate. The acquirable pool of viable firms is a small fraction of the business count quoted at the top of every funnel, and the funnel math changes once you size it honestly.
TraditionalSelf-FundedOpen - L1.1.2
The Stanford Returns Category Error
Stanford's aggregate for traditional multi-investor funds, 33.9% IRR and 4.75x in the 2026 study, covers one model only. Realized self-funded outcomes look different: the Yale data put the median deal near 1.6x. Applying a fund aggregate to a self-funded search is a category error, and almost everyone makes it.
TraditionalSelf-FundedSponsorCore - L1.1.3
Default Folklore vs. the Real Number
The widely repeated SBA acquisition default figure is folklore. Loan performance is not owner outcome: the number that should concern a buyer is the share of funded acquisitions that lose equity. How to cite loan data honestly, with the year and the source attached.
TraditionalSelf-FundedOpen - L1.1.4
The Listing Mirage
The share of listed businesses that actually sell is far lower than the figure brokers repeat, which traces to an old guess with no methodology. What the observed clearing rate does to your funnel assumptions, and why the old number stays in circulation.
TraditionalSelf-FundedCore
The Misalignment Engine
- L1.2.1
Who Gets Paid on What
Brokers are paid at close, lenders on origination, QoE shops per report, educators per enrollment, investors across a portfolio. Every professional in your deal is paid on activity. You alone are paid on a decade of outcomes, and you are the only one without data.
TraditionalSelf-FundedOpen - L1.2.2
You Hold the PG
The personal guarantee is the asymmetry that defines the game: you are the collateral. Before signing anything, list every guarantee in the structure and trace exactly what each one reaches.
TraditionalSelf-FundedOpen
The Rules of the Money
- L1.3.1
SOP 50 10 8: The Rewrite, and 8.1: The Tightening
The 2025 SBA rule rewrite retired structures much of the industry still teaches, and the 2026 follow-on tightened underwriting further: a 1.25x DSCR floor on historical earnings, mandatory QoE above a purchase-price threshold, and longer seller consulting windows. The meta-lesson: the rules move faster than the courses, so date every rule you rely on.
Self-FundedCore - L1.3.2
The Capital Canyon
A band of deal sizes sits stranded between the SBA loan cap and the floor of conventional credit. Why those deals are hard to finance, what that means about where you hunt, and how deals in the canyon actually get structured.
Self-FundedSponsorAdvanced - L1.3.3
The Japan Foil
The most mature succession market on earth, with government matching centers in every region, still clears only a small share of heirless firms each year and has produced fabricated-deal scandals. Japan already ran the experiment. It is your preview.
TraditionalSelf-FundedCore
Path Economics
- L1.4.1
The Real Cost of a Search
Searchers sign several letters of intent before one closes, and each dead deal burns real money. The time pressure of a bounded search manufactures bad deals. Budget for the pipeline you will actually run, including the deals that die.
TraditionalSelf-FundedOpen - L1.4.2
Choosing Your Vehicle
A decision framework across the three careers: risk, control, economics, and timeline. Traditional search is covered at reference depth; this curriculum's practice depth runs from self-funded search to the independent sponsor.
TraditionalSelf-FundedSponsorCore - L1.4.3
What Good Looks Like
The honest success profile, placed before the failure record: what the buyers who made it did differently, stated against the same base rates with no survivorship gloss. This is survivable if you fly by instruments. The point is never that you should not fly.
TraditionalSelf-FundedOpen