School of the Independent Sponsor
Independent Sponsor
Deal-by-deal capital: the sponsor finds and underwrites the company first, then raises the equity for that specific deal, earning fees and carried interest rather than running it as the sole owner. It is the second act for many operators, the vehicle the founder rebuilt in, and the one this school treats as graduate work.
Who studies here
This school is for
- Operators who have bought or run a company and want to do it again with other people's equity and their own underwriting.
- Searchers whose target is above the SBA ceiling and below the floor of institutional private equity.
- Anyone raising capital for the first time who wants to understand the fee and carry benchmarks, the quiet soft-circle process, and the structures that do not work.
The economics
Fees, carry and the first raise
Sponsor economics are benchmarked by the industry surveys the library points to: a closing fee near 2% of enterprise value, a management fee near 5% of trailing EBITDA, and carried interest of 25% or more above a preferred return. These are survey medians, not entitlements, and every term is negotiated deal by deal.
The first raise is a long conversation. Several hundred capital-provider conversations is a normal number for a first platform, and the school teaches the quiet, relationship-first process before any one-way door is opened.
The rule that organizes the track: do not win a banked auction as an independent sponsor. The edge is in sourcing, underwriting and structure, not in paying the clearing price.
What ends it
The decisive risks of this vehicle.
Broken-deal cost
Dead deals are paid for personally. The curriculum budgets for them and teaches the post-mortem discipline, because a sponsor's tuition is paid one dead deal at a time.
Structure that cancels itself
Roll-up theses often contain contradictions that only appear under adversarial review. The school teaches the attack-surface method: rank the ways a competitor or regulator breaks your structure before an investor does.
Concentration
In the founder's dead-platform post-mortem the lesson was simple: concentration is what actually kills. The underwriting parts of the curriculum are built around finding it.
The order of study
Read the curriculum in this order.
52 lessons across 7 parts belong to this school. The parts are listed in the order a independent sponsor student meets them; every lesson is marked for the schools it serves.
- 01Part XGraduate School: Specialization TracksThe sponsor vehicle and sector specialization. Deal-by-deal capital, the quiet raise, and diligence methods for sectors where contract data can be verified externally.3 lessons
- 02Part IThe Real Map: Folklore and Market StructureThe 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.3 lessons
- 03Part VIScreenTen 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.6 lessons
- 04Part VIIUnderwriteFind 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.10 lessons
- 05Part VIIIThe DealFrom 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.18 lessons
- 06Part IXOwnEvery 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.2 lessons
- 07Part IIIThe Machine: The Searcher OSBuild 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.8 lessons
Read first
From the library.
The shelves that matter most for this vehicle, with the number of verified records on each.
Tools
Run the frameworks on a real deal.
Questions
Asked often.
How much of the sponsor track is published?
The sponsor vehicle and the raising process are published. The SPV mechanics, the platform strategy and the government-contracting specialization are taught inside the school's programs, because they draw on live deal files.
Is this private equity?
It overlaps the lower middle market, but an independent sponsor has no committed fund. Capital is raised per deal, which changes the economics, the timeline and the kind of company that fits.
Where does GovCon come in?
Government contracting is the founder's operating sector and the school's worked specialization. The published lesson covers diligence in a contract-driven book; the rest is program material.
The community
Study with people on the same path.
Membership is complimentary. The live sessions and deal reviews are where the curriculum meets a real pipeline.