If you're reading this and you've been "exploring" acquisition entrepreneurship for more than six months without submitting a single LOI, I want to say something directly:
The deals aren't the problem.
The market isn't the problem.
You don't need more time, more savings, or more certainty before you acquire.
You need to be honest about what's actually holding you back.
I've been watching aspiring buyers go through this process long enough to see the pattern clearly. And almost every time someone stalls out, it's not because they lack intelligence or capability. It's because they're still operating under a set of assumptions – about safety, readiness, and what ownership actually demands – that were never true to begin with.
Let me be upfront: I haven't been a W-2 employee in 25 years.
But from where I sit, it’s becoming harder to defend the idea that a corporate job is the safe path.
Think about what we've watched happen over the last few years. Engineering roles, middle management, knowledge work – entire career categories that felt untouchable are being restructured or eliminated outright, faster than anyone predicted. AI is accelerating this. People who spent years building strong careers, who did everything right, are getting laid off on a Tuesday with no indication it was coming.
That's not security.
What I genuinely believe, and what owning a business taught me, is that ownership is actually more secure than most people think.
When you own the business, you own your ability to generate revenue. You can go get new customers. You can make decisions. You are not sitting there hoping a large organization does right by you, or that the politics break your way, or that being good at your job is enough to keep it. Yes, ownership carries real risk. But so does spending a career inside someone else's machine, where you can be gone tomorrow and there's nothing you can do about it.
The difference is this: ownership changes your relationship to risk.
Employees absorb risk passively.
Operators carry it directly and can influence the outcome directly.
It might seem scarier at first, but in the long-run, it’s actually safer.
When I decided to buy a business, I made a specific commitment: I was closing within 18 months.
Not "I'd like to" or "I'm going to try." I was doing it.
I ran the search like a sales process, with urgency, with volume, and with a hard bias toward action over analysis.
Every week I went through hundreds of deals. Nationwide search, so I had plenty of deal flow. From all of it, maybe one or two a week warranted a real look. When something was interesting, I didn't send an email and wait. I picked up the phone, talked to the broker, and got on a call with the seller. If that conversation was good enough, if I liked the business, and if I liked the person, I got on a plane. I spent a half day with them, walked the operation, and figured out who I was actually dealing with.
That's the standard. And most buyers are nowhere near it.
They expect the process to be handed to them. A great deal lands in the inbox, fully formed, seller is easy, and the business checks every box. At month 18 or 24, when that hasn’t happened yet, they wonder why nothing’s worked.
Here's why: they were waiting.
Waiting for the broker to reach out.
Waiting weeks to follow up on a CIM.
Waiting to visit a seller until every risk had been modeled out.
Nothing kills a deal quicker than time, and all the people you’re dealing with on the other side of these transactions can sense your hesitation. Once they do, they’ll move on.
Acquisitions are a lot like dating. If you want to find the right match, you've got to meet a lot of people. You don't figure out what you're looking for by sitting alone thinking harder about it. You get in the room, repeatedly, until the pattern becomes clear: what pulls you in, what repels you, what you could actually show up for every day. You don't figure out what kind of business fits you by reviewing CIMs in isolation. You figure it out by talking to sellers, comparing deals, and paying attention to what keeps grabbing your attention.
The first broker call is awkward. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. You don't know exactly what to ask, you're not sure how to position yourself, and part of you is convinced they can tell you're new at this. That's fine. It doesn't matter. Make the call anyway.
The tenth broker call isn't awkward. It will get easier.
The confidence people are waiting for before they start is built through doing. It doesn't arrive first and then unlock the action – it's the other way around. Only by diving in, will you start to spot patterns from one deal to the next. You figure out the right questions. You get into a rhythm with LOIs and start to see how sellers respond. You learn more in six weeks of active search than in six months of passive preparation.
I started my first business coming out of undergrad, and I had no idea what I was doing. I kept going until I figured it out, and the same applies here. If you’re waiting for the lightbulb of confidence to suddenly go off, it never will.
My advice for anyone early in their search: review as many CIMs as possible. Talk to as many brokers as possible. Pick up the phone. There are thousands of brokers in the US, so you're not going to burn bridges. Get out there and have conversations.
The mental block most people are fighting isn't a knowledge gap. It's the belief that they need to feel ready before they act. Get through that, and everything moves faster.
Here's the part that doesn't get talked about very often regarding the search process.
The way you approach search is the way you’ll operate the business.
The buyer who waits for deals to come to them during search will wait for customers once they own the company.
The buyer who avoids uncomfortable calls with brokers will struggle to make uncomfortable sales calls later.
The buyer who needs certainty before submitting an LOI will need certainty before making a hire, cutting a cost, or betting on a new service.
You don't need traditional sales experience to succeed here. But you do need to be willing to do sales. If you own a small business, especially early on, there is nobody else responsible for revenue. That's on you. The buying process is your first test of whether you can handle that, and most people don't realize they're being tested.
The ones I've watched struggle aren't lazy. Sure, they like the idea of free time and autonomy, but what they haven't fully reckoned with is what ownership actually demands. Ultimately, everything falls on you, from the financials to the sales pipeline to whether the bathroom is clean.
The ones who thrive have what I'd call a true entrepreneurial spirit. Not a personality type, but a mindset they’ve chosen to have. The belief that they're going to figure it out no matter what. That when a problem surfaces, they'll solve it. That success is the only outcome they're working toward, and the path there is just a series of problems to handle.
The search process is good at separating these two groups. And honestly, it’s a good thing, because acquisition entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone.
Wouldn’t you rather know before you buy a business that business ownership isn’t for you?
There's one more thing that derails more acquisitions than people acknowledge, and it almost never comes up in the tactical content.
Spouse buy-in.
If your partner isn't genuinely on board early (not tolerating the idea, but actually invested in the journey) that misalignment will compound as the search process deepens. It surfaces at exactly the wrong moment: when you're about to submit a serious LOI, when something real is on the table, when the decision actually matters. I've seen it derail deals that should have closed.
This is why we're making spouse programming a priority at the Acquisition Lab Summit, because this is a core issue. The acquisition journey changes schedules, income, identity, and risk profile for the whole household. Bringing your partner into the process early, giving them real context and real community, is one of the most practical things you can do to actually close.
The deals are out there. The capital is accessible. The frameworks exist. None of that is what's standing between you and ownership.
What's standing between you and ownership is the decision to treat this like the serious pursuit it is. Not someday or when the timing is better, but now – with the same urgency and discipline you'd bring to anything else that actually matters to you.
Pick up the phone before the script feels perfect. Submit the LOI before you have certainty. Get on the plane. See the seller.
Let the process teach you what no amount of preparation can.
The search isn't just how you find a business. It's where you find out whether you're ready to own one.
Acquisition Lab is the ecosystem built for operators who are ready to stop waiting. 1,100+ members, 480 closed deals, advisors who've been in your seat.