Search Party

A self-funded, brokered ETA search can still beat private equity bidders, as long as the seller shares with the buyer a vision on how to run the business, says Greg Rives, president of Comfort Zone HVAC.

Rives joins David Snow on Search Party to describe how he went from Marine Corps engineer officer to Columbia MBA to five years in Morgan Stanley’s financial sponsors group. Rives then left banking to search on his own. He ran a solo, self-funded, geographically focused search through his entity Riverine Group, and met the owners of Comfort Zone, a Westerly, Rhode Island contractor with 25 employees, in November 2024. He closed in April 2025.

Rives discusses how he used brokers to find deals, how he financed the purchase with an SBA loan backed by a personal guarantee, and why he brought in two minority investor groups as advisors. He also describes the first months in the seat: an all-hands meeting the Monday after closing, an employee who quit on day three, a seller who left for Spain two months in, and a new service division he is building inside a business that grew up around new construction.

Among the key takeaways of this conversation:

• A brokered search doesn’t have to be passive. Rives treated time as his biggest risk, so he signed NDAs on listings, used intro calls to reach brokers’ non-public deal flow, and landed at least one proprietary opportunity that way.

Access the full transcript and a searchable library of content at the Search Party Substack: https://searchpartychannel.substack.com/p/the-ex-marine-who-bought-a-rhode?r=4tj90q&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

#searchparty #eta #searchfund #selffundedsearch #hvac

From the battlefields of Afghanistan to an ETA search, US Army psychologist Stacey Krauss has overcome daunting challenges to provide mental health care as well as build a solid business platform. 

Krauss, CEO of Transitions Counseling and Consulting, joins Search Party host to recount her path from Army psychologist to entrepreneur through acquisition, to now leading a 13-location (and counting) outpatient mental health clinic across Arizona and Texas.

Krauss recounts how she stumbled into the Army after crossing paths with a college recruiter, became one of roughly 150 active-duty Army psychologists after obtaining her PhD, and deployed to Afghanistan to provide mental healthcare to a 5,000-soldier infantry unit. 

After a decade of service, she discovered search through a podcast and recognized that her strengths lay in scaling mature organizations rather than building from scratch, leading her to launch a focused search in mental health, where her credibility as a licensed psychologist drove an unusually high 50% response rate to her outreach.

Krauss also recounts harrowing details of her service in Afghanistan, which saw her traveling by helicopter to remote Army outposts to provide care. One one occasion, Krauss found herself under attack by hostile forces. 

Among the key takeaways of this conversation:

Access the full transcript and a searchable library of content at the Search Party Substack.

#searchparty #eta #entrepreneurship #healthcare #mentalhealth

Franchising businesses have become mainstream ETA targets, and the three-tier ecosystem of franchisors, franchisees, and suppliers offers talented operators more entry points than most investors realize, says Graham Weihmiller, managing partner of Pioneer Equity Partners.

"When franchising is done well, it's a team sport," Weihmiller tells Search Party. "The customer and the franchisee are at the top of the org chart, the franchisor is at the bottom. You get this hive of ideas and execution, and the energy around a community building a brand is just amazing."

Weihmiller joins Search Party host David Snow, August Felker, founder and CEO of Oberle Risk Strategies, and Dustin Sellers, General Partner of NCL Partners, in the episode, "The Francise Model Enters the ETA Scene."

In a wide-ranging conversation, Weihmiller shares his own entrepreneurial journey, from an economically challenged family upbringing to the highest reaches of the franchising world, he draws on decades of experience, including ten years leading BNI, the global business networking franchise that grew from 165,000 to 357,000 member businesses under his watch. 

Among the key takeaways:

• Franchising is no longer taboo in ETA circles. Only about five years ago it was ignored by serious investors; today business schools like Kellogg and Yale are building dedicated curricula around franchise-based entrepreneurship.

Access a full transcript and searchable content archive on the Search Party Substack.

Lead Sponsor:

Sponsors:

#searchparty #eta #franchise #ai

With his entrepreneurship tracing back to charging kindergarten classmates fifty cents for drawing lessons, Jason Williford has spent decades backing small businesses and building a sense of what it takes to lead one.

Williford, a board member and executive advisor to Culture Index, tells Search Party that the riskiest small businesses he encounters are led by CEOs who have failed to surround themselves with smart advisors.

Among the key takeaways of this Search Party episode:

• Culture Index, which Williford has worked with for eighteen years, uses behavioral analytics and non-clinical psychometrics to remove the guesswork from hiring, pairing the science with behavioral-based interviewing to achieve a roughly ninety percent hiring success rate.

Access a full transcript and searchable content archive on the Search Party Substack.

Lead Sponsor:

Sponsors:

#searchparty #eta #privateequity #entrepreneurship

The ETA search has grown into a more professional asset class over the years, but its reliance on mentorship makes it hard to scale to the size many institutional investors require, says Susan Pohlmeyer, co-founder and partner of Futaleufu Partners, as well as a former investor at the Stanford Management Company. 

In a conversation with Search Party, Pohlmeyer explains the fundamentals of the entrepreneurship-through-acquisition asset class that also limit its ability to grow. "The three legs of the stool that make the search model work are: a great industry and company, a talented entrepreneur who can be a great CEO, and investor-mentors. If you take away the mentorship aspect, you don't have a stable stool" she says.

Among the key takeaways of this Search Party episode:

• The ETA asset class has matured significantly, with dedicated accounting, legal, and lending practices now existing specifically for search funds. But space is still low in institutional capital, with most investors still being high-net-worth individuals and family offices.

• Futaleufu Partners evaluates searchers primarily on coachability and their ability to connect with and manage people, not pedigree or prior CEO experience.

• Despite more capital flowing into the search world, purchase prices for lower middle market companies have remained relatively stable, because the core inefficiency is structural: illiquid markets with founders nearing retirement, not a lack of buyers.

• AI is a significant opportunity for most lower middle market businesses, and good managers will have an edge as technology levels the playing field.

• Roll-up and PE-style M&A strategies are appearing more frequently in ETA, but Pohlmeyer believes the core investment should be able to stand on its own without M&A.

Access a full transcript and searchable content archive on the Search Party Substack.

Lead Sponsor:

Sponsors:

#searchparty #eta #privateequity #M&A

Cory Prott, an ETA searcher who acquired and became CEO of HRtoGo, had to engineer a cultural overhaul after discovering he inherited a workforce that had an antagonistic view of their employer. This was one of numerous challenges he faced that an advanced degree in accounting did not prepare himself for, he details in this episode of Search Party. 

Joined by Dustin Sellers of NCL Partners and Burton Francis of ECA Partners, the conversation also covers the white-glove service model Prott is building to differentiate HRtoGo in a market crowded with big-box PEOs and self-service tech platforms. The experts describe the importance of self-awareness — knowing what you can and can't do, and hiring accordingly.

Among the key takeaways of this Search Party episode:

Beware of risks the selling owner didn't tell you about - From employee misclassification to undisclosed balance sheet issues, the risks that can make or break a small business acquisition are often things the selling owner knows about and has no obligation to disclose unless directly asked.

Beware of 'over-diligencing' during search - Sellers cautions that a strong M&A or private equity background can actually work against a searcher if it comes at the expense of the fundamentals — cash management, revenue cycles, sales motion and margin — that core accounting teaches and that SME operating reality demands.

ETA searchers need 'lower middle market scrapiness' - Francis describes the defining trait his firm looks for in executives placed into ETA-backed companies as a "no project is beneath me, no ask is beneath me" mentality — an attitude that doesn't show up on a resume but tends to show up in people who grew up around small businesses.

Many entrepreneurs come from entrepreneurial families - Sellers observes that a disproportionate share of the searchers NCL backs were exposed to the SME world through a family member — an early embedding of awareness that no amount of business school coursework fully replicates.

Access a full transcript and searchable content archive on the Search Party Substack.

Lead Sponsor:

Sponsors:

#searchparty #eta #privateequity #M&A

When ETA entrepreneurs finally reach the exit they've spent years grinding toward, the tax decisions made in that moment can cost them millions — or save them millions. 

Chris Sigala took an unconventional path through ETA — no MBA, no traditional search fund syndicate, and a relatively brief search in a very specific healthcare niche.

Sigala has now completed an ETA round trip, having sourced and acquired Renvio - which serves dialysis clinics by streamlining how they operate - led it it as CEO, and exited to a financial partner. 

Sigala shares his journey in a fascinating conversation featuring Anthony Walker, a General Partner at NCL Partners, Brian Axelrad, a Partner at Kilpatrick, Townsend and Stockton, and Search Party host David Snow.

Among the highlights of the conversation:

• As a former private equity professional who had spent years evaluating small software businesses from the outside, Chris eventually decided he wanted to run one

• Sigala acquired two companies simultaneously and merged them on a single closing day, an opening move that not every ETA searcher should attempt, according to Walker and Axelrad.

• Whereas in days past, ETA searchers were more likely to cast a wide net, today's ETA searchers increasingly arrive with a specific industry thesis. Sigala's vertical software focus gave him a clear edge over larger firms that couldn't efficiently deploy capital at that scale.

• When Chris sat down with the owners of the dialysis software company he was trying to acquire, he brought his father — a nephrologist — to the meeting, turning a business negotiation into a conversation among people who genuinely shared a passion for the space, and winning the deal in the process.

Access the transcript and a searchable content archive at the Search Party Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/searchpartychannel/p/chris-sigala-left-private-equity?r=4tj90q&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Search Party Lead Sponsor

Search Party Sponsors:

#searchfunds #ETA #entrepreneurship #womeninbusiness #privateequity #sme #investing #deals #searchparty

Sure, searching for a lower-middle-market business to acquire and run is challenging, but have you tried doing it while pregnant? Entrepreneurs-through-acquisition Ania Aliev and Courtney Dunn share their own searching-while-pregnant stories in a fascinating, inspiring and touching conversation with Search Party's Lauren Farkas.

Aliev, now CEO of Life Support Systems, and Courtney Dunn, now VP Customer Success at Cerbo, began their respective ETA searches childless and between jobs and now are both moms and business owners. 

Among the key takeaways in this episode of Search Party:

• Pregnancy during search can function as a filter, not just a burden. When some sellers withdrew from conversations upon learning Aliev was pregnant, she reframed their reaction as useful signal: "If that's what you think about me because I'm having a baby, what else might not align between us?"

• Dunn found that showing up visibly pregnant to meet Cerbo's team cut through their fears of a hard-nosed acquirer: "They were like, oh, she's not this bloodsucking Medusa person — she's a human being and she's creating a human being."

• Both searchers have advice for anyone contemplating an ETA search, but worried about timing and the interference of big life events: stop waiting. Aliev distilled the lesson bluntly — "If you keep delaying doing certain things until this is all set or that is figured out, ultimately you never get to those things."

Watch the full episode on the Search Party Substack: https://searchpartychannel.substack.com/p/searching-while-pregnant

Search Party Lead Sponsor

Search Party Sponsors:

#searchfunds #ETA #entrepreneurship #womeninbusiness #privateequity #sme #investing #deals #searchparty.

Having acquired many small businesses over the years, entrepreneur Keith Burns observed a growing problem in the lower-middle-market - even the most talented CEOs have very little understanding of the evolving threats and opportunities around cybersecurity. 

"People don’t recognize how much of their value is left exposed by not having the right security posture in place," Burns tells Search Party. "It’s basically like opening your wallet and leaving it out there — that’s what a lot of companies are doing because they don’t know what their true exposure is."

Burns is now the CEO of CyberData Pros, having acquired it from founder and fellow panelist Chris Arrendale. Burns and Arrendale are joined by a customer of CyberData Pros - Jonathan Taylor of AEK Technology. - who shares his experience as the CEO of a small defense contractor trying to meet the rigorous new standards and certifications required by his own customers. "At the highest level, you just will lose revenue opportunities" if your company does not invest the time and resources in cybersecurity certifications like CMMC, SOC 2 and ISO 27001, Taylor says. "We’ve actually started to see CMMC requirements placed in government solicitations. If you do not meet those requirements, you’re just not going to be able to bid on them."

Key takeaways from this episode of Search Party:

• For the entrepreneurs who've staked their net worth on a single acquired business, cybersecurity isn't a tech expense — it's the same kind of insurance policy you'd take out on the building, and skipping it leaves the most valuable thing you own sitting wide open.

Access the transcript and a searchable archive on the Search Party Substack: https://searchpartychannel.substack.com/publish/post/192230318

#eta #search #privateequity #investing #ceo #cybersecurity