Editor’s Note: Stephen W. Fusi is an industrialist and educator. Stephen currently serves as the Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.  Prior to joining Fuqua, Stephen held executive leadership roles in marketing and brand management at Fidelity Investments, Starbucks, C. R. Bard, and Procter and Gamble.  Stephen is also an angel investor focused on technology businesses in Africa, and founder of Posh Provisions Limited, a food processing and manufacturing business in Cameroon.  

DURHAM – This past weekend, I spent time with 160 new friends for an in-person event at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

The event?

The Southeast Entrepreneurship through Acquisition Conference, or SEETA.

This conference delves deep into the process by which someone becomes an entrepreneur through the purchase, or acquisition, or an existing business, and the phrase “entrepreneurship through acquisition” is often abbreviated as ETA.

Let me tell you: I did not hear “ETA” a single time during my entire time as a daytime MBA student at Fuqua.

Image: Stephen W. Fusi. Provided by Duke University.

I didn’t hear the term for 15 years after my very first program as an incoming Fuqua student and MBA candidate.

That’s changed, now.

What I didn’t know when I came to Fuqua was that an entire ecosystem would develop around the ETA process and that the ecosystem can support aspiring entrepreneurs for as many as two years in the search process to acquire the right business and launch an entrepreneurial career.

That ecosystem includes investors, lawyers, brokers, and aspiring entrepreneurs, among others.  Often, when an entrepreneur has found a business to buy, that ecosystem can unlock the capital needed to fund the purchase or fuel the growth of the business upon ownership transfer.

And, I am still learning.  SEETA is in its third year in 2021, and there were five takeaways from this annual event.

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Five lessons from SEETA

First, searching is hard work.  A panel of search CEOs at SEETA shared how exhilarating and difficult it was to find a business to buy, cold calling thousands of businesses just to find a few to negotiate with and one to buy.

Second, searching is not one-size-fits-all.  An aspiring entrepreneurs’ temperament, access to capital, need for structure, and timeframe all play a significant role in how someone buys a company.  There was a very spirited and fun-natured debate between practitioners of various flavors of ETA.  The traditional search fund investors, the self-funded searchers, and the accelerator/incubator folks pulled no punches on advocating for their respective models.

Image: A panel discussion at SEETA. Provided by Duke University.

Third, searching can be very financially rewarding.  One panelist described buying a company and then growing the company’s profitability 10x in two years. As the sole owner of the business, all of that additional value belonged to the panelist.  What a great payoff for figuring out what adjustments to make to grow the business and how to lead the people who work with you to execute—all skills learned as part of a business school experience.

Fourth, searching is not just for newly-minted MBAs.  While the search fund model began with and primarily targets recent business school grads, there are many searchers who are mid-career and beyond.  People with an entrepreneurial mindset and the energy to hustle—no matter their age—could consider ETA as a possible career option.

One panelist, the CEO of a construction crane sales and rentals company, who bought his company following a search best summed up my favorite takeaway of all—there is no better way to directly impact the quality of life for people than being a small business owner.  Whether it is building a positive and nurturing company culture, paying a living wage that helps people take care of their families, or delivering important services that are needed, operating a small business can lead to great personal fulfillment.

Those interested in entrepreneurship through acquisition are likely to have a bright future ahead, as the ecosystem becomes even more robust, through events like SEETA and others hosted at Fuqua and other business schools across the nation.

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