Search funds and ETA | Gautam Basu | Negotiator 7

Entrepreneurship through acquisition offers an alternative path for people who want to run a business but have neither a unicorn idea nor the appetite for startup risk. Gautam Basu, a former management consultant now working as executive in residence at Aalto University, explains how a search fund works and why the market for companies valued between two and twenty million euros is highly inefficient and underserved. With roughly 30 percent of Finnish entrepreneurs aged 55 or over and tens of thousands of companies looking for new owners, the succession gap is a genuine problem the model can help solve. Basu walks through the three ways to fund a search, the skills searchers need, and the funnel from hundreds of targets down to the single acquisition. The conversation also covers why sellers often prefer an owner-operator over a private equity portfolio, and why negotiation skills matter throughout. 00:00 An underserved and inefficient market 00:14 Introducing Gautam Basu 00:54 An international background in supply chain and M&A 01:44 What is a search fund 02:26 Acquiring an established business instead of starting one 03:02 Returns compared with venture capital and angel investing 03:22 Three ways to fund a search 04:04 True North Search as an accelerator 04:41 Business schools rarely teach how to buy companies 04:59 The baby boomer succession wave in Finland 05:27 Trillions in value at risk across Europe 05:53 How the model was tested in the United States 06:15 A turnaround acquisition and its lessons 07:06 Buy and build with a platform company 07:19 You do not need an elite MBA 07:44 Hard and soft skills in candidate selection 08:06 Grit sisu and the reality of cold calling 08:40 Building rapport with owners handing over their baby 09:04 Who makes a good candidate at any age 09:35 Psychometric testing and blind spots 10:09 Personal development through the journey 10:51 Community support for a lonely endeavour 11:07 An alternative to the traditional startup path 11:39 Established cash flow instead of unpaid first years 12:11 Different skills for different growth stages 12:52 Search strategy and investment criteria 13:23 From five hundred targets to one 13:56 Negotiating the purchase price 14:16 Attractive multiples in an opaque market 15:29 Flexible ways to structure the investor side 15:32 Social benefits of renewing the business base 15:44 Nordic and Baltic geographic scope 16:03 Post-Soviet countries face the same demographics 16:41 The concept is simple but not easy 16:50 Statistics on searchers who never find a company 17:20 Support through the operate and grow phase 17:45 Skills gained even if the search fails 18:14 A joke about money and experience 18:28 Is there an information advantage over the seller 19:09 What the alternative is for the owner 19:31 Modernising a company stuck in the 1990s 20:22 Why is this not happening already 20:47 Impact investing angle 21:19 Private equity moving down market 21:28 Selling to a person versus selling to a portfolio 22:01 The problem of the secondary sale 22:34 Search teams of two people 22:58 Building a community and protecting wellbeing 23:31 Offering negotiation support pro bono 23:53 Upcoming event and how to get involved 24:32 Closing thoughts and possible follow-up