Acquisition Lab: Entrepreneur-In-Residence Program
The Position
Residencies & Placements. Committed capital before a deal exists, for a full-time searcher who signs the personal guarantee.
Cycle: No cohort or deadline published; the capital commitment comes first and the search follows it.
The firm publishes an application route and no dates against it.
An apply button that reaches the firm's contact page now, whose capital block names the residency and carries a form for its capital team, read September 2026. The prose beside the button still gives the older route, apply to the Lab and raise the residency on the strategy call, and the Lab's own cohorts are dated monthly. No date against the residency itself.
At a Glance
- Location
- Wherever the searcher runs the search; the program publishes no office of its own.
- Pay
- Equity only
- Compensation
- No salary. A binding equity commitment of $500K to $1M, signed before a specific deal is found.
- What You Do
- A full-time search at twenty to thirty hours a week, sourcing the deal and signing the personal guarantee.
- What You Must Bring
- About 3% of project costs at closing, and more than $250k of accessible capital.
- Recruits On
- It weighs operating experience: time running something, rather than a degree.
- Who Can Apply
- Searchers with significant operations experience.
The Company
Acquisition Lab is reviewed in full in the directory, with its model, pricing, and the searcher case for and against it. Read the Acquisition Lab review.
Interview Prep
These programs do not publish their interview scripts, so this is the shape a residencies & placements program hires on, what it is really weighing, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A rolling, relationship-driven introduction rather than a fixed cycle.
- A sourcing conversation: what you would buy, and how you would find it.
- A working session with the firm's small team.
- A match to a live acquisition or a committed-capital search.
What It Is Assessing
- Sourcing ability and a real point of view on where to hunt.
- Operator readiness for a specific kind of business.
- Whether you fit a small, hands-on team without a large structure around you.
How to Prepare
- Arrive with a sourcing thesis, not a blank slate. Buyer Profile Builder
- Show you can run a business, with evidence on one page. Buyer Profile Builder
- Understand the firm's committed-capital model before you talk terms. Investors
More on the Board
A salaried seat is a form of capital: the employed lane on Investors weighs these programs beside the funds, and the Path Economics Comparer prices it against searching on your own money.