SMEVentures: Search with SMEVentures
The Position
Search on Salary. A platform that raises the search capital for you, so you look full time and then run the business you buy.
Cycle: Rolling.
Applications are open.
At a Glance
- Location
- Australia and New Zealand only, by its application page, from a Sydney contact number.
- Pay
- Salaried
- Compensation
- Search capital covering expenses and a modest salary for up to two years, with no capital required from the searcher.
- What You Do
- Up to two years searching, then running the acquired business as its CEO for five to ten years by one page and seven to ten by its application page.
- What You Must Bring
- No capital from the searcher, which the firm states outright rather than leaving unsaid.
- Recruits On
- It weighs operating experience: time running something, rather than a degree.
- Who Can Apply
- High-caliber operators looking to acquire and operate a business, in the firm's own words.
The Company
SMEVentures is reviewed in full in the directory, with its model, pricing, and the searcher case for and against it. It also backs searches, so the same page carries its fit as a backer and how to approach it. Read the SMEVentures review.
Interview Prep
These programs do not publish their interview scripts, so this is the shape a search on salary program hires on, what it is really weighing, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A written application and resume screen, weighing operating exposure as much as deal exposure.
- A case or deal exercise: a target to assess, or a plan for one of the firm's portfolio companies.
- A panel with the partners who would back and govern you.
- Reference and background checks before an offer.
What It Is Assessing
- Whether you can operate, not only analyze: the firm is hiring a CEO, not an associate.
- Deal judgment: telling a good acquisition from a merely plausible one.
- Fit with the firm's stated playbook and the cadence its portfolio runs at.
How to Prepare
- Know the firm's thesis and portfolio cold before the first call. Investors
- Bring a real deal you would pursue, underwritten end to end. Underwrite a Deal
- Have an answer to why you would operate on salary rather than own outright. Path Economics
- Make the operator case on one page, not a resume. Buyer Profile Builder
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.