Search Fund Deck Worksheet
Investors read a first deck for three things, in order: whether you are credible, whether the thesis shows discipline, and whether you understand the model you are asking to be funded under. Each section below asks for exactly that; a deck assembled from borrowed language reads as one, and investors have seen hundreds.
The Worksheet
1. Who You Are
The read that decides whether the rest gets read. Pedigree matters less than coherence: what you have run or built, and why buying a company is the next chapter of that story rather than an escape from it.
- What have you operated, led, or built, with numbers where they exist?
- Why buy a business, and why now in your life?
- Who will vouch for you, and from what vantage?
2. The Thesis
Discipline shows here. A thesis is a filter that says no to most things: industries or characteristics, geography, and size, with a reason you specifically can win in that box.
- What will you buy: industry traits, geography, SDE or EBITDA range?
- Why does this box fit you, concretely?
- What is deliberately outside the box, and why?
3. The Market
Counts, not vibes. How many businesses actually sit in the box, how often they change hands, and who else is bidding for them. Public data answers all three.
- How many buyable targets exist in the box, and where?
- What does turnover look like: how many come to market a year?
- Who competes for them: consolidators, other searchers, individuals?
4. The Search Plan
The work between funding and a signed LOI, described as a process with numbers: sourcing channels, outreach volume, and the funnel math that turns contacts into conversations into deals.
- Which channels, in what mix: brokers, owner-direct, marketplaces?
- What weekly volume, and what does the funnel need to produce an LOI?
- What does month one look like, concretely?
5. Economics & Terms
Proof you understand the model you are asking to be funded under: the search budget by year, the unit structure, and how search capital steps up and converts into deal equity.
- What is the raise: total, over how long, in how many units?
- How does the step-up conversion work in your structure, in plain words?
- What does the budget buy, year by year?
6. The Ask & Timeline
A deck that never quite asks does not close. The number of units, what is already circled, the close date, and what happens the week after.
- How many units are you asking this investor to take?
- What is already soft-circled, and by whom (with permission to say)?
- When does the raise close, and what starts immediately after?
The Draft
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Drafts stay in this browser and are not synced or sent anywhere. Copy carries every section, with the undrafted ones marked, so the gaps travel with the draft.