Search Readiness
Are You Ready to Start
A path is not a start date. Before you commit to a two-year search, a self-check across money, time, temperament, and support, plus the gaps to close first.
Readiness
Not Started
Answered
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Gaps
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Answer the items below with what is true today rather than what you intend. A half-finished check still says something useful; an unanswered one says nothing.
Ready? Fund the runway with the Search Runway Calculator.
Searching While You Still Have a Job
Whether the search fits beside a job at all, where the hours go, and the moment it needs your notice have their own answer. What this section adds is the half people forget to ask about: what you owe the employer you still have. Nothing obliges you to tell an employer you are looking to buy a business. What can oblige you is your own employment agreement: outside-activity, moonlighting, and non-compete clauses bind more often than people expect, and they bind hardest when the business you want is in the industry you currently work in. Read the agreement you signed before you decide what to say, and take it to counsel if the trade you are hunting is the trade you are in.
The moment it stops being a private question is the reference call. Lenders underwrite the borrower as well as the business, and a seller handing over a company built over thirty years often wants to speak to somebody who has worked with you. That call happens close to a signature rather than at the start, so the practical plan is to know who you would offer as a reference and when, not to volunteer the search on day one.
A salaried search seat removes the question outright: the firm knows exactly what you are doing because they are paying you to do it. Path Economics prices that trade against the other two, and the openings are real ones on the Intern & Job Board. If the agreement is the obstacle, the lawyers who work with searchers are in the legal directory.
Before and After This Check
If you have not settled on a path yet, Choose Your Path comes first: the gaps below read differently depending on whether you are funding the search yourself or drawing a salary to run one. The rule that can stop the self-funded route outright is stated in SBA Eligibility Pre-Check, and the ninety days after you decide are sequenced in the 90-Day Syllabus.