# Search funds and entrepreneurship through acquisition

This is educational. It is not an offer of securities and not investment advice.

A traditional search fund raises a small amount of capital to pay a searcher to look for one company, then raises again to buy it. A self-funded search uses the searcher's own savings, often with an SBA loan and a seller note. Entrepreneurship through acquisition is the broader idea: buy a company and run it, rather than start one.

NewHands does not publish returns for either model. Academic work on traditional search funds is collected by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Read that, not a screenshot of someone else's IRR.

What matters operationally in New England is fit. Many owners selling now are retiring. They will stay for a season if you ask, and they will not stay if the LOI pretends they will work for free for three years. A self-funded buyer should know their cash, their SBA status, and the industries where they can actually be the manager on Monday.