Three guides follow one decision: the memo a buyer writes before looking at any company, the buy box built from it, and the yearly review that decides, years later, whether to keep the company. Each guide can be read alone.
How often a search ends in a purchase
A search for a company does not always produce one. Stanford Graduate School of Business's 2026 search fund study reports that about half of the search funds launched between 2021 and 2024 had acquired a company by the time of the study (Stanford GSB). The thesis and the buy box are written before that search starts, and the keep-or-sell review picks up after a purchase.
How the three guides connect
The thesis comes first. It is a dated page, and its last section lists the facts that would end it.
The buy box is built from the thesis. Its never list and its wants turn the memo into rules a company passes or fails, and a log gives every company screened one written line. The buy box worksheet prints the box on paper, blank.
The keep-or-sell review returns to the thesis years later and marks it intact, drifted or broken. Three more questions sit beside that mark: what the business needs from its owner, where it is heading, and what the money from a sale would do instead. The answers go on one page, next to the previous year's page.
The worked examples
The worked examples are invented and say so where they start. The thesis guide follows a buyer of a commercial cleaning company. The buy box guide follows a different buyer, one with limited weekly hours and no trade license, looking at home and commercial services. The keep-or-sell guide has no invented owner; its review table is left blank for a real one.
Reading path
- How to write an acquisition thesis
The one-page memo a buyer writes before looking at any company, including the evidence that would prove it wrong.
- How to build a buy box for a business acquisition
A buy box puts the never list ahead of the wants, and every company screened against it gets one written line.
- When to sell a business you own and when to keep it
A yearly written review for an owner deciding whether to keep or sell a business, with the known thinking traps named.
Worksheets for this guide
- Buy box worksheet
A printable buy box with the never list ahead of the wants, and a log for every company screened against it.