So I’ve recently been reaching out to PE firms in the deal size range of 5mm-20mm. I have a bit of an atypical background (no transaction/ deal experience), but have done strategy, HF & consulting roles (albeit t4 consulting). As one can imagine my atypical background hasnt the intended transition to PE easy.
Whilst I’m very early in the process, from what I’ve been told by PE WSOrs as well what I’ve been getting in my recent networking chats has been “if you want someone or us to hire you, the best way is to bring us a deal” - or some variations of this.
What does this mean? Proprietary deal flow? If I were to find my own deal wouldn’t I just be better off going as an independent sponsor?
Secondly, how would one go about doing this? Where would you even start as a non-PE professional?
Any thoughts are appreciated
Hey buddy,
You might not need to "find a deal", perhaps just building a pipeline and having a few solid leads could be enough to get you a spot on the team. I'd target a specific industry, make a 1-2page website call it whateverthefuck capital, get some fiverr guy to scrub as many companies as possible and jsut start emailing them sayign you are looking to acquire companies from entrepreneurs looking to retire. Send out 300 and you should prob get about 10 leads. Show them your pipeline and they will prob consider trying you out.
Hey OP, It took me about 3 minutes to realize I was never getting in the front door of a PE shop. They're too elitist, insular and all that. And I got a few of those Bring us a deal responses. So I did. I targeted my very specific niche (see my name) and when I had a deal I went shopping for a partner, but now I was the buyer. When you have a deal, you have the power and you get to pick who you work with. And its probably not the twits who dismissed you with the Bring me a deal line. I picked the right partner. But getting started means wandering into the jungle and killing something. It's totally guerrilla fighting if you really want to get a deal done from scratch, but that's how you break into PE when they don't want you.