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An open school for acquisition entrepreneurs

Learn to buy a business from the record of how it goes wrong.

Searcher School publishes a full curriculum on buying a small business, a library of verified academic and business-school research, and the frameworks for screening a deal and walking away from a bad one. Three schools, one standard: every number carries a year and a primary source.

Browse the curriculumOpen the library

Three schools

Three vehicles, three careers.

Self-funded search, investor-backed search and the independent sponsor path are different careers, not three ways to finance the same deal. The vehicle you choose determines your destination, so the school is organized by vehicle.

School ITraditional SearchInvestor-backed search fundsInvestor-backed search funds: the best-measured vehicle in the field, and what the headline returns actually cover.Enter the school
School IISelf-Funded SearchSBA-financed, personally guaranteedOne buyer, an SBA loan, a seller note and a personal guarantee: the majority vehicle, taught from the founder's own failure.Enter the school
School IIIIndependent SponsorDeal-by-deal capitalDeal-by-deal capital, fees and carry, the first raise and the structures that do not work: the graduate track.Enter the school

How the school teaches

The failure record first. Checklists always.

Aviation teaches flying by studying what went wrong before the hours begin. This curriculum does the same with acquisitions: the failure record comes first, the frameworks are built from it, and every incentive in the room is mapped before any number is trusted.

The full curriculum
  1. 01

    Doctrine

    The framework, stated plainly, with the year and the source for every figure it rests on.

  2. 02

    Case

    The case that proves why the doctrine exists: from the founder's interview corpus of failed and struggling buyers, the published case record, or an anonymized live deal.

  3. 03

    Machine

    The implementation: the prompt, the routine, the model, the document the lesson's work actually runs on.

  4. 04

    Artifact

    The deliverable you leave with: a buy box, a screening verdict, a scrubbed earnings figure, a marked-up LOI, a close checklist.

The curriculum

The curriculum.

11 parts, 51 modules, 109 lessons, in the order a buyer meets them: orientation, the real market, the failure record, the machine, and then the journey from preparation to ownership.

  1. Part 0Orientation1 module
  2. Part IThe Real Map: Folklore and Market Structure4 modules
  3. Part IIFailure Literacy: The Case Record5 modules
  4. Part IIIThe Machine: The Searcher OS4 modules
  5. Part IVPrepare5 modules
  6. Part VSource5 modules
  7. Part VIScreen5 modules
  8. Part VIIUnderwrite7 modules
  9. Part VIIIThe Deal8 modules
  10. Part IXOwn5 modules
  11. Part XGraduate School: Specialization Tracks2 modules

Published materials

The research, verified and shelved.

Peer-reviewed papers on business takeovers, succession and buyouts, resolved by DOI and summarized from their abstracts. Business-school studies, cases and notes from Stanford, IESE, Yale, Harvard and Chicago Booth. Books and the recurring industry reports. Peer-reviewed and practitioner work are kept on separate shelves on purpose.

Open the library

Events

Study live.

The weekly workshop, live interviews, in-person meetups and the conferences the school attends. Dated and confirmed only.

All events

  1. Tuesday, Oct 27, 2026

    12:00 PM PT
    Live workshop

    Weekly Workshop

    One hour, live, on one part of the curriculum: a sourcing run, a screen of a real CIM, a scrubbed earnings figure, a marked-up letter of intent. Bring your own deal; the room works on it together.

  2. Tuesday, Nov 3, 2026

    12:00 PM PT
    Live workshop

    Weekly Workshop

    One hour, live, on one part of the curriculum: a sourcing run, a screen of a real CIM, a scrubbed earnings figure, a marked-up letter of intent. Bring your own deal; the room works on it together.

  3. Tuesday, Nov 10, 2026

    12:00 PM PT
    Live workshop

    Weekly Workshop

    One hour, live, on one part of the curriculum: a sourcing run, a screen of a real CIM, a scrubbed earnings figure, a marked-up letter of intent. Bring your own deal; the room works on it together.

Frameworks

The instruments.

Eight canonical frameworks run through every part of the curriculum. Two have their own pages; the rest are taught where they are used.

01The 12 Red FlagsThe canonical library of what kills deals, with a decision rule for each.
02The Walk-Away DoctrineFour gates where the deal is checked, and standing rules that outvote the tired version of you.
03The Seven-Link Failure ChainHow a healthy company becomes a bankruptcy, one link at a time.
04The Fifteen-Minute Quick ScreenSix checkpoints, three kill switches, one verdict.
05Add-Back Tiers A, B and CThe normalization frame that finds the real earnings.
06The Sourcing TaxonomyThree layers that do not collide: where deals live, the process loop, the data stack.
07The Five SeatsSource, enrich, screen, analyze, reach: the one-person deal team.
08The Buyer's ChecklistFive red lines, eight verify-before-trust checks, ten questions, four walk-away rules.
All eight frameworks

The standard

Every number has a year and a source.

  • A figure is cited with its year and a primary source, or it is labelled folklore.
  • Annual and cumulative rates are never mixed. Loan performance is never presented as owner outcome.
  • Returns from investor-backed funds are never applied to self-funded deals; the two populations are different and the data say so.
  • Interview findings are attributed to the interview corpus they came from, never restated as industry statistics.
  • The school names the model it is criticizing, not the people practising it.

The founder

Written by the one party in the deal who is paid only on outcomes.

Jed Morris spent ten years on active duty in the United States Air Force in finance and defense acquisition, took an MBA at NYU Stern, and spent four years at Microsoft, AWS and HP. In 2023 he bought two landscaping companies through a self-funded search and merged them. The business failed eight months later with more than $1M in personally guaranteed debt. He then interviewed 60+ failed and struggling buyers, wrote Buyer Beware from the record, and built this school so the next buyer has the failure record before the flight hours.

The full story
Jed Morris, founder of Searcher School

The community

Study with people who are doing the work.

Membership is complimentary. The weekly workshop, live deal reviews, the How to Search primer, and every lesson learned the school publishes.

Join the community