sponsored by DealGen Partners: 

A quick intro, for anyone new here.

I'm Joe Zanca, and I run DealGen Partners. We outsource business development for private equity firms, family offices, and qualified buyers. We work as a partner, not as a vendor. In plain terms, we become your deal origination engine.

The work speaks for itself. On average, our clients are under LOI within the first 90 to 120 days. And we stand behind it: we'll bring you 10 qualified deals within the first four months, or we work for free until we hit that number.

So if you're looking for a new platform company to buy, or one of your existing platforms is looking to grow through acquisition, let's talk. We'll get into the industry, do a little market mapping, and start putting together a qualified list of targets.

Reach out to me directly at [email protected]

The founder on the other end of the phone had already sold a company to private equity once. Big exit. The buyer took 80 to 90 percent, and that was that.

So when I told him my family office client wanted to buy just over half of his current business, he paused. In his mind, selling meant selling. You hand over the vast majority, you collect the check, and you watch someone else run what you built.

Nobody had ever told him that buyers exist who want the founder to keep 30 to 49 percent of the company. Who want him at the table after closing. Who want to grow the business together and let him sell his remaining stake down the road, after the expansion, at a bigger number.

The second bite of the apple.

Here's what got me. This guy knew multiples. He knew diligence. He had lived through a full sale process and walked away with a real exit. And he still had a blind spot big enough to drive a deal through.

He signed an LOI with that family office. The deal is set to close. And this time he keeps a meaningful piece of the company he built, with a partner just as motivated to grow it as he is.

Capital is a commodity now. Structure is where deals get interesting. The best buyers, especially family offices, aren't just writing checks for control. They're building partnerships where the founder rolls 30 to 49 percent and gets paid twice. If your picture of what selling looks like comes from a deal you did years ago, your picture is out of date.