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]

On paper, he was the most prepared seller I’d talked to all year.

He’d already sold a company to private equity. He knew multiples. He knew diligence. He’d lived through a full process and walked away with a real exit. The buyer took 80 to 90 percent, and that was the end of the story.

So when I told him my family office client wanted just 51% of his current business, he paused.

In his mind, selling meant selling. You hand over the vast majority, collect the check, and watch somebody else run what you built.

Nobody had ever told him there are buyers who want the founder to keep 30 to 49 percent. Who want him at the table after closing. Who want to grow the business together and let him sell the rest down the road, at a bigger number.

He’d done a deal. He just hadn’t seen this one.

He signed an LOI with that family office. This time he keeps a meaningful piece of what he built, alongside a partner who wants to grow it as much as he does.

One exit doesn’t make you current. The best buyers now pay a founder twice: once at close, and again when the stake he kept sells later. Before you decide what selling looks like, make sure your picture isn’t from your last deal.