Search guides, questions and resources

Yes, SourceX provides a metadata-only Salesforce inventory template. This template helps partners prepare company introductions by focusing on data types and date ranges, without handling any actual company data.

SBA Form 159 is a fee disclosure form tied to compensation connected to SBA loans, so an introduction to a separate data licensing service is a different activity. Whether your institution treats it that way depends on its policies and the current SBA rules, so confirm with compliance before registering as a SourceX partner.

To effectively screen a company, ask specific questions about their size, operating history, data licensing rights, and internal sponsorship. Clearly explain SourceX's role as a data licensing facilitator, always emphasizing that the company retains full control over its data and transactions.

Yes, this resource provides a referral screening worksheet specifically designed for transportation businesses. It helps you quickly verify if a potential referral meets SourceX's core qualification criteria.

Yes, this worksheet provides a structured approach for SourceX partners to screen education and training businesses. It focuses on key criteria like company size, operating history, data rights, and sponsor authorization.

Seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) is pre-tax earnings with one owner's compensation and discretionary expenses added back, while EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization with a market-rate manager's pay left in. Brokers typically use SDE for small owner-operated businesses and EBITDA as companies grow larger and run with professional management.

ETA conferences in 2026 fall into business-school events, practitioner forums and regional meetups. Confirm dates on organizer pages. For referral partners they offer access to searchers, CEOs and investors who know established US companies with 50+ full-time employees at peak, years of records and rights that may qualify for a SourceX introduction.

A search fund board of directors usually includes the searcher who became CEO, several investors from the search and acquisition rounds, and often an independent director with industry experience. It approves budgets, senior hires, debt, add-ons and contracts outside the ordinary course, which is why a data license belongs on its agenda before anything is signed.

Common search fund CEO mistakes in the first year are letting the seller stay central, misjudging the inherited team, hiring too fast, changing too much at once, and shutting off old systems before checking what their history is worth. The last can rule out a later data license with SourceX.

A search fund exit is the sale or recapitalization that returns capital to the searcher-CEO and the investors who backed the search, usually after several years running the company and often to a private equity buyer. Buyers now ask what records the company holds, who owns them and whether any are licensed for AI training.

A search fund first 100 days plan should secure cash controls and admin access in week one, meet every employee and top customer in month one, set KPI baselines and a board rhythm by day 60, and inventory every system and archive before any tool is cancelled. Change little until you understand how the business really runs.

The most cited search fund statistics come from recurring studies by Stanford GSB and IESE Business School, which track how many searchers acquire a company, how long searches and holds last and what investors earn. Read each figure by what it measures, which funds it covers and its period before comparing it with private equity benchmarks.

AI puts pressure on seat-based pricing because customers can do the same work with fewer human users, so per-seat revenue can fall while value rises. PE-backed SaaS companies respond with hybrid, usage and outcome pricing. Mature companies can also license historical product, support and engineering records once, through SourceX, as a one-time payment reported outside ARR.

In secondary buyout due diligence, the buying sponsor tests how much value the first owner left, and data and AI questions are now part of that test: which records the company holds, whether it owns the rights, and whether any have been licensed. A documented records inventory, and any executed license, answers those questions with evidence.

Section 174A lets businesses deduct domestic research or experimental expenditures, including software development, in the year paid or incurred for tax years beginning after 2024, while foreign research stays on 15-year amortization. Transition elections cover 2022-2024 balances. The tickets, commits and design documents gathered to support it also show advisers which clients keep deep engineering histories.

A section 363(f) sale lets a trustee sell estate property free and clear of other parties' interests, but courts disagree on whether that can strip an intellectual property licensee's rights. Section 365(n) separately lets many IP licensees keep their rights when the license is rejected. Data licensees face extra uncertainty because raw data may fall outside the Code's IP definition.

A section 506(c) surcharge lets an estate charge a secured creditor's collateral for the reasonable, necessary cost of preserving it, but DIP orders often waive that right. If records are collateral, the trustee should settle who funds preservation before systems lapse, because a SourceX license needs intact, exportable records.

Section 542 requires whoever holds estate property to turn it over to the trustee, and section 521(a)(4) requires the debtor to surrender recorded information, including books and records. For electronic records, real turnover means access: the domain registrar, identity provider, cloud and email admin accounts and backup keys. Without them, no records assessment or license can start.

Neither model fits data licensing better in itself; fit depends on whether the company a searcher buys has 50+ full-time employees at peak, years of records and clear rights. Target size varies widely in both models, so screen each company against the baseline rather than assuming from the funding model.

A sell-side data room index already contains much of what a data licensing inventory needs: systems, years in use, owners and retention notes. Advisors can reuse folder titles and answers, not documents, to seed a metadata-only inventory and decide whether a client should explore a license alongside the sale.

A sell-side due diligence checklist lists the documents an acquirer will request (financial, legal, HR, IT and customer contracts) and where each one lives, so the seller can build the data room before buyers ask. Add a data-rights section covering contract clauses, employee and contractor IP terms and privacy notices, which acquirers and any records license both rely on.

A sell-side kickoff meeting agenda should cover the seller's objectives, the process timeline, confidentiality, the buyer universe, the financial package, data room and diligence prep, the management presentation and workstream owners. Add one question on records, systems and existing data licenses so you learn early whether licensing fits before, during or after the sale.

A sell-side M&A process runs through preparation, teaser and NDA, CIM, buyer outreach and indications of interest, management meetings and LOI, confirmatory diligence, signing and closing. A separate data license fits best during preparation, when it brings cash and a documented asset; after an LOI or signing it needs the buyer's consent and full disclosure.

A sell-side pitch book template runs from situation overview, credentials and valuation to buyer universe, process, team and fees. This version adds one data assets slide listing the company's systems, years of records, rights status and an optional licensing track, built from metadata only, so the owner sees you looked for every source of proceeds.

Sell the US subsidiary when a buyer values it as a going concern; wind it down when no buyer will pay more than its assets fetch separately. In either case a data license can run alongside: the subsidiary licenses its historical records for AI training, keeps ownership, and is not bound until it signs. The group's advisers decide the sequence.

A seller transition period typically lasts a few months to a year, set in a transition or consulting agreement. New owners should use it to map every system the company has used and where its archives live, because that knowledge leaves with the seller and decides whether the records can later be licensed.

A selling a business checklist should cover goals, valuation, clean financials, the advisory team, diligence documents, deal terms and closing. Add the step most lists skip: map every system and how far back its records go, confirm the company has rights to that data, and decide with counsel whether to license records before or after the sale.

Selling to a search fund means negotiating with an investor-backed first-time CEO who diligences operations, customers, people and systems closely and usually wants a longer seller transition. A documented records inventory, or a data license with a disclosed scope, can reassure the searcher that the company understands what it owns.

Selling a business to an independent sponsor means dealing with a buyer that raises equity deal by deal after signing an LOI, so financing takes longer than with a fund. During that window, an owner may sign a data license, if it is disclosed to the sponsor and reflected in the purchase agreement.

Buyers discount outdated systems only for the cost, risk and integration work they must absorb, so most owners should document and export rather than migrate mid-process. Old archives may also hold multi-year records that AI developers license, so keep admin access and a full export before anything is retired.

When selling a construction company, its estimating archive, project records and job-cost history may support a separate AI data license before, alongside or instead of the sale. Advisors screen for 50+ full-time employees at peak, years of records and clear rights, raise it early so the sale is not delayed, and introduce qualifying owners to SourceX.

When selling a government contracting business, a sell-side advisor can raise data licensing as a separate source of proceeds, but only for corporate records the company owns: proposals, capture files, finance and internal operations. Contract deliverables and controlled information stay out. Time any license around novation and disclose it in diligence; SourceX runs the licensing process.

When selling a market research company, advisors can flag methodology libraries, codebooks and annotation records as possible licensing candidates, while treating respondent data and client reports as out of scope until consent and contracts permit. Buyers will ask for the consent trail early in diligence.

In a payroll company or PEO sale, advisors can flag the firm's own operating records, such as playbooks and redacted support history, as possible license candidates while keeping client payroll and employee data out. Sort the records, confirm the 50+ employee baseline and coordinate timing with deal counsel.

In a software company sale, data customers put into the product is governed by their contracts and the company's privacy promises, and is usually not licensable for AI training. Internal records the company created itself, such as code reviews, issue histories, incident reviews and support playbooks, may be licensable through SourceX, before or after closing, if contracts allow.

Before selling a staffing company, document its job orders, placement and fill history, recruiter workflows and client service records as potential data assets, and screen out candidate personal data and client-owned records. An agency with 50+ full-time employees at peak and years of ATS history may support a separate AI data license alongside or before the sale.

When selling an environmental consulting firm with 50+ full-time employees at peak, advisors can flag its internal project, review and QA records as a possible licensing asset, separate from client-owned reports and lab data. Check engagement confidentiality, decide timing relative to closing, then introduce the firm to SourceX.

When selling an HVAC company to private equity, expect buyers to diligence maintenance agreements, technician productivity, job margins and the field-service platform. Before a roll-up migrates those systems, an owner whose company has 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded) can have dispatch, job and pricebook histories assessed for a SourceX license, with homeowner personal data excluded.

When selling an MSP, an advisor can run a separately negotiated data license on the MSP's own operational records, such as service tickets, runbooks and project histories, beside the sale. Client-owned data must be carved out, the license disclosed to bidders, and the introduction made before an acquirer migrates the PSA and RMM and retires the old systems.

Source code is usually sold in bankruptcy as part of an intellectual property package through a court-approved sale, or by the assignee in an ABC, after ownership, open-source and customer-code checks. The engineering history around it, meaning commits, pull requests, tickets and design docs, is a separate asset that AI labs and data buyers may license for training coding agents.

When a holding company buys your business, the records usually go with it, so the new owner decides about licensing them after closing. If you want a say, raise it before you sign: ask which systems transfer, who decides on customer data, and whether to preserve exports before old tools are retired.

Shadow AI is employees sending company data to unapproved third-party AI tools, with no scope, contract or payment. A deliberate license through SourceX is the controlled alternative: the company chooses the records, approves price and terms, agrees redaction rules, signs an agreement and is paid. They are different decisions and should not be confused.

Shared mailbox retention means deciding how long role inboxes such as ap@ and support@ are kept, because they hold complete workflows that personal inboxes do not. MSPs and finance advisors should list them, sign off keep or discard with the owner, preserve before purging, and describe them only at a high level.

A work email naming a person is personal data under the GDPR, so sharing it with a third party needs a lawful basis and minimal data. For introductions, the simplest route is to ask the person first, share only what they agreed to, keep a record and step back.

Not by default. Whether a company can announce a data licensing deal depends first on the agreement's confidentiality terms, then on what its customers were promised. For most private companies the better course is to brief employees, owners and key customers privately, answer questions consistently, and keep a short holding statement ready in case the license becomes public.

Often yes, if it happens well before the sale process. A license signed before marketing gives the seller one-time cash, leaves ownership of the records with the company and produces an inventory acquirers can diligence. After an LOI it needs the buyer's consent, after signing interim covenants usually restrict it, and after closing the acquirer decides.

Waiting can be reasonable, but nobody can forecast AI data prices, so base the decision on what the owner controls: whether the archive is preserved, whether systems are being retired, how exclusivity fits future plans and whether the company is ready. Preserve the records either way.

A referral fee should be paid to whichever party your firm's policy and professional rules entitle to it: possibly the firm if you work inside a PE firm, CPA firm or bank, or you or your own LLC if you advise independently. Decide before registering with SourceX, register that payee once, and settle any internal split inside the firm.