Technology: A Guide to Searching on DealStream

Welcome to DealStream! We’re glad you found our platform. We’ve been around since 1995, and we are the #1 deal sourcing platform for dealmakers and entrepreneurs. So the odds are good you’ll find what you are looking for.

Here are some tips for navigating our site and sourcing your next deal:

Start a Search

When you land on our home page, start your search by selecting a category: Click on the “Businesses For Sale” search bar and you’ll see a drop-down menu with our industry categories. Your home state will automatically be filled in the next field, but you could change that field to a non-location keyword of your choosing (such as “laundromats”). For our discussion, I’ve left the home state filled in.

Here, I chose “Businesses For Sale,” hit the purple “Search” button and came to the next screen:

(If you’re already a member and are logged in the process is slightly different, you can find your way to the page above by navigating to your Sourcing/Buying dashboard:  Click on the menu/person icon in the upper right corner and select “Buyer Dashboard” under Buyer Tools. Then select the “Search Deals” tile.)

Refine Your Search

Now you have the opportunity to refine the search:

• The location drop-down allows you to select additional cities, states/provinces or countries (and you can select more than one). 
• The business type drop-down allows you to select a specific industry sector and subsector, should you wish (and you can select more than one). 
• The price drop-down allows you to set a minimum and maximum price for your search.
• The more filters drop-down allows you to refine your search by cash flow, keywords and other deal terms. (Our Knowledge Base explains what the specific deal terms mean.)

You can clear your selections at any time by clicking on the “x” within any of these drop-downs, or clear your entire search by clicking the “Clear” button on the right-hand side.

I decided to search for laundromats in the southeastern US. So I left “North Carolina” in the location box and added a few other southeastern states. I then selected “Personal Services” in the business type drop-down, and chose the subsector “Dry Cleaning, Laundry Services, Laundromats.” Here are my search results:

Now you can scroll through the pages and see all of the search results. If you’d like to explore one of the listings, just click on the listing name in purple and the full listing page will come up. I chose to look at this one:

Become a Member and Contact the Seller

If you are not already a member, here’s your chance! Non-members will notice the listing page encourages you to Sign Up by clicking the green bar. DealStream offers both a free (“Basic Buyer”) membership and a paid (“Pro Buyer”) membership.

• If you have a free (“Basic Buyer”) membership, when you click on a listing page you’ll be able to see more information about the laundromat for sale, such as Financials and Deal Terms. Some of our listings are even “unlocked” for free members, meaning you’ll be able to contact the seller by clicking on the green “Send Inquiry” button.
• If you have a paid (“Pro Buyer”) membership, you’ll be able to see even more information about the laundromat for sale, such as reviews from other members who have interacted with that seller…and most importantly, you’ll see the green “Send Inquiry” button regardless of whether the listing is locked (Premium) or unlocked — Pro Buyers can inquiry about all of our listings.

Is DealStream a Broker?

People often ask, “Is DealStream a broker?” “Is DealStream somehow involved in the purchase transaction?” The answer to both questions is, “No.” Once you become a member, click the green Send Inquiry button and connect with the seller, DealStream is no longer involved in your interaction or transaction. You and the seller can continue on the purchase and sale journey (and we hope your interactions are fruitful), but DealStream is not involved and does not collect any sort of commission. 

We earn our revenues from our memberships. And we’ve found that by asking buyers to pay for a membership to contact sellers, we have more serious buyers that are more likely to complete a transaction. Our seller’s know that, too, and are more likely to respond to the inquiries they receive through our site, as opposed to other business for sale websites. But if for some reason a seller doesn’t respond, we hope you’ll let us know and we’ll try to get you connected.

More Search Tips

Let’s go back to our laundromat example. What if you don’t know which industry sector to look in to find a laundromat? Or what if you are only interested in “asset sales” of laundromats? Or what if you are only interested in laundromats with “large capacity” machines? Here’s where the Keyword box really comes in handy. Type in your Keyword or words in the “More Filters” drop-down and click “apply.” Feel free to further refine your search results from there — for example, you could go on to refine your Location.

Saving Your Searches

Now you have the tools to start creating targeted searches. And if you find search results that are zeroing in on the type of business you hope to buy, you can click on the green “Save Search” bar, and have the opportunity to name your search and set up periodic email alerts, if you wish.

Conclusion

We hope you’ve found this guide helpful. Please feel free to take a look at our Knowledge Base for answers to many other commonly asked questions. And if you’re not already, we hope you’ll consider becoming a DealStream member and connecting with over 100,000 other dealmakers around the world!