Most buyers don’t know they’re buyers: the case for a network over a marketplace
A seller can decide to sell long before anyone has decided to buy. A marketplace can’t close that gap. A listing helps buyers who are already looking, and most potential buyers aren’t. They have a business to run and haven’t thought about acquiring. That’s the dealmaker network vs marketplace question: somebody has to take the opportunity to them.
This is for CAs, company secretaries, boutique investment bankers, and the investors and lenders they work with. It’s also for anyone looking for an alternative to business-for-sale listings in India. The argument is that deals depend on active discovery: finding buyers who don’t yet know they’re buyers, reaching them through someone they trust, and pitching them. Doing that takes the right network at the right size.
At a glance
- Sellers outnumber buyers, and most potential buyers don’t know they’re buyers until someone shows them a reason.
- Pitching is the core of investment banking. It’s also how CA networks broker sales: one trusted professional puts a specific opportunity in front of another.
- Active discovery needs three layers: qualitative information about what businesses want, trust to get the pitch heard, and enough volume for the odds to work.
- No single professional covers all three. It takes a network of the right kind and the right size.
- The Deal Network helps professionals find those routes. It doesn’t replace the people who advise and transact.
1. Sellers outnumber buyers, and most buyers don’t know they’re buyers
Take an owner who has decided to retire. The goal is clear, and they can hire an advisor and ask for a buyer.
Now take the owner of a different business. They’re thinking about adding capacity, entering a new region, securing a supplier or selling customers another product. Buying a company could solve one of those problems, but it may never have crossed their mind. Ask whether they want to buy a business and the answer is probably no. Show them a specific company that solves a specific problem, with credible economics, and the answer can change.
Most buyers aren’t buyers until someone gives them a reason to be.
That’s the asymmetry. Sellers announce themselves: they hire advisors, sign mandates and say they want to sell. Buyers mostly don’t. The few who do, like funds with an active mandate or companies with an acquisition programme, are valuable. But they’re a small slice of everyone who could buy. The rest have to be found, approached and persuaded.
So the question for a seller’s advisor isn’t who has registered to buy. It’s who could have a commercial reason to buy this business, and what would make them consider it. That’s most of the job.
2. Pitching is the job
Strip away the models and memoranda and this is what’s left of investment banking: finding people who could buy, working out why they might, and persuading them to look.
A list of companies in the same industry is a starting point, not a strategy. The work starts with what the target actually has. What could a different owner do with it? Who could use its distribution, capacity, technical skills or customers? Would buying it beat building, contracting or doing nothing? Then the advisor has to reach the people who can judge that case, put it in their terms and handle their objections. That’s a pitch: a specific commercial case for each plausible buyer, not one deck sent to everyone.
The documents help. A model tests the idea, a memorandum makes it easy to assess and diligence checks the assumptions. None of them replaces a willing counterparty.
CA networks broker sales the same way, just less formally. A CA who knows an owner ready to sell calls another CA who knows a business that might want to grow. The introduction carries the pitch and the relationship carries the credibility.
A presentation tells you what a company is. A pitch tells a buyer why they should care.
There are limits. A buyer also needs appetite and the money to act. The case has to be made from the buyer’s side of the table. The aim is to find a real reason to act, not to talk someone into a deal they can’t or won’t do.
3. An example: the buyer who never showed up in a buyer search
The numbers below are made up. This is an illustration, not a real mandate or completed deal.
A CA’s client, a precision-engineering company with ₹30 crore in annual revenue, wants to sell because the family won’t take it over. A banker is appointed to prepare it and approach buyers.
Meanwhile another CA advises an industrial-components exporter with ₹120 crore in revenue. It has issued no acquisition mandate. It’s trying to add a specialised component range and get better control of quality. A search of declared buyers would never turn it up. Yet its goals give it a reason to look hard at the engineering company.
The pitch shouldn’t be that an engineering business is for sale and the exporter looks big enough to buy it. It should explain the connection: owning that capability could let the exporter sell a broader range to customers it already has and ease a production constraint. The exporter’s own advisor can help judge whether that’s a real priority. The same target can support other pitches too:
| Potential acquirer | Business objective to investigate | Proposition to test |
|---|---|---|
| The industrial-components exporter | Add a specialised product range. | Could the target’s capability serve existing customers better than building it in-house? |
| A manufacturer in another region | Produce closer to customers. | Could the target offer a suitable operating base, team and customer access? |
| A major customer buying similar components | Secure a critical input. | Would ownership fix the supply problem better than a revised supply contract? |
These are reasons to investigate, not confirmed buyers. Revenue doesn’t prove a company can afford an acquisition, and financing, integration, price and the alternatives all need examining. But the order matters. Someone spots the link between a problem and a capability. The person with the relationship tests whether it’s worth raising. Only then does the buyer decide whether to explore a deal. The exporter wasn’t waiting for a listing. The pitch gave it a reason to consider buying.
4. Dealmaker network vs marketplace: why it takes information, trust and numbers
A pitch like that depends on three things. Take away any one and it doesn’t land.
The qualitative information layer
No database lists the exporter as a buyer. What makes it a candidate is something nobody has written down: it wants a new product range and is struggling with quality. That knowledge sits with the CA, banker or investor who works with the business. Sector, size and location can narrow a search, but they can’t say what a business is trying to do next. The exporter’s CA might also know the owner has no management time to integrate an acquisition. That could reshape the pitch, or end the conversation before anyone wastes time.
The trust layer
A well-built pitch still gets ignored if it arrives cold. An owner has little reason to take a stranger’s acquisition idea seriously, let alone share financials. The same idea from the CA they’ve relied on for years gets a hearing. The relationship gets the idea in front of the decision-maker. It also lets someone who knows the recipient judge whether it’s worth raising at all.
The numbers game
Most pitches don’t convert. Most plausible buyers turn out not to have the appetite, money or timing, and you can’t tell which until you ask. So finding a serious buyer means working through many conversations to reach the few that matter.
The numbers below are made up, but they show the shape of the problem.
| Stage | Illustrative number | What it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Plausible acquirers identified | 100 | Sector knowledge and qualitative context |
| Strategic case holds up on a closer look | 40 | Knowing what each business is actually trying to do |
| Reachable through someone they trust | 15 | Relationships across a wide enough network |
| Willing to take a meeting | 6 | A specific, credible pitch |
| Seriously consider a deal | 3 | Reliable information and sound economics |
| Make an offer | 1–2 | Appetite, funding and a workable process |
Look at the third row. Reaching fifteen businesses through someone they trust takes fifteen relationships. One banker’s address book might cover three or four. A large directory of strangers might touch all fifteen and carry no trust with any. You need enough people to cover the ground and enough trust that an introduction means something.
That’s what we mean by the right network at the right size: big enough that an opportunity reaches enough relevant businesses, tight enough that every introduction still carries weight. One advisor can supply information and trust for the businesses they know, but not the numbers. A directory supplies the numbers but neither of the others. And every member sits on both sides. A CA who joins because a client needs a buyer may also know the right acquirer for another member’s client.
5. Why not a marketplace plus cold outreach?
In any dealmaker network vs marketplace comparison, a marketplace works when a seller and an active buyer already want the same thing. But it mostly lists and hopes. It assumes buyers and sellers will turn up and make the effort to find each other. A typical marketplace doesn’t verify the business or the buyer, so each side has to take the other on trust. And nobody takes the opportunity to the buyers who aren’t already looking, which is where most of the buyers are.
Cold outreach tries to fix that last part, but it brings the trust problem straight back. An unknown sender with an unverified story gets ignored.
| Marketplace alone | Relationship-led network |
|---|---|
| Lists the opportunity and waits for interest. | Builds a pitch and takes it to the decision-maker. |
| Matches stated requirements. | Also looks at businesses whose goals could make a deal relevant. |
| Leaves each side to verify the other. | Relies on professionals who know the client and the recipient. |
| Counts matches or enquiries. | Tracks qualified interest and credible alternatives. |
These are approaches, not rigid labels, and a platform can combine both. But any system that only matches stated intentions misses the part of dealmaking where the intention has to develop.
6. One buyer is a possibility. Several buyers are a market.
Finding one interested party creates a possible deal. Finding several credible ones changes the seller’s position. If the exporter will only pay a price the seller dislikes, a second buyer may value a different part of the business. A third may be better placed to keep the team together. The seller is then comparing real alternatives.
That’s discovery turning into price discovery. But more approaches don’t automatically mean a higher price. The alternatives have to be real, with funding, conditions and approvals that hold up. No advisor should invent a bidder or treat polite interest as an offer. Preparation, negotiation and diligence still matter. They just need counterparties to work with.
7. Where AI helps: finding the person who needs to hear the pitch
The interesting AI opportunity isn’t writing the pitch faster. It’s the question before that: who should hear it, and why? A useful system needs more than industry labels. It has to see how an opportunity relates to another business’s goals, such as extra capacity, a missing capability, regional expansion or a financing need.
In our proposed conversational model, the assistant might notice that one member knows specialist manufacturers while another works with exporters looking for new capabilities, and ask the right person whether the connection is worth exploring. It needn’t know any client’s identity to start. It can work from the coverage members choose to share and ask whether they know someone suitable.
It isn’t an autonomous dealmaker. It points to a plausible reason to engage and leaves the judgment, the client conversation and the decision to proceed with people.
8. Dealmaker network vs marketplace: what the Deal Network is building
The Deal Network is a WhatsApp-first introduction platform for CAs, company secretaries, investment bankers, investors and lenders. It’s built as an alternative to business-for-sale listings in India. It connects what they know about businesses, capital and relationships, instead of just matching explicit buyers with explicit sellers.
The process is to understand the opportunity, work out who might have a reason to engage, find the professional route to them and explain the potential fit. Both members then decide whether to accept the introduction. The professional close to the buyer tests the idea with that client when the time is right. Neither relationship becomes a mandate just because the system spotted a possibility.
Permission comes first. Members control introductions and disclosures, and the client’s permission is needed before confidential information or contact details are shared. Protecting the relationship comes before sending another pitch. The network also doesn’t become the transaction advisor: each professional should be appointed and paid by the client for an agreed scope, with the applicable professional rules checked.
We’re not trying to replace investment banking with a better noticeboard. We’re trying to help more professionals do its essential work: recognise a potential deal, reach the people it could make sense for and give them a credible reason to act.
A marketplace helps a buyer find a business. A network should also help a business discover that it could be the buyer.
Common mistakes
- Searching only declared buyers. A strategic objective can exist long before an acquisition mandate does.
- Confusing a pitch with distribution. Sending the same teaser to more people doesn’t make it relevant to any of them.
- Assuming fit means willingness. A plausible acquirer still needs appetite, funding and a reason to proceed.
- Chasing volume without trust, or trust without volume. Mass outreach gets ignored, and a few warm introductions rarely add up to a market.
Frequently asked questions
Do potential buyers always know they want to acquire?
No. An operating business can have a commercial goal without ever having considered acquisition as a way to reach it. A specific proposal can prompt that thinking. It doesn’t guarantee interest.
Are there really more sellers than buyers?
In practice, yes. Every owner who wants out is a seller, but only a fraction of potential buyers are actively looking. Most don’t know they’d be interested until someone shows them why. We haven’t quoted a statistic for India, and the argument doesn’t rest on one.
How do CA networks usually broker a sale?
Typically through introductions. A CA who knows an owner ready to sell asks others in their circle whether any client could use the business. The introduction rests on trust, and the conversation that follows is a pitch, even if nobody calls it one. A formal network does the same thing at a larger scale.
Why does the size of the network matter?
Because most pitches don’t convert. Reaching a few serious buyers means making many well-judged approaches, each through a relationship the recipient trusts. A small network can’t cover enough businesses, and a large one without trust gets ignored.
Why not just use a marketplace and cold outreach?
A marketplace lists and hopes, and a typical one doesn’t verify either side. Cold outreach reaches buyers who aren’t looking but arrives without trust. That’s the core dealmaker network vs marketplace difference. Somebody still has to take the opportunity to the buyer, and a recipient listens to someone they know.
Does the network replace investment bankers?
No. It’s meant to widen access and support origination. Preparation, advice, negotiation, diligence and execution still need properly appointed professionals.
Getting started
The Deal Network brings CAs, company secretaries, investment bankers, investors and lenders together on a single platform. Every member can connect and work with every other member, based on their profiles. For advisors with a business to sell, that means one place to reach buyers who aren’t looking yet.
Disclaimer
This article is for information only and is not investment, tax or legal advice. Rules change, so confirm the current position for each engagement. It does not apply to audit clients: under Section 144 of the Companies Act, 2013, a company's auditor cannot provide investment banking or investment advisory services to that company, its parent company or the companies under its control, whether directly or indirectly. CAs in practice must also follow the Chartered Accountants Act, 1949, the Chartered Accountants Regulations, 1988 and ICAI's Code of Ethics.
The Deal Network is a WhatsApp-first introduction platform that brings chartered accountants, company secretaries, investment bankers, investors and lenders together, and connects them with each other based on their profiles.
References
Government of India (2013) The Companies Act, 2013, section 144, pp. 103–104 of the consolidated India Code text. Available at: https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2114/5/A2013-18.pdf (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
ICAI (2026) Code of Ethics, 2026, official editions and applicability listing. Available at: https://disc.icai.org/code-of-ethics/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026). Engagement-specific professional review remains necessary.
The buyer-interest thesis, the illustrative examples and the intended Deal Network product are the author’s argument and company proposal, not findings from published research. None of the sources cited here measures how many Indian buyers are unaware of acquisition opportunities.
About the author
Chetan Raju is a co-founder of the Deal Network.