Every Acquisition That Needs Post-Close Triage Is Money You're Leaving on the Table
We work with exit-minded founders who aren't exit-ready yet and close the operational gap before they hit your desk. And we fix the ones already in your portfolio that are underperforming because of gaps the founder never closed.
Schedule a ConversationYou're Buying Businesses That Still Run on the Founder's Nervous System
The financials looked solid. The revenue was there. The margins checked out. But three months after close, you realize the business doesn't actually run without the person who sold it to you.
The "systems" were the founder making 40 decisions a day from memory. The "management team" was a group of people who'd never made a decision without checking with the boss first. The "processes" were a combination of habit, tribal knowledge, and one Excel spreadsheet that only one person understood.
This is the most expensive discovery in PE. You bought an asset that looked like a business but operated like a freelancer with employees. And now the value creation plan has to start with building the foundation that should have been there before close.
Two Ways We Work With PE Firms
Pre-Acquisition: Better Businesses Before You Buy
We work with exit-minded business owners 12 to 36 months before they're exit-ready. By the time they reach your desk, the operational foundation is already built. Owner dependency is reduced. Systems are documented. The management team can function independently. Financial reporting is clean and consistent.
You're not buying a fixer-upper. You're buying a business that's ready to perform on day one.
We're happy to work with your deal team to evaluate operational readiness on prospective acquisitions. If a target isn't ready, we can tell you what it would take and how long, so you can make the decision with real information instead of optimistic assumptions.
Post-Acquisition: Fix What's Broken in the Portfolio
You already own businesses where the value creation plan is stuck because of operational gaps. The founder left and took half the institutional knowledge with them. The team can't execute without hand-holding. The systems that worked at $3M don't work at $8M.
We come in, assess the operational gaps across the 8 Drivers of Value, and build what's missing. SOPs, management layers, accountability structures, reporting systems. The stuff that turns a portfolio company from a project into a platform.
What We Actually Fix
Owner dependency is the root cause of most post-acquisition underperformance. Everything else branches from it. Here's what that looks like in practice and what we do about it:
Decision-making that doesn't scale.
Every question goes to one person. We build decision rights, management layers, and operating rhythms so the team can run the business without a single point of failure.
Processes that live in someone's head.
The stuff nobody wrote down because "everyone just knows how we do things." We document, systematize, and train the team to execute without the founder (or the founder's ghost) hovering over everything.
Financial reporting that tells a story but not the right one.
Revenue is real but the reporting infrastructure can't support the scrutiny that comes with PE ownership. We build the operational dashboards and reporting cadence that give you real visibility into performance.
Teams that execute but don't lead.
Good people who've never been asked to make a strategic decision in their careers because the owner always did it. We build the accountability structures and management development that turns executors into leaders.
Why Us and Not Another Ops Consultant
We're not generalists who read a book about operational excellence and started a consulting practice. Our founder has built and exited companies, invested in 30+ startups, and spent a decade working specifically with founder-led businesses between $250K and $20M in revenue. That's the exact profile that shows up in lower middle market PE portfolios.
We've seen every version of "this business runs on the founder." We know what it takes to unwind that dependency because we've done it dozens of times, in our own companies and in our clients' companies.
And we're not competing with you. We don't buy companies. We don't take equity in the businesses we consult with (unless it's a separate investment relationship). We're the preparation and remediation layer. You own the asset. We make it work better.
The Economics
Think about what it costs when an acquisition underperforms in the first 18 months because of operational issues that could have been identified and fixed before close. Lost management time. Delayed value creation. Key employee turnover. Customer attrition during the transition.
Now think about what it's worth to have those issues resolved before you write the check, or fixed within 6 to 12 months after close by a team that's done it before.
Our engagements are scoped and priced based on the work. Pre-acquisition assessments are fast and focused. Post-acquisition operational buildouts are longer engagements with clear milestones and measurable outcomes. We're happy to walk through the specifics on a call.
Frequently Asked
Let's Talk About Your Portfolio
Whether you've got a target that needs pre-close evaluation, a portfolio company that's stuck, or a pipeline of business owners who aren't ready yet, we can help. One conversation will tell us both whether it makes sense.