Everyone wants to tell you about their AI. Let me tell you about a different technology — one that took fifteen to twenty years to develop, runs on a proprietary set of algorithms, and cannot be licensed, copied, or downloaded.
Most operating teams arrive with a perfectly good playbook. Applied to a founder-led business without adaptation, that same playbook becomes one of the most reliable ways to destroy the value it was...
Most post-merger integration plans were built for institutional acquisitions, not founder-led businesses. Here's the framework that actually accounts for where the value lives.
Most lower middle market PE firms close on founder-led businesses without a dedicated operating partner — then wonder why value erodes before the first board meeting.
You just closed a founder-led acquisition. The numbers worked. The thesis was solid. The data room was clean. Now ask yourself a few questions about what you actually bought.