Newsletter6 min read
The Startup Fee
A CEO raised price 30% and told his customer that leaving would cost more than staying. It worked as a negotiating line because it was an honest description of the cost to serve.
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Newsletter7 min readThe Propensity to Pay
Roughly 200 businesses crossed my desk between 2023 and 2026. Two lines in the financials decided more of those looks than any management presentation: gross margin, and whether the revenue has to be won again every year.
Newsletter9 min readThe Only Number on the Wall
A pharmaceutical packaging plant in crisis had a wall of charts, a daily standup in the aisle, and schedule attainment at the top of the board. The number that got it back into service had been stripped out of its own OEE as uncontrollable.
Newsletter8 min readThe 2am Parts Run
My father was a machinist. When the line went down, a kid rode along to drop off the part. The plant is gone now, 675 jobs with it, but the question I learned in that truck is still on the list every time I walk a plant.
Newsletter8 min readThe Keystone on First Shift
The first week in my first plant as GM taught me where the real authority sits in an operation. I have used the same read on every plant since.
Newsletter7 min readAdmiring the Problem
I interviewed the author of the book on speed in March 2025. His data says 95% of companies stall and two thirds of those never get back to growth. The stall is a decision, and somebody is always making it. Inside a hold, that somebody had better be the sponsor.
Newsletter7 min readThe Dead Zone
Between the LOI and the closing table sit 90 days that belong to nobody. Almost half the deals that fail there never officially die. They just stop moving.
Newsletter7 min readThe Call Sheet
Tom Brady played the 28-3 comeback off one laminated page, about 120 calls sorted by situation with the Falcons' tendencies printed beside them. I still get told a customer service desk has too many variables for standard work.
Newsletter6 min readThe Second Signature
She never attended a meeting. She never sent an email. She read every draft, and the deal was never going to close until she was ready to sign.
Newsletter6 min readThe Man Who Already Owned It
The GM had run the company for 9 years while the owner fished. Both of them knew it. Only one of them had thought about what that meant for a sale.
Newsletter6 min readThe Machine Nobody Budgeted For
EBITDA has no line for the 22-year-old press that makes 40% of the parts. Owner earnings do. The gap between those two numbers has ended more deals than fraud ever will.
Newsletter6 min readThe Margin the Tariff Ate
The Supreme Court erased the biggest tariff regime in modern history, $142B may flow back to the companies that paid it, and most small manufacturers still cannot tell you what their landed costs will be next quarter. Buyers and sellers are both underwriting the fog of war
Newsletter6 min readThe Second Bite
Rollover equity is the most misunderstood line in a term sheet. Done right, the smaller check can outgrow the bigger one. Done wrong, it is a donation.
Newsletter6 min readThe Truck on the Books
Every private company P&L tells two stories. One is about the business. The other is about the life the business paid for. My COO once found $2M of fishing poles.
Newsletter6 min readThe Kitchen Table Vote
Every founder deal has two investment committees. One meets in a conference room. The other meets over dinner, and it holds the veto.
Newsletter7 min readThe Re-Trade Usually Starts in the Seller's Own Calendar
Two weeks before close, the trailing twelve comes back softer than the one everybody signed against. The cause is almost never the market, and owners rarely see it coming because it looks like a full week's work.
Newsletter6 min readThe GM Found Out on a Friday
The seller swore nobody knew. Then a banker hit forward, the GM read every word, and by Wednesday I was pricing a company that had stopped believing its owner.
Newsletter6 min readThe Accountant Said No
LOI on the table, agreement in principle, a seller ready to retire. His CPA of 25 years unwound all of it in one Tuesday meeting, and from his chair the advice was sound.
Newsletter6 min readThe First Deal I Lost to a Memory
Eight figures, capital at the table, clean earnings. The seller walked over a valuation somebody said out loud in 2019, and I understand why he did.
Newsletter6 min readHalf the Searchers Never Buy Anything
Stanford counted 190 new funds, a $16M median price, and a close rate that fell from 86% to 48%. The reasons apply to everyone in the pond.
Newsletter9 min readThe New SBA Math
Washington doubled the loan cap to $10 million and tightened underwriting in the same season. Both changes land on the seller's financial statements.
Private Equity3 min read$400M check. $3.2B exit.
A 1,000-person pharmaceutical operation, 85 production lines, and EBITDA down 15% from close.
Newsletter6 min readWhat the Customer List Tells You That the Quality of Earnings Never Will
The QoE confirms the revenue was real. Whether it shows up again after you own the company lives in a file some buyers never open.
Manufacturing2 min read17% to 50% of capacity, in twelve weeks.
The same machines and the same people, without a dollar of capital spend.
Operations1 min readFixed in six weeks.
A stalled distribution facility, a three-person team, and the tightest NDA of my career.
Newsletter8 min readThe Book I Write Myself
Arguing over the banker's adjustments concedes that his document is the reference point. The alternative takes about a week, and it wins.
Newsletter8 min readWhere the Truth Leaks
Prepared documents hold whatever pose the process requires. The records a company generates for its own use cannot, and they are rarely in the data room until you ask.
Newsletter8 min readThe Banker Did His Job
Every CIM you will ever read has been massaged, and the massage is so standardized it is practically a genre. Fluency starts with respecting the craft.
Newsletter10 min readThe Owner Who Still Signs Every Check
Key man risk scares off more buyers than it should. What matters is which decisions and relationships actually route through the founder, and which ones just look like they do.
Newsletter5 min readThe Customer Who Is Forty Percent of Revenue
Concentration kills more LMM deals than any other line in the CIM. The percentage deserves less attention than the structure underneath it.
Newsletter7 min readHow I Read a Plant in Two Hours
Before the data room gets my attention, the floor gets an afternoon. The routine I run on every walk-through, and the tells that are hard to stage.
Newsletter6 min readThe Fund Clock Always Wins
There are more than 13,000 unsold companies sitting in US private equity portfolios, an eleven year line at the current exit pace. The queue was designed in on day one.
Newsletter6 min readA Rhythm That Lets Good Teams Lead
The most useful thing a present, engaged backer can install is a simple operating rhythm that frees good people to run their own areas with confidence.
Operations2 min readA desk is a terrible place to lead a company.
The people at the floor are the ones who know what’s actually going on. Understand that first.
Newsletter6 min readThe Gift a Backer Brings Is Focus
A good business never lacks for good ideas. What management teams often lack is the focus to choose among them and a partner willing to back those choices.
Newsletter6 min readWe Show Up to Operate
When we back a business, we get into the operation with the team and do the real work. That is where value is made, and it is what a founder should want from whoever comes next.
Manufacturing1 min readManufacturing is only growing.
The rise of AI is just making manufacturing facilities much more needed.
Private Equity1 min readPrivate Equity is a dog eat dog world.
“Only the ruthless will survive”... yea it’s true. But don’t be scared, here’s why.
Newsletter9 min readThe New Problems That Aren't Mine
I spent years inside institutional private equity before kicking off SGC. The trends making this the industry's hardest year in a decade are new, structural, and built into the fund model itself.
Newsletter8 min readWhen the Suits Show Up
I have hired the top consulting firms to work inside companies I served as operating partner for, and I have watched what they actually deliver. Most of what you pay for, a fundless sponsor can do without writing the check.
Newsletter6 min readThe Best Deal I Ever Passed On
A banker sent me a business growing 80 percent a year and I said no in two sentences. The reason had nothing to do with the company.
Ideas1 min readThe Dunning-Kruger effect and influencers
You’ll know the influencer I’m talking about.
Newsletter7 min readOne Bad Acquisition Away From Insolvency
A healthy business levered up to buy a competitor that was never going to fit, and the sponsor eventually handed the whole thing over for a dollar and an indemnity. It was not my deal. I was asked to the integration kickoff, gave my honest read, and was asked not to come back.
Newsletter9 min readThe Ceiling You Don't See in Diligence
The CEO who closed the deal was right for the business you bought. Whether he is right for the business you are trying to build is a different question, and most sponsors wait too long to ask it.
Engagement1 min readX.com is the best networking tool
My friend said you should f your mutual...?
Newsletter9 min readThe Diagnosis Is Worthless Without theAuthority to Act
What a pharma plant in 2017 taught me about the real cost of institutional hesitation
Newsletter8 min readThe Other Deal That Died in 2025
Six months, $200,000, and a business that was never what it appeared to be.
Operations1 min readMost big companies are optimized inefficiently.
That’s an oxymoron... right?
Newsletter7 min readThe Deal That Died
One Email. Premium Value. Gone.
Ideas1 min readWhy I wear wired headphones...
Boohoo, I like wired headphones, so what?