Investment Approach

Industry Expertise

With 25 years of intimate familiarity with service business models, we have evaluated hundreds of companies, counseled countless management teams, and observed both macro and micro trends that are hard to replicate. Our extensive experience spans both large public and private companies, where we’ve been in boardrooms addressing a variety of operational and financial issues. We have had the privilege of serving as thought partners, always operating with the mindset that we are “only as good as our last piece of advice.”

Our executive partners are invaluable resources, bringing a wealth of experience from running C-Suite functions in Fortune 500 companies. You will meet and interact with our executive partners upfront, beginning the collaboration and idea generation process early on. We understand the importance of leveraging the expertise of those smarter than us.

In a market filled with “noise”, we believe our experience speaks for itself.

Strategy Setting

Aligning upfront on our vision for “what we want to be when we grow up” is critical to our process. We enjoy brainstorming and exploring every idea, creating a massive funnel of opportunities. This approach helps us determine what is feasible today, what investments are needed for tomorrow, and what should be avoided.

Once we have a clear understanding, we design an actionable framework and roadmap for our new partnership. While all great plans may encounter twists and turns, having explored all options allows us to remain nimble and pivot based on the facts on the ground.

Now that you don’t have to do it alone, it’s actually a really fun process.

Talent Assessment

We invest in people. The best plan is worthless without a strong team to execute it. In many family and owner-operated businesses, too few people are wearing too many hats. This can be exhausting and holds the business back from reaching its full potential.

Our process begins with an assessment of current talent to optimize their skills and position them for growth and development. Ongoing education, up-skilling, and career advancement are essential; it’s foolish not to invest in the people you already know and trust. We also assess gaps and leverage our external network to bring in additional talent, ensuring seamless integration without “organ rejection.”

Equity ownership is critical, and we strive to push equity deep into organizations. We’ve seen broad-based employee ownership create meaningful wealth-building opportunities for employees, uplift families, reinvigorate corporate cultures, and improve business performance. Providing employees with a stake in the value they help create is not just good business and smart investing; it’s also the right thing to do.

Without great talent, the nice looking powerpoint presentations are useless.

Performance Management

We believe it’s critical for companies to establish the right metrics and KPIs to track their performance. Our approach involves two key procedures: first, developing the appropriate KPIs, and second, ensuring those metrics are interpreted and used effectively. Without both, you risk using data in a vacuum or making decisions based on gut feelings and intuition, both of which can lead to disappointing outcomes.

One of our all-time favorite movies is Moneyball – The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. It’s easy to be awed by the power of data and analytics but the movie sub-title truly resonates with our philosophy on performance management. The “unfair game” refers to the lack of resources and capital  that many small businesses face compared to larger companies. The “art” reminds us how critical it is for management to not only understand their KPI’s but combine it with their years of operating experience to drive successful outcomes.

It’s not people or data, it’s people AND data.

Organic and M&A Growth

We like talking about growth.  We really like taking about profitable growth.

Often, companies need incremental capital or additional labor to accelerate growth in their core business. Other times, growth discussions arise from the need to mitigate risks, such as customer, end-market, or product line concentration. Pursuing new growth opportunities can address these challenges.

We excel at identifying multiple organic and acquisition-driven growth levers, and we prioritize pinpointing these opportunities early in our partnerships.

If you are not growing, you are dying.

All the Other Stuff

Most business owners we talk with tell us “I have my day job and then I have to deal with [insert a long list of non-value added, time draining tasks].” We want our management teams to focus on operating the business—there’s plenty of work there without the burden of handling the “other stuff.”

We serve as your outsourced financing, capital markets, and M&A function. With our extensive experience, you can confidently cross these tasks off your list.

Additionally, we have a deep network of professional service firms to assist with various needs, including legal issues, HR matters, tax items, employee benefits, and more. If you can dream it, we “got a guy or gal” for you.

We pair “big firm resources” with a massive dose of humility and a strong bias toward laughing and having fun.