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Not because middle-market brands are going viral (they’re not). But because real-world signals live online now, and they’re wildly underused in diligence. When we’re looking at $10M–$100M revenue consumer and services businesses, here’s where the real risk and opportunity hide: Google reviews: Customers post photos,
theses
Everyone’s chasing the next vertical SaaS winner in finance, healthcare, or HR. Meanwhile, the trades are quietly becoming one of the best software rollup opportunities out there. What I call “Blue-Collar SaaS”.........job schedulers, quoting tools, dispatch systems, customer communications platforms, CRMs for trades. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, landscaping,
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And in private equity, theatre doesn’t get a second act. Too many portfolio companies are still reporting on impressions, clicks, engagement rates, as if those metrics mean something in isolation. They don’t. Marketing isn’t a creative department. It’s not a vibe. It’s an investment function.
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No one knows what they actually do, and it’s costing the model its best people. Private equity has embraced the OP model. Over 63% of firms now employ them, up from 46% just five years ago (EY, 2023). But here’s the kicker: The average tenure of an Operating
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Not restructure it. Not shorten it. Kill it. Here’s why. Most Monday meetings are a relic. Created in a world where we needed a room and a whiteboard to coordinate a firm. Now, they’re an expensive group therapy session disguised as productivity. You’ve seen it: – A few
theses
Take Pinnacle Home Services, backed by Trivest. They’ve been rolling up HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies across the Southeast, and doing something smart that most folks miss: They centralized marketing. Instead of letting each acquired business keep its old-school mix of direct mail, print, and the occasional Facebook boost,
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Private equity is full of expensive tools: consultants, tech stacks, playbooks, benchmarking studies. But in practice, some of the most powerful operational levers don’t cost a thing. They just require discipline and consistency. Here are three levers that consistently move the needle across portfolio companies.....and none of them
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They build compounding engines. Buying is the easy part. There’s a banker, a CIM, a competitive process, and if you’ve got a fund and a decent track record, you’ll probably win something. That’s not the hard bit. The hard part is what happens after the champagne.
Not a junior banker. Not a former consultant. A DTC CMO. Because sourcing deals today isn’t about knowing everyone, it’s about being known by the right ones. Traditional sourcing is still stuck in the Rolodex era: • Conference drinks • Warm intros • “Let’s grab coffee” That’s not a
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. No, seriously. It’s not tucked away in HBR. It won’t help you scale your SaaS. But it will teach you something most MBAs never learn. Because if you’ve ever tried to build, scale, or rescue a company, you’ve lived a
theses
The invisible infrastructure of the American household has a ton of business opportunity Say you’re scaling a single-product home services business, pest control, lawn care, maybe appliance repair. You centralize ops. One call center. One CRM. But you’re still selling one service. One category. One shot at retention.
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Most private equity firms still operate like it’s 2005. They invest time and capital building outbound sourcing teams, but spend almost no time building a voice in the market. Meanwhile, firms like Andreessen Horowitz and 20VC have proven that in venture, content is capital. Their media presence is their