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They just don’t realise it yet. In 2021, LPs were piling into funds like it was the last chopper out of Saigon. Fast forward to 2024, and commitments are dripping in slower than a CFO’s reply to a marketing budget request. The data tells the story: • The median
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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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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.
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
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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
Theses
Home services are a hot space in PE right now, and for good reason. Recurring demand, fragmented markets, and operational levers make them attractive. But too many firms stop at the basics: backend consolidation, procurement savings, and cost control. The real alpha is in premiumization. Transforming a commoditized service into
Value Creation
Most value creation plans start with org charts and synergy maps. But in lower mid-market PE, speed kills and nothing drives enterprise value faster than early revenue acceleration. Every portco should launch a 90-Day Revenue Lab on Day 1. What is it? A focused sprint to: • Pressure-test
Value Creation
Time to First Win In private equity, we live and die by IRR, MOIC, and LTV:CAC. But there’s one metric that rarely makes the dashboard, and yet can make or break a value creation plan: Time to First Win. It’s the speed at which a new investment
Value Creation
One of the most effective filters I use when evaluating an investment is this: Would I buy this company if I had to personally operate it for the next five years. No shortcuts, no exits, no flipping it to the next buyer, just full accountability and ownership? It’s a
Theses
There’s a quiet revolution happening in home services and AI is the catalyst. Industries like HVAC, plumbing, and home cleaning are notoriously fragmented, with thousands of independent operators running subscale businesses. But while the field teams are delivering services well, what’s behind the scenes is wildly inefficient: manual
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1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) If you’re not measuring CAC in real time, you’re flying blind. Rising CAC is one of the earliest signs of marketing inefficiency or changing market dynamics. 2. Lifetime Value (LTV) A portfolio company’s unit economics don’t work without a healthy LTV.