Start With People
Meet employees across functions and seniority levels. Learn what they do well, where customers get frustrated, which processes waste time, and what they would change if they could. Long-tenured employees know where the real problems are, and they’ll tell you, if they believe you’re actually listening. Nothing builds credibility in the first 100 days after buying a business faster than taking frontline insight seriously.Then Talk to Customers and Vendors
Customers offer a perspective no financial statement contains: why they keep buying, what they value most, where the company has disappointed them, and which competitors they consider. Vendors reveal operational patterns and industry dynamics invisible in diligence materials. Between employees, customers, and vendors, you’ll assemble a picture of the business that no data room provided.Get the Numbers You Can Trust
Early on, establish a manageable set of operating and financial metrics: cash flow, working capital, pricing and margins by customer or job, and actual performance versus what diligence assumed. You can’t steer what you can’t see, and the first 100 days after buying a business is when reporting gaps are cheapest to fix.Fix Fast What Can’t Wait, and Nothing Else Yet
Some changes shouldn’t wait: obvious safety issues, compliance gaps, financial-control weaknesses, and customer-service failures. Everything strategic, pricing overhauls, org changes, system replacements, benefits from context you don’t have yet. Our philosophy on the pace of change is laid out in How to Make a Good Business Better. Summary: The success metric at day 100 isn’t how much changed, it’s whether you understand the organization well enough to know what deserves to change next. Good stewardship begins with respect for the business that already exists. The goal was never to prove the previous owner wrong; it’s to build intelligently on what they created.From perspective to practice
01
Listen
Meet employees, customers and vendors before setting the change agenda.
02
Stabilize
Address urgent risks and establish reliable cash and operating reporting.
03
Build capacity
Agree responsibilities, practical priorities and a transition plan with the team.
What does this mean for your business?
We would like to hear what you have built, what still depends on you, and what you want your next chapter to look like. Let’s meet for coffee in Austin or over Microsoft Teams. You do not need a presentation or a decision to sell to get acquainted.
Explore: Investment criteria · Meet the partners