Private Equity Experience

How PE Turns Hot Founders into Giants in 18 Months

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 24

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 38:09

Discover the secret sauce behind private equity (PE) growth strategies! In this episode, Emily Sander, Rory Liebhart, and Ed Barton break down why PE firms target founder-led businesses and reveal the tactical playbooks to scale them. From "buy low, sell high" foundations to aligning visions, unlocking growth through talent/capital infusion, and leveraging technology, they cover it all. You’ll learn how PE turns underperforming businesses into high-performing powerhouses in 18–72 months. Perfect for founders, business owners, and growth hackers!

🔑 Key Topics Covered:
🔑 Why founder-led companies are PE’s favorite acquisitions (spoiler: it’s all about untapped upside).
🔑 The three pillars of PE-driven growth: Capital, talent, and technology deployed smartly to hit inflection points.
🔑 The “corporate” transformation: From disheveled startups to well-oiled machines with governance, CMOs, and CFOs.
🔑 How a Chief of Staff becomes the secret weapon for aligning teams and accelerating execution.

Learn how PE firms don’t just buy businesses—they engineer dynasties. Whether you’re a founder, investor, or exec, this episode gives you the framework to think like a scaling pro.

Subscribe for more deep-dive episodes on PE, tech, and entrepreneurship!

==============================

🎙 Podcast – Strategies, PE 101 & witty banter

📚 Book – On‑Ramp to Exit, full deal life cycle

🛠 Resources – Free templates, guides, tools

🔗 LinkedIn – Follow us for fresh PE insights

================================

Who Are We?

Three insiders. One mic. All things private equity — explained. Hi 👋 We’re Ed, Rory, and Emily — a CEO, a CFO, and a Chief of Staff — here to demystify the world of private equity. Between us, we’ve sat in the founder’s chair, run PE‑backed companies, and worked on the deal side, so we know the wins, the pitfalls, and the jargon (and we’ll explain it).

Through the Private Equity Experience Podcast, our book On‑Ramp to Exit, and a library of free tools and templates, we share real‑world stories, practical strategies, and insider insights to help you navigate every stage of the PE journey — whether you’re leading a portfolio company, joining a deal team, considering PE, or just PE‑curious.

🔗Connect with Ed

🔗Connect with Emily

🔗Connect with Rory

...
emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Rory can sound like Demi Moore as he's answered these questions with his nasal situation.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

not tip top, but hey, we'll, we'll, uh, we'll make it happen.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

You look good. You sound good. It's all good. Big red. Here we go. Lightning round questions on the private Equity Experience Podcast, ed and Rory Morning Brainstorm, or midnight inspiration

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Oh, morning. I'm a morning guy.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

definitely morning.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Morning.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

much brain dead after about 6:00 PM That's a fact, you know? And that's getting worse as I get older. So, yeah,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

And Ed, you've always been a morning guy.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Always.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Morning.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

not gonna change.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

no.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Do you make decisions faster or slower when the stakes are high?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Hmm. Great question.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

I'm definitely faster.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

faster. Uh, it, well, I don't know. It's hard to say. Stakes are high, a different, is a, is qualifying, is it? In a crisis or if the stakes are high.'cause if the stakes are really high and I, and it's not time sensitive, I may ruminate on something for a while, but I was trained in my first career to make rapid decisions and

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

adjust as you go rather than overanalyze. Yep.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Army officer. Army Officer, what would you? A Colonel Barton. Major Barton. Major Barton. Got it. Okay. Um, what's something you've built from scratch that actually worked?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Hmm. Great question also. Um huh. That actually worked.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

I got some Ikea furniture that I, well, actually, that's not even from scratch. mean, I, I truly am not like a from scratch person. I'm a fix it. Fix it and make it better thing. My from scratches are definitely not memorable.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

You, you know, your leg of the race and it's like downstream from.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

out, I mean, maybe an unconventional answer is, you know, creating forms of art and also craft. So like, you know, back in the day I used to, um. You know, create some, some, some types of jewelry and things like that, which, you

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

No way.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

and looked cool and things like that. Yeah, I did,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

I did not know this about you, Rory. You made jewelry

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

and stuff like that. Yep, yep.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

What?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

I, I used to have a, a crafty streak to me, a little more artistic streak. Maybe it's been suppressed over the years a little bit, but yeah, I think. part of the reason why it works is'cause it's kind of subjective. You know? It's not, it's not totally, it's not mechanical, it's not electric, you know, it's like there's a lot of margin for error. So maybe that's why it worked.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Oh my gosh. That's amazing. All right.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

back to

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Uh.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

part of me actually, you know, maybe that's another podcast, you know?

Comfort TV Shows and YouTube Rabbit Holes

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Artistic, Rory. Artistic Big Rigs. Yeah, I like it. Deadlift, custom rings and financial structuring all in one. What is your Comfort TV show when your brain's in overdrive?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

I just go down to the YouTube rabbit hole on so many different things. Like, I watch

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

I.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

concerts from, you know, musicians. I like, I I watch my, my ma My thing these days is like, I watch these YouTube videos of like people that live completely off the grid in Alaska that they, you know, basically. Uh, you know, film their life and building cabins and shit like that.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Whoa. Okay.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

can tell where my mind is, it's like, I wanna get outta here. I wanna be like on my own, on an island, on the side of a mountain by myself, know?

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Making rings.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

I, I was gonna say, I think I would, I would echo the, I don't know when the last time I watched live TV outside of a sporting event

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah. College football for sure. But yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah, I, I will fire up like, uh, I've got YouTube playlists of music that I'll just fire and up the eighties and nineties playlists and that will transport me elsewhere. Or I go down the YouTube rabbit hole of car videos. you know, how do I, how do I, you know, change the rear differential on a 79 Mercedes? That's, that's

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Of course you do. Of course you do.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

One gem I found is Clarkson's Farm, which like there's this whole personality, he's famous in the uk like Jeremy Clarkson, who like inherited.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

is. Yeah, yeah,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Who, like, he's known for like a car show, which Ed, you might know him, but he's like, took over his family farm, like a, like, like hundreds of acres of farmland and he runs it himself. Not particularly well, but hilariously. And you actually learn about farming. Um, and it's just, it's like comedy, but you actually learn something. So it's just a nice super scenic and ev and everything. So that's mine, Parksons farm.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Right on.

Why PE is Interested in Founder-Led Businesses

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Um. Cool. So those were like kind of some warmup questions, but we're gonna talk about like, why is PE interested in founder led businesses and like, how do they actually do that? Like the, the tactical and practical pieces of this. But just to set the stage, why is PE PE interested in founder led, founder led businesses in the first place?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Well, I'll go and then I'll, I know Ed's got some insights here'cause I mean, we've both been part of these scenarios multiple times, but what I've observed is basically like any investment, you wanna buy low and sell high eventually. We talked about it before, like P doesn't mate for life. I always, I always use that term, but I love the term. Um, and what I mean by that is. That, you know, think of yourself as a business owner. You're bootstrapping your business. You're, you're doing yourself. It's like you get it to a certain point. You know your business really well. There's potential there, but basically you need somehow to be able to unlock the value further. And often where a pe a PE group will come in and say, I see what you see founder. You're a very visionary person, or you and your team are very effective in this little, you know, foothold you've established for yourself. We will help you. We will bring the scale and we'll make that happen. And they say that, but what they really mean is this person has not found the ability to unlock the potential of their business. We can get them there and we can profit from that in a big.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah. I think the other piece is normally a founder led business has got two, two elements that are holding it back. It's either gonna be capital or talent.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

And so the, the private equity firm, as we've talked about, generally has an abundance of capital to put to work.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

And they normally have a Rolodex full of talent. Now, that talent may displace the founder at some point, but

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

this

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Likely will. Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

so they're able to kind of look at these things and, and like Rory said. The founder led businesses also tend to sell cheaper than kind of institutionally owned businesses because founders, you know, if you go to a founder and you go, Hey, this business is worth, you know, this business is worth$30 million, they're gonna be like, well, that's great, you know, that's awesome. It may actually be worth 40, 45. But you

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

they're. They're, they get excited. As a matter of fact, PE firms will constantly be kind of trolling with the Hi, I'm, you know, a junior associate. They, they make the, you know, inbound calls, unsolicited. Have you thought about monetizing? Have you thought, I, I still get'em for like. For like fusion zone. I'm like, no, this company transacted twice to private

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

We're done. You

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

we're.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

this is over. Um, but that's a, those two elements, they bring talent and treasure, so to speak, to the, to the private or to the founder led business. That's generally what's holding a founder led business back from significant growth. So they try and buy it cheap and then they also try and go, okay, how do I. Juices thing so that I can get a multiple on that investment that I just made by growing it

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, exactly.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

And so when we're talking about like buying it cheap or undervalued, it's not necessarily that anything's wrong, although there could be,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

at

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

it's just like there's upside

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

they the smartest private equity firms I know. Tend to not buy stuff that's broken. I

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Oh, yeah, yeah,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

buy stuff that's broken, they do it. That is their business. They, they have a

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

turnaround.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

get this,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

get displaced the day that deal

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

And, you know, but there's a,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

those are more your vulture capitalists and the, and, and, more turnaround private equity funds. The typical private equity fund is a growth fund

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

at it and go, this business is undervalued.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

That, yeah,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

not because it's. You know, run poorly. It's

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

just,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

because it's not achieving its potential.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

not, it's prescale. Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

it's

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

It's kind of at an inflection point perhaps, or just before it maybe actually.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

so we're gonna pay as if the business is gonna continue along this trajectory. And then we're gonna bring a couple of these, you know, talent or treasure components or

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Mm-hmm.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

to, as Rory said, kind of hit that inflection point and drive growth up.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Hmm. Okay. Okay. So that's the premise. How do they actually do that?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Well, it starts with, you gotta be totally aligned on that future, right? So if you, if you. you're working with a founder, let's say you're a PE group and you're looking to buy a company with a founder, if you have completely different visions for the business, the likelihood of it working out is very, is is pretty low. Like you have to see the same things. And you know, I would say that my personal experience is that I've never seen things go exactly as planned in those early discussions. It always changes, but you have to have some fundamental alignment on what that future looks like. And I think a lot of that means. The founder needs to be honest about where they're at and where, what's holding them back. Or whether maybe they, they maybe they're even that kind of a conservative, uh, person where they just, they just wanna do really well and grind out a really nice profit, but, but in a low growth environment. But they may need to be convinced by a PE group that can achieve much bigger quantums of profit by basically, you know. Unlocking the growth. So it starts with very honest conversations about where each side is coming from, what they see and how they view the business. And if you could find alignment there, that's a good place to start.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

And so, so assuming they have alignment, like once they get in there,'cause we talked about some of this before, like once they get in there, like what are some actual levers that people can turn to?

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

A, A lot of times what

Leveraging Technology and Sales for Growth

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

is the private equity team will identify during the diligence process, so this is all, a lot of the. Is

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

formulating during the diligence process is why it's, that's a critical kind of marriage piece, not just with the turnover bunch of documents,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

said, there's alignment. There's no, what I, in my experience, there's two areas that the private equity folks tend to look at and go, here's what we're gonna bring to the table. We're either gonna bring technology, technologists, technology leverage, so we're that maybe. You know, you need additional growth capital, you

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

skills and those kind

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

CapEx investment, whatever. Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah, there's a technology gap here that we're gonna be able to help you fill to hit that inflection point. So it's, they focus on the technology investment and again, my background's largely tech enabled

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

businesses,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

same.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

be

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

a little bit. Um, the other one is they look at it from a front end sales perspective and they go, look, you guys have done amazing job getting. You know, kind of cornering this little nichey market. There's three other areas that are parallel to it or adjacent, or market adjacent, or

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

That's it. Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

got a regional, and we could go national, but you need to have different sales leadership. You need a new sales strategy you need, which again, is gonna require capital and talent.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

knowledge and knowhow, and I think like some founders don't know how to actually expand horizontally or vertically. They're just like really focused, you know?

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

to make, yep. And so that's, those two areas have been my experience where the private equity firms will come in and go, look, we're gonna. Make an investment in you currently

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

we've got this additional pot of, now I'm I, I'll leave the third piece off it. These are the typical, this additional pot of capital that's available and we're gonna develop jointly as part of the process, the technology

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

go to market sales plan to kind of push this to the next level at that inflection

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

I have noticed that that pot of capital tends to sometimes be

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

femoral. Yeah. Little.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

I've never seen it actually formally committed, per se. It's, uh, theoretical.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

at the end of the rainbow.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah, we, we

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

That pot of capital might just be any operating profits you throw off the business. And that's your,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

it could

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

your pot of capital.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah, we, we did it at Fusion Zone. We did have a soft roll up

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

of the acquisition,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

There we go.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

the, the private equity firm did stroke checks twice, um, to acquire small kind of small tuck investments. Um,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

M&A and Professionalizing the Organization

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

the, the one I thought was extraordinarily profitable, one, the other one was not. Um, but it was a, you know, it was a good, a third, kind of that third element where they go, look, you've got a really good. and we, I think we've talked about platform company here, and what we're gonna do is bring in the additional capital, the diligence capabilities, plus the technology integration, the sales pieces, et cetera. And we're gonna do some, you know, talk in acquisitions to really help bolster the, the growth trajectory of the

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

that's a third

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

So m and a, m and a and and sort of vision for that is absolutely what a PE partner can bring. And not only that, but additional personnel that can join your team that maybe has that expertise beyond what the founder has done or has experience with. They might get their ass handed to them if they try to go down that path themselves. So yeah, that m and a and the expertise around that is a key way to, to scale through partnership with pe. Definitely.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

And some of the stuff that, that I've been involved with is like probably under the umbrella of professionalizing the organization, which you've talked about that term, but like governance and rhythm of business and leadership meetings and board meetings and board packages and all these, all these touch points and reporting and all these,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

talk

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

these things that.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

break that down a little more. So what does it mean to professionalize an organization in practical terms? And, first, like some of my first foray is, and as executive leader has been being brought in to a company in that PE transition, uh, worked with both of you, uh, which was great at that time, in that regard. But what does that mean? It means that like oftentimes you have. The, the founders is, is the CEO, the COO, head of sales, uh, human resources officer, you name it. They kind of do it all, and they may have a minion, a group of people that kind of carry out tasks. But what it means to scale an organization is to, serious about it, is expanding leadership with the capabilities and the expertise and the relationships. To make that happen. And so what, okay, take another step further. What does that mean? So you might have in a founder-led company, you know, the CEO founder and maybe an accountant that's, you know, running QuickBooks, just use that as an example. to sort of support a, a growth business that may be expanding with product, with geography, with. Customer base, you probably need some better expertise, especially if you're gonna start taking on more, you know, complex treasury. Maybe you're going international, this, that, and the other thing. You might need a, a VP of Finance or CFO. You also might need a legitimate head of sales that can cover. Different categories, different geographies, different customer bases, and maybe, maybe you're pivoting as well, and, and you are looking to get into a market that you haven't been before because you see the, the value there. It's, it's adding the key pieces at the leadership level that you can then fill in. To support that with, with additional, um, call it functional, uh, staff. But a lot of it is just like, you know, you think when somebody thinks of an organization, they think, oh yeah, they must have a chief of staff, uh, you know, um, CFO, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know, some, so many of these companies that are. Acquired don't have any of those things, and they don't even know what that means until they actually partner up with the PE group and say they believe in what the PE group is telling'em, Hey, to unlock this potential, you need to get the right personnel.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

It, it is surprising that just leadership team meetings, weekly leadership team meetings are like, well, a, what we, we we're gonna sit and talk about like, what's going on as a group? Like what?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

a

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

It's crazy. It's, and it like, you know, as chief of staff, I would like, I ran sales operations for a while. I stood it up and then handed it off, but it was like a, a sales pipeline with, with stages of the sale. Like so people can track where deals are coming through.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

you know, not

Understanding Business Scalability

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, it's just like the, some of these things are basic, but if it's not there, it's like, it's like game changing. It's like, oh my gosh, like now we can see what's coming. Like, yes, delivery teams, operations teams, you like that?'cause you can build your capacity around what's coming down the pipeline.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

very few businesses that achieve, you know, a hundred million, billion dollar, you know, revenue run rates and things like that are, to do so without a tremendous amount of instr infrastructure with people and technology, more technology today maybe than ever. But like you, you can't accomplish those things the same way a founder built their business to, you know.$5 million,$10 million, which in its own right, is very impressive. But like, if you're serious about and you know, achieving the max potential of a business, you've, you've gotta get support. You, you gotta have the, you gotta have the concrete foundation and the, and the, you know, kind of iron, you know, you know, like rungs and things like put in there. You have to make it stand on its own with, with, with, uh, support systems.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

And I remember like this, this can be relatively straightforward things like when we were at G two place we all worked at and I was running client management. Designating our clients as in different tiers. Like here's our strategics and here's our tier and here's our smaller ones. Um, in that way. And then here's like by. By industry or kind of by, um, like different groupings by region. So just like mapping these things in Salesforce, that's what we use for our CRM. All this stuff was just, okay, now we can say let's look at the data for our mid-tier EMEA clients for this one area. Um, so just things like that, which aren't necessarily sexy, but it's like if you want an EMEA strategy, you better know. Who your clients are, who your existing clients are now, and what kind of state they're in, if they're happy, if they're not, like what kind of products they have and what kind of products they need and don't have all that stuff.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, the, the one

The Role of Private Equity in Business Growth

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

exactly.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

I would generally say is founders. It's rare that you find the Bill Gates, the. You know, the Michael Dells, where they are tactically proficient and strategically

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

And a lot of times, a lot of times where the private equity firms will look to add value when they're doing the acquisition is they look for an exceptionally talented, tactically proficient team. And then go, okay, we're gonna help overlay the strategy on

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

And that's where a lot of this professionalization and, and institutionalization and those elements, they've got a team that knows how to build great widgets. They just don't know how to do it at scale. They don't know how to strategize about it. They just know how to make great widgets. And that's, that's an opportunity where the private equity firms, again, they look to buy low. Because you don't have a strategic thinker and they haven't been able to unlock the strategic value of the business. And then the private equity firm comes in and goes, look, we've got the tools, people, you know, kind of talent and treasure. We've got the tools to be able to, to the strategic wrapper on this tactically exceptional

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

and drive that forward. So it's all the stuff, we're always just talking about the foundational elements, the, the building, the kind of building the better mousetrap. Um, but. ideal situation is one where you've got, you know, you, you don't have a Michael Dell, you don't have a, you don't have a bill Gates. You've got somebody who's really good

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

their core business, and then the private equity firm

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

strategic wrapper and structure over that and causes a business to grow and scale significantly.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

you want, you want to, to do this efficiently, and I think what we, we talk about in our book is there is a, there's a playbook to this whole thing. Like business in itself is unique, but the, the ingredients needed. And the strategy and execution to grow a business and achieve the max potential. There is, there is a playbook for it. Like, and PE has that playbook and they've been there, done that. That's what they do. Founders are geniuses in their own right, but the, the structure and the, and the. Expertise of PE both from financial engineering, but also just governance and, and growth and, and sort of lining to talent, things like that. There's a playbook to that. So imagine the power if you match those things up correctly, you have alignment, can make it happen. Whereas you might

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

I would say,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

your wheels trying to do it yourself if you're not

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

and Bill Gates. It's point

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, and like the thing I would add is there's the. Founder vision, like they're the visionary and they know their, they know their craft that way. There's the PE playbook. The middle part is a great chief of staff will design and architect the system that has to go in place for that particular founder, for that particular team, that particular time for that particular PE group, and they can design it and, and make that run.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

So, I mean, that's, that's where I get excited. But, um, because that's, that's the place I live. But you need, you need all of, you need all of those players and all of those pieces to make it go.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah. And, and any, any. know, amount of time that you don't waste is, is money you bank, basically is the way I think about it. So if you, if you have the right people and process and technology, it sounds cliche, but you know, the right roadmap, like you, you'll not waste time and money basically.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Maybe we can break down technology a little bit more.'cause I know there's like, there's systems and tools. Like I know certain ERP companies partner with PE firms'cause the ERP is like the preferred partner of a PE firm. So they always are in the kind of RFP mix. But like ERPs and you know, you mentioned QuickBooks or if you have to upgrade your kind of systems and tools that way. There's that side of things, and then there's also to me, like the tech stack and perhaps a proprietary product of some kind and all of those types of things.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

a rapid clip. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's the. What I would consider to be like your system of record for your, your business and like for a lot of groups at are early stage. It's like a quick looks and maybe you have a CRM, mostly Excel spreadsheets, but.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Sometimes it's like Joe's napkin by the computer.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

to, you know, okay, I'm gonna put in a, you know, kinda a sales module for Salesforce or, you know, uh, HubSpot or whatever, and, know, kind of start to integrate that. But then you just scales outward from there. You know, you have massive enterprise systems that basically capture it all and all the data in your systems and things like that. And now we're augmenting that with. AI tools which allow processing and to be gained, um, you know, more efficiently and things like that, to where it's beyond my expertise level for sure. That's why, you know, have the right people in there to harness. That is super important, especially now.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

There's also the, there's a space for, and like Alex Papadopoulos, who we all know and all love, uh, was our C-O-O-C-T-O. He's very, very good technically, and he can also communicate to non-technical audiences, which is like. Which is like amazing, but you have to have that and a lot of people don't. So I feel like when you're plusing up your roster sometimes it's about getting the type of people who can tell the story or communicate to other stakeholders what their group or what the technology is doing.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Exactly. Um, yeah, I mean, even if you're not a, a tech company yourself, you still use tech to run your company and to support your company. So ideally you have. Sort of utility players that have a specific but they can kind of speak the language of other functional areas. And the more more you have that, the more cohesion you have. I've worked for companies, I think G two is one of those companies where you had a lot of good utility players working there at the leadership level. I've worked for other companies that did not, and I could tell you. things move faster and, and with and with less friction when you have folks that can kind of speak a few different business languages, so to speak and, and articulate. That makes, uh,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

and those folks, the, you, you mentioned

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Uh, really the two areas where that tends to be most critical and is most and is most efficient in organizations technology and finance. Where folks have tended to be.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Technical experts in their field, and as they progress in their career, need to become far more business generalists, understand the business, and understand how their el, how their function area interacts with others. And where companies have tended to fail have been the technologists live in technologist land and don't ever kind of really interact well with, with others. They don't play well with others. And finance is the same way.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

There's incredibly talented CFOs who are incredibly poor at their jobs because they're talented, technically and exceptionally poor from a business

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

getting to know the business. They, they live in the spreadsheet and

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

know, other folks live in a tech stack.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Right.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

That upleveling is where a lot of people come to me for the coaching, where it's like, Emily, we just got by bought by PE number one. What? What just happened? Number two, different things are being asked of me and I don't know how to speak that language. Essentially. It's like, okay, here's how we do that. Also, when it's like silos, you need a chief of staff. Chief of staff will bridge that for you. Chief of staff will see across the department lines and all those things bring it together.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

It's,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Um.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

interesting. That was, and Rory probably remembers because this was before Chief of Staff was a thing. But I made Karina, essentially my chief of staff at my first CEO gig because I needed somebody who could tie all the pieces together. I think you've used the analogy, Emily, that it's like a, you got a six pack of cans in the seat, the the chief of

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

A plastic thing.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

is a plastic ring thing that holds it all together,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

don't, you don't necessarily see it, but it's

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

it's holding the whole thing together. And that's

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

hundred percent. Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

again, there's a, there's a couple key positions I think. from that talent and treasure piece. And what I'm hearing now is more and more private equity firms are requesting slash requiring a chief of staff hire for the CEO to help them with this transition into a more and of strategically functional organization.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

that's a, that's a critical

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

No doubt.

Measuring Success and Professionalization

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, there are, they are for sure so many chiefs of staff like Emily. Uh, my boss said, like the, the board said they had to get a chief of staff. And so now, now I've been brought in. I'm like, okay, so let's go to this rodeo. Um, what. How do you know that you're successfully professionalizing the org? What kind of things are different after versus before?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Well, I, I would say it's very simply, if you're achieving the results of the business plan, you put in front of yourself as a group, you know, as a company, as a, as a unit, you know, between management and ownership. If you're doing the right things and you're succeeding, um, that gives you a good indication of whether that's working for you. If you're not, then you gotta look within and say, what's going on here? What's, what's not working? Why is that? Probably don't have alignment. Um, you know, this is all assuming that of whether you have a product market fit and customers that'll buy your product and stuff is, is working. So if that, if that fail fails to launch, that means it probably wasn't, you weren't even on the solid footing to begin with. But if you're, if you, if you have that and you're just not growing or becoming more profitable. Then, you know, some of the links in the chains that are, that are there with people processing technology not working. So you need to figure that out.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, I was, I was actually gonna, I was laughing. Because when Rory was saying, you know, you're achieving the plan that you laid out, having a plan that's laid out, step

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

a good step.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

professionalization.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

the other thing where

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

A real one. Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah. Where I've noticed it has been organization tends to, there tends to be better defined. Areas of responsibility. I'm not saying silos, I'm

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

of responsibility, which actually speed decision

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Accountability. Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

the, because the CEO is no longer the bottleneck or the chief operating officer is no longer the bottleneck. There's, you know, kind of lanes that folks are operating in, which allows decision making to move

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Right.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

The language of the organization changes. So the, the communications methods change, the language changes, it becomes a little bit more structured. There is reporting, there's things like flash reports where you can

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Exactly.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

of see how we're doing, you know, what you're supposed to be doing. You can measure it. That's to me like the, as you're moving that direction, it's you. That's where the initial, okay. We're, we're institutionalizing, we're, we're becoming a more strategically focused

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

how I can tell is I just start seeing. Things Look and I and folks go, oh my God, it's gotten corporate. And I'm like, no, it actually has gotten organized

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

able to measure and manage the key components.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

well, the word that came up for me is clarity.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

There you go.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

It got clear, everyone's clear on what they're supposed to be doing and why we're doing it,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

then there's like, I'm trying to think of the. Leading indicators, I think, like, do you have a plan at all? Number one, are people clear on the plan? Like, do they know about it?'cause you might know about it, but does the rest of the organization down to your, you know, manager rank and file folks know about it? Do they know how their day-to-day fits into that plan? And then some of these other pieces, the structural pieces, the people, all of those are, are they in place? Might be like a leading indicator and then you're gonna have to fine tune and tweak them over time, but just.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, well the specificity around a like, you know, however you want to put it, performance management, corporate performance management, however you wanna put that scorecard. you have developed theoretically, like some pretty specific metrics. You're either achieving them or you're not. And so that's gonna be a good indicator of whether that's gonna persist as far as leading indicators go. You know, it's, um, you know, it could be. I guess it could be as simple as, you know, whether you're achieving the fundamentals of your plan, whether it's revenue growth or profitability, and like seeing customers churn, seeing customer growth, seeing more sales on the top of your funnel, whatever that is. ultimately that kind of thing is where you're gonna say, okay, I'll convert that to business and profitability. if you're not achieving those top of funnel things or, you know, kind of like the, the building blocks, so to speak, of how you, how you. You know, achieve your business goals, then you gotta address that out the gate. No doubt.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

And a like a meta example would be, I remember when we first implemented the Flash report, one of everyone's first goals was to. Confirm or check. What we were measuring was the appropriate thing to be measuring. Like, Hey, we, we set out these KPIs, but are they the right thing after, you know, a quarter or two or a couple cycles where it's like, that one's pretty good, but this one does not tell us what we needed to know. We like missed that over here. We, let's change our, our tool. So that fine tuning piece. Um, and I think too, there's like the. Whole culture piece. So when the whole bunch of change goes down, I've, in my experience, you're gonna lose some folks just out of the swing of the change, which is not necessarily bad. But then after things stabilize and settle out to whatever they're going to be. Do you have a whole bunch of voluntary turnover? Do you have have a whole bunch of people, or is your culture fairly stable? You're always gonna have attrition, but looking at some of those pieces as well?

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

customers can be,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Absolutely.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

of your, you know, respond to your culture or like bought into your culture and that's why there are customers. So yeah, I think internal and external factors like that, if you see degradation. You got a problem and, and you mentioned, you know, like, uh, you know, you see people sort of not get with program culturally and leave that as many times as not, that's the founder themselves, you know? Um, and that's why super important getting back, kind of hammering this home is that alignment upfront is like, is this gonna be something that both parties are, you know, gonna. Lock arms on for the long term. And as much as you can do your diligence on that, gives you an indication of like, okay, this has a possibility of success, but if it's gonna failure to launch, you know, could, could be a lot of money wasted if, if, um, if that doesn't work out. So I.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

And how long do you have to show growth or like what would tell a PE from, okay, like now we have demonstrable data set of like, look, this thing has gone from X to Y. We're on the career path, or we're on the track. We can sell the dream. Let's go do this thing.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

You mean from the standpoint of like whether a founder's gotten the business to a certain point or are you saying post acquisition by the PE group? Because

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Post acquisitions. So, yeah. So if a PE group is saying, okay, I came in, it was undervalued. I'm putting in talent and treasure, and we're getting all these internal things that we just talked about in place, and now I'm starting to see it for a quarter in two quarters, and now it's been like 18 months of this.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

the shortest I've heard is 18 months is basically

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

they look at it and go, okay, I've gotten through a year end, I've had that year audited, and then I've got another quarter or two to show that it's not fluke. And in some cases when PE firms have somebody who they've. to take from, you know, an 8%, 10% growth rate to a 30, 40, 50% growth rate in that 18 months. That's exactly when they're gonna hit the chutes and they're out. You know, look, we got this thing that's really humming. They're gonna get a premium on that. They may double or money in 18 months in that

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

or more. And they're gonna, that's when they, because to some extent, you know, a 50% growth rate is not, or 30% growth rate annualized is not

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Now,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

And so you're also going, okay, let me, let me pass this off to, generally it'll be a strategic,

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

yeah,

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

we'll be able to

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

I.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

okay, you know, we either wanna take this pesky, pesky outta the market, or we wanna expand into that space and there's synergies enough for us to be able to at least see a really nice

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

investment. but 18 months is about as short as I've, as I've

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Um, and then, you know, in some cases it just, it's a couple. Couple turns of the couple turns of the worm and

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

It gets a little long on the tooth, as you've said.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

years.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

like that. That's a great, that's a very practical, real realistic answer. I think. I was just gonna say, you know. Uh, you really get an indication as to whether you're following the business plan. You know, like if, if that could, where are you at after a year? You know, here was the business plan that was laid out. Are you, are you achieving it? Are you far under it? Like, what's the problem? You know, um, your thesis working out? That sort of thing. Um, but yeah, I'd say, you know, never, I've never really heard of hold periods less than 18 months or, you know, or like, really longer than like seven years, you know? But by seven years though, the likelihood of you having turnover management multiple times is very high. So it's like, as somebody that's been in a business that's gone through this a couple times, like, you know, the thought of a seven year period is, uh, that's long.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah, if you're, if you're in a seven year

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

'cause it's a grind. I'll just, let's make that very clear.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

it's probably you. The C-E-O-C-F-O role

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Oh dude.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

to the

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yeah.

sweeeeeet-eddie-b--sweet-sweets-_1_11-05-2025_150638

Brown

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

I was just gonna say, sports, you know, like head coach, you know, especially these days is a really good analogy to CEOs in, in these types of businesses. Like, if you can't prove it out in two years under your watch, gone. For sure. You know,

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

Yep.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

so

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

All right. On that happy note now, now listener, you know more about what it actually takes to grow a business and why PE firms be interested.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

they might get their next contract somewhere else. You know what I mean? Like so.

emily-sander_1_11-05-2025_150638

They usually do just fine. They usually do just fine. Very cool. Thanks, ed. Thanks Rory.

rory-liebhart_1_11-05-2025_150638

Thank you. I.