Frameworks, perspectives and field notes.
Pragmatic thinking on growth, value creation and M&A, drawn from the front line of UK mid-market tech consulting firms.
Operating model
Why bench cost is the most misread line on your P&L
Most consulting firms treat bench as a cost to minimise. The ones hitting 32% EBITDA treat it as a lever to time. The difference is not headcount, it is discipline.
Exit readiness
Most founders have no shareholder strategy and pay for it later
Most consulting firm founders can tell you their revenue target but not what they actually want from the equity they have built. That gap costs them more than they expect.
Exit readiness
An unsolicited approach to buy your firm is not a compliment
An unsolicited approach feels like validation. It is also the moment when unprepared founders give away the most value. Here is how to stay in control.
Exit readiness
Think Like a Buyer
Founders who get the best outcomes from a sale are not always the ones with the best businesses. Often, they are the ones who understood what the buyer was actually solving for.
Founder dependency
Why IT consulting founders cannot hire themselves out of the founder trap
Most IT consulting founders think hiring senior people solves founder dependency. The opposite happens: you create expensive consultants who still need you to win work.
Equity Blueprint
The seven pillars that drive enterprise value
Why two firms with identical revenue can sell for wildly different multiples, and the framework that explains the gap.
Growth
Recurring revenue isn't a model. It's a discipline
Most professional services firms talk about recurring revenue. The ones that build it follow a different playbook.
M&A
Founder dependency: the silent value killer
What buyers really mean when they say a business is 'too founder-dependent', and the four-step path out.
Operating Model
From 25% to 35% EBITDA: where the points come from
A teardown of the operating model levers we've seen consistently move margin in mid-market services firms.
Strategy
When to evolve, when to grow, when to sell
A simple decision framework for founders weighing the next strategic move, and the questions that surface the honest answer.
Field Notes
What we learned from 80+ advisory engagements
The patterns, surprises and uncomfortable truths from a decade of working alongside founders in the mid-market.
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