Archive
Answers
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The End of the SaaS Klondike: Adaptation Is the New Moat
Great summary by Jacco van der Kooij on Bending Spoons acquiring Airtable for less than the total amount raised from VCs, with a nearly half a…
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The SaaSpocalypse Comes for Private-Market Content
I was quoted over $5,000/year today for digital content access to a freemium online magazine in the private equity space I follow. Their lowest plan. Then…
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The Biggest M&A Risk Isn’t Customer Concentration. It’s Institutional Knowledge Walking Out the Door.
Commercial diligence flagged customer concentration risk at 38% with the top client. Still, the deal closed, the CEO left in month nine, and the top client…
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Your Tech Stack Is Quietly Eroding Enterprise Value
A portfolio company CTO walks me through their tech stack. I count 47 active SaaS subscriptions. The CFO has signed off on 31 of them. The…
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Why CFOs Are Becoming the New Value Creation Leaders in Private Equity
As hold periods go up, CFOs have shifted from financial engineering to value creation. A surprising shift I’ve noticed in over a dozen PE portfolios lately…
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Your Biggest Due Diligence Risk Isn’t the Data. It’s the Definition Behind It.
The management presentation shows qualified pipeline at $4.2 million. The CRM export shows $6.1 million. The CFO’s forecast from last quarter shows $5.3 million. You are…
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The Real Competitive Advantage in AI Isn’t the Technology. It’s the Operating Muscle.
Agentic augmentation in private equity portfolio companies is a polarized activity in 2026, torn between: 1. Legacy companies vs. early adopters and more progressive R&D teams…
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Value Creation Doesn’t Fail Because of Strategy. It Fails Because of Dependencies.
Most value creation plans fail in the first quarter not because the thesis was wrong, but due to planning, execution, and infrastructure. Problems we tend to…
