Exit readiness
The account, read the way a buyer will read it.
Diligence does not reward the revenue line. It rewards revenue a buyer believes will persist without the current owner and without the current spend. That distinction is built into an account over quarters, not assembled in the weeks before a data room opens.
Who this is for.
- Owners considering a sale in the next 6 to 12 months who want the account defensible before it is examined.
- Brands whose growth has been bought rather than earned, where the paid-to-organic mix will not survive a diligence read.
- Businesses with subscription or repeat purchase behaviour that is not yet showing up in the economics.
- Founders who want to understand what the account is worth, and why, before a buyer tells them.
What we run.
Contribution margin
Margin rebuilt at the product level so profitability is demonstrable rather than inferred from a blended account average.
Subscription economics
Subscribe & Save and repeat purchase behaviour treated as an asset class of its own, because that is how it is valued.
Paid versus organic mix
How much of the revenue is rented. A buyer discounts revenue that stops the moment advertising stops.
Account health history
Suppressions, compliance events, and policy history — the record that gets pulled and cannot be retroactively cleaned.
Concentration risk
Dependence on a small number of ASINs, queries, or promotional mechanics, surfaced before someone else surfaces it.
Operational legibility
The account documented so it can be handed over — which is itself part of what is being bought.
How we work it.
- 01
Read the account as a buyer would
The same lens applied inside an aggregator portfolio: what persists, what is rented, and what quietly depends on the current operator.
- 02
Separate earned from bought
Paid and organic contribution are pulled apart at the query level, which is where the durability of the revenue actually shows.
- 03
Fix the economics, not the presentation
Where paid spend is reacquiring buyers the brand already has, that spend ends — the improvement has to be real, because diligence checks.
- 04
Build the record early
Six to twelve months of clean, explainable history is worth more at the table than any narrative assembled afterwards.
This is the aggregator-side lens applied from the seller's side of the table. The work is the same work that determines what a portfolio buyer is willing to pay — applied early enough to still change the answer.
What this looked like on an account.
CPG brand, exit preparation
- Subscribe & Save
- +40%
- EBITDA multiple
- 2.4x
- What we found
- Paid spend was reacquiring buyers the brand already had — repeat purchasers were being bought a second and third time.
- What changed
- Ended paid reacquisition of repeat buyers and moved that demand into subscription, where the economics compound instead of repeating.
- Result
- Subscribe & Save up 40% and an EBITDA multiple of 2.4x, by ending paid reacquisition of repeat buyers.
Exit preparation
Straight answers.
How far ahead should this start?
Six to twelve months out is where it has the most effect. The changes that move a multiple — margin structure, subscription economics, paid dependence — need trailing history behind them to be believed.
What do buyers actually diligence?
Contribution margin at the product level, subscription and repeat purchase economics, the split between paid and organic revenue, and account health history. Headline revenue is where the conversation starts, not where it is decided.
Do you get involved in the transaction itself?
No. The work is operational — preparing the account and its economics. Deal advisory, brokerage, and legal sit with your own advisors.
Start with the audit.
A paid diagnostic — written findings, a prioritized 30/60/90 plan, and a clear read on the account before any retainer conversation.