You're overpaying. You just stopped noticing

TL;DR: New owners almost always find 8 to 15 percent in recoverable margin within 90 days of closing, simply by auditing vendor contracts and relationships the founder stopped questioning. You don't have to wait for a buyer to capture that value. You can ask the same questions now.

What buyers find in the first 90 days that you stopped looking for years ago.

There's a pattern in almost every acquisition I've been part of or observed up close. Within the first 90 days of closing, the new owner audits every vendor contract, renegotiates the ones that are above market, and replaces the ones that were kept out of convenience.

They're not doing this because they're aggressive. They're doing it because they don't have the emotional history that made those relationships feel untouchable.

The Markup On Comfort Is Real

It shows up in SaaS subscriptions nobody re-evaluated, service contracts that auto-renewed for years, and retainers that made sense at one revenue level but haven't been revisited since. It shows up in that fulfillment partner you chose when you were shipping 200 units a month who's still handling logistics at 5,000. It shows up in the agency that was a lifeline in year two and has been on autopilot ever since.

None of these are bad relationships, necessarily. They're just unexamined ones. And in a business, unexamined is expensive.

A buyer walks in and finds 8 to 15 percent in recoverable margin just by asking a question the founder stopped asking a long time ago: "Is this still the best use of this dollar?"

Its Not A Cost Cutting Exercise

What makes this interesting is that it's not a cost-cutting exercise. It's a clarity exercise. The founder who pressure-tests their vendor stack and partnership terms isn't being cheap. They're demonstrating to themselves, and to any future buyer, that every dollar in the business is allocated intentionally. That's a signal of operational maturity, and it's one of the quieter things that moves a multiple.

You don't need to wait for a buyer to ask that question. You can ask it yourself, this quarter. Not out of paranoia. Out of ownership.

— Roland

P.S. A few weeks back, I mentioned we were moving to Off the Org Chart as our new home. That's finally happening this week. You'll see the first email from that brand hitting your inbox this Friday. Same voice. Same perspective. Just a name that fits better.

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