In this episode, I’m joined by John Seiffer - the person investors, company buyers and operators call when growth starts getting expensive, messy, or fragile. John has spent decades across manufacturing, software, restaurants, chemicals, and professional services, and he sees the same pattern over and over: founders are great at the product and the sale… but the company can’t scale until the structure scales.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Deals are great, but the money is made in operations
02:15 The real business model: CAC, LTV, gross margin
07:06 What a “healthy company” looks like + why founders get stuck on structure
10:10 Sponsor: CapitalPad (back the next generation of business buyers)
11:09 The expectation gap: hiring for outputs + breaking sales into subdivisions
15:48 Scaling myth: reinvesting blindly (why ROIC and attribution matter)
20:22 “Exit without selling”: free your time, keep ownership benefits, serve your life
24:34 Sponsor: SpaceBar Studios ($0 newsletter build, limited spots)
33:13 Delegation done right: specify the output + schedule follow-ups (no surprises)
42:33 John’s 1-week playbook: “systems inventory” + 2 questions that reveal misalignment

Sponsors:
https://capitalpad.com/ - A deal-by-deal private equity investing platform
https://www.spacebarstudios.co/inquire

Follow Mikk/PrivateEquityGuy on Twitter: ⁠⁠https://x.com/PrivatEquityGuy

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

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