The FNDRS Playbook
The frameworks we use with founders, published in full. How buyers set multiples. Why add-backs fail. What an LOI is really saying. When to roll equity. Read them before you talk to anyone, including us.
How it is organized
Three levers decide the outcome
Twenty-eight chapters, grouped under the three P’s: Positioning, Pre-emption, and Process. Two supporting groups follow what the deal leaves you with and the decision to sell at all. Each chapter is one framework: the idea, the figure, how to read it, and a short video.
Positioning
Which category. Where in the range.
How buyers set the multiple, what moves a business up the range, and which buyers pay for what you have.
9 chaptersP2Pre-emption
Find it first. Frame it first.
Building the earnings number a buyer will accept, and finding the problems before a buyer does.
3 chaptersP3Process
Competition. Timing. Leverage.
Where leverage peaks, how competition is built, and what to do when a buyer calls first.
3 chaptersPremium exits are not negotiated. They are prepared.
The chapters
Every framework, in the order we use them
Start with the frame, then read the group that matches where you are. Every chapter stands on its own and has its own address, so it can be shared.
Supporting group · 3 chapters
The frame
Start here. The three levers, the imbalance every founder sells into, and how to check whose side an advisor is on.
Lever · 9 chapters
Positioning
Which category. Where in the range. How buyers set the multiple, what moves a business up the range, and which buyers pay for what you have.
Lever · 3 chapters
Pre-emption
Find it first. Frame it first. Building the earnings number a buyer will accept, and finding the problems before a buyer does.
Lever · 3 chapters
Process
Competition. Timing. Leverage. Where leverage peaks, how competition is built, and what to do when a buyer calls first.
Supporting group · 6 chapters
Structure
What you keep. The distance between the headline price and the money in your account, and how to size every layer of it.
Supporting group · 4 chapters
Decision
Sell, build, or hold. The numbers and the questions that decide whether to sell now, build first, or wait.
Timing
The time to start the conversation is now
How far out you feel is not the signal. Buyers read the trailing numbers, so time before a sale is room to move them, not a waiting room. A founder with a number in mind may reach it in one sale or in two: a majority stake now, with equity rolled into the buyer’s company for a second sale later. The sale itself, once you sign, runs in four phases.
Read the exit timing windowFour phases, for a company that is ready. The conversation can start any time before.
Element by element
Hear the elements explained
FNDRS Faculty explain the FNDRS Elements one at a time: what it is, what it means to a buyer, and where an owner starts. Choose a tile to watch it here: 18 of the 36 have a session of their own so far, and the rest play their part of their family's film.
Troy HoffmanTime
See where your business sits
The Go-To-Market Analysis (GTMA) places your business on these frameworks with your own numbers, before a buyer does.