For advisors
You see it before anyone hands you a data room. The founder is the bottleneck. The leadership team is thin. The KPI infrastructure won't survive a buyer's questions. The company is 9 to 24 months from a process, which is exactly the window to get the operational work done, and you don't have a clean place to send them for it. Whether you're an M&A banker, a fractional CFO, or an operating partner at a PE or VC firm, that's the gap I fill.
I do for operations what a sell-side QoE does for earnings.
The operational equivalent of a sell-side QoE
Same delivery model: fixed scope, transparent price, a third-party report ready for the data room. Same purpose: surface the findings that compress a valuation before a buyer prices them in. Different focus: operational, not financial.
Here's where it stops being a QoE. A QoE is a report. It proves the numbers as they stand at a moment in time. Mine can be more than that. Because I find the operational problems and stay to fix them, the independent assessment that goes into the data room can document the company after the cleanup, not just a list of what was wrong. Your client hands the buyer proof the risk was already handled, not a diagnosis the buyer can use as leverage.
You already send founders to QoE shops because the work has to be done. The operational version is just as inevitable, and it doesn't exist yet as a standard product. That's the opening.
A referral that won't blow back on you
I'm an unimpacted third party. I can come in before the founder is ready to tell the team anything is being considered. The work reads, accurately, as a scaling-stage operational diagnostic, because that's what it is. The team gets real operational improvement. The founder gets a private read on what a buyer will find. Nobody is tipped off before the founder wants them to be.
A banker, a QoE firm, or a law firm can't occupy that position. The moment any of them appear, the team knows something is happening. I don't carry that signal.
"Mel functioned essentially as a COO for our organization, a key problem solver for any bottleneck we hit."
VP, AI Products
If you work with founders who are 9 to 24 months from a process, or just growing faster than they can operate, let's talk. Tell me what you do, and I'll send the right people your way too.