News & Insights
Notes From The Field
Firm announcements, essays on the lower middle market, and perspectives on the businesses that make the country run.
News
Firm Announcements
Insights
Essays & Perspectives
Insights
Cell Division as a Model for Role Design & Cost Reduction in a Growing Organization
Biology solved the problem of scaling early: replicate what works, divide when necessary, and let specialization emerge over time. Organizations that borrow the model grow faster, cheaper, and with fewer structural failures.
Insights
A Unified Mental Model for Daily CEO Action
A working framework for how a CEO should spend their time: identify the binding constraint, remove it, and immediately identify the next one. Everything else is either tooling or distraction.
Investing
What Drives Valuation Multiples in the LMM Beyond EBITDA
EBITDA is the starting line, not the finish. A look at the qualitative factors that actually move multiples in the lower middle market.
Operations
How to Manage M&A Due Diligence Without Disrupting Daily Operations
The due diligence process can consume a company if you let it. A practical guide to managing information requests, protecting your team, and staying focused on the business while a deal moves forward.
Sellers
The Seller-First Deal Process
Most deal processes are designed around the buyer's calendar. A better way starts with a simple question: what does the seller actually need?
Sellers
A Practical Guide to Preserving Growth and Legacy During a Business Sale
Most founders care deeply about what happens to their business after they sell. Here is how to structure a process that protects both the legacy you've built and the growth you've set in motion.
Investing
Why Investors Choose Lower Middle Market Companies
The lower middle market offers a combination of valuation, operational upside, and ownership structure that institutional investors find increasingly difficult to replicate in larger market segments.
Operations
What Are Business Inflection Points and How to Manage Them
Every business encounters moments where the next phase of growth requires a fundamentally different approach than what got it here. Recognizing and navigating those moments is one of the most important skills in business.
Investing
Rethinking Private Equity: The Case for Forever Assets
The traditional private equity model — acquire, improve, exit — may be the wrong framework for the lower middle market. A case for patient capital and long-term ownership.
Operations
The Uncle Gordon Rule: A Mental Model for Growth and Operational Spend
A simple heuristic for thinking about when to invest in growth and when to hold back — named after a fictional but familiar figure every business owner has met.
Firm
The Corporate Philosophy at Thesis Capital
What we believe about business, ownership, and the responsibility that comes with holding a company for the long term.
Operations
What Growth Demands: An Essay to a Management Team in Turmoil
Growth is not just an opportunity — it is a demand. It requires things from organizations and the people in them that comfort and stability do not. A reflection on what it actually takes.
Investing
The Overlooked Promise of Capitalism and the American Dream
A reflection on what capitalism was supposed to offer and why the lower middle market may be one of the last places where that promise is still being kept.
Investing
Inflation, It's Not Just for Balloons
A plain-language look at what inflation actually is, why it matters differently for business owners and investors, and how to think about it in your portfolio and operations.
Investing
Perfect Opportunity Cost and the Ideal Conditions to Buy or Sell an Asset
Opportunity cost is one of the most important and most misunderstood concepts in investing. Here is how to think about it properly — and how to use it to make better buy and sell decisions.
Investing
How to Value a Business vs The S&P 500
A framework for comparing a private business investment against a passive index position — and the factors that should tilt the decision one way or the other.
Investing
Comparing Businesses Against Each Other
How to build a consistent framework for comparing businesses with different financial profiles, growth rates, and risk characteristics.
Investing
Risk & Probability in Investment Decision Making
Most investors think about risk incorrectly. A framework for using probability-weighted thinking to make better investment decisions.
Operations
The Correct Way To Lay People Off
Layoffs are one of the hardest decisions a leader makes. How to handle them with dignity, clarity, and long-term organizational health in mind.
Operations
Characteristics of The Best Managers
What distinguishes great managers from good ones — drawn from observation across dozens of portfolio companies and management teams.
Investing
How To Be A Great Investor
A synthesis of what distinguishes great investors from good ones — drawn from decades of studying the best practitioners in the field.
Investing
Why EBITDA is a Flawed Measure of Earnings
EBITDA is the default language of private equity. It is also a deeply imperfect measure of economic earnings. Here is why — and what to use instead.
Operations
The Best Incentive Plan for Managers
How to design a management incentive plan that actually aligns behavior with long-term value creation — without creating perverse incentives.
Investing
Reflections on the Nature and Characteristics of Business Monopoly
What monopoly actually means in a business context, why it matters for investors, and how to identify durable competitive positions.
Investing
Who is Walter J. Schloss?
A profile of one of the most successful — and least celebrated — investors in history, and the lessons his career offers for practitioners today.
Investing
Economic Franchises and the Key Characteristics of a Great Business
What Warren Buffett means by an 'economic franchise' — and how to identify businesses with the characteristics that produce durable, compounding returns.
Investing
What is Cost of Capital — Properly Considered
Cost of capital is one of the most important and most misunderstood concepts in finance. A clear-headed treatment of what it means and how to use it.
Operations
What Business Owners Should Do With Their Business's Earnings
The capital allocation decision — what to do with the cash a business generates — is one of the most important and least discussed in the lower middle market.
Investing
Paradox of Investment Skill
As investors become more skilled, the edge from skill alone diminishes. A look at the paradox of skill in investing and what it means for where to compete.
Investing
Illiquidity Premiums and Investor Psychology
Illiquidity is not just a risk — it is a source of return for investors who can tolerate it. How to think about illiquidity premiums and when they are worth capturing.
Operations
How Management Should Think About Investment Risk
Risk looks different from inside a business than it does from outside. A framework for how operators and managers should evaluate and manage investment risk.
Operations
Vision Statements and Visionary Management
Most vision statements are forgettable. What separates the ones that actually shape behavior from the ones that sit on a wall and collect dust.
Operations
Why Missions Matter
A clear mission is not a marketing exercise. It is an operational tool that shapes hiring, prioritization, and culture in ways that compound over time.
Operations
Defining Your Company's Values
Values are only useful if they are specific, observable, and lived. A practical guide to defining values that actually shape how a company operates.
Operations
Frameworks For Marketing Your Business Are More Important Than Day One Process
Build a framework first, then market your business. Why the structure of your marketing approach matters more than any individual tactic.
Investing
Everything You Need to Know About Dollar-Cost Averaging
Why and how long to dollar-cost average your investable funds — a complete guide to one of the most reliable and misunderstood investment strategies.
Investing
How To Invest In A Low-Interest Rate Environment
In markets and in companies, low interest rates change the math. How to adjust your investment approach when the cost of capital is at historical lows.
Investing
Reflections on the Nature and Characteristics of Superior Businesses
What makes a business superior — not in the moment, but durably, over time. A synthesis of the characteristics that predict long-term business quality.
Investing
Optimizing Cash Reserves and Overlooked Risks in Cash Reserving
Most businesses and investors hold too much or too little cash. The overlooked risks of both extremes and how to find the right balance.
Investing
The Definitive List of Book Recommendations from Warren Buffett
A curated compilation of every book Warren Buffett has recommended across his letters, interviews, and public appearances — with notes on why each matters.
Investing
When to Buy Bonds Over Stocks
The decision between bonds and equities is not just a risk tolerance question. A framework for thinking about when fixed income makes more sense than equity.
Investing
How to Properly Evaluate Business Earnings
Reported earnings are a starting point, not a conclusion. How to work through the adjustments, one-time items, and accounting choices that separate economic earnings from reported ones.
Investing
Reflection on the Sources of American Wealth
Where American wealth actually comes from — a historical and analytical look at the industries, institutions, and behaviors that drive prosperity.
Investing
Understanding Return on Invested Capital
Return on invested capital is the single most important metric for understanding business quality. A complete guide to calculating, interpreting, and using ROIC.