We See 4,800 Deals A Year - Here's Why Most Fail
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Guest Introduction
Tim Templeton is a business development advisor at TriVest Partners, a Miami-based private equity firm celebrating 45 years of partnering with family and founder-owned businesses in the lower middle market. Tim spent 20 years building his professional network through politics and business development in construction before joining TriVest full time. He now leads origination efforts, connecting founders with TriVest's four fund strategies, and spends most of his time educating founders and intermediaries on what a real private equity partnership actually looks like.
Summary
In this episode of the Power Exit Podcast, John Marsh sits down with Tim Templeton of TriVest Partners to pull back the curtain on how a firm reviewing 4,800 deals a year decides who makes the cut, what the due diligence process really looks like from the buyer's side, and why the myths surrounding private equity are costing founders real money and real opportunity.
Tim walks through the full deal funnel, from first look to close, explains what TriVest is looking for and what sends deals to the reject pile, and shares why the headline price is only part of what founders should be evaluating when a PE offer is on the table. He also makes the case that time kills deals, representation matters, and the second bite of the apple is often worth more than the first check.
You'll Learn
- Understand the real deal funnel, because TriVest moves from 4,800 annual deal looks to roughly 60 closings, and that ratio tells you everything about how selective serious buyers actually are.
- Know what gets a yes, because TriVest looks first at growth trajectory and scalability, and a business not moving up and to the right rarely gets a second look.
- Recognize the red flags that kill deals, including lumpy financials, customer concentration that runs deeper than it appears on the surface, vendor dependency, and lack of differentiation.
- Fix the owner-dependency problem before going to market, because a founder who is the entire business is one of the biggest red flags a buyer sees, and eliminating yourself from the org chart is a feature, not a weakness.
- Understand rolled equity and the second bite, because rolling equity is not just a financial move but an emotional bridge for founders who are not ready to fully walk away, and TriVest's Path of 3X target makes that second check worth the wait.
- Work with an intermediary, because representation keeps founders emotionally grounded during diligence, manages document flow, and keeps time from killing the deal.
- Recalibrate valuation expectations, because every founder thinks their business is worth more than it is, and the headline number is only part of the picture in any real PE offer.
- Know what is hot right now, including recurring revenue, subscription-based services, fragmented industries ripe for consolidation, and add-on acquisitions as the defining themes in PE deal flow.
- Avoid the worst advice founders get, which is using what a friend claims he sold his business for as a benchmark, because that number should be discounted by at least 30 to 50 percent to find the real one.
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