Celeste Laurier / Chief Strategy Officer
Perspectives from a life in leadership.
The latest essay
Buy-and-hold acquirers win founders with a promise never to sell. I argue that the promise becomes more credible, not less, when the owner publishes the narrow conditions under which it would break it, and that holding on to a business that needs a different owner is not loyalty.
Read the essayBuy-and-hold acquirers win founders with a promise never to sell. I argue that the promise becomes more credible, not less, when the owner publishes the narrow conditions under which it would break it, and that holding on to a business that needs a different owner is not loyalty.
Vertical software businesses earn much of their implementation revenue from converting a customer's old records, and AI-assisted tools are cutting those hours sharply. I argue that sellers should move to fixed, published prices and give customers part of the saving, rather than quote yesterday's hours for today's work.
Acquirers prize public-sector software for its retention. I argue that retention tables understate the real risk, which sits in procurement decisions taken above the customer's head, and that buyers should underwrite the purchasing process rather than the renewal history.