Ian Smith | The Portfolio Partnership

Operator Tips to Align Your Team

by Ian Smith | Mar 19, 2024 | Scaling

You may have heard of the term zero-based budgeting. The basic thesis is to look at your business through the eyes of a start-up. If you were starting today from scratch, what would you spend money on? Costs creep on over time and before you know it your business is...

Valuation Vs Saleability

by Ian Smith | Mar 5, 2024 | Execution Tips, Exiting your business, Operational Tips, Scaling

Valuation As the owner of a private company you can commission a valuation of your business at any time. For example a 409A valuation is an independent appraisal of the fair market value (FMV) of a private company’s common stock on the date of issuance. This valuation...

How to Justify CAPEX using my ROI Calculator

by Ian Smith | Mar 1, 2024 | ROIs

We all need to justify spending money. Whether it’s $1000 or $1m. It doesn’t matter whether the expenditure is in the budget or not in the budget. Trust me, what drives the spending of money is the efficiency of capital. The Return on Investment. The ROI...

That’s Not The Right Question

by Ian Smith | Jan 31, 2024 | Execution Tips, Leadership, Operational Alignment, Operational Blueprints, Scaling

One of the best dialogues in the latest season of True Detective is when Jodie Foster, as Police Chief Liz Danvers says, “you’re asking the wrong question”! As the owner and CEO of your growing business, you will have many challenges in front of you. To solve these...

Entrepreneurship and the Exit Myth

by Ian Smith | Jan 24, 2024 | Entrepreneurship, Exiting your business, Operational Alignment

Most entrepreneurs start a business to create something valuable whether they bootstrap it from Day 1 or launch through seed capital and/or venture capital. The type of funding will influence the exit process. External funders will expect an exit. If the business is...