I've Seen Where the Bodies Are Buried. Happy to Share.

Hey all. Mike Christian, based in Marlow, Buckinghamshire.

I buy, build, and fix SME businesses. Currently active through Prospera Capital Partners, a buy-and-build vehicle targeting boring, cash-generative SMEs: predominantly property services (soft & hard FM) and letting agencies, though we look at anything with recurring revenue, clean accounts, and a motivated owner.

I'm also a Fractional Fixer (https://fractionalfixer.vip/) through my advisory, nReal. When I'm not buying businesses, I'm usually inside someone else's, stabilising the numbers before they go to market or fall over. That gives me a slightly different lens on deals. I've seen the inside of enough founder-led businesses to know where the bodies are usually buried.

Happy to contribute properly here: share what I've learned, call things out when I see bad practice, and be useful rather than just take up space.

I've put two free resources in the Gumroad library that might be useful to people in this room:

1) The Fixer Cheat Sheet: five reasons founder-led businesses hit a ceiling, and what each one actually means. Useful before you buy and useful after. nrealco.gumroad.com/l/gelikk

2) The Cash Flow Stabilisation Blueprint: an HTML dashboard with seven levers in sequence to break the boom-bust cash cycle in any owner-managed business. Relevant from day one of any acquisition. nrealco.gumroad.com/l/ofcdyu

Both free. No catch.

Looking forward to being in the room.

Mike

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I've Seen Where the Bodies Are Buried. Happy to Share.