Turning fragmentation into growth
How a $420M health services company unlocked $9M in EBITDA in 12 weeks
Explore selected case studies showing how we’ve helped clients unlock commercial impact, from GTM overhauls to post-acquisition integrations and sales acceleration
How a $420M health services company unlocked $9M in EBITDA in 12 weeks
Commercial integration is one of the most powerful value-creation levers in acquisition-driven growth.
In our experience, platform companies built through roll-ups struggle not because of back-office complexity. But because integration breaks down at the point of sale, where customers, products, and sales teams collide."
A $420-million dollar health services company came to us facing exactly this challenge. Two years after the company’s PE owner invested nearly ten figures merging six regional providers into one platform, the company was still not leveraging the platform to reach its full value. The company’s cross-sell revenue was 2% of ARR and it had missed its forecast three quarters in a row.
"We bought growth and ended up with six fiefdoms,” the CEO said at a board meeting on the issue. “If we can't prove one company lives under this logo by mid-year, we're in trouble."
Illustrative: Client data has been anonymized
Over the course of a two-week diagnostic, we found 40% of top accounts were covered by more than one sales representative. The overlap led to price competition between teams and losses in margin. Digging deeper, we discovered the CRM data was messy with duplicate accounts and outdated information.
Despite having 430 SKUs, 80% of revenue came from fewer than 50 products. The additional 380 products added complexity, slowed decision-making, created internal competition, and contributed almost no incremental revenue.
It’s a common oversight across companies. The Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) Identified that 20% to 30% of products generate over 300% of a company’s profits, while the remaining 70% to 80% actually drag profit down, clearly showing how tail SKUs often create hidden costs and complexity.
We implemented single-owner coverage for strategic accounts and redesigned incentives to reward collaboration across business units. Anyone who helped close or expand earned an assist commission. This reduced conflict among sales reps and encouraged the company to work as a team.
Working with product and sales teams, we reduced its product catalog from 430 separate SKUs into 108 product bundles. This reduced the complexity of their catalog and sped up the sales cycle.
We rolled out a live pipeline dashboard to replace the six spreadsheets the company had been using to track progress. We also implemented weekly sales performance reviews where a 20-minute call was held each Friday to examine one win and one loss. These two actions combined enabled faster learning and cross-team collaboration.
By the twelfth week of the project, we set up an automatic alert system in Salesforce to encourage cross-selling. That means, whenever a salesperson closed a deal for Product A, Salesforce notified the appropriate sales rep to then co-sell Product B.
Instead of relying on managers, the CRM system itself was guiding sales behavior automatically. This automation helped ensure consistent cross-selling without tedious managerial intervention.
Within a year, the company saw significant performance gains without hiring new staff or buying new software:
“We bought growth and ended up with six fiefdoms. If we can’t prove one company lives under this logo by mid-year, we’re in trouble.”
For acquisition-built platforms, the most immediate growth lever is often internal. Clarifying sales territory ownership and streamlining the product catalog can quickly improve cash flow, which means faster debt reduction and stronger returns. These changes also increase enterprise value. Investors place a premium on businesses with coordinated commercial execution and predictable revenue streams.
See if complexity is limiting your sales performance
For acquisition-built platforms, the most immediate growth lever is often internal. Clarifying sales territory ownership and streamlining the product catalog can quickly improve cash flow, which means faster debt reduction and stronger returns. These changes also increase enterprise value. Investors place a premium on businesses with coordinated commercial execution and predictable revenue streams.
How a PE-backed SaaS platform increased pipeline by 35% and sliced CAC by 22% with zero new hires
Friday, 7 a.m. on Zoom. The CRO of a PE-backed SaaS platform scrolls through a pipeline report that looks like confetti; hundreds of prospects, no pattern. Outbound is firing blindly, CAC keeps rising, and the board wants answers before next quarter's raise.
"We don't need more leads," she sighs. "We need the right ones."
A one-week diagnostic showed 80% of outbound touches hit accounts that had never bought similar tech. Conversion from cold email to Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) sat at 0.4%. Two sales decks claimed different Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP). Marketing blamed product, product blamed sales.
Win/loss data, usage telemetry, and churn curves isolated two verticals with the highest Lifetime Value (LTV) and lowest friction.
Email copy, call scripts, and demo flows were rewritten into industry-native stories. Objection rubrics mapped to each persona.
A lightweight Revenue Operations (RevOps) layer sequenced high-intent accounts, automated multi-touch cadences, and pushed live funnel metrics to a shared dashboard.
Weekly war rooms replaced finger-pointing with problem-solving. Targets, activity, and conversion lived in one view.
Twelve weeks after the first call, the board meeting ran five minutes long, for the best reason: nobody wanted to stop talking about growth.
If you're scaling a SaaS business, precision is the cheapest growth lever you own. A tight ICP, vertical stories, and a shared dashboard turn marketing dollars into revenue dollars, fast. Investors see focus; customers feel relevance.
Run last quarter's wins through a filter: Does the buyer match your ICP? If not, you're spending to confuse the market. Shrink the bullseye, and watch the numbers climb.
How rapid commercial diligence de-risked a carve-out SaaS bid and secured unanimous IC approval
War-room pizza boxes crowd the conference table as a PE deal team refines slides for a carve-out they're eager to own. The Investment Committee (IC) meets in three weeks. Proof is needed; market headroom, customer stickiness, post-spin risk.
"No time for 'nice to know'," the partner says. "Find the insights that swing the vote, or we walk."
A 24-hour scoping call trimmed the universe to four must-answer questions:
Sixty rapid-fire interviews and a pulse survey captured raw sentiment on product value, switching triggers, and budget outlook.
Bottom-up account mapping, industry datasets, and peer triangulation confirmed 3× growth headroom in under-penetrated segments.
Cohort curves and logo-level churn diagnostics highlighted expansion moments that push NRR past 110%, and where price pressure could bite post-spin.
Isolated four critical dependencies on the parent's IT stack and support functions, each tied to a costed workaround for the 100-day plan.
When the clock is brutal, depth comes from focus, not headcount. Target the four insights that decide the bid, and you'll walk into IC with data, not hope.
Open your deal tracker. For each live target jot down the four questions that truly move the vote. If you can't write them in 60 seconds, the team doesn't share a thesis and no sprint can save you. Align first, sprint second.
How a K-12 ed-tech platform added $3M ARR through strategic pricing optimization with no new logos
After two years of price inertia, a fast-growing K-12 ed-tech platform faced leaking margins. Modules multiplied, discounts ballooned, and no one checked whether districts actually used what they paid for. A competitor scan showed core products priced 15–30% below market and average discounts of 48% (triple the sector norm).
A ten-day diagnostic paired usage telemetry with invoices:
Districts grouped by adoption depth and outcome reliance; three clear tiers replaced spaghetti pricing.
50+ SKUs collapsed into three solution suites plus a concise add-on menu; easy to quote, hard to over-discount.
Peer benchmarks, willingness-to-pay surveys, and renewal win-loss data set list lifts of 10–15% for power users while holding entry price flat.
A 12-month rollout plan defined communications, discount glide paths, and KPI checkpoints; handed to RevOps for execution.
Renewal letters linked increases to student-outcome gains; AEs armed with case studies, not promo codes.
When product evolves but price doesn't, dollars disappear in silence. Benchmark against peers, bundle around outcomes, and turn pricing into your fastest growth lever.
Pull last quarter's renewals. Calculate revenue from unused features. If it tops 15% of ARR, your next raise is hiding in plain sight.
