# Buying and Fixing Most acquisitions destroy value. Most turnarounds fail. The companies that succeed at these repeatedly have built something systematic — not just deal skill or operational heroics, but a machine that compounds through acquisition. This section covers both sides: the assessment discipline that separates good deals from bad, and the operational playbook for the first hundred days and beyond. These are domains where all the other sections converge — you need to read the numbers, set direction, run operations, make decisions, and lead people, often under time pressure and incomplete information. --- ## Where to start **[[Notes/The First Hundred Days|The First Hundred Days]]** — The window when everything is possible and nothing is stable. What to focus on immediately post-close. **[[Notes/Harvest to Growth|Harvest to Growth]]** — The integrated playbook for rebuilding a growth engine in a business that's been starved of investment. --- ## Acquisitions How to assess and integrate businesses that compound. **[[Notes/The First Hundred Days|The First Hundred Days]]** — Post-close priorities: what to learn, what to protect, what to change. The window for establishing trust and tempo. **[[Notes/Synergies That Deliver|Synergies That Deliver]]** — Most synergy cases are fantasies. What actually drives value, and how to tell the difference. **[[Notes/Organic vs Acquired Growth|Organic vs Acquired Growth]]** — Different growth sources have different economics. How to think about the mix. --- ## Turnarounds How to rebuild a business that's underperforming. **[[Notes/Harvest to Growth|Harvest to Growth]]** — The complete playbook: find the constraint, protect what works, rebuild the engine. The synthesis of everything else applied to a struggling business. **[[Notes/Fresh Eyes|Fresh Eyes]]** — The advantage of walking in without baggage. What new people see that old hands miss, and how to preserve that perspective. **[[Notes/The Identity Constraint|The Identity Constraint]]** — The binding constraint in most turnarounds isn't operational — it's that the team doesn't believe change is possible. How to shift identity. --- ## Due diligence The metrics that matter when assessing a target. This draws heavily from [[Reading the Business|Reading the Business]]. **[[Notes/Unit Economics|Unit Economics]]** — Does adding customers create value or consume it? The foundation of whether a business model works. **[[Notes/Recurring Revenue|Recurring Revenue]]** — How hard you have to run just to stand still. The baseline that determines everything. **[[Notes/Gross vs Net Retention|Gross vs Net Retention]]** — The difference between a leaky bucket and a growing one. Churn versus expansion from existing customers. **[[Notes/Limits to Growth|Limits to Growth]]** — Every recurring revenue business has a ceiling. Where is it? **[[Notes/FCF Conversion|FCF Conversion]]** — Do profits become cash? Earnings are accounting. Cash is real. **[[Notes/EBITDA in Software|EBITDA in Software]]** — What the headline numbers hide in software businesses. Why EBITDA needs adjustment. --- ## Case studies **[[Serial Acquirers|Acquirers]]** — 24 studies of companies that compound through M&A. How Danaher, Constellation, Heico, AMETEK, and others build systematic acquisition machines. --- ## Suggested reading order If you're working through this section systematically: **For acquisitions:** 1. [[Notes/The First Hundred Days|The First Hundred Days]] — immediate priorities 2. [[Notes/Synergies That Deliver|Synergies That Deliver]] — what actually drives value 3. [[Notes/Organic vs Acquired Growth|Organic vs Acquired Growth]] — growth source economics 4. Due diligence sequence: [[Notes/Unit Economics|Unit Economics]] → [[Notes/Recurring Revenue|Recurring Revenue]] → [[Notes/Gross vs Net Retention|Gross vs Net Retention]] → [[Notes/FCF Conversion|FCF Conversion]] **For turnarounds:** 1. [[Notes/Harvest to Growth|Harvest to Growth]] — the integrated playbook 2. [[Notes/Fresh Eyes|Fresh Eyes]] — preserving outsider perspective 3. [[Notes/The Identity Constraint|The Identity Constraint]] — shifting team beliefs 4. [[Notes/Hidden Bottleneck|Hidden Bottleneck]] — finding the real constraint 5. [[Notes/Standards, Tempo, Focus|Standards, Tempo, Focus]] — rebuilding operational discipline --- ## Connects to **[[Reading the Business|Reading the Business]]** — Due diligence is applied business reading. The metrics form the backbone of acquisition assessment. **[[Running the Machine|Running the Machine]]** — Integration and turnaround are operational challenges. Flow and constraints determine success. **[[Leading People|Leading People]]** — Turnarounds are fundamentally about people. The identity constraint is often the binding constraint in a struggling business. **[[Making Decisions|Making Decisions]]** — Deal decisions are high-stakes predictions. The learning loop matters most when the stakes are highest. --- *[[Home|← Home]]*