That PE Firm Just Shut the Doors: Why Your "Growth Strategy" Might Be Killing What Actually Makes You Money

Welcome, I'm gonna start this the way I started my conversation with Kevin Juza: A 70-year-old window company in Minnesota just... poof... vanished.

PE firm bought it. Three years later? Doors closed. Gone. Some poor bastard had just dropped $50K on a window repair contract and woke up to absolutely nothing. No windows. No company. No accountability.

And somewhere, a bunch of guys in Patagonia vests are patting themselves on the back for "optimizing the capital structure."

Here's the Thing Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud

Your business doesn't run on spreadsheets. It runs on the fact that Susan in accounting has been working with Bob at your biggest client for seven years and they actually like each other. It runs on the fact that your founder shows up at the local soccer games and sponsors jerseys. It runs on someone giving a shaet.

Kevin dropped this truth bomb on me: 70% of business succession plans fail. Not because of bad financials. Not because of market conditions. Because somewhere between the handoff, the human connection gets obliterated.

You know what PE firms sponsor in their local communities? I'll wait.

(Spoiler: Kevin doesn't know any either.)

The $1M Company That Never Broke $1M... Until They Started Treating Humans Like Humans

Kevin told me about this family business. Been around 30 years. Good money. Generational wealth. Never cracked a million in revenue.

The problem? The son had been working there for 15 years and they were paying him peanuts. Like "do you even want me here?" levels of peanuts.

The kid wanted to start a family but couldn't afford to exist on what they were paying him. So he was one foot out the door, and the parents were sitting around going "gee, I wonder who's gonna take over when we retire? Should we just close up shop?"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Kevin basically came in and said: "Hey, maybe pay your successor like he's actually valuable?" They elevated the son. Gave him real authority. Let him own the people and processes while the parents focused on what they actually loved.

Two and a half years later? They're breaking $1M for the first time in 30 years. 45% revenue growth.

The dad changed his will to leave the business to the son but hadn't told him yet because—and I cannot make this up—family businesses are apparently allergic to actually communicating.

Your Leadership Transitions Are Probably Destroying Trust (And You Don't Even Know It)

Here's what kills me about scaling companies: You'll swap out a CFO like you're hot-swapping a hard drive.

"Oh by the way, new CFO starts Monday. Cool? Cool."

And then you wonder why your team is acting weird and your key accounts are suddenly "exploring other options."

You just vaporized years of relationship equity. That fractional exec who got you from $1M to $5M? They built trust with your stakeholders. They built rapport with your team. And you just... deleted it. No transition. No knowledge transfer. No "hey, let me introduce you to the person who's going to be your new point of contact."

Kevin nailed it: It's not a two-month transition. It's a three-year process.

Because you're not just passing over tasks and responsibilities. You're passing over trust. You're elevating someone to authority and respect in your community. And that doesn't happen in a Slack announcement.

The AI Thing Everyone's Pretending Isn't Happening

Kevin and I got into this too. Everyone's rushing to replace people with AI. Cut costs! Optimize! Efficiency!

Cool cool cool. But who's serving your customers when the AI can't handle the nuance? Who's building those internal relationships? Who's making your clients actually feel seen?

Oh right, you're gonna have to hire back new people. Congrats on cleaning your employee stack only to realize you still need humans to do human things.

Tasks can be programmed. Relationships cannot.

The Economy Is Held Together By The Top 20% Buying Lavish Shaet

Here's a fun stat Kevin dropped: Right now, our economy looks "okay" because the top 20% are finally spending on lavish gifts, travel, and stocks.

The bottom 80%? They're hoarding cash, living on credit cards, and scared shaetless.

That's not sustainable. That's a Jenga tower with the bottom 80% of blocks missing.

And when it breaks—and it will break—the companies that survive will be the ones who remembered that businesses are built on relationships with people, not algorithms and "efficiency gains."

Small Businesses Are About to Transfer Trillions (And Most Will Screw It Up)

Multiple trillions of dollars in family businesses are transitioning over the next 5-10 years as boomers retire.

Four options:

1. Sell to a competitor

2. Pass it to family

3. Sell to a PE firm who'll gut it

4. Just close the doors and walk away

Option 4 happens way more than it should because nobody planned the succession. Nobody had the uncomfortable conversations. Nobody elevated the next generation properly.

And entire communities lose something they've relied on for decades.

What Actually Works (If You Care About Not Destroying Everything)

Start the conversation now. Not in two years when you're exhausted. Now.

If you're bringing in new leadership—fractional or permanent—build in a real transition period. Let the outgoing person introduce the new person to key stakeholders. Let trust transfer properly.

Pay your succession plan like they matter. If you want someone to take over your company, maybe don't treat them like an intern for 15 years.

Community matters. Those relationships with customers, employees, and stakeholders? That's not "soft" stuff. That's literally what keeps your business alive.

And for the love of everything, have the hard conversations. Talk about succession. Talk about who's taking over. Talk about what happens next. Because avoiding it doesn't make it go away—it just makes the outcome way worse.

The Bottom Line

B2B, B2C... it's all bullshaet. It's H2H. Human to human.

Your competitors are out there replacing relationships with "efficiency." They're optimizing themselves right out of trust. They're PE-ing themselves into oblivion.

You? You have the chance to be the company that actually gives a damn. That builds real relationships. That treats succession like the multi-year human process it actually is.

Because 20 years from now, people won't remember your quarterly earnings. They'll remember whether you showed up. Whether you cared. Whether you made them feel like more than a line item.

Want to hear the full conversation with Kevin Juza? Watch the episode. We go deep on succession planning, why PE firms are the business equivalent of a dumpster fire, and how to actually build something that lasts beyond your exit strategy.

P.S. If you're a founder sitting on a successful business wondering "what's next" and you haven't started planning your succession, you're not building a legacy—you're building a really expensive problem for your family to solve after you're gone. Start the damn conversation. Kevin's contact info is in the show notes if you need someone to facilitate it without the awkward family dinner vibes.

Karl Pontau hosts The Human Connection Podcast, where we talk about the stuff that actually matters in business: the humans running it. Because whether you're B2B or B2C, it's really H2H, human to human. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we probably say something that'll make your HR department uncomfortable.