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Avoiding Private Equity Pitfalls with Mark Gartner of RLH Equity Partners

·23 min·1 clip

Mark Gartner says RLH looks for 15% to 20%+ organic growth and strong culture in professional services companies.

Mark Gartner joins Jake for a practical talk about the first conversation founders have with private equity. The setup is simple: if a founder takes an introductory call with a fund, the job is to ask the right questions early and see whether the group is actually a fit. Mark starts with the capital question. He explains that some people are independent sponsors or search funds, which can be legitimate, but they are not the same as a fund that already has the money ready. That means one more step. The founder may be talking to the face of the deal while someone else still has to say yes behind the scenes. Jake keeps bringing that back to the reality of the conversation. He frames it like a sales process where the person in front of you is not quite the final decision maker, so the path to yes has one more layer than it first looks like. The next filter is transaction history. Mark says founders should ask how many professional services deals the firm has actually completed, because specialists and generalists will show themselves quickly through the questions they ask. Fluency shows up fast. If a firm understands the business model, it usually sounds like it does. If it does not, the gaps are easy to hear. Mark encourages listeners to look for case studies. One deal helps. A long run of similar deals matters more, especially when a founder wants to know how a firm has helped create value after investing. The conversation keeps coming back to fit, which makes the episode feel less like theory and more like a field guide for owners who do not want to waste a call on the wrong counterpart. It closes with the show's sign-off and a reminder that listeners can find more information at the website. The result is a clear, conversational guide to separating serious capital from a process that is not the right fit.

As heard by us

A founder-focused guide for checking whether a private equity fund is the right fit.

Mark Gartner, Managing Director at RLH Equity Partners, centers the conversation on a founder who has agreed to an introductory call with a private equity fund and wants five questions to test whether the fit is real.

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Why you'd press play

Use this before your first private equity intro call.

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