A $30M Exit on $3M Revenue

The Company

A Houston-area scaffold management firm serving major petrochemical plant construction projects. Their work sat at a critical chokepoint in the construction supply chain: when scaffolding isn’t staged correctly, electricians can’t hang their work, and a delayed plant costs operators millions of dollars per day.

The business ran on $3M in annual revenue, a tight field team, and proprietary scheduling software they had built themselves. The software wasn’t incidental — it was what separated them from a commodity subcontractor.

The Challenge

The owners were ready to exit. The problem wasn’t finding interest — their own customers were the most logical buyers, and inbound offers reflected it. Strategic buyers were pricing the company as a service vendor, not as a platform, leaving significant value on the table.

There was also a structural complexity in the valuation: the company was neither a pure services firm nor a pure software company. It managed the work and owned the software that made the management possible. Standard multiples didn’t fit cleanly, and that ambiguity was suppressing every offer that came in.

Our Approach

• Rebuilt the valuation story to treat the proprietary software as a separate value layer — a competitive moat that any acquirer would inherit, not just an internal tool
• Cleaned up the financials and organized documentation for institutional scrutiny; built a structured data room that made due diligence straightforward for buyers
• Built the sale deck and ran initial buyer presentations, framing the business around the cost of delay to plant operators and the irreplaceability of the scheduling platform
• Managed a uniquely delicate negotiation dynamic: the most likely buyers were also the company’s active customers — every conversation had to advance the deal price without damaging the operational relationship

The Outcome

The company sold for $30M — a 10x revenue multiple on a $3M business. No customer relationships were disrupted during the process. The sale closed 18 months from engagement.