Services
Strategic Exit Advisory
Exit readiness and financial clean‑up
Straiteis starts by making your books and records “buyer‑ready,” so investors, lenders, and acquirers see a clean, credible financial picture. This includes enhancing accounting and financial reporting, tightening working capital visibility, and building the Budget vs. Actual and KPI views that sophisticated buyers expect.
Story, positioning, and materials
Once the numbers are right, Straiteis develops the narrative that maximizes value. The team builds a professional Confidential Information Memorandum / Offering Memorandum and an investor‑grade pitch deck that clearly articulate your growth story, strategic fit, unit economics, and operational levers in a language acquirers and capital providers understand.
Process leadership through closing
Straiteis does not stop at preparation. The firm supports you through the full exit journey — from pre‑market strategy and buyer/investor targeting, through management presentations, Q&A and due diligence support, to negotiating key financial and operational terms and coordinating workstreams with your legal and tax advisors until the transaction closes.
When There’s No Successor: Turning a Lifetime of Work into a Successful Sale
For many owners, an exit is the single most important inflection point in the life of the business.
As founders reach a certain stage of growth, many realize they have built a valuable company but not a clear succession plan, forcing a pivotal decision about whether to keep leading or to crystallize value through a sale.
Without a next generation of leaders ready—family, partners, or key managers—they often conclude that selling to a strategic or financial buyer is the most reliable way to protect the business, their employees, and their own retirement or wealth goals.
In that moment, the question shifts from “How do I keep this going?” to “How do I prepare the company, my financials, and myself so a sale on my terms becomes possible?
Straiteis helps you turn years of work into a well‑orchestrated transaction by getting your house in order, telling a compelling value story, and guiding you all the way to a successful closing.
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Deep transaction experience
Strategic Exit Advisory at Straiteis is led by John Mortenson, a CPA by training and seasoned C‑suite executive who has completed over 30 M&A transactions and raised more than $500M in asset‑based lending, mezzanine debt, and equity financings over his career. This combination of operational leadership and deal experience allows Straiteis to anticipate buyer concerns, structure terms that protect value, and keep transactions moving to a successful close.
Fractional deal team, full‑time impact
Because Straiteis operates as a fractional C‑Suite, you gain the experience of a seasoned CFO/COO/CEO‑level deal team — capital structure, M&A, operational restructuring, and KPI design — without committing to permanent overhead. This allows you to keep running the business while Straiteis keeps the exit process on track, aligned with your valuation, timing, and legacy goals. landscapes.
Strategic Planning and KPI Setting
Strategic planning goes beyond just creating a Mission and Vision statement; it involves envisioning the organization's future and developing clear, actionable plans for the next 3-5 years.
Our Strategic Planning and Goal Setting service helps you establish achievable, measurable goals aligned with your objectives, utilizing the OKR methodology. Objectives are qualitative and action-oriented, while Key Results are specific, measurable outcomes that track progress.
We recommend involving your entire management team to assess departmental strengths and weaknesses, forming a solid foundation for strategic priorities. This includes conducting a departmental SWOT analysis to guide goal setting. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are then developed to measure success and compare performance against benchmarks. Budgeting and resource allocation are critical aspects of executing the strategy, along with initiatives and action plans that require regular monitoring and adjustments to ensure alignment with the organization's vision.
Financial Performance Review
Adapting quickly to changing circumstances is crucial in today's dynamic business environment. Regular financial reviews ensure the business remains agile and responsive to market fluctuations, economic shifts, and industry trends.
We’ll help you create a process of regular review of monthly financial statements, budget to actual comparisons, and key performance indicators (KPIs). While this can be a 1:1 process, private companies must include the management team to maintain financial health and drive business success. This practice allows leaders to comprehensively understand the organization's financial position, identify trends, and make informed decisions. By analyzing budget versus actual reports, management can quickly identify revenue shortfalls and cost overruns, enabling them to react promptly and stay on course.
KPIs are critical in ensuring that every individual within the organization is aligned with the company's goals and objectives. By tracking financial KPIs, management can assess profitability, liquidity, solvency, efficiency, and valuation, enabling them to steer the company effectively and identify any pressing issues without getting mired in detail.
Taking corrective action based on these reviews is equally important. When variances or underperformance are identified, management can investigate the root causes and implement necessary adjustments to bring the project or department back on track. This proactive approach allows continuous improvement, better resource allocation, and enhanced decision-making.
Business Process Reengineering
Business process review is a critical management practice that systematically examines and analyzes an organization's various processes. By utilizing tools such as flowcharts, management teams can understand how work flows through each department and across the entire organization. This holistic approach allows leaders to visualize the interconnectedness of different departments and identify areas for improvement, efficiency gains, and potential bottlenecks.
When management teams engage in business process reviews, they create a visual representation of workflows, which helps to identify redundancies, inefficiencies, and gaps in current processes. Management can foster a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility by examining how processes in one department affect those upstream and downstream. This interdepartmental perspective helps break down silos and encourages teams to work together towards common goals. It also identifies potential ripple effects that changes in one area might have on others, enabling more informed decision-making and risk management.
Budgeting and resource allocation
We specialize in budgeting and forecasting for vital financial support to companies, particularly startups, by offering expert guidance in annual budgeting, financial forecasting, and resource allocation.
By customizing solutions and working closely with the leadership team, we ensure that the budget planning and management process is optimized for the best outcomes
