Catalytic Leadership

Why Most Founders Delay a Private Equity Exit by 5 Years

Alexis Sikorsky · January 20, 2026

Entrepreneur · Author · Executive Coach · Leadership · Financein

Interview with Alexis Sikorsky

Why Most Founders Delay a Private Equity Exit by 5 Years — Alexis Sikorsky

Podcast: Catalytic Leadership

January 20, 2026 · 41 min

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Why Most Founders Delay a Private Equity Exit by 5 Years

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Key topicsThe real test of a scale-ready business is whether the founder can disappearA lot of founders say they have a strong team until they imagine leaving for ten days with no phone, no laptop and no internet. That simple test exposes whether the company has real systems or is still running on memory, loyalty and constant founder intervention. Alexis uses this pressure point to show why informal ways of working are normal in the early years, but dangerous once a founder-led business is trying to move through the £5M–£20M stage. Listeners will hear how to spot the gaps in process, decision-making and accountability before those gaps become the reason growth stalls. The best private equity exits are engineered long before a buyer appears Founders often wait until they are ready to sell before asking whether the business is actually sellable, which usually means the weakest parts of the company are exposed when leverage matters most. Alexis learned this firsthand while building and selling New Access through a staged nine-figure private equity exit, where boardroom reality looked very different from the simple exit advice founders often hear online. Through his Cashing Out work and APeX methodology, he shows founders how to Assess the business, Plan the value-improvement work, Execute the operational fixes and prepare for eXit before a buyer is in the room. For £5M–£20M founders, this conversation turns exit planning from a distant ambition into a practical operating discipline. Why £10M companies need C-suite thinking before they can afford C-suite hiresFounders around the £5M–£20M mark often reach a point where the business needs senior finance, operations and commercial discipline, but cannot yet justify a full-time C-suite team. The default is usually to keep too many decisions with the founder, which adds pressure, slows execution and leaves the business exposed when growth becomes more complex. Through Knightscale Partners, Alexis brings experienced senior operators into founder-led companies for focused three-to-six-month interventions, helping them fix gaps, build systems and develop the right internal capability. For founders stuck between hustle and professional management, this conversation shows how to add C-suite thinking before making expensive senior hires. View all topics →

About Alexis Sikorsky

#1 International Bestselling Author and Special Advisor to Founders of £5M–£20M Businesses, Founder Bottleneck and Private Equity Exit Strategist

$100M+ Private equity exit500+ Employees scaled at New Access#1 International bestselling author£5M–£20M Founder businesses advised by revenue

Alexis Sikorsky is a #1 international bestselling author and Special Advisor to founders of privately held £5M–£20M businesses. Through Knightscale Partners, he helps founder-led companies break through the Five Million Plateau, remove founder dependency, build the senior operating layer they are missing, and prepare for scale, recapitalisation or private equity exit.

He moved into this work after founding, scaling and selling New Access, a Switzerland-based private banking software company, through a staged nine-figure private equity exit. That experience showed him the gap between generic online advice and what actually happens in boardrooms when founders are preparing for liquidity, negotiating with investors, or realising the business cannot keep scaling while every major decision still runs through them.

Today, Alexis works with founders at the point where the habits that built the company start to limit the company. A founder can be the biggest asset in the early years, but around the £5M–£20M stage, they can become the bottleneck if the business still relies on their memory, energy, relationships and constant intervention. At Knightscale Partners, Alexis works alongside co-founder Topher Morrison and a roster of experienced senior operators to give founder-led businesses access to the C-suite thinking they need before they are ready to hire a full-time executive team.

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There’s a moment every scaled founder hits where effort stops producing leverage. Revenue is real. The team is capable. But progress feels heavier than it should, and decisions take longer, cost more, and drain energy faster than before.

In this episode, I sit down withAlexis Sikorsky, a strategic advisor to founders who are serious about scaling fast and exiting strong. Alexis isn’t sharing theory. He built, scaled, and sold a Switzerland-based software company in a nine-figure private equity exit, then stayed in the game long enough to see exactly what founders misunderstand about timing, systems, and value creation.

We talk candidly about why founders delay a Private Equity Exit by years: not because they lack ambition, but because exhaustion, missing numbers, and underpowered leadership structures quietly cap momentum. Alexis breaks down the mistakes that cost him five years and $50 million, what private equity actually looks for, and how founders can shift from running hard to engineering optionality.

If you’re scaling a digital agency past 7 figures and thinking about sustainability, leverage, automation in leadership, or what an exit really requires, this conversation will sharpen how you see your business and your next move.

Books Mentioned

The Prince by Niccolò MachiavelliThe Art of War by Sun Tzu

If you want to stay connected with Alexis, find him on LinkedIn or check out his book Cashing Out, where he lays out the APEX framework for founders preparing for private equity. He’s also inviting founders doing $5–15M in revenue to participate in interviews for his upcoming book; details shared directly in this episode.

Apply now to be a part of the High Capacity Leaders mastermind in West Palm Beach, Florida on November 9-10, 2026. Go to https://westpalm.highcapacityleaders.org/ for more information.

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Guest: Alexis Sikorsky