The Exit - Presented By Flippa

Interview with Alexis Sikorsky

Alexis Sikorsky · December 22, 2025

Entrepreneur · Author · Executive Coach · Leadership · Financein

Interview with Alexis Sikorsky

Podcast: The Exit - Presented By Flippa

December 22, 2025 · 35 min

Listen to Alexis Sikorsky on The Exit - Presented By Flippa.

Listen

Interview with Alexis Sikorsky

0:00 / --:--

The Exit - Presented By Flippa

GO TO APPLE PODCASTS →

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.

Featured onApple Featured onSpotify Featured onYouTube Featured onAmazon

View profile →

About this episode

Want a quick estimate of how much your business is worth?

With our free valuation calculator, answer a few questions about your business, and you’ll get an immediate estimate of the value of your business.

You might be surprised by how much you can get for it: https://flippa.com/exit

Are you running your business, or is it running you?

In this episode, we sit down withAlexis Sikorsky, co-founder of Nightscale, who reveals the brutal truth about the "Grind" and the specific strategies he used to exit his banking software company for a massive multiple.

If you are a founder stuck at the $5M–$10M revenue plateau, this episode is a masterclass in cashing out. Alexis breaks down the "$50 Million Mistake", a calculation of the money and time he lost by not knowing the secrets of Private Equity earlier, and how you can avoid it.

What You’ll Learn:

The "Fish and Chip" Trap: How Private Equity firms lure founders with high valuations only to chip away at the price during due diligence—and how to stop them.

Nominal EBITDA vs. EBITDA: The financial metric that matters more than your bottom line. Learn how "dressing the bride" and identifying add-backs can instantly increase your valuation.

The Magic Number: Why a $40M valuation is the specific target for a lifestyle where you never have to touch your capital again.

The Due Diligence Reverse Card: How to investigate a PE firm by calling the founders they don't want you to talk to.

Escaping the Operator Trap: Why you need to fire yourself from day-to-day operations to make your company sellable.

Alexis Sikorsky is a seasoned entrepreneur, strategic advisor, and #1 international best-selling author who helps founders and SMEs scale with confidence, make smarter strategic decisions, and prepare for long-term growth and successful exits. Over his career, he has founded, scaled, and led multiple companies, including building and selling a software business to private equity in a nine-figure transaction. He is the founder of Sikorsky Consulting Ltd. and a co-founder of KnightScale Partners, where he works closely with founders as a true operator partner, providing experienced, founder-to-founder guidance on scaling, leadership, and value creation. Holding an EMBA from Oxford University, Alexis blends real-world entrepreneurial experience with strategic insight to help business owners future-proof their companies and navigate critical inflection points.

Website - https://www.knightscalepartners.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-sikorsky-consulting/

Time Stamps:

(01:11) Surviving the 2008 crash: Losing 75% of revenue overnight.

(03:46) The "Unbelievable" Offer: Selling for 11x EBITDA based on a future plan.

(06:00) Calculating the $50 Million / 5-Year Mistake.

(08:59) When is the right time to sell? (The mathematics of the exit).

(14:00) Red Flags: Detecting the "Fish and Chip" strategy.

(20:30) How to boost valuation using Nominal EBITDA and non-recurring costs.

(27:30) Why you should do M&A earlier than you think.

The Exit—Presented By Flippa: A 30-minute podcast featuring expert entrepreneurs who have been there and done it. The Exit talks to operators who have bought and sold a business. You’ll learn how they did it, why they did it, and get exposure to the world of exits, a world occupied by a small few, but accessible to many. To listen to the podcast or get daily listing updates, click on flippa.com/the-exit-podcast/

Guest: Alexis Sikorsky