Awakened Titans Podcast - Lily Patrascu

From $5M to $20M - Why Founders Plateau And How To Break The Ceiling - Alexis Sikorsky And Lily Patrascu

Alexis Sikorsky · July 17, 2025

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Interview with Alexis Sikorsky

From $5M to $20M - Why Founders Plateau And How To Break The Ceiling - Alexis Sikorsky And Lily Patrascu

Podcast: Awakened Titans Podcast - Lily Patrascu

July 17, 2025 · 24 min

Multimillionaire Strategic Advisor Shares How To Go From $5M to $20M - Why Founders Plateau And How To Break The Ceiling - Alexis Sikorsky And Lily Patrascu Alexis Sikorsky, who built, scaled, and exited a company for over $100 million, is the founder of Sikorsky Consulting and…

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From $5M to $20M - Why Founders Plateau And How To Break The Ceiling - Alexis Sikorsky And Lily Patrascu

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Awakened Titans Podcast - Lily Patrascu

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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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About this episode

Multimillionaire Strategic Advisor Shares How To Go From $5M to $20M - Why Founders Plateau And How To Break The Ceiling -Alexis SikorskyAnd Lily Patrascu

Alexis Sikorsky, who built, scaled, and exited a company for over $100 million, is the founder of Sikorsky Consulting and helps entrepreneurs break through the $5M–$20M revenue ceiling. After losing 75% of his revenue during the 2008 financial crisis, he recovered through strategic planning, private equity support, and M&A growth. He emphasizes hiring A-players, building a war chest, and planning exits early as critical factors for scaling. His personal journey includes grinding through six years of losses before exceeding $3M EBITDA and achieving a high-value exit through a private equity deal.

About The Guest

Alexis Sikorsky is a strategic advisor to founders who are serious about scaling fast and exiting strong. With a nine-figure private equity exit under his belt, Alexis isn’t speaking from theory—he’s lived the entrepreneurial highs and lows across decades of company building, boardroom negotiation, and international leadership. His flagship book Cashing Out lays out the APEX methodology, a four-part framework (Assess, Plan, Execute, Exit) that demystifies the journey to private equity for founders feeling stuck or overwhelmed by growth and decision fatigue.

Alexis founded, scaled, and sold New Access, a Switzerland-based software company, ultimately closing a $100M+ exit and transitioning into a new chapter as a Special Advisor to ambitious CEOs. Today, through Sikorsky Consulting and KnightScale Partners, he works with growth-stage businesses, typically doing $5M+ in annual revenue, who want to engineer their next chapter or PE exit.

For More Info About Alexis Sikorsky, visit: https://podfol.io/profile/alexis-sikorsky

Timestamp

0:00 Introduction

0:06 Breaking the Revenue Ceiling

0:23 Scaling Insights

0:27 Invisible Walls and Revenue Leap

0:36 Entrepreneurs' Challenges

0:46 Podcast Welcome

0:50 Mind-Blowing Conversations

1:15 Growth Pain of Companies

1:53 Importance of Hiring

4:41 Fractional Solutions

7:23 Operational Decisions

8:31 Strategic Planning

11:27 Personal Success Story

16:13 Private Equity Insights

21:11 Common Entrepreneurial Mistakes

22:13 Lessons Learned

About The Host

Lily Patrascu is an ultra-creative book publisher and personal brand strategist for thought leaders, CEOs, luxury influencers. As an influencer, bestselling author, copywriter, global speaker, she supports busy entrepreneurs to find their message and share it with millions of people.

Feel free to connect with me or find out more about my book publishing/influential entrepreneur events/speaking/ projects here: https://linktr.ee/lilypatrascu & www.lily.global I am launching a few collaborative books: on property wealth strategies, confidence, millionaire secrets, health tools, AI, and seeking influencers with large communities to promote their expertise with the books. I can help you write/ghostwrite and publish your books in 90 days. Message me (Lily) on +447557351222 to collaborate.

If you want to be featured on this podcast, and you're a successful entrepreneur able to share about how you grew your company, book your spot here: www.lily.global/podcast -

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Awakened Titans Podcast - with Lily Patrascu shares mindblowing conversations with influential business titans so you can manifest abundance, love, joy, success, through exponential business growth, innovative products and services, time/money management, property investment, funding, startups, quantum awakening, quantum manifestation, quantum healing, quantum miracles, motivation, high achiever habits and more!

Guest: Alexis Sikorsky