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Why Most Founders Delay a Private Equity Exit by 5 Years

Alexis Sikorsky · 21 August 2026

Entrepreneur · Author · Executive Coach · Leadership · Financein
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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 →

Key points

  • Most founders delay private equity exits by about five years due to reliance on their personal involvement and operational bottlenecks.
  • Alexis emphasizes that mistakes, not just hard work, drive entrepreneurial growth-learning from new errors is crucial.
  • The 'Assess, Plan, Execute, Exit' (APeX) methodology provides a structured approach to diagnose and fix operational gaps for better sellability.
  • Private equity values discrepancies of information; they often buy companies on the cheap, knowing more than founders about the true value.
  • Perseverance is driven not just by belief but by necessity-many entrepreneurs continue because they have no other options.
  • Leadership differs from management; inspiring direction versus managing daily tasks is key at higher organizational levels.
  • Continuous learning and sharing lessons, especially through writing and mentoring, are vital to Alexis’s purpose and impact.
  • Recognizing and avoiding common costly mistakes, especially between five to fifteen million revenue stages, can save entrepreneurs millions and years.

About Alexis Sikorsky

Alexis Sikorsky, podcast guest

#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 video

In this episode, Alexis Sikorsky shares his extensive entrepreneurial journey from founding startups to orchestrating a nine-figure private equity exit. He explores the common delays founders face before a PE exit, emphasizing the importance of building operational scalability and removing founder dependency. Alexis reveals practical insights from his 'Cashing Out' framework and highlights how mistakes, luck, and perseverance shape success. His candid storytelling offers invaluable lessons on navigating growth, making strategic decisions, and helping entrepreneurs prepare their businesses for lucrative exits while emphasizing the significance of continuous learning and giving back.

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