ABOUT TANDM
WHY TANDM EXISTS, AND WHAT WE BELIEVE
TANDM is an operator-led consulting firm helping founder-led service businesses Digital Agencies and Professional Businesses in the $2M–$50M revenue range become exit-ready. We do the operational and structural work that closes the gap between businesses that take depressed offers and businesses that take premium ones.
HOW THIS STARTED
TANDM exists because the founders saw, repeatedly, founder-led service businesses leaving substantial money on the table at exit
The pattern that started TANDM was consistent across categories. A founder spent fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years building a service business a law firm, an accounting practice, a medical group into something that produced real revenue, employed real teams, and served real clients. When the founder eventually went to sell, the offers came in materially below what they expected and below what the underlying business could have been worth with the right preparation. The reasons were always the same. The founder was the operating system for the business. The senior team executed but didn't lead. Financial reporting was clean for tax but not for transaction. Client relationships traced back to the founder personally. The data room didn't exist. The AI integration was real but undocumented. The acquirer discounted accordingly.
The founders of TANDM had seen this pattern from multiple sides. Brian Cross had been on the buyer side of dozens of Digital Agencies and Professional Businesses acquisitions during his time leading M&A at Omnicom DAS meaning he knew exactly what was being discounted, exactly why, and exactly which dimensions produced premium multiples. JoAnna Dettmann had been the founder going through the exit, having built and sold tSunela. Hamid Mahmood had mentored 100+ founders of Digital Agencies and Professional Businesses through the operational journey. They started TANDM to do the work that closes the gap to engage with founders 18–24 months before they go to market, do the structural preparation, and hand the business back ready to be valued accurately.
TANDM was founded by an EO member and built specifically for the founder-led service business segment the $2M–$50M revenue range where operational maturity is the biggest variable in transaction outcomes.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Three principles drive everything we do
The work to prepare a business for transaction is the same work that produces operational excellence regardless of transaction timing. There is no separate set of "exit preparation" activities. The senior leadership distribution, recurring revenue discipline, financial rigor, and operational maturity that strategic acquirers underwrite are exactly the dimensions that produce sustainable operational excellence whether the founder sells or holds. Founders should engage TANDM whether or not they intend to sell the work produces optionality without committing to a specific transaction path.
Founder-led service businesses share structural patterns across categories. Law firms and Digital Agencies and Professional Businesses look very different on the surface but face structurally similar challenges in the founder-as-operating-system pattern, the senior-team-executes-but-doesn't-lead pattern, the financials-clean-for-tax-not-transaction pattern, and the client-relationships-trace-to-founder pattern. The work to address these patterns follows consistent principles across categories. The execution is calibrated to category but the underlying framework is the same.
Operational preparation cannot be compressed into the months before going to market. The work takes 18–24 months because the structural changes require sustained demonstration. Six months of senior leadership operating independently before acquirers underwrite the independence as real. Twelve months of restructured revenue mix before durability is demonstrable. Multiple two-week absence tests passed before owner independence is credible. Founders who start the work two years early are the ones taking premium offers. Founders who wait until they're thinking about selling are the ones taking depressed ones.
WHAT WE COMMIT TO
Build it right. Build it once. Build it to last
Three commitments to every TANDM client. We tell the truth about what we see the diagnostic produces an honest assessment of where the business is and what 18–24 months of work could realistically achieve. We don't sell engagements to founders whose situations don't fit the methodology. We do the work alongside the founder hands-on, week-by-week, with documented progress against the Exit-Ready Method™ phases rather than producing decks the founder is supposed to execute. We deliver a business that operates without requiring the founder's day-to-day presence, whether the founder sells or stays.
Close the gap. Earn the premium.
TANDM exists to change that for founders who start the work early enough to let the operational preparation do what it can actually do.