Due Diligence Doesn’t Have to Be a Distraction

At some point on your growth journey, you’re likely to take on third-party finance—whether that’s a debt facility, equity investment, or even preparing for sale. You’ve built a killer investor deck, refined your pitch, and secured heads of terms. Job done, right?

Not quite.

Now the real fun begins: due diligence.

And this is where many founders hit the wall.

Suddenly, your inbox is overflowing with requests to:

• Re-cut revenue to show recurring vs project-based income
  
• Split LTV and CAC by product, service line, or customer segment
  
• Pull every client, supplier, and employee contract ever signed
  
• List every live NDA
  
• Prove your financials, back up your forecasts, explain your margin movements, and justify every assumption you've ever made
  

It's intense. It’s time-consuming. And it feels like nobody warned you this was coming.

Here’s the thing:

Much of what you’re being asked for is actually good management information. These aren’t just hoops to jump through—they’re insights that could (and should) be helping you run your business better every day.

The problem? Most of it’s not built into the way you operate. So now you’re scrambling to:

• Collate the data from multiple sources
  
• Understand it in a way that makes sense to your investor
  
• Worry if the story it tells could derail your deal

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

With just a bit of foresight, you can set up your business to be due diligence ready—without burning your team out or building a giant finance function.

What we recommend:

• Identify the 90% of data requests that are common across all deals
  
• Bake them into your day-to-day operational processes and monthly MI
  
• Keep key contracts and governance items in order as you go
  
• Build a lightweight internal data room that you can refresh on demand
  

By doing this, you’re not just “prepping for due diligence”—you’re building a more resilient, insight-led business.

If this feels a little close to home, let’s chat.

We’ve helped scaling businesses get deal-ready without breaking stride—and even turn the due diligence process into a strategic advantage.