In this episode of #TheLAB Podcast, Scott and Nick sit down with Rachel Lawler, Founder of Aperture Growth, to discuss what actually drives value creation inside private equity-backed businesses.

Rachel shares her structured approach to diagnosing operating model friction across enterprise value creation, operations, tech stack, and integration. From technical debt and brittle systems to management alignment and automation, she explains why growth often exposes weaknesses instead of creating value.

They cover:

• Why technical debt is often a Day One bill

• How to stress test an operating model before scaling

• Why two-thirds of CEOs don’t survive a hold period

• The difference between a go-to-market function and a go-to-market system

• Why labor often substitutes for poor system design

• When PE firms should walk away during diligence

If you care about repeatable growth, clean data, operational visibility, and building businesses that can exit without the founder — this episode is for you.