Exits to Strategic Buyers | Dylan Collins on Lineage

Every ETA operator underwrites an exit from day one. Most assume it will be a sale to PE or another financial buyer. But there is a second path that often pays more and gets overlooked: the strategic buyer. Strategics do not buy multiples and cash flows. They buy capability, exclusivity, and a position in their own market, and they will pay far beyond any financial valuation when a business gives them exactly that.

Dylan Collins has sold to strategics four times. DemonWare, whose multiplayer technology powered Call of Duty and dozens of AAA titles, sold to Activision Blizzard. Jolt Online Gaming, a European social games roll-up, sold to GameStop. Potato, a marketing technology agency where he was Chairman, acquired by WPP. And SuperAwesome, the kidtech platform he sold to Epic Games and grew to $120 million in revenue. Three years later, he bought most of it back.

In this episode, Dylan breaks down how strategic buyers actually think, why relationships matter more than process, what career risk means inside an acquirer, and how to run reverse diligence on the company trying to buy you.

What you'll learn in this episode:

→ Why businesses are bought, not sold, and why strategic deals need relationships
→ Career risk: the invisible friction inside every acquirer that kills deals
→ How to run reverse diligence on a buyer without offending them
→ Why early acquisition offers are signals, not triggers
→ The difference between strategic and PE buyers on vision, culture, and timeline
→ Structuring transformation deals and why earn-outs go stale fast
→ What strategics expect: lock-ins, earn-outs, escrow, and EBITDA hurdles
→ Why hitting your numbers is the only real leverage in a negotiation
→ Rolling equity into acquirer stock and when that trade makes sense

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Dylan Collins
01:15 What makes a strategic buyer say yes
03:12 What strategics actually look for beyond the product
05:48 Career risk: the hidden friction inside every acquirer
07:13 DemonWare and Activision: when your biggest customer buys you
09:27 Why early acquisition offers are signals, not triggers
10:36 Jolt and GameStop: the digital transformation play
14:37 Structuring transformation deals and why they go stale
18:21 Roll-up logic: why sell instead of continuing to buy
21:22 How to run reverse diligence on your acquirer
26:05 SuperAwesome and Epic: preparing investors for a strategic buyer
29:30 The SuperAwesome journey from media roll-up to platform
31:44 Epic's first contact and the deal process
33:54 Timeline: from first meeting to signing in under 90 days
35:29 Building relationships with strategics before you need them
38:16 The humbling exercise of testing your value with buyers
41:33 Why revenue was not the gating factor for Epic
43:00 Vision versus operational plan: strategic vs PE expectations
44:41 The personal decision: why sell when you could keep building
48:26 Rolling equity into acquirer stock
51:03 What strategics expect in the deal: lock-ins, earn-outs, escrow
52:31 The only real leverage in a negotiation
54:45 Closing advice for first-time operators

Connect with Dylan Collins: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanc/

#ETA #SearchFunds #Exits #MergersAndAcquisitions #StrategicBuyers #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship

Hiring and Organisational Design for First-Time CEOs | Florian Heinemann on Lineage

The difference between a company that scales and one that stalls is rarely the idea. It is almost always the execution, and execution comes down to organisation and people. For an ETA operator walking into a business with fifteen, thirty, or a hundred people hired by someone else, the first hires and the first structural decisions shape everything that follows.

Dr. Florian Heinemann is founding partner of Project A Ventures, one of Europe's most successful operational VCs. Few people in Europe have thought as deeply about how organisations get built, who to hire first, and what makes early people decisions compound over time. He co-founded JustBooks in 1999 and sold it to Amazon, ran online marketing at Jamba and iLove, was Managing Director at Rocket Internet where he was instrumental in scaling Zalando, and has spent the last thirteen years at Project A backing over 130 companies with an in-house team of 120+ operational experts who work directly inside portfolio companies. Project A now also co-invests alongside PE funds in traditional businesses, giving Florian a rare view into both startup and Mittelstand contexts.

What you'll learn in this episode:
→ Why the first hire in every function sets the ceiling for what follows
→ How to balance experience versus potential when hiring under constraints
→ Structuring equity and ESOP packages for C-level and beyond
→ How to identify potential in candidates and what actually predicts it
→ Where to invest in professionalism first (defence before offence)
→ How to build a value creation hypothesis before you even close the deal
→ Assessing existing talent inside a business you just acquired
→ Driving digital and AI transformation in traditional businesses

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Florian Heinemann and Project A
01:12 The importance of early hiring decisions
04:41 Hiring under constraints: balancing experience and potential
07:54 Incentivizing talent: equity vs. salary
09:37 Structuring employee incentives for success
14:22 Evaluating potential: key characteristics to look for
18:53 Identifying needs: the first steps for new CEOs
21:31 Value creation in private equity investments
24:52 Hiring for potential vs. experience
29:51 Empowering teams for growth
35:49 Assessing talent in acquired businesses
38:36 Driving digital transformation in traditional businesses
41:14 Key advice for new operators

About Lineage
Lineage is a podcast for aspiring searchers, ETA operators, and succession entrepreneurs. Every episode is a targeted conversation with someone who has been in the chair, made the decisions, and lived with the consequences. No panels, no theory, no fluff.

Connect with Florian Heinemann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/florianheinemann/

#ETA #SearchFunds #Hiring #Leadership #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #SuccessionEntrepreneurship

Making AI and Software Work Inside Legacy Businesses | Sebastian Schuon on Lineage

Most ETA operators inherit a business that runs on outdated software, manual processes, and a team that has never worked any other way. The instinct is to digitise fast. The reality is that most software projects fail not because the technology is wrong, but because the people part is mishandled.

Sebastian Schuon is co-founder of Stylight (exited to ProSiebenSat.1) and Alasco, and is now building Schub, a Munich-based accelerator and AI tooling company. He is also personally acquiring and transforming traditional service businesses with technology. In this episode, he shares the playbook for selling change inside resistant industries, the order in which to digitise and improve, and where AI actually creates leverage in a legacy business.

What you'll learn in this episode:
→ Why software projects fail and how to avoid the most common traps
→ How to sell change to a team that did not ask for it
→ Stakeholder interviews and finding internal champions
→ The right sequence: stabilise, digitise, then improve
→ Where AI creates real leverage in legacy operations
→ Cybersecurity and cloud risks operators must take seriously
→ Why trust matters more than technology in the first 100 days

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to Sebastian Schuon and Schub
01:17 Why software projects fail: the human factor
03:10 Selling change alongside the software
05:27 Stakeholder interviews, benefits, and rollout timelines
07:02 Asking the right questions and finding champions
09:37 Best low-hanging fruits: support functions and flexibility
11:20 Adoption blockers: real limitations vs resistance
14:43 Cybersecurity, cloud software, and social engineering
17:53 Buying a legacy business and why trust matters
21:05 Stabilizing, digitizing, then improving processes
24:12 AI-assisted internal tooling and fast software building
27:01 Internal versus external processes in transformation
32:29 AI's impact on efficiency and legacy system integration
35:35 Hiring a change agent and leading transformation through people

Website: https://www.schub.space/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schuon/

Most ETA operators eventually face the same situation: the business they acquire has a solid product and paying customers, but no real commercial engine behind it. No marketing, no structured sales, no outbound, no content. Benny Hahn is answering that situation inside ZEP, a 20-year-old German time tracking and project management software company he acquired through a traditional search fund in 2022.

In this episode, Benny shares how he built a go-to-market from scratch and transformed ZEP from a legacy licensing business into a growing SaaS company, and what ETA operators can learn from that playbook.

What you'll learn in this episode:
→ How to diagnose what is broken in a go-to-market you inherit
→ When and why to invest in a full rebrand and website relaunch
→ Building a marketing and sales team from the ground up
→ The KPIs that actually steer a recurring revenue business
→ Structuring sales with MQLs, SQLs, and pipeline ownership
→ Designing commission structures and realistic sales targets
→ Migrating existing customers from on-premise licences to SaaS
→ Communicating pricing model changes without losing loyal customers
→ How to sequence change when the team and customers are watching

Timestamp:
00:00 Introduction to Benny Hahn and ZEP
01:10 Initial observations on marketing and sales after acquisition
01:53 Restructuring marketing and sales processes
02:43 Discrepancies between product quality and marketing
03:30 Quick wins with Google Ads and early marketing moves
04:33 Hiring an agency for rebranding and website relaunch
06:28 Reflections on the rebranding process
08:57 Advice for new CEOs in similar situations
10:22 Building the marketing stack from scratch
11:16 The KPIs that matter and how they evolved
13:45 Structuring the marketing team
14:44 Sales pipeline structure and strategy
16:45 The MQL to SQL transition
18:44 Tools and change management in sales
21:32 Hiring strategy and team specialisation
24:18 Commission structures and sales incentives
26:20 Setting realistic targets and top-down planning
30:06 Targeting larger accounts as the business evolves
31:14 The transition from on-premise to cloud
34:28 Pricing strategies and customer negotiations
37:21 Simplifying complex pricing structures
40:40 Managing customer migration and expectations
42:16 Key metrics for steering the business
45:07 Final advice for new operators and CEOs

Linkedin: Benny Hahn https://www.linkedin.com/in/benny-hahn/?locale=en
Website: https://www.zep.de/

Most operators eventually face the same question: the business works here, but can it work somewhere else? A new geography, a new customer segment, a new channel. Jonathan Weiss is answering that question inside BEGO, a German dental manufacturer founded in 1890 with operations in over 100 countries.

In this episode, Jonathan shares how he transformed and built BEGO USA as a subsidiary into a growing business by shifting from a product-first mindset to a customer-centric workflow approach, and what ETA operators can learn from that playbook.

What you'll learn in this episode:
→ How to diagnose whether a new market is a real opportunity or just an assumption
→ Why shifting from selling products to solving workflows changed everything
→ Building trust and communication between a subsidiary and HQ across borders
→ The case for narrowing your product focus and reducing complexity to accelerate growth
→ Cultural and operational differences that catch every operator off guard in a new market
→ How to grow revenue without scaling headcount proportionally

00:00 Introduction to Jonathan Weiss and BEGO
01:25 BEGO USA's Challenges
03:05 Understanding Market Entry Strategies
05:31 Customer Insights and Field Research
08:07 Operational Changes and Go-to-Market Strategies
10:22 Shifting Company Identity and Product Focus
12:31 The Role of Family Business in Leadership
14:17 Hiring Strategies for New Markets
16:26 Deciding on Market Expansion
17:51 Team Structure and Efficiency
20:49 Streamlining Operations for Growth
21:56 Optimizing Sales Processes
23:12 Aligning with Headquarters
25:18 Navigating Communication Challenges
28:10 Best Practices for HQ-Subsidiary Relations
30:11 Cultural Insights for Market Entry
31:46 Testing Product Market Fit
34:45 Focusing on Core Products
36:22 Building Competitive Moats
38:45 The Importance of Team Dynamics

Website: https://www.bego.com/de/

Most first-time CEOs underestimate how much trust, intuition, and emotional intelligence shape successful acquisitions and what it takes to successfully integrate an outside business into your own.

Jochen Engert co-founded FlixBus in Munich in 2013. Within two years, he and his co-founders merged with their fiercest rival, MeinFernbus, creating a dominant national network almost overnight. In 2016, they absorbed PostBus and Megabus’s European operations, pushing their German market share above 80%. In 2019, they entered Turkey by acquiring Kâmil Koç. And in 2021, in the middle of a global pandemic, they acquired Greyhound, a 107-year-old American icon, and began its transformation.

Drawing on experience from more those specific acquisitionsns plus a two dozen more transactions, Jochen explains why relationships and clear communication often matter more than spreadsheets and formal processes.

What you'll learn in this episode:
→ When M&A makes sense and when organic growth is the better path
→ How to build deal relationships long before a formal process starts
→ Building a synergy case line by line through the P&L
→ Who to talk to during due diligence beyond the data room
→ Structuring earnouts and deferred payments that don't create conflict
→ Why integration breaks on the human side first
→ Making hard decisions early instead of letting ambiguity fester

Whether you are preparing for your first acquisition or refining your approach, this episode gives you the tools to make better decisions, negotiate more effectively, and execute with confidence.

00:00 - Introduction
01:30 - Buy vs Build Decision
02:37 - Challenges in Acquisitions
03:48 - Starting Conversations
05:11 - Long-term Relationship Building
06:36 - Quantifying Synergies
07:56 - Building a Business Case
11:29 - Understanding the Target
13:40 - Human Element in Deals
16:39 - Role-playing in Negotiations
19:00 - Risk Management
20:55 - Aligning Incentives
23:31 - Diligence Insights
26:00 - Market Entry Considerations
29:50 - Balancing Workload
32:57 - Human Side of Integration
36:30 - Leadership Decisions
38:55 - Strategic Branding
42:56 - Adjusting to New Environment Post-Merger
44:20 - Integration Strategies
49:05 - Key Advice

Navigating the First 100 Days After Business Acquisition

The first 100 days after acquiring a business will define the next five years of running it. In this episode, Julian Beckh, self-funded searcher and nine-year operator of Behälter KG Bremen, shares what actually works when you walk into a business you didn't build, with a team that didn't choose you.

From his mental shift out of deal-mode on day one, to the communication that earns trust, to the small early changes that signal everything to the team, Julian breaks down what he got right, what he got wrong, and what he would do completely differently today.

What you'll learn in this episode:
→ Crafting your first communication to the team
→ Building a knowledge inventory before taking over
→ Listening and reading culture before acting
→ Making early changes that signal direction without disruption
→ Running one-on-ones that surface what matters
→ Handling personnel misalignments without losing trust
→ Why humility and curiosity matter most in month one

Timestamps:
01:03 - Navigating the First 100 Days' Strategic Importance
02:09 - The Pre-Day One Mental Shift for Operators
03:30 - Preparing Communication and Knowledge Inventory
04:41 - Communicating Legacy and Intentions to the Team
05:17 - Handling Unexpected Start and Improvisation
06:06 - Engaging with Employees for Feedback and Cultural Understanding
07:25 - Overcoming Age-Related Concerns in Succession
09:13 - Structuring Effective Handovers and Reducing Dependency
11:17 - Emphasizing Quick, Focused Knowledge Transfer
12:33 - Key Functional Areas Where Previous Owner’s Knowledge is Critical
14:35 - First 30 Days: Curiosity Versus Quick Change
16:03 - Asking the Right Questions and Building Authentic Understanding
17:38 - Personal Conversations Revealing Hidden Assets or Challenges
19:55 - Handling Resistance and Constructive Criticism
22:02 - Managing Team Communication During Transitions
25:44 - Implementing Small, Non-Disruptive Improvements
28:48 - Avoiding Fast Enforcement of Changes; Building Trust
30:09 - Recognizing When Personnel Roles Need Realignment
31:51 - How to Approach Personnel Changes Compassionately
33:02 - The Gradual Transition from New Owner to Recognized Leader
35:00 - Final Advice for Upcoming Acquisitions: Humility, Curiosity, and Enjoying the Journey

Search Fund Pitfalls – What First-Time CEOs Should Look Out For

Are you looking to acquire a business, start a search fund, or step into the CEO role for the first time? In this episode, Thomas Bühler, one of the most experienced search fund and ETA investors, shares his perspective on the realities of search funds and the critical first year after an acquisition.

We discuss why many searchers never close a deal, the myth of the “perfect” acquisition, and the realities of working with investors, negotiating seller notes, and managing hidden due diligence risks such as customer concentration. We also talk about what it takes to become a strong CEO and how to handle the often challenging transition period when the original founder remains involved for too long.

Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, an active searcher, or a newly appointed CEO, this conversation is full of practical insights to help you navigate the search fund journey successfully.

Link to the IESE Search Fund Findings
Part 1: https://www.iese.edu/media/research/pdfs/ST-0680-E
Part 2: https://www.iese.edu/media/research/pdfs/ST-0681-E

00:03 - Introduction
01:00 - Why Most Searchers Fail to Close a Deal
05:35 - The Ideal Number of Investors for a Search Fund
07:21 - The Myth of the "Perfect" Search Fund Deal
09:14 - The Importance of a Strong CEO
10:08 - How to Work Effectively with Investors Early On
13:23 - The First Year as CEO: Managing People & Change
17:25 - Balancing Learning vs. Changing the Business (The First 90 Days)
18:31 - Common Mistakes: When the Seller Sticks Around Too Long
20:43 - Negotiating Seller Notes & Bank Involvement
25:02 - Where Searchers Should Spend Their Time in the First 6 Months
25:58 - Best Practices for Working with Your Board
29:01 - Early Warning Signs of Poor Company Performance
30:29 - How to Manage and Motivate Employees After a Takeover
34:23 - The Most Underestimated Due Diligence Risk: Customer Concentration
38:38 - Final Advice for New Searcher CEOs