Free runbook
The most expensive words
are "the model assumed."
The urgent job after closing is converting diligence assumptions into a verified operating baseline. This runbook does that in three working registers: the hypothesis tracker, the integration plan by phase, and a synergy register honest enough to include the dis-synergies.
What's inside
- A diligence-hypothesis tracker: every assumption the price was built on, its source, the metric that proves it, and a Confirmed, Adjusted, or Broken verdict with the implication
- A 30-item integration plan across six workstreams, sequenced Day 1 through Day 100, with owners, status lights, and a progress line that flags open Day-1 items
- A synergy register that books dis-synergies and one-time costs with the same seriousness as the savings, with net run-rate and payback in months
- Ships with a worked example, including two broken hypotheses, because real deals have them
- No macros, no lock-in. Opens in Excel and imports cleanly into Google Sheets
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Download the runbook (Excel)How to use it
- Day one: list every material assumption the price was built on. Retention, pricing power, capex, add-backs, working capital. Record the source and the assumed number.
- Verify them in the first weeks, not the first year. Broken means act this week. The dated record also protects you in earnout, escrow, and peg conversations.
- Work the integration plan phases in order. Day-1 items protect cash, people, and customers; nothing else matters until they hold.
- Count synergies like an operator: dis-synergies and one-time costs booked, nothing Achieved until the P&L shows it two consecutive months.
The hypothesis tracker feeds the value creation plan tracker, and the cash side of the first hundred days runs on the 13-week forecast. If you want the hundred days run by people who have done it, start a conversation.