Essays from our newsletter, field notes from the work, and practical tools across leadership, peer advisory, and sales. Written by Carlos Garrido and Carolina Duran for founders building serious companies in Miami and beyond.
Vistage, EO, YPO, Hampton, C12, TIGER 21, and the free founder communities, compared side by side: formats, eligibility, every published price, and the six-question Table Test, with the author's bias declared up front.
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Carlos GarridoJul 15, 20269 min read
The strengths that built the company are the same things a buyer prices as transition risk. The seven areas buyers examine, and the sequence for reducing owner dependency.
Carlos Garrido11 min
Executive judgment on a monthly rhythm fits a defined problem for a defined period. The controller question comes first, and the engagement is structured around systems the company keeps.
Carlos Garrido12 min
The owner keeps direction, capital, and the choice of who leads; the company takes the execution. The four-week readiness test, the staged sequence, and the four ways the transition fails.
Carlos Garrido12 min
Ownership, control, the departing partner's working role, and the money are four separate negotiations. The documents to read first, the five kinds of split, how buyouts get funded, and the handover after signing.
Carlos Garrido12 min
Separating roles from relationships, decisions from dinner tables, and ownership from employment. The recurring patterns in Miami family companies, and succession as the transfer of a system rather than a personality.
Carlos Garrido10 min
The signed agreement is the weakest layer. What protects a founder is member selection, repeated ground rules, chair discipline, controlled issue processing, and consequences for breaches. The full mechanics, the limits, and ten questions to ask before joining any group.
Carlos Garrido9 min
A board of directors governs the corporation, owes fiduciary duties, and generally holds the authority to remove the CEO. An advisory board counsels the founder without taking any of that power. The comparison table, the triggers for formal governance, and which one to build first.
Carlos Garrido8 min
Both paths reward the same preparation: a company that runs without its founder. The transferability review, the comparison table, when selling now is the right call, and the third option of fixing transferability first. From a banker who buys businesses himself.
Carlos Garrido9 min
Past $5M, growth depends on company design rather than founder effort. The up-to-$5M versus past-$5M comparison table, the six shifts, and the wrong moves founders make when the stall arrives.
Carlos Garrido9 min
Buying beats building when what you need would take longer to create than to integrate, and your company can absorb a deal. The readiness test, the financing categories, and where acquisitions go wrong, from a banker who buys businesses himself.
Carlos Garrido9 min
Refresh Miami, The LAB, Miami Made, Founders Club, Grow305, and more, grouped by the job each does, with every published cost. Written by someone who runs one of them and says so up front.
Carlos Garrido9 min
The founders we talk with reach for a mentor first, because it costs nothing and asks little. That is also why it decays fastest without structure. The three compared, and how to ask for mentorship well.
Carlos Garrido9 min
A plateau is stalled growth in the business. Burnout is depleted capacity in the founder. They feel identical from the inside, so the first move is telling them apart before you act.
Carlos Garrido8 min
A number two solves a coordination problem across the company. How to tell if you are ready, and whether you need a COO, an integrator, a functional leader, or a chief of staff.
Carlos Garrido7 min
A management consultant solves a bounded, one-time problem. An installed operating system changes how the company runs. How a founder tells which one they need.
Carlos Garrido8 min
What to judge, where Miami founders find coaches, the criteria that matter, and how to test fit before you commit.
Carlos Garrido8 min
A peer table gives you CEOs who have faced your decision; a coach works one-to-one on your leadership. How to tell which you need first.
Carlos Garrido7 min
Every option in the city compared, published costs included, plus the six-question Table Test for judging any group.
Carlos Garrido9 min
Five kinds of founder bottleneck, how to tell which one is yours, and the first move for each. With the Miami patterns we see most.
Carlos Garrido9 min
A confidential group of CEOs with nothing to sell you changes how you decide. Here is what really happens inside the group.
Carolina Duran5 min
A company-owned sales approach, a capable seller, and accountable sales leadership. How to tell you have hit the ceiling, and which replacement path fits.
Carlos Garrido7 min