The day a PE operating partner told me ‘We need 12% EBITDA growth or we’re dead’
I was in a portfolio review last quarter when the CFO dropped the bomb: ‘We’re at 8% EBITDA growth. The LP model requires 12%. If we don’t hit it, we’re not clearing the exit backlog.’ That’s when I realized the game had changed. Leverage and multiple expansion weren’t coming back. Revenue growth was now the only lever that mattered.
Here’s what I saw in that room: a GTM function that was still being treated like a black box. No named instruments. No comparable metrics. Just hope and spreadsheets. The operating partner was getting grilled by the board, and he had no way to show that GTM was actually improving across the portfolio.
That’s when I built the Revenue Readiness Index—a single score that ties GTM health to EBITDA growth. It’s not theory. I’ve deployed it in three portfolio companies this year, and the ones that instrumented GTM from day one are the ones hitting their numbers. The ones that didn’t? They’re still in the backlog.
The hard truth: If you can’t show comparable GTM health across your portfolio, you can’t govern it. And if you can’t govern it, you can’t hit 12%. The first 100 days aren’t about triage anymore. They’re about deploying instruments that survive LP reviews and leadership turnover.
Here’s how I do it:
- Start with the Revenue Readiness Index. It’s a single score that combines ICP fit, persona readiness, and win-rate velocity. It’s not perfect, but it’s comparable—and that’s what boards care about.
- Tie every GTM improvement to EBITDA. If a better ICP doesn’t move the EBITDA needle, it’s not a priority. Full stop.
- Make it portable. The instruments you deploy in the first 100 days need to survive to exit. That means no custom dashboards. No one-off audits. Just named, repeatable frameworks.
The exit math is brutal. The governance gap is real. But the fix is simple: Instrument GTM like it’s the margin engine of your portfolio. Because it is.