Surviving the First 100 Days of Buying a Business
How Buyers Accidentally Destroy Value - and What to Do Instead
Most buyers don't destroy value on purpose. They do it accidentally.
You did everything right. The due diligence was thorough. The numbers were solid. The integration plan was sensible.
And somewhere in the first hundred days, something changed that nobody could explain.
Decisions that used to happen quickly started to stall. Information that used to flow freely began to slow. The energy that made the business worth buying began to drain away.
By the time it showed up in the numbers, the damage was already done.
Every acquisition rests on a three-legged stool
Most buyers only ever build two legs.
What they call "people risk" is usually buried inside legal or financial checks. The risk that actually causes post-deal failure sits somewhere else entirely.
It doesn't announce itself. It compounds quietly. It hijacks from within. And it takes hold long before it appears in a board pack.
The cement is wet. Everything you do leaves a mark.
The skills that built your track record can misfire here
You'd think experience would help. But the first hundred days play by different rules.
The decisiveness that earned your reputation? In a newly acquired organisation, it can land as pressure that destabilises trust.
The confidence that won you deals? It can read as a signal that employee concerns won't be heard.
The pattern recognition that's served you so well? It starts matching the wrong patterns, because this situation isn't like the others.
These are reasonable decisions, made by competent people, that trigger consequences nobody anticipated.
You're not just buying assets. You're inheriting a system.
When you acquire a business, you're inheriting a living system of relationships, loyalties, fears, and unspoken rules that existed long before you arrived.
Due diligence wasn't designed to surface any of this. It looks at the building. It doesn't check the temperature inside.
And here's what makes the first hundred days so dangerous: they're not just important. They're irreversible.
Early signals become permanent truths. First impressions harden into beliefs. The cement is wet, and everything you do leaves a mark you won't be able to smooth over later.
See what's actually happening in the organisations you acquire
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Why Day One looks calm when it isn't
Fire alarms are ringing in people's heads. You just can't hear them.
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What employees are really thinking
The questions they're asking themselves. The answers they're constructing based on everything you do.
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Why communication fails even when you mean well
You're broadcasting on the wrong frequency, and reassurance often makes things worse.
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Why psychological safety is a commercial asset
Research shows it reduces attrition risk by 4x. This isn't soft. It's strategic.
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How pressure flows through organisations
Like heat through a building. Understanding this matters more than any operational playbook.
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The critical shift from controller to regulator
The buyers who survive aren't the ones who control the most. They're the ones who learn to regulate.
A lens, not a checklist
This isn't a leadership manual or an integration checklist. It's a lens for seeing the risks most buyers only understand after they've already paid for them.
Written in commercial language for people who think in terms of value, risk, and return. Not psychology jargon.
You won't find a step-by-step playbook. That's deliberate. These dynamics are too contextual for a checklist. What this book will do is give you the lens to read your specific situation accurately.
Once you can see what's actually happening, the right response becomes clearer.
These aren't soft costs. They show up in EBITDA.
The cost of getting this wrong doesn't show up as a line item. It shows up in:
The key person who quietly starts looking elsewhere
The institutional knowledge that walks out the door
The discretionary effort that never returns
The initiatives that meet invisible resistance
The gap between what you paid for and what you actually get
They just show up later, disguised as operational problems, market conditions, cultural misalignment. By the time you see them, the cause is long forgotten.
The cement doesn't stay wet forever.
If you're about to inherit a business, this is for you
Private Equity Professionals
Who want to protect the value of their portfolio companies through transitions
First-Time Acquirers
Who want to avoid the mistakes that experienced buyers keep making
Founders Preparing to Sell
Who want to understand what their business is about to experience
Anyone Who's Wondered
Why a deal that looked perfect on paper fell apart in execution
The first hundred days will decide what happens next
The people inside that business are watching you from the moment you walk in. The answers they construct will determine whether you protect what was built, or destroy it.
Not ready to buy? Start here.
Take the free Acquisition Readiness Diagnostic: a ten-minute assessment that evaluates where you stand across the dimensions covered in this book.
Your visibility into human dynamics. Your readiness for day one. Your pressure transmission patterns. Your orientation toward control versus regulation.
AreYouAcquisitionReady.com