Process & Organizational ReadinessJune 8, 20263 min read
Founder-Dependency: The #1 Reason Deals Get Repriced
When the founder is still the architecture, the buyer is not acquiring a system. They are acquiring an employment risk.
Concentration risk appears in the deal structure long before it appears in the report. Retention packages, extended earnouts, and escrow adjustments are all downstream of one question: what happens if that person leaves in month four?
How it is measured
- Deployment and production access authority
- Incident response history by individual
- Undocumented operational knowledge
- Customer relationships held personally
Most targets can materially reduce this exposure in a quarter through documentation, access redistribution, and two deliberate handovers. Very few do it before a buyer asks.
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