Calling All Owners

A Ten Creek Letter to Owners

Your next adventure

The decision to sell your business or bring on a growth partner isn’t easy.  As owners and operators of businesses across different industries and stages of growth, we’ve been in your shoes before. 

And if you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought about what the next phase of growth or an ownership transition for your business looks like – whether this is near-term or many years from now.  Questions like:

We get the importance of finding a like-minded partner who shares the same passion, vision, and values.  

There are a lot of buyers and sellers out there… the hard part is finding the right fit. If you’re interested in exploring your options through a no-risk conversation, reach out to us.  We can:

  • Learn more about each other via phone, video, or in-person.

  • Tell you how we’d think about things if we were in your shoes.

  • Go over what your options are.

  • Determine whether or not we’re the right partners.

  • Provide introductions to other potential partners to gather additional data points (whether or not we are involved moving forward). 

  • If it’s the right fit, we can make an offer within a few weeks of our first conversation, and close/wire funds within 3 months.

While we are highly-selective and we are not the right partner for everyone, but we do what we can to be helpful whether or not we are involved moving forward.

Why we started Ten Creek

We’re in the business of changing lives.  Grow your business.  Transition ownership.  Take things to the next level.  Pursue the next great opportunity.  We’re your partner.

We formed Ten Creek because there is a gap for owners of businesses looking for a long-term, proven growth partner. 

Given our track-record and growing businesses from small to large (from <$1M of earnings to an enterprise value over $1B), we are often the first call for owners, entrepreneurs, and operators looking to explore partnerships.  And because we focus exclusively on businesses with up to $10M of annual earnings, we can bring high-firepower expertise and resources to our partners and add value immediately.  We bring our playbook of transforming from a “business” into a “platform” to accelerate outcomes, add durability, reduce risk, and increase growth prospects to grow the value of our partner companies.  We do things simply, effectively, and take the differentiated long view (hence our name).

To do this, we have a dedicated source of capital (our own) and have structured Ten Creek without constraints around holding period (we can hold forever), structure of partnerships, or outside decision-making authority.  We focus on building great companies with our partners, without obligations to outside, passive investor groups who aren’t actively involved in building the business.  We also limit the number of partner companies we invest in, so we can dedicate the time and resources necessary to be a value-add partner and influence meaningful outcomes. 

We’re fortunate to have the existing resources and capital to build Ten Creek in a way we wanted to see it as entrepreneurs and operators ourselves.  We focus on what really matters, and we’ve simplified the process to make it easier to partner with us –  by making things simple and more transparent.  Our mission is to selectively partner with great teams and companies to take things to the next level.  Let’s talk about being partners.

How we’re different

  • We are flexible partners with a proven track-record. We’ve built businesses from less than $1M of earnings to greater than $1B of enterprise value.

  • We only invest our own money and have the existing resources (our own) to grow with our partners to meaningful scale. 

  • We structure deals to meet your unique needs.  We don’t have artificial constraints on size, structure, or holding periods like other investment firms.

  • We work on fewer transactions allowing us to be a more valuable resource to our partners.

  • We are transparent our goal isn’t to “flip your business” in 3-5 years.  We’re focused on growing the business (i.e., team) and understand what it means to preserve owner legacies. 

  • We keep things simple and we understand what is important and what isn’t.  We’re not here to waste time.

  • We’re efficient and decisive.  We can make an offer within a few weeks and close within 3 months.

  • For more information on how our process is different (i.e., less painful for owners and focused on the things that actually matter), go here.

Calling all owners

Let’s connect.  We’re interested in partnering with those who share similar values and want to achieve the next phase of growth or transition ownership.

We’re focused on building long-term relationships… since we are going to be building Ten Creek with our partners for many decades.  There is no obligation or any pressure whatsoever to reach out and start a conversation.  But let us know if you want to connect.

 

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The Differentiated Long View

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Calling All Operators