Most founders won't give up 80% of their business. The ones who did walked away with more than if they'd kept 100%.

Murray Schnuriger made the jump from 20 years advising founders on exits to actually owning the risk at 5V Capital, a mid-market PE fund across Australia and New Zealand. Toby King has spent his career at Cameron Partners, one of NZ's most established M&A firms, allied with Rothschild and Company. Together they've sat on both sides of more NZ business exits than almost anyone alive.

The Education Perfect story is the one that sticks. Two brothers built an edtech platform into 50% of NZ secondary schools, hit their ceiling, and sold 80% to 5V. One went backpacking for a year. 5V brought in a new CEO, put sales teams on the ground in Australia, and tripled the business in three years. Exit to KKR. The 20% the brothers held at the end was worth more than their original 100%. That's the structure most NZ founders never think to ask about.

Murray and Toby pull no punches on what founders consistently get wrong, pricing on EBITDA when buyers price on free cash flow, waiting one more year for growth when the multiple compression wipes out the gain, and showing up to a sale process without a narrative that holds up under serious due diligence.

We get into:

Why selling 80% can leave you wealthier than holding everything

The EBITDA trap that costs NZ founders millions at the table

Why "one more year of growth" is often the most expensive decision you'll make

How PE investors actually think about your exit before they've even finished investing in you

What your business narrative needs to nail to earn a premium valuation

The succession wave hitting NZ baby boomer founders and why PE is filling the gap

If you're building something and wondering what it actually looks like to sell part of your business, back yourself for one more run, and walk away with more than you started with, this one's worth your time.

What if the most successful version of your company is the smallest one?

This week I sit down with Mark Zeman, co-founder of SpeedCurve, who quietly built one of the most unusual software businesses I've come across. No VC. No sales team. No marketing function. A team that never grew beyond seven people, paid two to three times market salary, and shared the monthly profit with everyone.

SpeedCurve had customers like Airbnb, the New York Times and the Guardian. They found him, not the other way around. And after 13 years, he exited to Embrace, not at the peak.

We get into:

- Why Mark turned down customers, capital and "grow at all costs"

- How a UX designer in New Zealand ended up shaping global web performance standards

- The handshake co-founder deal with Steve Souders and why it worked

- Monthly profit share instead of equity and a someday-maybe exit

- The moment the market shifted and SpeedCurve became the wrong shape

- Selling a declining SaaS business and why Embrace still wanted it

- What working inside a VC-backed company has confirmed and challenged

If you've ever wondered whether there's another way to build a SaaS business and exit on your own terms, there is. Mark just lived it.

What if the biggest risk in your company isn't your product, it's whether your people are actually ready to lead?

This week, I sit down with Logan Yonavjak, founder of the Readiness Engine, to explore how AI can now measure leadership capacity at scale. We get into coachability, the grit myth, the early warning signs a founding team is in trouble, and my own method for testing resilience and values in the room.

Essential listening for founders, investors and operators.