WholeAustin · Austin metro · Private Companies
The complete Austin guide to private companies — the local businesses and the firms that shape the market, each read for how findable it is online, alongside the concepts, the news and the questions that define the field. Own one? See where you stand and exactly what to improve.
The firms, funds and institutions that set the terms in private companies — context, not local listings; never scored.
The list itself — who is on it, how the Austin Business Journal and Forbes compile private-company rankings, what 'revenue' means when nobody has to file, why self-reporting shapes the ranking, and how to read year-over-year movement. The obvious front door for the whole cluster.
Founder-owned, multi-generation family, private-equity platform, employee-owned ESOP, cooperative, and venture-backed-but-still-private — what each model actually changes about control, cash distributions, hiring, risk tolerance and exit options. The organizing spine of this cluster.
Handing a business to the second or third generation, family employment policies, in-laws and non-operating shareholders, buy-sell agreements, the difference between transferring management and transferring ownership, and what happens when no child wants the company.
What a sale actually looks like end to end — preparing the books, choosing a banker or broker, the confidential information memorandum, indications of interest, management presentations, the LOI, diligence, and the ninety days between signing and closing.
Multiple of adjusted EBITDA, seller's discretionary earnings for smaller businesses, revenue multiples for software, the size premium, discounts for lack of marketability and control, and why the number a buyer pays is rarely the number in the owner's head.
Asset vs stock sale, rollover equity, earn-outs, seller notes, escrows and holdbacks, reps and warranties insurance, working capital pegs, and how the structure — not the headline price — determines what the owner actually banks.
How an ESOP is financed and valued, the trustee's role, the tax treatment that makes it attractive to a selling owner, repurchase obligation, employee-ownership trusts as a simpler alternative, and honest coverage of where ESOPs go wrong.
Bank lines of credit and borrowing bases, term loans, SBA 7(a) and 504, mezzanine and unitranche, private credit funds, sale-leasebacks, equipment finance, minority recapitalizations, and personal guarantees — the private-company capital stack.
Entity choice, pass-through taxation and the K-1, the pass-through entity tax election, the Texas franchise tax and no state personal income tax, R&D credits, Section 174 treatment of software development, QSBS, and the tax consequences that drive deal structure.
Cash vs accrual, compiled vs reviewed vs audited financials, when a private company needs a real controller or fractional CFO, monthly close discipline, KPI dashboards, and building books clean enough that a buyer or lender does not discount them.
Competing for talent against public-company stock — profit sharing, phantom equity, stock appreciation rights, long-term incentive plans, bonus design tied to real metrics, and the employer-brand problem of a company nobody can look up on a stock ticker.
Board of advisors vs a fiduciary board, family councils, shareholder agreements, independent directors, CEO peer groups like Vistage and EO, and how private companies build the outside accountability a public board would otherwise impose.
EOS/Traction, Scaling Up, open-book management, the annual operating plan, revenue per employee and margin discipline, cash conversion, and the operational habits that separate a company that grows from one that just gets busier.
Profiles by sector — grocery and food, construction and building products, restaurants and hospitality, consumer brands, waste and industrial services, software and fintech, professional services — each with its own margin structure, capital intensity and buyer pool.
The honest case for each: disclosure burden, quarterly pressure, liquidity for founders and employees, acquisition currency, and the secondary markets, continuation funds and tender offers that now give private shareholders liquidity without an IPO.
Key-person insurance, buy-sell funding, commercial property and liability cost inflation, property tax protests, cyber coverage, succession-triggering events, and the contingency planning a company with no public backstop has to do for itself.
explain the qualified retirement plan that holds company stock in a trust for employees, that the trustee buys the shares at an independently determined fair market value, and that it is a buyer as well as a benefit plan
explain that an EOT is a perpetual trust holding the company for employees without individual accounts, that it avoids the ESOP's repurchase obligation and regulatory machinery, and that it does not carry the same tax treatment
explain the model — an individual raises capital to find and buy one company, then runs it — and that searchers now compete for the same small profitable businesses that once had no buyer
explain a deal sponsor who finds and negotiates a transaction and then raises the equity per deal rather than from a committed fund, and what that means for a seller's certainty of close
explain that the seller reinvests part of the proceeds into the buyer's new entity, why buyers want it, and that the second bite is real but not guaranteed
explain deferred consideration conditioned on post-closing performance, that it bridges a valuation gap, and that the metric and who controls it is the whole negotiation
explain that a QoE tests whether reported earnings are real, recurring and sustainable, and that it is not an audit and does not opine on the financial statements
explain the normalised level of working capital the buyer expects at closing and the post-closing true-up, and that a badly set peg quietly moves real money
explain the qualified small business stock gain exclusion, that it applies to stock of a qualifying domestic C corporation held for the required period, and that the eligibility conditions are narrow and easy to break
explain normalising for owner compensation, personal expenses and genuinely one-time items, and that aggressive addbacks are the fastest way to lose a buyer's trust in diligence
explain the mechanism governing what happens to an owner's shares on death, disability, divorce, dispute or departure, how it is valued and funded, and that most are written once and never revisited
explain partial liquidity with continued ownership, and that the majority-minority distinction determines who controls the next sale
explain that a sponsor buys a platform at a full multiple and then acquires smaller operators at lower multiples, and that the spread is the strategy
state the Texas standard plainly — a covenant must be ancillary to an otherwise enforceable agreement and reasonable in time, geographic area and scope of activity — and note that Texas courts can reform an overbroad covenant rather than strike it
state the current position accurately: the rule was set aside by a federal court and did not take effect, and the agency shifted to case-by-case enforcement; verify the current status before publishing, because this has moved more than once
explain tying it to genuine consideration such as confidential information or specialised training, keeping the time, geography and activity scope tight, and pairing it with non-solicit and trade-secret protection which are easier to enforce
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