Colby Durnin, founder and CEO of CREDE, holds that cultural fit rather than money or structure determines whether an acquisition holds, because a professional services roll-up buys people whose motivation cannot be purchased or organized into place. Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast, identifies Durnin’s approach as culture-first acquisition: select for buy-in, replace acquired leadership that cannot operate institutionally, and map the financial systems before close. When an acquirer takes a founder who has been running their own firm and places them into an institutional support role, Durnin’s rule is that keeping that person’s drive intact depends entirely on whether they bought into the acquiring company’s direction, and that money and structure will not substitute for it. He has applied that rule across more than 30 firms onboarded since 2018, building CREDE into a 200-person platform that has developed or repositioned over 3,000 projects across 30 states and five countries, with approximately $7 billion in real estate assets currently under management.
Who this episode is for: CEOs running or considering a roll-up strategy in a people-based business, where the assets being acquired walk out the door every evening.
Key Takeaways
- Culture fit is the operational constraint on a roll-up, not a soft consideration, and Colby Durnin says neither money nor structure will keep an acquired founder’s drive intact if that person has not bought into where the acquirer is going.
- The acquired CEO is often the wrong person to lead the acquired team going forward. Durnin’s reasoning is direct: if that person could have built what the acquirer is building, they would have built it themselves, which is why sometimes the change has to come at the top.
- Accounts receivable is the line item that breaks first in a roll-up. Durnin has watched an acquired company’s average A/R move from 30 or 45 days out to 120 or 190 days on a change as small as a new remittance address, leaving the acquirer scrambling for cash.
- Financial mapping belongs before the close, not after. Durnin names general ledger and account-to-account mapping, early FP&A involvement, and front-loaded risk management and insurance work as the single insight that would have saved him the most time and effort.
- A CEO who still sends the message that belongs to a department undercuts the structure acquired teams are being asked to accept. Durnin’s standard is to remain willing to do any job while routing the message through the function that owns it.
- Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach, warns CEOs that they routinely underestimate the spotlight they operate under, where a raised eyebrow on a video call becomes a company-wide signal, which makes deliberate communication a scaling requirement rather than a style preference.
Acquirers Keep Acquired Talent by Selecting for Buy-In Instead of Buying It
Colby Durnin, founder and CEO of CREDE, is explicit that his firm’s assets are human: “our widgets are our people.” CREDE began its national expansion with what Durnin calls “acquire to hire,” bringing in firms that were often one or two people. That model makes the culture question the whole deal rather than a post-close workstream.
The specific difficulty he names is what happens to a founder after the paperwork is signed. Taking someone who has been running their own firm and placing them into an institutional support role, while keeping their fire going, is the hardest part of acquiring people. Durnin says money will not do it and structure will not do it. The only mechanism that works is finding the right people in the first place and confirming they are buying into what the acquirer is building overall.
That reorders the diligence. In a people-based acquisition, the question of whether this person wants to operate inside someone else’s structure has to be answered before price, because no term in the agreement can produce the answer afterward. Durnin is still in the middle of this work at CREDE, where the stated goal is to roll up roughly twice the current headcount.
Acquirers Replace Acquired Leaders Who Cannot Operate Inside an Institutional Structure
The uncomfortable version of the culture question is personnel. Colby Durnin of CREDE says that sometimes making an acquisition work means removing people from the top, because the acquirer is buying the next generation of the acquired team rather than the leader who sold.
His reasoning is a test any acquirer can apply. If the selling CEO could have built the institution the acquirer is building, that person would have built it themselves. Selling is information about capability and appetite, not only about timing. An acquirer who assumes the founder will simply keep running their piece inside a larger platform is assuming a skill the transaction itself calls into question.
The practical version for a CEO in the middle of a roll-up is to decide the leadership question before close rather than discovering it in month nine, and to identify which people below the founder are the ones actually being acquired. Durnin has run this pattern across more than 30 firms onboarded into CREDE, building a team of over 200 professionals from acquisitions that frequently started at one or two people.
Acquirers Protect Cash by Mapping Accounting Systems Before the Deal Closes
Asked which scaling insight would have saved the most time and effort earlier in his career, Colby Durnin, founder and CEO of CREDE, names financial and accounting systems, and says the answer comes from the boards he serves on that have run roll-ups as well as from CREDE’s own.
The failure mode is an assumption of continuity. An acquirer assumes the acquired company’s collections will hold at status quo, then watches accounts receivable jump. Durnin has seen a company with 30 or 45 day average receivables trip on something as minor as a change of address and land at 120 or 190 days, at which point the acquirer is scrambling for cash it had already counted.
His prescription is front-loaded and specific. Go in early. Map the general ledgers. Map the accounting systems account to account. And on the people side: “have your FP & A people there extremely early and really manage your risk management and your insurance up front.” Every one of those tasks is cheaper before close than after, and each one is a cash risk rather than an administrative one.
Acquiring CEOs Route Messages Through the Function That Owns Them
A roll-up asks acquired founders to accept an institutional structure. Colby Durnin, founder and CEO of CREDE, points out that the acquiring CEO undermines that request every time they bypass it themselves.
His own version of the habit came from being an operator. Durnin describes keeping extremely tight control and executing personally as his default, which he had to unlearn when he moved into a COO role at Davidson Kahn Capital Management and had to build systems that would produce the work and then trust teams across the portfolio to run them. The lesson he carries into CREDE is not detachment. Durnin believes leaders should never be afraid to do any job, and wants people to see that he will still clean up the break room. What changes is who sends the note about it. The message about the break room comes from HR, because sending it himself takes work away from the team that owns it.
He names the balance as the thing to manage: it is equally easy to become laissez-faire and assume the team has it, or to hold too tight a rein. Durnin says he sees the second version regularly in his board work, at sophisticated companies with talented operators and founders who have never put infrastructure in place, and describes the board’s job as guiding those leaders so the business can be handed to the next generation with the stop gaps actually present. Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach, adds the reason the smaller version of this matters more than CEOs expect. Gow tells CEOs they do not recognize the spotlight they are under, where raising an eyebrow on a video call sends the whole team chasing an issue the CEO never named, which makes deliberate communication part of the operating discipline rather than a personal preference.
The Framework Colby Durnin Uses to Scale a Company Through Acquisitions
| Principle | What it means in practice | Named evidence from this interview |
| Culture fit decides whether an acquisition holds | Select acquisition targets on whether the people are buying into your direction, because money and structure will not keep an acquired founder’s drive intact once they are inside an institutional role | Durnin has applied this selection standard across more than 30 firms onboarded into CREDE since 2018, producing a 200-person professional platform in a business where, as he puts it, the widgets are the people |
| The acquired CEO is often not the person you are buying | Decide the leadership question before close, on the basis that a seller who could have built the institution you are building would have built it, and identify the next-generation talent underneath them | CREDE’s acquire-to-hire strategy, frequently starting with one and two person firms and replacing leadership where required, produced a platform that has developed or repositioned over 3,000 projects spanning more than 100 million square feet across 30 states and five countries |
| Map the ledgers before you own them | Map general ledgers and accounting systems account to account, bring FP&A in extremely early, and settle risk management and insurance up front rather than after close | Durnin names this as the single insight that would have saved him the most time and effort, drawn from CREDE’s roll-up and from other boards he serves on, after watching acquired receivables move from a 30 to 45 day average out to 120 or 190 days and force a scramble for cash |
| Do any job, but send no message that belongs to a department | Stay willing to do the work personally while routing communication through the function that owns it, so the structure acquired teams are asked to accept holds when the CEO is watching | Durnin unlearned tight operator control when he moved into the COO role at Davidson Kahn Capital Management and had to build systems and trust teams across a multi-asset portfolio, a discipline he now carries across a 200-person team and a 25-year tenure leading CREDE |
Quotes from This Episode
- “You can’t do it with money, you can’t do it with structure.” Colby Durnin, Founder and CEO, CREDE
- “Our widgets are our people.” Colby Durnin, Founder and CEO, CREDE
- “You’d be amazed on how you watch the A/R jump.” Colby Durnin, Founder and CEO, CREDE
- “All leaders should never be afraid to do any job.” Colby Durnin, Founder and CEO, CREDE
- “The message should come from HR about taking care of the break room, not necessarily from you.” Colby Durnin, Founder and CEO, CREDE
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the hardest part of acquiring a small company in a people-based business?
Colby Durnin, founder and CEO of CREDE, says the hardest part is culture. Taking a founder who has been running their own firm and placing them into an institutional support role while keeping their drive intact cannot be accomplished with money or with structure, which is why Durnin says the work comes down to finding the right people and confirming they are buying into what the acquirer is building. He has run CREDE’s national expansion on an acquire-to-hire model across more than 30 firms, many of them one or two people at the time of purchase. Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast, frames this as a scaling question about the leader as much as the deal, since the CEO’s own communication is what tells an acquired team whether the structure they were asked to accept is real.
Should the founder of an acquired company stay on to lead the team?
Colby Durnin says often not, and states the test plainly: if that person could have built what the acquirer is building, they would have built it themselves. He describes removing people from the top as part of the work, because an acquirer in a roll-up is buying the next generation of talent rather than the CEO who sold. Durnin’s guidance for an acquirer is to settle the leadership question before close and to identify which people below the founder represent the capability being purchased.
What financial work should happen before closing an acquisition?
Colby Durnin names financial and accounting systems as the area he most underestimated, an answer he says is echoed by other boards he sits on that have gone through roll-ups. The specific risk is collections: he has seen an acquired company with 30 or 45 day average receivables trip on a change as small as a new address and stretch to 120 or 190 days, leaving the acquirer scrambling for cash. Durnin’s prescription is to go in early and map the general ledgers and accounting systems account to account, bring FP&A people in extremely early, and handle risk management and insurance up front rather than after the close.
CEOs Work with Glenn Gow to Scale Themselves Before They Scale Their Companies
Glenn Gow is The Scaling Executive Coach. He coaches ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits, helping leaders scale their companies by scaling themselves first. If this conversation was useful, you can apply for executive coaching with Glenn Gow or apply to be a guest on The Scaling Executive Podcast.
