The Truth About Portfolio Ops
(And Why It’s Not What You Think)
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Portfolio Ops.
I looked it up in the dictionary and I deduced it’s the people who make you fill in those annoying quarterly templates.
Just kidding. Kind of.
Sidebar: For people who invest in software for a living, why is the data collection process so janky? A manual “iLevel template” doesn’t exactly scream “we are at the bleeding edge of innovative B2B SaaS”
Sure, the ops team is there to help you hit your numbers (and maybe even help you set them). But they’re also the people who “add value” via:
Recruiting and interviewing
Challenging leadership thinking
Encouraging a company to jump from one S curve to another
At the end of the day, it’s about creating leverage.
By the way—your leadership team? That’s the atomic unit of any PE investment. It’s either a force multiplier or a force of chaos. Portfolio Ops helps nudge it toward the former. And if I’m being honest, as an operator sometimes it’s nice to “outsource” a decision or opinion to the investors rather than having to trade in your own goodwill internally with your fellow C Suite.
At its best, PE portfolio ops is:
Coaching
Problem solving
Removing problems before they happen
And maybe most importantly, bringing pattern recognition to founders who’ve never seen what good looks like outside their own four walls. And this isn’t a knock on founders - but many have deep domain knowledge, and no exposure to how high-performing orgs scale. They’ve never seen a clean GTM model or a high-velocity sales funnel. A great ops team gives them that window—without prescribing a one-size-fits-all solution.
As Paul Stansik of ParkerGale puts it:
“You should have a very strong opinion of what works, and what the foundational building blocks of a high-performing company at this age and stage look like.”
And then you translate that into the handwriting of each business.
Common Misconceptions About Portfolio Ops
PE Ops only gets involved when a company is struggling.
That’s the stereotype: drop in, fix what’s broken, get out. Reality? Great ops work is often proactive, not reactive. Actually, some of the highest ROI comes from helping great companies ride a tailwind. Scale’s messy too. If a company has a great thing going, from an enterprise value perspective, investors are very much motivated to make sure 1) you don’t mess it up, and 2) you double down on your bet if you have a good hand. They don’t only show up when you’re missing numbers or behind on cash. In fact, there’s also a chance they ignore you to concentrate on the winners. Yes, they will try to help you reignite growth, but they can’t resuscitate the dead, and after a while, a sunk cost is a sunk cost.
SMB Carwash CRM tool They just roll out the same playbook company to company.
Bad ops teams do. Good ones know when to bend the framework. As Paul says, “Templates build trust, but translation builds traction.” You have to translate it into the company’s handwriting to make it meaningful.They show up with slide decks, not screwdrivers.
Tell that to Sarah Spoja, now CFO at Tipalti, who worked portfolio at KKR where she helped scale Clover, a payment processor. She went so far to install point-of-sale hardware in restaurants, staff trade show booths, and serve as a literal hand model for product photos. “You learn more in two hours on-site than in a week behind a spreadsheet.”
What Portfolio Ops Actually Does (Tactically)
Installs a data standard—and teaches the team how to use it.
As Paul Stansik puts it, Portfolio Ops is the “keeper of the standard.” They help define the right metrics for the stage and coach leadership to move from gut feel to repeatable decisions. It's not just about what to track, but how to act on it.Helps founders hire the right sales leader—before the wrong one burns a year.
Hiring a VP of Sales too early, too late, or from the wrong DNA strand is one of the most expensive mistakes a growth-stage company can make. Portfolio Ops helps calibrate what “good” looks like for this stage and motion, pressure-tests candidates, and ensures the founder isn’t optimizing for charisma over fit. One great hire here can change the trajectory of the business.Surfaces what’s not working—before it blows up.
Just because a number looks fine doesn’t mean it is. Portfolio Ops spots flatlining metrics that should be growing, root-causes data debt, and prevents issues from becoming board-level fire drills. It’s pattern recognition at the right altitude.
Things to Keep in Mind
You DO know your business better than they do. You are in it day to day. They are informed tourists. They have, however, seen more trends across other companies. And they can be helpful in spotting one within yours. It’s up to you to push back if they are suggesting you build a chair when you really need a sofa
You should “put them to work” where applicable. I’ve found this most helpful for TAM analyses. For example, if you sell software to insurance companies, they can use their super expensive data subscriptions to pull all the registered insurance agencies out there, split them into geographic territories, and build a model to estimate potential short and long term market capture. Remember: the work goes both ways. It’s not a one way data sharing exercise.
There’s usually a “why” behind every ask. They don’t care about net dollar retention rate for the sake of it. If you can’t identify the “why” behind any data ask, have a candid conversation. It will not only help you give them what they want the firs time around, it will also ensure you working off a mutual understanding of the underlying value creation playbook
Run the Numbers Podcast
Apple | Spotify | YouTube
The average Disney World parking attendant gets more training than your average sales rep.
I discuss this fact, and art and science of portfolio operations, with Paul Stansik, operating partner at Parker Gale. This was chalk full of insights for those trying to ensure the trains run on time, and you hit your sales goals in the process.
He shares hands-on insights into how his team helps portfolio companies scale by:
Transforming sales data into decisions
Navigating post-acquisition go-to-market challenges
Driving the shift from being merely data-aware to fully data-driven.
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The proactive point is so true. Helping a winner achieve a higher multiple has a significantly higher ceiling than helping a struggling company struggle slightly less