We had the opportunity to spend an hour with Jason Pritchard, CEO at Fitfactory, who joined the Everfield ecosystem in 2023.
Read on to learn about how he finds the confidence to take big leaps as a CEO, ambition as a key driver in his professional career, and what it’s like to lead an M&A due diligence process when you’ve never run one before.
Jason Pritchard (JP): When I joined Fitfactory in 2021 as group chief commercial officer, we had around 40 employees. I took the leap and left my previous job as sales director at one of our biggest competitors and convinced a few people to join me. We've developed a fantastic team here.
Unfortunately, the old owner's health deteriorated, and we needed to sell the business sooner rather than later. We took about nine months searching for firms before we came across Everfield. We were looking for an investment firm that would allow us to run the business because I had just put the management team together. We’re young and experienced, and wanted to have something we were allowed to run, but where we’d be supported.
After sitting down with James [Country Manager - UK&I Acquisitions at Everfield], I knew they were the right people for us to join forces with.
Everfield helped us understand why data is critical, and how to use it to make more informed decisions. If we want to shift from the mindset of an SME into how we grow, it’s critical.
Everfield (EF): What’s this shift that you're experiencing of going from an SME into a growing company?
JP: I think the shift we're going through is what we wanted and hoped for by being backed by Everfield. It gives you security first and foremost, the sounding board, and increased our confidence. The reason why I say that is when you operate within an SME business, you sometimes have impostor syndrome. I’ve had it. I constantly ask myself; how can we still continue this? Why are things going right?
My expectations were to use experienced people like Toby [UK Strategic Business Partner] and Scott [Everfield CEO] to soundboard off. These are people who have been there, and seen other businesses go through it.
The exciting part is being able to look at what the data is telling you. That gives you confidence because it backs up what you know is right as CEO.
EF: Tell us about the process of looking for an acquirer.
JP: It was a long process. In 2022, we fielded 40 investment firms. An investor’s alignment with our culture and backing us to be in charge of running the business was most important. We had a lot of meetings and narrowed it down to three. Everfield weren't in the running at that point.
We chose a company who had told us everything we wanted to hear. They came on-site, and we started mapping things out.
I said to the old owner this isn't right. They can't give us clarity on what our job roles are going to be, the autonomy we'll have, or how they'll support us to grow the business. We pulled out of that deal, went back out to market, and spoke to another 10-15 companies.
We became aware of Everfield and met with James. It's a long buy and hold strategy. The team are incentivised, responsible, and supported to grow the business. That’s what made us choose Everfield.
EF: What was your motivation for joining Fitfactory as CEO, and how does Everfield fit into your career aspirations?
JP: The challenge at Fitfactory intrigued me — having more than one product. Where I was before, we had one product we would sell. It was an easy implementation, it stuck well to its target markets.
The second thing is I'm extremely ambitious. Every job I've taken has always been a step up. I haven't had the easiest route, shall we say. I'm dyslexic and at 17 I was homeless. I moved into delivering charity leaflets, then sales, running my own business, and getting scammed. Then implementing software, selling software, sales director, and now CEO.
That's a journey. I've got no qualifications, just qualifications of life. I'm ambitious, going from homeless to a CEO in the space of probably 15 years, and working my way up. Fitfactory was that next step.
I’m motivated and passionate about working with the team and be challenged by them. Ultimately, I’m leading from the front, fighting on the front line to help them grow the business. I'm here to enjoy the challenge, and Everfield has brought the next wave.
I'm learning from the likes of Scott, who's been at multiple different places and got a great career behind him. I think whenever you're building a team like I am, people buy into the leader. And maybe if I master the playbook that Scott’s got, then I will become a group CEO.
That's exciting and something to aim for. Everfield always have something up their sleeve for what's next, which is good for ambitious people.
EF: Thank you for sharing your story. I'd like to talk about due diligence - what should someone expect during a due diligence process?
JP: It definitely wasn't easy, and having never been through one, it's difficult to compare.
I'll start with the lowlight — the sheer amount of data you must pull together.
We were supported by Everfield regarding what data needed to be pulled in, and they also helped us prioritise. If you’ve never seen a data room before, everything gets loaded into there. The lawyers, M&A guys, and we're in there. Being able to prioritise was key.
It was just me dealing with it, because l needed the team to continue doing their jobs. We loaded in a lot of documents, about 6000 in total. We described it as if you're selling a house, they're now looking under the carpets and behind the curtains to make sure what you've said is right. It also highlighted errors and inefficiencies we were able to address.
The highlight was that Everfield supported us every step of the way. James helped us with things we were unsure of, which was brilliant. He helped us look at things, and I felt it was genuine. Rather than sending it to lawyers and increasing the costs, he would ask the questions we should have been asking our providers to get relevant information.
We felt James and Everfield weren’t looking for where they could cut the price they’d originally offered down. They were looking for information to back it up — how they could help me find the information to maximise the earn-out, which I felt was nice and genuine.
EF: It's nice to hear. What expectations did you have when joining Everfield?
JP: I’ll start with the onboarding process. Challenging is a term that I'll say, but positively challenging. It made us build on the work we've done during due diligence and level ourselves up again.
The information that needs to be collected is much more granular than what we were collecting. After a couple of weeks, it became a new norm. After a couple of months, it became valuable because we could look back, track, analyse, and make more informed decisions.
I refer to it as an S curve. We were quite comfortable with our processes. As we started to onboard, we had to change. We’ve got more information than we've ever had, and it's relevant. We use it in our weekly, monthly, and management meetings.
Whenever anyone joins a business, they come in with a fresh pair of eyes. After a while, you get surrounded by the noise, get embedded in the job. I think the continued value of Everfield is they will never be so involved they get blinded by the day-to-day noise. They’ll always sit on the outside and understand enough about your business but add context and challenge the status quo when needed.
EF: Do you have any advice for someone who's leading a business that's thinking about selling their business?
JP: Invest time prior to going to market and ensure that your data has integrity. Take time to do housekeeping on data you've got, to streamline the due diligence process.
Don't be afraid to ask for help from others who have been through it. Maybe we could have invested in somebody externally to help with the data.
If you're concerned about the people who remain in the business, take your time. Make sure you speak with people who will look after the people in your business, and that they've got a culture and mindset that fits with yours.
Take your time and do your due diligence on the acquirer. Make sure that the other people who will take over have the right mindset that you want to leave your people with. Don't just take the highest price, it's not always the best.
