Retention Edge E15: Max Your Exit

In the latest episode of The Retention Edge Podcast, we sat down with Emmett Kilduff, co-founder of The Fortia Group — a boutique M&A advisory firm specializing in selling ecommerce brands and digital agencies.

Emmett has over 25 years of experience and over $20 Billion in deals under his belt. He didn’t set out to sell Shopify brands for a living — he came from the world of Wall Street deals.

But during COVID, after chatting with Thrasio’s founder Carlos Cashman, he saw an opportunity: smaller ecommerce founders were getting a raw deal when selling their businesses.

He built The Fortia Group to give them Wall Street-level representation without the Wall Street ego.

If you’ve ever thought about selling your brand — or even just building it to be worth more — this episode is a goldmine.

Here are the top takeaways from the pod.

What Makes a Business Sellable?

Most founders only start thinking about selling when they’re ready to sell. And by then, it’s often too late to shape the outcome.

Emmett says the best exits happen when owners start preparing 1-3 years in advance. That means understanding what buyers value and shaping your operations, financials, and growth story around that.

His team introduces clients to potential buyers long before a sale — just to gather feedback. They ask, “If you were to acquire this business, what would you need to see?” and then use that input to strengthen the brand quarter by quarter.

What buyers consistently want to see:

• Recurring or repeatable revenue (subscriptions, replenishment cycles, or loyal customers)

• Strong net margins — proof you can run a lean, profitable business

• Consistent growth in both revenue and margin trajectory

• A real brand — something with emotional resonance and organic search demand, not just a store that sells products

Valuation Drivers and Market Conditions

What your business is worth isn’t just about your P&L. There are two layers: macro (the market) and micro (your brand).

Macro factors — like interest rates, private equity activity, and global M&A appetite — affect every deal. For example, 2021 was a record-breaking year for ecommerce M&A, while 2023-24 saw major slowdowns due to rising rates and tariff uncertainty.

Micro factors are what you can control: your growth rate, margins, customer retention, and how well-prepared you are for due diligence.

Emmett also highlights a hidden variable: deal dynamics. Things like seller motivation, buyer urgency, or time pressure can change a deal overnight.

One Fortia client got a premium offer because the buyer had to close by quarter-end. External forces can make or break your price.

The Aggregator Story — What Went Wrong (and Right)

Remember the Amazon aggregator boom? Dozens of companies raised billions to buy up FBA brands — then most of them collapsed.

According to Emmett, that crash came down to three things:

1. Too much debt.

2. Not enough real ecommerce experience.

3. Buying products, not brands.

The few that survived (and the ones thriving now) are DTC-led aggregators focused on genuine brands with loyal audiences, not commodity listings.

They’re doing fewer, bigger, more strategic acquisitions and running them like proper operators.

He also reminds us that aggregation isn’t dead — it’s just evolving. The roll-up model has worked for decades in software and manufacturing. The key difference is operational excellence: you can’t financial-engineer your way to ecommerce success.

Retention and Brand Strength = Exit Power

When a buyer looks at your business, they’re not just buying your revenue, or your stock. They’re buying your relationship with your customers.

If people return to buy again and again without being chased by ads, that’s huge. Organic traffic, strong email performance, branded search, and repeat purchase rates are signals of loyalty and resilience.

Buyers also love brands that own their customer data — through apps, push notifications, email, and SMS — because they’re less dependent on Meta or TikTok’s algorithmic whims.

In contrast, a business that relies entirely on paid ads feels fragile. The second CPMs spike or attribution changes, the whole growth engine collapses.

Final Words of Advice

Emmett has two big takeaways for founders:

1. Plan early. The best exits happen when you prepare years in advance, not months.

2. Think bigger. Growth doesn’t have to be organic — it can come through acquiring other small brands or merging with peers.

He’s seen small founders pull off creative “paper deals” — combining equity, talent, and brand assets — to grow faster and exit together for far more than they could individually.

In his words: “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” The founders who win are the ones who think strategically long before they’re ready to sell.

Watch or listen to the full podcast below:

You can also find it on Spotify. Wherever you listen, don’t forget to like, rate, review, comment, subscribe. Each interaction helps us bring more experts on to share their wisdom (always free, btw).

I’ll be back later in the week with the latest from around the ecom world, plus some quick nuggets on how to own the rest of this year, and build momentum to take through to 2026.

Talk soon,

Pietro and The Retention Edge Team

PS: thinking about launching your own app? Go to our website to get a preview of your app for free, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn to talk about it.