Longest Lever Intelligence — Commercial Due Diligence

The Gap

Most lower-middle-market deals are too small for institutional CDD and too important to underwrite on instinct.

On larger deals, you can pay for a full institutional diligence process. In the lower middle market, the options are fragmented — a patchwork of generalist consultants, research firms, and marketplaces where quality varies widely. The rigor exists at the top of the market, but it doesn't scale down cleanly to a $5M EBITDA deal on a competitive timeline.

The budget doesn't fit

A $5M EBITDA deal can't absorb six-figure diligence fees designed for transactions ten times its size. But the risks in a smaller deal are just as capable of destroying returns.

The timeline doesn't fit

Competitive auctions move fast. By the time a larger firm scopes the engagement, staffs a team, and schedules a kickoff, you've lost two weeks.

The depth gets compressed

Internal deal teams are stretched across multiple opportunities. The cross-referencing, the contradiction hunting, the gap analysis — the work that separates a thin narrative from a durable revenue story — is what gets cut.

What You Get

A clear answer on the commercial case — not a binder of market research.

Every engagement ends with specific, usable outputs designed for your decision process.

Claims that hold up — and claims that don't

Every key management assertion tested against independent evidence, documented in a Claims vs. Evidence Matrix.

The gaps the CIM doesn't mention

A systematic catalog of what should be present in the narrative but isn't — missing data, avoided questions, absent competitors.

The commercial risks most likely to impair revenue after close

Ranked by severity, sourced, and confidence-rated so you know which risks are real and which are noise.

A named verdict: Proceed, Proceed with Conditions, or Walk

Not a summary of findings. Not a hedge. A call on the deal with the reasoning behind it, ready for committee.

How It Works

From live deal to usable answer in days.

01

Scope the Deal

30-minute call, no charge. I learn the deal context, identify the claims to test, and agree on tier, timeline, and deliverables.

02

Research & Analyze

I test management claims against public records, competitor evidence, employee signal, web archives, and market data. Then I separate noise from risk and write the implications in plain English.

03

Deliver & Debrief

Final report plus a 30-minute walkthrough. Key judgments, highest-severity findings, and the editorial verdict: Proceed, Proceed with Conditions, or Do Not Proceed.

Engagement Tiers

Scaled to your deal, not my overhead.

Three tiers of buy-side commercial due diligence. Every tier ends with a view: what holds up, what doesn't, and whether the commercial case is strong enough to keep backing.

Tier 1

Sprint

$5,000

3–5 days · 10–15 pages

For searchers and operators on sub-$3M EBITDA deals

Contradiction analysis on key CIM claims
Competitive landscape and substitution risk
Customer concentration and revenue quality
Claims vs. Evidence Matrix
Red flag ranking with severity ratings
Editorial verdict with confidence level

Tier 2 — Most Common

Sponsor CDD

$10,000 – $15,000

10–14 days · 25–40 pages

For independent sponsors and small PE firms on $3M–$8M EBITDA deals

Everything in Sprint, plus:
Full 10-section CDD report
Employee review and hiring-signal analysis
Expert calls and targeted primary research where warranted
Pre-mortem scenarios with early-warning signposts
Thesis prosecution — bear case mapped against evidence
Post-close monitoring triggers (top 5 KPIs)

Tier 3

Deep CDD

$20,000 – $25,000

10–15 days · 45–60 pages

For PE firms with institutional LPs on $5M+ EBITDA deals

Everything in Sponsor CDD, plus:
Bull case vs. failure case analysis
Probability-weighted risk scoring across failure modes
Sector-specific deep dive (SaaS, services, manufacturing, healthcare)
Full 30/90-day post-close monitoring framework
IC-ready executive summary

Red Flag Screen — $3,500 – $5,000 · 3 days

A standalone go/no-go gate before you commit to full diligence. Key Judgments, Claims vs. Evidence Matrix, and a verdict — nothing else. Should you keep looking, or walk away now?

How the Work Gets Done

Trust the thesis. Then verify every claim behind it.

I start where you do — with the deal thesis and the management narrative. Then I run each key claim through independent verification, looking for contradictions, gaps, and assumptions that haven't been tested.

Contradiction Analysis

When sources disagree, that's where I dig

Every key management claim gets cross-referenced against independent sources — employee reviews, competitor disclosures, web archive snapshots, regulatory filings, customer sentiment. When two sources tell different stories, that divergence gets named, sourced, and assessed for materiality.

Negative Space Detection

What should be here but isn't?

A CIM with no customer churn data. A pitch deck that skips competitive positioning. A management team that discusses growth but never mentions the two largest competitors. I catalog the gaps and assess whether each is an oversight or a tell.

Confidence-Rated Findings

You see how much weight each finding carries

Every finding carries a reliability rating adapted from intelligence community methodology — source credibility scored separately from information reliability. You can trace any claim back to its source and see whether it rests on audited filings or a single news article.

About

Direct founder execution on every deal.

I spent seven years running businesses in a regulated industry where incomplete information, compliance errors, and bad assumptions got expensive quickly.

That's where the investigative habit came from: don't accept the clean narrative, look for the missing variable, and keep pushing until the story survives contact with outside evidence.

I use AI for speed, coverage, and pattern detection. I don't outsource judgment. I decide which signals matter, which contradictions are noise, and what the evidence means for the deal.

Every report shows its work. You can trace findings back to sources, see where judgment entered, and explain the conclusion in committee without pretending the answer came from nowhere.

Nick Brigham

Founder

Common Questions

What buyers ask before engaging.

How is this different from hiring a larger CDD firm? +

Three things. First, you work directly with the person doing the analysis — there's no handoff from a partner who sold the work to an associate who delivers it. Second, AI-accelerated research lets me cover more ground in less time, which is why a Sprint can be delivered in 3–5 days at $5K instead of weeks at six figures. Third, the deliverable is built around specific analytical artifacts — a Claims vs. Evidence Matrix, pre-mortem scenarios with named signposts, confidence-rated findings — designed to be used in your decision process, not just read and filed.

You use AI. How do I know the analysis isn't hallucinated? +

You should not trust analysis because it says "AI." You should trust it if the sources are visible, the reasoning is inspectable, and the conclusions are attributable to the person signing the report. Every deliverable shows exactly which elements were AI-generated and where human judgment was applied. Every factual claim carries a confidence rating with source provenance — you can trace any finding back to its origin.

Why should I trust a solo practitioner on a deal this important? +

Because the person who does the analysis is the person on the call with you. My investigative methodology was built running multi-million-dollar operations under severe regulatory constraints — environments where surface-level answers have real consequences. The AI workflow lets a single experienced analyst cover ground that would traditionally require a team, and the pricing reflects a solo operator's overhead rather than a consulting firm's partner compensation structure.

What data sources do you use? +

Public filings, competitor disclosures, Glassdoor and Indeed reviews, web archive snapshots for narrative change tracking, UCC filings, contractor license databases, customer review platforms, trade publications, and regulatory databases. On Sponsor and Deep CDD engagements, I also conduct targeted primary research — expert calls and customer or channel interviews — where the secondary evidence raises questions that can only be resolved through direct conversation. Every source is rated for reliability on a two-axis scale — source credibility and information reliability scored independently.

What if I just need a quick screen before committing to full diligence? +

That's the Red Flag Screen — a standalone $3,500–$5,000 product delivered in 3 days. Key Judgments, a Claims vs. Evidence Matrix, and a go/no-go verdict. Nothing else. It's designed as a decision gate before you commit $30K+ to QoE and legal.

I find the revenue risks in your deal that don't show up in the financials — before you close.