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Internal · Band of Hands · Confidential
The investment thesis
Built to be underwritten.
Band of Hands is the infrastructure layer for how companies buy, manage, and optimize operational spend. This is the part a board underwrites — where the moat comes from, why the margin lasts, and why buyers trust a model the vendors pay for.
The moat · in three stages
A data moat you don't have yet isn't a moat.
So we don't claim it. The defensibility compounds in a sequence, and we can always show which stage we're standing on. It maps one-to-one onto the ladder we already climb — each rung defends a different moat.
Stage 1 · live today
Distribution & trust
Rung 01–02 · Placement & the Chain
Operator relationships open the door no cold vendor can. Trust doesn't transfer — a competitor can copy the model but not the relationship. Defensible the day we start.
Stage 2 · 12–24 months
Switching cost
Rung 03 · The Silo
Once we run a company's renewals and contracts across categories, removing us is painful and expensive. This is the durable moat — stickier than data, and it grows with every category we attach.
Stage 3 · at scale
Data & benchmarking
Rung 04–05 · Commons & Marketplace
Liquidity first, then the benchmark no single broker can match. The data moat is real — but it's earned after volume, not claimed on day one.
We never claim the stage we haven't reached. That's what makes the climb credible in a room full of skeptics.
The economics · why the take lasts
The margin tracks the work, not the pipe.
The honest tension: we earn commission from vendors while saving buyers money. At scale those can fight — the more we optimize, the smaller the spend we clip. Here's why ours holds: the take splits into three jobs, and we only bill the slice we actually do.
~25%
Finder
The Agent/Affiliate who made the introduction — earned once, on a clean referral.
~50%
Manager
The Advisor runs the account — renewals, advisory, the relationship. The recurring, defensible half.
~25%
Platform
Our rails, vetted bench, and intelligence. The part that scales without us.
We only bill the slice of the job we actually do.
Why a board cares: margin that tracks advisory work doesn't compress when we make the buyer smarter — the Manager slice grows with the depth of the relationship. We're not defending a commission on spend we're shrinking; we're paid for the account we run. That's a durable take rate, not a fragile one.
The trust layer · structural, not stated
Vendor-funded and the buyer's agent.
A vendor-funded model is only credible if the buyer can see the money. So we don't ask for trust — we build it into the structure.
Rank is earned, not bought
No pay-to-play placement. Vendors compete on performance and fit — they can't purchase the recommendation.
Commission on the contract
The buyer sees exactly what we make on the deal. The one thing every broker hides, we disclose.
Paid to manage, not to inflate
Our money is in running the account well over years — not in maximizing this month's spend.
That's how we stay vendor-funded and the buyer's agent at the same time.
What the board will ask · and the answer
The diligence questions, closed.
The same questions a PE firm puts to any platform — answered on the page, in plain English.
Why now?
Operational spend is fragmented across brokers, consultants, RFPs, and individual relationships — and no one owns the operator relationship across categories. Operator-led advisory is the wedge incumbents structurally can't copy.
What's the moat?
Sequenced, not singular. Trust today → switching cost in 18 months → data at scale. We name the stage we're on instead of claiming a flywheel we haven't earned.
Is the margin durable?
Yes — it tracks the advisory work (the Manager slice), not commission on spend we're actively shrinking. Optimizing the buyer grows our take instead of eroding it.
How do you avoid pay-to-play?
Rank is earned; commission is on the contract; we're paid to manage, not to inflate. The trust layer is structural, not a promise.
Where does marketplace liquidity come from?
We don't start as a marketplace. Advisory manufactures the liquidity — we're the buyer's agent first, and vendors follow the demand. No cold-start problem.
What comes next, and why?
Attach, don't cold-start. Land HR/workforce, then attach IT, then operational spend — expanding wallet share inside an account we already own. Cross-sell economics, not a new acquisition each time.