Run a scenario
Pick a preset or nudge the sliders. The chart shows the exit valuation month by month under each path, against the “sell now” benchmark.
Exit valuation over time, by path
Dotted red line: a flat sell-now benchmark. Dashed pale blue: organic compounding only. Solid navy: build-to-sell with the restructure lift applied. The gap between the navy and pale-blue lines is what the management infrastructure contributes; the gap to the red dotted line is what the wait pays for.
Reading this chart honestly
The three lines look closer than the dollar values suggest because compounding is patient: most of the separation between paths happens in the back half of the build. The early months show the cost of restructuring — partial lift, full management overhead — and the late months show the payoff. A sale that lands during the “trough” of the build curve will look like a bad decision in hindsight even when the strategy was correct.