Description

Matt Andersen has written two books about the same company at two different moments.

Intentional Growth is about the years before a transaction — the operating decisions, the market position, the management depth that determine what a business is actually worth to someone else. It argues that growth is something an owner chooses and builds toward, rather than something that happens and gets explained afterward.

Completing the Deal picks up where that leaves off. It’s an account of what happens inside an M&A process or a capital raise: how buyers and lenders build their view of a business, what drives value beyond the multiple, where transactions stall, and which terms matter more than price.

Most owners encounter the second book’s subject only once. The work that determines how that experience goes happens years earlier, in the first book’s territory. That’s the case for reading them together.

The set is a common choice for CEO peer groups and university programs running a full arc on ownership, growth, and exit, and for advisors sending both to a client who’s starting to think about what comes next.

About the author
Matt Andersen is the founder and CEO of Westlake Securities, an Austin-based investment bank advising founder-owned companies on M&A, capital raises, and growth strategy.