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The biggest valuation mistake? Focusing on the multiple instead of the business.
A company trading at 20× EBITDA isn't automatically expensive.
A company trading at 8× EBITDA isn't automatically cheap.
The multiple only makes sense when you understand what you're buying.
I look at the fundamentals behind the valuation:
→ Revenue growth and quality
→ Normalized operating margins
→ Free cash flow generation
→ ROIC and reinvestment requirements
→ Competitive advantages
→ Balance-sheet risk
→ WACC and terminal assumptions
Then I use multiple valuation methods to cross-check the result:
DCF + Comparable Companies + Scenario & Sensitivity Analysis
The objective isn't to justify a predetermined price.
It's to determine a defensible intrinsic value range and understand what assumptions the market is already pricing in.
That can help you make better decisions when:
📌 Buying or selling a business
📌 Raising capital
📌 Evaluating an acquisition
📌 Assessing a public stock
📌 Preparing for an exit
Don't ask only, "What multiple should I use?"
Ask:
"What are the underlying cash flows worth?"
📩 Need a professional business, startup, or investment valuation? Send me a message on Contra and let's discuss your project.
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A valuation isn't an opinion. It's an investment decision backed by assumptions.
Two analysts can value the same company differently.
The difference usually isn't the spreadsheet.
It's the assumptions behind it.
Revenue growth.
Operating margins.
Reinvestment requirements.
Free cash flow.
WACC.
Terminal growth.
Change those inputs—and intrinsic value can change dramatically.
That's why a serious valuation should answer three questions:
1️⃣ What is the business worth?
2️⃣ What assumptions drive that value?
3️⃣ How sensitive is the valuation to those assumptions?
I help founders, investors, and business owners answer all three through professional, data-driven valuation analysis.
My work can include:
→ DCF valuation
→ Comparable company analysis
→ Financial modeling
→ Sensitivity analysis
→ Scenario analysis
→ Market benchmarking
You don't need a valuation that simply produces a number.
You need one that helps you make a better financial decision.
📩 Raising capital, evaluating an acquisition, preparing for an exit, or assessing an investment?
Send me a message on Contra and let's discuss your valuation project.
Commercial Finance: Turning Financial Insight Into Profitable Growth
Commercial finance is no longer simply about reporting numbers, preparing budgets, or explaining financial performance. In modern organizations, commercial finance has become a strategic function that connects financial discipline, commercial strategy, and sustainable growth.
At the leadership level, the strongest commercial finance teams do more than answer “What happened?” They help the business understand why it happened, what could happen next, and what decisions will create the greatest value.
From Reporting to Strategic Partnership
A high-performing commercial finance function works closely with sales, marketing, operations, pricing, and executive leadership. Its role is to translate financial data into practical business decisions.
This means evaluating questions such as:
Which customers generate sustainable profitability?
Where are margins being lost?
Are pricing decisions reflecting the true cost of serving customers?
Which products or markets deserve additional investment?
How can revenue growth translate into stronger cash flow and returns?
The objective is not simply to increase revenue. The objective is to create profitable, sustainable revenue.
Profitability Requires Commercial Discipline
Revenue growth can sometimes hide underlying financial weaknesses. A business may achieve higher sales while margins decline because of excessive discounting, rising costs, inefficient customer acquisition, or unfavorable product mix.
Commercial finance provides the analytical discipline needed to identify these issues early.
Effective leaders therefore focus on metrics such as gross margin, contribution margin, customer profitability, pricing realization, working capital, forecast accuracy, and return on investment—not revenue alone.
Better Decisions Through Better Forecasting
Forecasting is another critical responsibility of commercial finance.
A strong forecast should not be treated as a static financial document. It should be a dynamic management tool that helps leadership understand different scenarios and prepare for uncertainty.
Scenario analysis can answer questions such as:
What happens if demand increases by 10%? What if pricing changes? What if input costs rise? What if a major customer leaves?
These insights allow executives to make decisions before financial risks become financial problems.
The Future of Commercial Finance
Technology is changing the commercial finance function rapidly. Automation, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and real-time reporting are reducing the time finance teams spend collecting and consolidating information.
This creates an important opportunity.
Finance professionals can spend less time explaining historical numbers and more time influencing future business performance.
The most valuable commercial finance leaders will combine financial expertise, commercial judgment, data-driven decision-making, and strong communication.
The Bottom Line
Commercial finance is ultimately about connecting numbers with decisions.
When finance understands the commercial engine of a business—and when commercial leaders understand the financial consequences of their decisions—the organization becomes better positioned to protect margins, allocate capital intelligently, improve customer economics, and achieve sustainable growth.
The future of commercial finance belongs to leaders who don't just report performance—they help create it.
https://www.sergio-mendes.com/
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/sergio-p-mendes-highlights-data-180000112.html
https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/533973/sergio-p-mendes-shares-a-practical-framework-for-turning-data-into-decisions
https://www.crunchbase.com/person/sergio-mendes-6e60
founders love asking one question first:
“how much?”
fair question.
but after years of doing this, i’ve learned that price usually isn’t the first thing we need to figure out.
the first question is:
“what are we actually trying to fix?”
two founders recently came to me for almost the same thing:
a brand refresh.
one came with a solution already picked:
make the logo system match a favicon direction she liked.
the other came with the actual problem:
the platform’s branding was overpowering the independent businesses using it.
same general ask.
very different starting points.
once the problem was clear, the direction, scope, process, and price were much easier to define.
“make X look like Y” gives me a direction.
“X isn’t working because of Y” gives me a problem to solve.
and that’s what you’re actually hiring a designer for.