TWO KINDS OF VALUE
Some of the most valuable assets in a business can't be purchased.

Over decades, a founder-owned business accumulates two kinds of value. The first is on the books: customers, earnings, cash flow. The second is everything the numbers don't capture the trust, judgment, relationships, and operating habits that make those earnings durable.

Only the first is reflected in conventional measures of value. The second is what Havenford is built around.

The Owners The Owners
THE OWNERS

Havenford exists for owners who have earned the right to choose their next chapter.

Havenford's ground is businesses between one and five million in earnings built over decades, by owners who could sell but don't want that to be the only option. The test is simple: can the company survive the person who built it.

Durability

Whether a company can run, and last, without the person who built it.

Continuity

What succeeded in past decades, made ready to thrive in the next.

Judgment

The value the numbers don't capture and the discipline of taking it seriously.

Havenford publishes independent research on business durability how value holds, and where it quietly erodes, in companies and the commitments they make.

Current work examines revenue durability and founder judgment in closely held businesses.

LATEST PUBLICATION

The Cost of Commitment

What Standard Diligence Does Not Measure

The research
The Cost of Commitment
Dayna
Built by an Operator

Havenford was founded by Dayna Williams, an operating executive with twenty-five years in go-to-market, sales, and customer organizations.

She began as a consultant to Fortune 1000 companies on sales and go-to-market strategy, then moved into executive leadership building business lines, running operating functions, and most recently serving as chief experience officer of a global assessment company.