The Exit Readiness Gap: Why 77% Have AI but Only 20% Can Exit Successfully

Private equity is flush with capital.

In 2025 alone, secondary PE deals exploded to $162 billion, accounting for nearly 20% of all global exits.

Liquidity isn’t the problem anymore.

Readiness is.

Every founder dreams of building something saleable, but most agencies aren’t structured to qualify when opportunity finally knocks.

Because while 77% of agencies now claim to have adopted AI, fewer than 20% are actually exit-ready.

The rest? Busy, profitable, even award-winning, but fragile beneath the surface.

Most founders think readiness is a timing issue.
“When the numbers look good, we’ll sell.”
But valuation isn’t built in the last 12 months before a deal. It’s priced into your agency years in advance.

The uncomfortable truth is this:
AI tools, fancy dashboards, and growing revenue don’t mean you’re exit-ready.

Real readiness is built on:

• Predictable revenue (60–70% under contract, not campaign)
  
  
• Documented systems (not founder memory)
  
  
• Financial discipline (margins, cash control, clean books)
  
  
• Tech and data moats (proprietary tools, automation, IP)
  
  

Without those foundations, liquidity events turn into due diligence failures.

We see it over and over again, ambitious, talented founders caught off guard when they realise that buyers don’t value awards, headcount, or top-line growth nearly as much as infrastructure.

Here’s what typically holds them back:

1. No Exit Plan Documented
   Fewer than 10% of founders have a written exit plan.
   When the time comes, deals collapse under uncertainty because there’s no clarity on succession, valuation targets, or clean systems.
   
   
2. Client Concentration Risk
   For many mid-market agencies, the top three clients make up 60% of revenue. That looks fine on a P&L, until a buyer models the dependency risk and applies a 30% discount.
   
   
3. Undisciplined Cash and Margin Volatility
   Too many agencies chase revenue without managing cash flow.
   They grow top-line numbers while burning bottom-line profitability, and buyers can see it instantly.
   
   

Cultural Erosion Under Growth
Rapid scaling without leadership depth or process clarity burns teams out. Churn rises. Morale drops. Buyers discount that risk too, because cultural attrition kills integration faster than financial errors ever could.

There’s never been more capital in the market.
But what investors now crave isn’t access, it’s trust.

PE firms are under pressure to deploy record levels of dry powder, yet the supply of exit-ready agencies is thin.

So when they find a business with strong systems, predictable margins, and a founder who can step back without collapse, they pay premiums.

That’s why two £5m agencies with identical revenues can trade at 5x and 12x multiples respectively.

It’s not about scale.
It’s about structure.

Founders often approach exit preparation like a project, something to be done when they’re “ready to sell.”

But the truth is, the best exits aren’t timed. They’re engineered.

“Optionality beats timing. The smartest exits are designed years in advance.”   Luke Tobin

Readiness isn’t about predicting the right market moment. It’s about being structurally ready so that any moment could be the right one.

That’s the difference between desperation and leverage.

When buyers call, unready founders negotiate to survive.

Ready founders negotiate to win.

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At Unusual Group, we’ve spent the past three years helping founders move from fragility to freedom, not by chasing exits, but by embedding readiness into how they operate.

Our approach flips the traditional M&A mindset:
Instead of preparing for sale when growth slows, we build for readiness while growth compounds.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

1. The Unusual Method™: Exit Built Into Every Phase
   Our eight-phase roadmap is designed so that every operational improvement, from retainer revenue to AI transformation, compounds future valuation.
   By Phase 7 (Exit Readiness), the work is already done. The systems, contracts, and leadership depth are already bankable.
   
   
2. Peer Accountability Cohorts
   Founders don’t just scale alone. They grow within 8–12-agency cohorts, sharing insights, pressure-testing strategy, and holding each other accountable to readiness milestones.
   This community approach replaces isolation with intelligence and produces measurable outcomes.
   
   

Proven Track Record: £200M+ in Founder Exits
Across our network, we’ve helped founders double valuations, reduce dependency risk, and complete exits at double-digit multiples.Because readiness isn’t theory, it’s a muscle you build through structure, not slogans.

One of our partners, a £4.2m creative agency, came to us exhausted.
They were profitable, award-winning, but everything ran through the founder.

Within 18 months, we helped them:

• Convert 50% of project clients to retainers
  
  
• Embed automation into reporting and forecasting (saving 500+ hours per year)
  
  
• Install a leadership bench with a COO and Head of Ops
  
  
• Document every major process into a scalable infrastructure
  

Their valuation doubled.
Not because they chased buyers, but because they built something buyable.

By 2026, the gap between “AI-enabled” and “exit-ready” will be as wide as the one between “independent” and “institutional.”

Investors are no longer rewarding buzzwords. They’re rewarding discipline.
Agencies that can prove resilience, not just creativity.

The winners will be those who’ve built readiness into their DNA, predictable, defensible, and scalable from the inside out.

Because in the new landscape, exits won’t be opportunistic. They’ll be inevitable.

77% of agencies have adopted AI.

But fewer than 20% can exit successfully.

That gap isn’t caused by market conditions. It’s caused by mindset.

Founders who build for readiness, not reaction, are the ones who exit on their terms, at their price, and with their culture intact.

“Optionality beats timing. The smartest exits are designed years in advance.”   Luke Tobin

Download Unusual Group’s Exit Playbook or book a confidential call to learn how to turn your agency’s growth into leverage, not dependency.

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