2023-03-23WeRunOnEOSBadge

CLIENT: EVIVE BRANDS

The Integration Model That Ran Three Brands — Including Two in Parallel.

How EmmerScale partnered with Evive Brands to execute three franchise integrations, bringing the governance, technology, people alignment, and founder advisory needed to deliver on the 100-day timeline across every engagement.

INTEGRATIONS

3 Brand Acquisitions

SECTOR

Multi-Brand Franchise Platform 

MODEL

100-Day Embedded Partner

BACKED BY

Leading Mid-Market PE Firm

SECTOR

The Numbers That Mattered

3x

Brand acquisitions integrated end-to-end

100%

On-time milestone delivery across all engagements

1

Repeatable integration model

2

Brands integrated simultaneously in parallel, no missed milestones

BACKGROUND A Growing Platform That Demanded Expert Execution

Evive Brands is a multi-brand franchise platform backed by a leading mid-market private equity firm. As the holding company executed an aggressive acquisition strategy, adding additional home and commercial service brands to its portfolio, leadership recognized that closing deals required the same level of rigor applied to integrating them. Speed, accountability, and operational precision across people, process, and systems were non-negotiable.

Every acquisition brought its own tech environment, its own culture, and its own founder who had poured years into building their brand. Successful integration demanded a structured execution partner with the expertise and bandwidth to manage all of it simultaneously and on time. Evive engaged EmmerScale as that partner, embedded from day one, accountable across every workstream, and built for exactly this kind of complex, time-sensitive execution.

The ultimate proof of that model came when two integrations ran simultaneously, managed in parallel without a single missed milestone.

"Coming into two simultaneous brand integrations, our biggest concern was whether one integration partner could manage both tracks at the same time without something falling through the cracks. What changed that for us was seeing the board from day one. Every workstream, every owner, every deadline was visible before we even had our first full meeting. By around day 14, we weren't watching to see if things would work. We could already see that they were."

SAM METHUSELAH
COO, Evive Brands

THE ENGAGEMENT What Every Acquisition Demands — And What EmmerScale Delivered

What Every Acquisition Demands
What EmmerScale Delivered
Clear rules of engagement, communication structure, and leadership alignment established from the moment the deal closes
✓ Governance live on Day 1, communication channels, rules of engagement, and leadership aligned on end-state vision by Day 30
A unified, rationalized technology foundation that gives the parent company a single source of truth across every acquired brand
✓ Full technology audit, rationalization, and data migration - single source of truth delivered
Dedicated support for founders navigating the transition arc - from the energy of closing through the emotional complexity of weeks six and eight
✓ Dedicated founder advisory engaged at closing, a peer relationship built on confidentiality, not reporting. Emotional shifts anticipated, normalized, and managed before they become disengagement
Organizational clarity for every team member across role, contribution, and path forward under new ownership
✓ Every team member assessed, roles clarified, talent profiles mapped, and a retention roadmap delivered - organizational clarity established before uncertainty could take hold
Consistent communication and visible leadership presence to maintain franchisee confidence through the ownership transition
✓ Franchisee stability maintained through consistent communication, cultural continuity, and visible leadership presence throughout the transition

EXECUTION

How EmmerScale Ran Each Integration

Integration Management Office

  • Governance structure and Day 1 readiness from close
  • Milestone tracking, risk protocols, and executive dashboards
  • RAID log giving every brand leader a structured place to surface concerns

Technology & RevOps

  • Diagnostic-first audits at HQ and franchisee level
  • Franchisee-level technology fully mapped and documented
  • CRM assessment, rationalization roadmap, and platform migration path

People & Culture

  • Team assessments led by EmmerScale-certified Working Genius and DISC practitioners
  • Retention roadmaps built for every engagement
  • Team roles and growth paths aligned across every brand

Founder Transition Advisory

  • Engaged in parallel with PE onboarding; dedicated non-firm contact from Day 1
  • Peer relationship built on confidentiality; what's shared stays between them
  • Two decades of franchise experience and master's-level counseling background

"They never felt like they were taking orders. They felt like partners with a stake in the outcome."

Matthew Gilvey
RevOps & Technology Lead, EmmerScale

Across every acquisition, EmmerScale's tech audit went two levels deep: HQ stack and franchisee level. That diagnostic precision is what enabled confident, fast decision-making at every stage of the integration:

  • Franchisee-level technology was fully mapped and documented; independent websites, email domains, and platform usage brought into a clear, rationalized inventory
  • For one brand, a scalable CRM path was assessed and initiated within the 100-day window, setting the foundation for royalty reporting and franchise management at scale
  • For the other, the existing CRM was confirmed as the right long-term solution; integration work shifted to data visibility and reporting for the parent company
  • The monday.com project board managed every workstream from day one. No reactive scrambles, no discovery call marathons, no open questions left to compound
What's Visible At Closing
  • Energy and genuine excitement
  • A significant paycheck after years of building
  • Optimism about the partnership ahead
What's Underneath
  • Fatigue from a grueling due diligence process
  • Uncertainty about identity and relevance post-close
  • The beginning of grief before the founder can name it

EmmerScale engaged each founder at or around closing, in parallel with the firm's onboarding. From day one, each founder had a dedicated person in their corner who was not the PE firm; someone who had been on the founder's side of a transaction and came in as a peer.

There is almost always a pivotal moment between weeks six and eight when the founder fully registers emotionally that they no longer own the business. Grief, anxiety, loss of identity. Normal, but dangerous if left unmanaged.

A disengaged founder rarely creates conflict. They pull back, stop advocating, stop leading. That slow drain is often more damaging than any overt event because by the time it becomes visible, months of momentum are already gone.

Managed well, each founder became an active partner: holding the culture together while the operational structure changed around it, giving the team permission to trust the process, staying engaged through the full handoff, protecting the brand equity and operator knowledge the firm had paid a significant multiple to acquire.

"A founder who stays engaged through the full handoff holds the culture together while everything else is changing. That alone is worth more than most line items in a 100-day plan."

David Gullotti
CEO, EmmerScale

"What we saw with the leadership at both brands was that they never felt like the acquisition was happening to them — they felt like they were part of a team executing a shared project. That's a completely different dynamic than what we've seen in other integrations, where founders check out because they're reacting to requests with no structure and no one in their corner. EmmerScale gave our founders a dedicated relationship, a clear role, and the space to process what the transition actually felt like. That kept them engaged and productive through the full handoff, and that engagement protected real value for us."

SAM METHUSELAH
COO, Evive Brands

MILESTONE TIMELINE

100 Days, No Surprises

Every Evive Brands integration ran against the same milestone-based framework, giving the PE team full visibility without carrying the execution burden.

 

PRE-CLOSE
Due Diligence Advantage
EmmerScale engaged during active diligence, evaluating organizational structure, mapping operational gaps, and drafting the Integration Master Plan before close. We arrived at Day 1 already knowing the asset.
DAY 1–30
Governance Live
IMO operational, communication channels established, rules of engagement defined. Organizational assessment underway. Technology audit initiated. Leadership aligned on end-state vision.
DAY 30–60
Assessments Complete
Organizational assessments complete. Tech audit delivered. Team roles and growth paths aligned across every brand. Founder transition plan active and tracking.
DAY 60–90
Systems Integrated, Culture Stable
Technology fully integrated. Cultural continuity established. Weekly executive dashboards live. Workstreams executing against all remaining milestones.
HANDOFF
Infrastructure Stays. EmmerScale Exits.
All systems, processes, and leadership transitions handed to the Evive internal team on time. A repeatable integration model delivered that Evive Brands can run on every future acquisition.

OUTCOME

A Playbook Built to Scale

Across three brand integrations, including two running simultaneously, EmmerScale delivered not just completed engagements but a repeatable model that Evive Brands can run on every future acquisition.

Every integration achieved full Day 1 readiness, hit every milestone, and handed off fully integrated systems without disruption. By day 14 of the simultaneous engagements, Evive's leadership had shifted from cautious to confident. Founders stayed engaged, teams moved forward with clarity, and every tech environment was fully mapped and resolved.

What began as execution support became institutional infrastructure.

Evive's own words for what EmmerScale delivered:

  • Accountability
  • Excellence
  • Executional Expertise

A team with deep technical knowledge, transparent communication, and a unified approach that larger firms, with their disconnected reps and delegator models, simply cannot replicate.

The result: a holding company that moves faster, integrates cleaner, and compounds value across its portfolio because the execution gap has been permanently closed.

"What made EmmerScale different from other advisors we've worked with was simple: the same people who scoped the work were the people doing the work. There was no handoff, no disconnected reps, no re-explaining context every time we had a meeting. They held accountability with a personal touch that made even the hard conversations feel like they were in service of the shared goal. Resourceful, responsive, and cohesive — that's the only way I know how to describe it."

SAM METHUSELAH
COO, Evive Brands

"Having a repeatable integration model that we can run on every new acquisition completely changes how we think about growth. Before, every deal came with the anxiety of figuring out the integration as we went. Now we have a playbook that we know works — stress-tested across three brands, including two running simultaneously. That gives us the confidence to move faster on deals because we know the landing is handled. EmmerScale didn't just integrate our brands. They built the system that makes us a better acquirer."

SAM METHUSELAH
COO, Evive Brands

If you are running an aggressive acquisition strategy and the integration burden is starting to drag, this is the conversation to have.

Schedule a discovery meeting with Courtney Culver, PE Practice Lead