The Power of Systems and Alternative Funding for Small Business Success with Kim Folsom
Release Date: 10/26/2025
How Can Family Businesses Grow and Transition Successfully with Jonathan GOldhill
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Mark Osborne welcomes Jonathan Goldhill, business coach, author, and expert in guiding family-owned companies through growth and transition. With decades of experience working alongside entrepreneurs and family businesses, Jonathan has developed a proven approach to helping organizations professionalize operations, clarify leadership roles, and build sustainable enterprise value. His coaching emphasizes the unique challenges faced by family businesses, where personal relationships and generational dynamics often intersect with strategic decision-making. In this episode, Jonathan...
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How Can Family Businesses Plan Early to Improve Sales Potential with Pete Becchina
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Mark Osborne welcomes Pete Becchina, a Certified Exit Planning Advisor, to explore sustainable growth and successful business exits in family-owned companies. With deep expertise in guiding owners through every phase from launch to exit, Pete brings clarity to the complex process of transition planning. He highlights the common mistakes business owners make when preparing for exits and underscores the importance of proper planning and preparation to maximize enterprise value. In this episode, Pete shares practical insights on business valuation, succession planning, and partnership...
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Why Are Clear KPIs Essential for Exit Success with Gary Hallett
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Mark Osborne welcomes Gary Hallett, co-founder of Gateway Business Advisors and Strategic Business Valuations, to discuss how business owners can better understand, protect, and optimize the value of their companies. Gary shares how his own early experiences buying and selling a business without valuation knowledge led him into business brokerage and exit planning, and why most owners are unprepared for what will likely be the biggest financial transition of their lives. He explains the gap between what owners think their business is worth and what the market will pay, the importance...
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What Drives Success in Niche Market Ownership with Vince Barbarie
The B2B Growth Blueprint
In this episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint Podcast, host Mark Osborne interviews T. Vincent “Vince” Barbarie, Senior Director of Engineering at IPD and CTO of Industrial Digital Solutions. Vince shares his journey from a kid who loved taking things apart to a leader overseeing engineering, product development, technical support, and warranty for heavy-duty diesel and natural gas components, while also running an automotive media brand, Daily Turismo. He talks about blending deep engineering roots with creativity, communication, and people leadership, and how his experience at both large...
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What Makes a Business Truly Sellable with Alejandra Santos
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Alejandra Santos, founder of Into the Next and host of the Scale to Exit Podcast, joins host Mark Osborne on the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast to share how 17 years of experience in finance, operations, and strategic growth shaped her mission to help business owners scale lean and exit smart. With a background spanning CPG, tech, e-commerce, professional services, M&A, and CFO consulting, Alejandra explains why most businesses never achieve the exit they dream of—and how mindset, predictability, and operational clarity play a crucial role in creating a sellable asset. She breaks...
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How Does the MEDICC Framework Improve Sales with David Weiss
The B2B Growth Blueprint
David Weiss, chief services officer at MEDDICC and longtime sales leader, joins host Mark Osborne on the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast to share how two decades in technology, consulting, and professional services shaped his mission to help the sales community sell better. With experience at ADP, Outreach, Seismic, The Sales Collective, and as founder of DealDoc, David explains how MEDDICC gives revenue teams a common language to evaluate deals objectively, identify gaps, and run repeatable plays that drive consistent results. He breaks down why sales is ultimately change management,...
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How Can Small Businesses Increase Their Value Before Selling with Brent Stringer
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Brent Stringer, owner of Exit Factor Indiana, discusses his diverse career in public accounting, leadership, and Exit Planning. He highlights the unique challenges small business owners face, such as overdependence on the owner and unrealistic valuation expectations. Stringer emphasizes the importance of preparing businesses for sale, suggesting a realistic timeline of 10 months and the need for documented processes. He notes a trend of younger business owners embracing Exit Planning earlier. Stringer's approach focuses on creating value for clients, often small businesses, to help them sell...
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How Can Productizing Services Drive Scalable Growth for Modern Businesses Ryan Carraciolo
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Ryan Caracciolo is the founder and CEO of Striventa, a business growth agency focused on helping companies move beyond isolated tactics to achieve sustainable momentum. With over a decade of experience, Ryan has built a reputation for merging strategy, smart systems, and relentless execution to help healthcare, real estate, and service-based businesses grow with measurable ROI. In this episode, Ryan joins host Mark Osborne to discuss the evolution of marketing and sales alignment, the power of productizing services, and how his high-performance website platform, Hyperdrive WP, is...
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Why Is Quality of Earnings Critical for Business Valuation with Patrick McMillian
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Patrick McMillan is a seasoned fractional CFO and M&A advisor known in the deal community as the Q of E guy. As head of Transaction Advisory at Amplēo, he leads quality of earnings and financial due diligence engagements and collaborates with valuations, outsourced CFOs and controllers, HR, marketing, and sales tax teams across the deal life cycle. Drawing on his experience buying and selling companies and advising more than 100 transactions totaling over 2 billion dollars, Patrick explains what truly drives quality of earnings, why exit planning is good business planning, and how a...
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How Can a Career Shift from Banking Lead to Thriving Global Consulting Business with Daniel Feiman
The B2B Growth Blueprint
Mark Osborne welcomes Daniel Feiman, founder and managing director of Build It Backwards, a consulting and training firm based in Redondo Beach, California. With a career spanning manufacturing, marketing, and commercial banking before launching his own firm nearly 30 years ago, Daniel brings a rare blend of practical operator experience and executive advisory depth. He’s advised organizations across 30+ countries including Apple, Dell, Hilton, and Credit Suisse, taught at UCLA Extension for over 25 years, served as a visiting professor at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, authored...
info_outlineAre you a founder in the $1M–$10M range, striving to scale your service-based business without giving up control or burning out? Kim Folsom, founder and CEO of Founders First Capital Partners, champions a transformative approach: helping entrepreneurs just like you gain access to growth capital, build recurring revenue, and evolve into effective business leaders. Drawing on her experience founding six startups, raising over $30 million, and supporting hundreds of founders, Kim’s methods are rooted in discipline, adaptability, and continuous peer learning.
Kim stresses the importance of architecting your business for sustainable growth, harnessing systems and capital options that align with the unique journeys of women- and minority-led businesses. Her approach: set clear milestones, prioritize recurring revenue, seek the right support, and evolve your mindset as your company enters new phases.
Quotes:
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"The importance of not just having a great idea, but the ecosystem…is key. You need to have a great distribution system to be able to scale."
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"Setting goals—and having the discipline of weekly, monthly, quarterly reviews—is foundational."
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"What got you here won’t get you there... As companies grow, it’s very important that they evolve—and evolve the advisors that they use."
Takeaways:
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Build Recurring Revenue: Move away from project-dependent business models to create stable, predictable cash flow.
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Systematize Growth: Use tested frameworks (Lean Startup, EOS) to set, review, and adapt business goals.
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Peer and Advisor Networks: Join groups of similar-stage founders to learn, grow, and “look around the corner” for what’s next.
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Capital Fit: Understand all funding options—venture, revenue-based, working capital—and match them to your real needs.
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Evolve Mindset: Be willing to change your own role—and your team’s—as you hit new revenue milestones.
Conclusion: By combining deliberate systems, the right capital, and growth-minded networks, founders can move beyond day-to-day survival and build thriving, sustainable businesses—without sacrificing control or vision. Kim Folsom’s strategies focus on empowerment, inclusivity, and preparing service-based businesses to scale with support.
Links:
• Website: foundersfirstcapitalpartners.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kimtfolsom