• $25M Senior Credit Facility. Structured for a specialty finance company focused on SMB debt refinancing.

• $10M Working Capital Facility. Provided to a California-based supplement company to support inventory and scale marketing.

• $10M Acquisition Term Loan. Financed the purchase of a third-generation distribution business in the logistics sector.

• $5M Delayed-Draw Term Loan. Extended to a fast-scaling beauty and haircare brand in the consumer goods sector

• $5M Delayed-Draw Term Loan. Structured for a high-growth MarTech SaaS to support revenue onboarding and GTM scale.

• $1.5M Delayed-Draw Term Loan. We facilitated a $1.5M delayed-draw term loan for a multi-location business in the recreational sports sector based in Hawaii.

• 1.3M Refinance Term Loan. We funded a $1.3M term loan for a residential and commercial painting company operating across the Carolinas.

Three ideas cut through the noise for me this week: private labels rising from discount aisles to cultural trust marks, the creeping productivity paradox reshaping how we actually work, and T-Mobile’s $4.4B play for UScellular.

Key takeaways: value compounds when perception shifts, efficiency is being redefined, and scale happens when conviction is steadfast. These are the kinds of pivots that redraw markets quietly, then all at once.

For decades, private labels were the “cheap knockoffs” on the bottom row. Today, they’re mainstream powerhouses. Trader Joe’s entire empire is built on them. Costco’s Kirkland line quietly drives $50B+ annually. Even Target’s Good & Gather has crossed $3B in sales.

The consumer shift is psychological: private label no longer really implies “compromise.” It shows savviness. Inflation accelerated it — households realized they could swap Kellogg’s for Kroger and still trust quality. Younger buyers especially see store brands as cool, intentional, even sustainable.

Why it matters: this is a reflection of how perception flips when value + quality line up. Challenger brands that can project trust and identity don’t need heritage logos.

For founders: Don’t sleep on the “own brand” play. Whether it’s content, product, or services — owning the channel and the label means margin, loyalty, and insulation from platform risk. Distribution with your name attached compounds faster.

Fresh data from Microsoft’s Work Trends Index shows employees are working longer hours post-AI adoption, not fewer. Instead of automating drudge work and freeing capacity, AI is creating more meetings, more coordination, and more “shadow work.” Productivity tools are multiplying the surface area of work. Together, both tools and business demands are "outpacing human capacity,” as they put it:

The paradox is: more apps, more dashboards, more “alignment,” but no actual leverage. Founders know this cycle well. You stack tools thinking you’re optimizing — when in reality, you’re just shifting energy from execution to orchestration.

Why it matters: wins won’t necessarily come from more tools; wins come from ruthless subtraction. Great companies figure out which levers actually move the flywheel and cut everything else.

For operators: audit your “stack” like you would a P&L. If the tool doesn’t reduce real hours or accelerate dollars, kill it. The leaders of the AI era are going to be those who free up the most focus (not who use the most AI tools).

On September 9, T-Mobile closed its $4.4B acquisition of UScellular (a regional carrier with 4M customers). It’s one of the biggest U.S. telecom deals in years, and it further concentrates a market already dominated by three giants.

Why it matters: consolidation in “boring” industries shows confidence. Telecom is capital-intensive, politically scrutinized, and margin-sensitive. Deals like this don’t happen unless big players believe the tailwinds (data usage, 5G rollouts, edge compute) will keep compounding.

For founders: the analogy applies across industries. Not every win comes from disruption. Sometimes the smart play is scale + integration. If the incumbents are doubling down instead of exiting, it’s a signal the category still has room to grow.

Markets evolve in plain sight. A Costco label becomes more trusted than a legacy brand, AI tools multiply meetings instead of cutting them, and telecom giants consolidate instead of retreating.

The surface looks like consumer trends, work habits, and M&A headlines. Underneath, it’s the same principle: leverage flows to those who align behavior, structure, and trust before anyone else sees the inflection.

For operators, the edge comes from catching these shifts early — when the “cheap alternative,” the “extra app,” or the “boring industry” hasn’t yet revealed its compounding power.

That’s where the next decade of value creation hides.

1) Serena Ventures Flags Quality Over Quantity
Serena Williams says founders are getting choosier with investors—and she has data to prove it. Her fund, Serena Ventures ($111M, 16 unicorns), now emphasizes strategic partnerships over just capital. The shift: founders are measuring “what the investor brings” (distribution, ops, network) before signing checks.

2) Amazon Doubles-Down on Independent Sellers
At its recent Accelerate conference, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called its collaboration with independent sellers “the most substantial in the history of retail.” Independent sellers on its platform grossed ~$295,000 on average; some 55,000 crossed $1M in annual sales. Amazon is leaning in on enabling others’ brands more than building everything in house.

3) Keychain Raises $30M to Fix CPG Supply Chain Friction
CPG startup Keychain just raised $30M (led by Wellington Management & BoxGroup) to streamline connections between packaging/raw-material suppliers and brands. For founders in CPG/sub-bedrock supply ops, this signals the sandbox of infrastructure investment is wide open.

📌 Obsess over onboarding, not acquisition. The first 5 minutes decide whether a new customer sticks. A clean, intuitive onboarding compounds into retention, referrals, and lower CAC more than any ad campaign ever will.

📌 Turn reporting into decision loops. Metrics don’t create leverage until they’re tied to an action. Build dashboards that tell the team what to do next, not just what happened.

📌 Design for cash discipline. Every funding market turns. Companies that hard-wire cash-flow visibility into weekly ops live longer, negotiate better, and play offense when peers are stuck on defense.

Markets are sitting near highs with gold still surging, Bitcoin holding strong, rates easing slightly, and the labor market cooling but steady.

🐦 CLICK TO TWEET​

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To your growth,

Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn for more insights on finance, strategy, and the future of capital.