Operating Assessment Report
What is actually true about the business: financial health, operating rhythm, product-market reality, and where reporting and reality diverge.
We help small businesses, and their owners, flourish.
Tandem Bike Partners is an embedded operating partner for family offices and independent sponsors. We turn control investments into value for owners, leaders, customers, and teams.
When the climb gets hard, ride with someone who has been there.
01
The work
Consultants work on your business. Coaches work on you. We get inside the business and own specific outcomes.
You bought or built a good company and want to steward it for long-term value. But you can't be in every business every day. You can't hire, mentor, and coach every leader. You can't rebuild the operating processes each new market demands. Most family offices and independent sponsors have the deal side handled, but a majority position almost always needs embedded operating support.
Tandem Bike Partners fills that gap. We are a boutique firm of small-business executives who serve as your fractional operating partner. We build the connective tissue between owners and the full-time team, the layer that turns a control position into durable value for everyone the company touches.
02
What we build
Operating System
From the multi-year strategy down to quarterly priorities, the metrics that track them, and the meeting rhythm that holds it together.
Leadership and Team
Assessing the people, setting goals, developing leaders, recruiting who's missing, and making the hard calls on performance, restructuring, and exits.
Product and Value
Testing whether delivery matches the promise, whether customers actually want what the business sells, and what they want more of.
Growth
The commercial engine: sales, marketing, partnerships, and business development.
Technology
Selecting, implementing, and improving the modern tools the business should be running on.
03
Results
Across the companies we have led and supported, the outcomes follow a pattern:
Stabilized underperforming companies and returned them to cash-flow-positive.
Led difficult leadership transitions with care for the people and the health of the team.
Recruited and installed new GMs and CEOs with the plans and rhythms to set them up to succeed.
Aligned leadership teams around a focused set of goals and the cadence to hold them.
"Tim came into our business right when we needed him most. His steady hand and people-first approach to a challenging season allowed us to completely change the trajectory of our investment."
Family office principal
Trusted by
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How We Engage
Approach
Four phases, from first conversation to a business that runs without us. Most engagements begin with a fixed-fee sprint.
Discover
Read this page, run the checklist below, and book a 30-minute call. By the end we will both know whether the sprint is worth your money. If not, we will say so.
Assess
We call it the Shakedown Ride: a fixed-fee, 30-day look at one business, its people, and its numbers, with four deliverables you keep either way.
Build
When the sprint surfaces work worth doing together, we set the strategy and build the operating system, leadership rhythm, and processes that drive long-term value.
Sustain
We step back to a lighter cadence, supporting the full-time team with steady accountability and help when they need it. The goal was always a business that runs without us.
Do you need an embedded operating partner?
Check all that apply.
Two or more? The Shakedown Ride was built for you.
Great! Reserve a SprintThe Operating Assessment Sprint
We call it the Shakedown Ride. 30 days, fixed fee, yours to keep.
Before you commit to an embedded partner (or a new GM, or a turnaround plan), you need a clear-eyed read on the business from someone who has run one. We spend 30 days inside the company: leadership 1:1s, customer conversations, financial and operational review. You get the truth about the business and a plan you can run with anyone, including without us.
What you get
- Operating Assessment Report
- Leadership & Team Map
- 90-Day Priority Plan
- Owner Readout Session
Pricing
$14,000 fixed, for one business
If we move to a retainer together, $7,000 of it credits toward your first month.
Four deliverables you keep either way
Leadership & Team Map
Every seat, who is in it, whether each is the right person in the right place, and the honest conversation each one needs.
90-Day Priority Plan
The three to five things that matter most next quarter, each with an owner, a clear metric, and a meeting rhythm to hold it.
Owner Readout Session
We walk you through all of it, answer every question, and end with our straight recommendation for what the business needs next.
Here is exactly what the sprint looks like.
Timeline
Our work
What we need from you
Week 1Listen
Kickoff with the owner. Document review (financials, org chart, reporting pack). Leadership 1:1s begin.
60-minute kickoff. Intro email to the team. Access to financials and reporting.
Week 2Go Deep
Remaining 1:1s. Customer interviews (3–5). Ride-alongs with sales or delivery where relevant.
Customer introductions (we draft the email).
Week 3Pressure Test
Draft findings. Test hypotheses back against the leadership team. Financial and market analysis.
One 30-minute check-in call.
Week 4Readout
Final report, team map, and 90-day plan delivered. Live owner readout. Retainer proposal if warranted.
90-minute readout session.
After the sprint
We keep riding.
Most sprints become embedded retainers. Engagements run $8,000–$14,000 per month depending on days per week, and $7,000 of your sprint fee credits toward month one.
You take the handlebars.
The 90-day plan is built to be run by your team. We hand it off cleanly and check in if you want us to.
You get a straight answer.
The readout ends with our honest recommendation: what the business needs next and who should do it. If the best path does not run through us, we will say so and help you find the one it does.
About
We ride together
I have always enjoyed riding alongside the leaders I serve more than shouting directions from the sidewalk.
After more than a decade as a right hand to founders and investors, I have learned that the best support never comes from consultants who drop off a deck and disappear. It comes from a teammate who gets on the bike with you, pedals in sync, and leans into the hard turns.
That is the spirit behind the name. I am not here to take the handlebars. I am here to add strength to the climb.
I ride by three values:
Work Hard
Because real progress takes effort and execution.
Love Others
Because sacrificial service builds better businesses and better lives.
Listen Well
Because hearing customers, teammates, and partners clearly is the greatest asset I have.
If you are stewarding something worth protecting and could use a partner to share the load, I would be honored to ride with you.
Entrepreneur Adjacent
This is where I think out loud about operating, leadership, and the work of being the right hand rather than the founder. If you want to know how I work before we ever talk, start here.