A real agency exit, told by the founder who lived it: two weeks of cash, a reporting overhaul, and the culture call that sealed the deal.
In this guide:
- Who Are The ID Crowd?
- What Was Keeping the Founders Up at Night?
- How Did They Go From 2 Weeks of Cash to 4 Months?
- What Reporting Made the Business Exit-Ready?
- How Did the Exit Actually Happen?
- What Can Your Agency Learn From This?
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The ID Crowd went from 2–4 weeks of cash runway to about 4 months, and rebuilt their reporting so the numbers held up under a buyer’s microscope. They then sold to Deloitte about 14 months after first contact, with the whole team coming across. They didn’t need a product or a capital raise to get there, just tighter cash, sharper numbers and a culture worth buying.
This one is a real agency with real names and a real exit. Lee Booy was COO at The ID Crowd, and he sat down with me on camera to tell the story in his own words. Everything below comes from that conversation.
Watch: Lee tells the full story (25 min):
1. Who Are The ID Crowd?
A digital agency that had been running for eight years when we met, with a skilled team, big enterprise clients and great work, but a cash position that never had more than a few weeks in it.
Lee and Nick ran the business together. Lee looked after operations, finance, project management, strategy and culture, while Nick looked after sales.
They were far from a mess. Lee is very financially literate and had already built solid reporting himself, and the team was highly skilled and cared about the craft. That’s exactly why this story is useful, because you don’t have to be broken to need a CFO.
2. What Was Keeping the Founders Up at Night?
Two things: a cash runway of 2–4 weeks, and nobody to check the big calls with, so Lee was second-guessing every decision.
We actually started on a narrow job. A long-term member of their finance team was leaving, and they needed the bookkeeping covered and the data kept clean. We tried an external contractor first, which didn’t stick, so we plugged our own team in and got it stable.
Once that was sorted, the bigger problem came into view, and Lee put it best:
“Even the stuff that I was doing that was right, I was wasting so much energy second guessing it because I didn’t have that person that can go, yeah, that’s sound.”
That’s the hidden cost of being the only finance brain in the building. It’s the hours of research and the nights spent wondering whether the model is right. And on top of that, there was the cash.
3. How Did They Go From 2 Weeks of Cash to 4 Months?
They made invoicing milestones everyone’s job. Milestones went into the project system and got reviewed with project managers every two weeks, and the whole team saw the cash numbers every month. By the time they exited, they had about four months of cash in the bank.
For eight years the agency ran on 2–4 weeks of cash, which meant that if sales stopped, the money would run out within a month. That’s not unusual for project-based agencies. Your revenue comes in waves, and every so often all the waves hit a low point at once, usually around Christmas.
“We had a couple of months, especially like at Christmas, where no one paid us. They did eventually pay us, but everything was delayed by like six weeks.”
Here’s what we changed.
Every invoicing milestone got tracked
All their contract milestones went into WorkflowMax and fed a live dashboard. Every couple of weeks Lee sat down with each project manager to go through the milestones coming up, check whether they were on track, and if one was slipping, work out why and whether it could be brought forward.
Before that, a missed milestone just got pushed out. It wasn’t that the team didn’t care about the business, cash just wasn’t on their radar.
The whole team saw the numbers
Every month they walked the team through cash in the bank, the cash pipeline, revenue and profit. Once people could see what a delayed invoice actually meant, they started asking clients “can we invoice this now?” on their own, and they prioritised the deliverables that had an invoice attached.
We chased the slow payers
Their big enterprise clients were good for the money eventually, but net 30 often turned into 60 days once the “your invoice isn’t properly formed” games started. We reviewed accounts receivable on every call and mapped out which clients were most likely to pay late. Be nice about it, but be the squeaky wheel, because your team’s payroll depends on it.
“By the time we exited we had about four months of cash flow.. it was so much more stress free. When you had a bad month, you would go from four months to three months and we’re like, groovy.”
4. What Reporting Made the Business Exit-Ready?
Forecasts that spotted problems early. That meant project budgets tracked against delivery, a sales pipeline turned into a revenue forecast, and monthly targets that showed whether the pipeline was actually healthy.
Lee already had good data, with Smartsheet, Xero, WorkflowMax and HubSpot all pulled into one place. What he wanted was a second opinion and a CFO’s eye. So we pulled his models apart, made a few tweaks, and brought in the reporting we use with other agencies. The question was simple: if I was your CFO, what would I want in front of me?
Three things made the biggest difference. The first was project burn tracking, which showed them a quarter of the way into a project if it was burning budget too fast. That meant an early scope conversation with the client instead of an awkward “we’re out of money” at 80% done, and it had a big impact on margin. The second was a pipeline forecast, which turned deal value, win probability and close dates in HubSpot into a forward revenue forecast. The third was monthly sales targets. They already knew the annual number, and now they knew what the pipeline needed to look like each month to hit it.
This is what makes a business exit-ready. A buyer wants to see that you know your numbers and can predict them, rather than that you had one lucky year.
5. How Did the Exit Actually Happen?
The buyer came to them. The founders said it was a bad time to sell because they were growing, but the buyer kept talking anyway, and over about 14 months it became clear the culture fit was real and the whole team could come across.
Early on, I asked Lee and Nick what their exit strategy was, and they didn’t have one. So we started working on making the business more presentable for a sale one day. They’d just restructured the team to scale and overhauled the reporting, and six to twelve months later it was all humming along. That’s when Deloitte came knocking.
Lee’s first answer was “not now”. As he put it, why would they sell when they thought they’d be worth more in one to two years? The buyer said they’d factor that into the price and asked for a coffee anyway. The more they talked, the more the founders liked them, and that ended up mattering more than the number.
“If we sell in five years, is there a guarantee that someone’s going to come knocking on our door that’s actually a good culture fit? Are we going to end up selling to someone we don’t like because we’re so burnt out that we just want to get out?”
Once they decided to go ahead, the question became how to do it in a way that looked after the team. Their rule was to only sell to a company they’d want to work for themselves, so they went across with the team. The ID Crowd didn’t disappear, it just evolved, and that’s an exit worth celebrating.
6. What Can Your Agency Learn From This?
Fix your cash runway before you need to, build reporting a buyer can trust, and work out what a good exit looks like before someone knocks on your door.
Make cash everyone’s job, so invoicing milestones are part of your project reviews and not just sitting in your bookkeeper’s inbox. Show your team the numbers, because people make better calls when they can see what a delayed invoice costs. Get a second brain on finance, since even a financially savvy operator can waste hours second-guessing the right decision. Forecast rather than just report, because spotting a blown budget at 25% is a conversation, while at 80% it’s a write-off. And know your exit before the offer arrives, so you can negotiate knowing what you want and who you’d be happy to work for.
This is the work a fractional CFO does: not just the numbers, but making sure the big calls actually get made, and made well.
Want to see other agency turnarounds? Read how a creative agency grew net profit 26% in six months, how a tech agency grew revenue 66%, or how NZ agency numero runs on numbers, not gut feel.
Agency Exit FAQ
How much cash runway should an agency have?
Aim for at least three months of operating costs in the bank. The ID Crowd ran on 2–4 weeks for eight years, and it worked until a slow Christmas made payroll a worry. Having four months turned a bad month into a non-event.
How long does it take to sell an agency?
Longer than most founders expect. For The ID Crowd it was about 14 months from first contact to sale, with most of that spent negotiating and getting to know each other.
What makes an agency attractive to a buyer?
Predictable numbers, a team that stays, and reporting that holds up to scrutiny. A strong culture helps too, and in this case it was the reason the deal happened at all.
Do I need a product or recurring revenue to exit?
No. The ID Crowd was a project-based services agency, and they exited without building a product or raising capital.
When should I start planning my exit?
Now. Even if you never sell, an exit-ready agency is simply a better business, with clean numbers, a forecast you trust and less reliance on the founder.
