The lever PE always knew about. Now within reach.
Digital transformation has been a value-creation lever for over a decade. McKinsey, BCG, EY, PwC have written the same memo a hundred times: portfolio companies that modernize outperform the ones that don't. PE operating partners know it. The thesis was never the problem.
The access was. For a decade, only the biggest portcos could afford to pull this lever. Everyone else got stuck. Spreadsheets running the business. Fragmented tools the operators route around. SaaS the team quietly hates. Quiet liabilities that compound every quarter and show up in the next valuation.
AI fixed the math. What used to take years now ships in months. What used to cost millions costs a fraction. The lever once reserved for the biggest checks is finally within reach for the lower and middle market.
The best mid-market PE firms already know. They're pulling the lever quietly, with boutique partners who ship working software in weeks. DevSquad is the firm they're using.
The DevSquad way
No 200-slide decks. No six-month strategy retainers.
Most consultancies sell strategy. Then they leave you to find someone who can actually build it. We do both. And we ship working software in months, not quarters.
| The big consultancy path | The DevSquad path |
|---|---|
| Six months to a strategy deck | Three weeks to a prioritized roadmap |
| A pitch team you'll never meet again after kickoff | The same dedicated squad strategizes and builds. Same time zone. |
| Charges by the hour and by the slide | Predictable monthly engagement, fixed-price audit |
| Senior partners on the pitch, juniors on delivery | Senior architects own the build, end to end |
| Optimized for billable utilization | Optimized for value created per dollar spent |
How it works
From strategy to exit.
01 Phase one
Strategy
In three weeks we sit with your operators, map where margin actually leaks, and hand your operating partner a Custom Software Value Creation Plan. A prioritized 12 to 18 month roadmap of the software work, tied to the EBITDA levers that matter. No 200-slide deck. A plan your operating partner can use in the next board meeting.
3 weeks Fixed price
02 Phase two
First Value, in 100 Days
Inside 100 days, the squad ships the first piece of software your operators use daily. Usually it's the spreadsheet that quietly became the system of record. Order intake, inventory, scheduling, margin telemetry. Turned into a real product on a real platform. The first piece of the value-creation plan, in production. The first story for the next board update.
100 days to first value MVP in production
03 Phase three
Compounding IP
After the first ship, the squad keeps going. Every two weeks, another piece of the plan in production. Software that adapts as the business grows, absorbs the next acquisition, and compounds into real IP on the balance sheet at exit. Twelve to eighteen months of value creation, two weeks at a time. Pause anytime.
2-week sprints 12 to 18 months
Your software development squad
A squad. Not just developers.
Every portfolio company gets its own dedicated software development squad. You get more than developers. You get a self-contained team of consultants, product leads, engineers, designers, and operators that executes end to end. Same senior team from kickoff through exit. Not pooled across accounts. Not handed off after the pitch.
A Product Manager
Owns the build. Translates the value-creation plan into a sprint roadmap and turns engineering risk into the board-room language your operating partner needs for the LP update. The single accountable owner between your CEO and the engineering team.
2-6 Full-Stack Developers
Senior engineers, vetted on internal DevSquad projects before they touch yours. AI-amplified for two-to-three-times the velocity of a traditional team. Working exclusively on your product. The engineers in the kickoff are the engineers who ship.
A UX/UI Designer
The interfaces your operators touch every day. The line between a platform that gets adopted and one that gets quietly worked around is whether the people using it want to. Adoption is an EBITDA lever.
A QA Team
Manual and automated testing for continuous quality. Regression coverage, release-gate reliability. Your operating partner does not want to read about a portco outage in a Monday board update. Neither do we.
A DevOps Team
Manages infrastructure scalability and security. Cloud, CI/CD, monitoring, and the boring-but-load-bearing work that keeps a production system healthy across acquired entities and growing transaction volume.
A DevSquad Partner
Every engagement is assigned a DevSquad Partner. A senior operator with skin in the value-creation outcome, accountable from kickoff through exit. Sits on your CEO's monthly review and your operating partner's QBR. Pulls firm resources (architecture, security, AI infrastructure, the senior bench) without a new statement of work.
What your squad can build
From custom software to AI agents.
Custom CRMs
Built around how your team actually sells. Not how a SaaS vendor decided everyone should.
Operator Portals
Order entry, scheduling, dispatch, visibility. The interface the people actually doing the work want to use.
AI Agents
Behavior-triggered automation that handles the workflows your operators don't have time for.
AI Automation
Replacing the spreadsheets and manual data shuffling between your existing systems.
Real-Time Dashboards
Margin, fulfillment, and pipeline that updates itself. No manual reports, no week-old data.
Inventory & Order Systems
Multi-site, multi-entity from day one. Your next acquisition plugs in, not migrates.
Customer & Partner Portals
Onboarding, billing, support, and self-serve. One experience instead of five email threads.
Internal Tools & Integrations
One system instead of five duct-taped tools. The broken handoffs between operations, gone.
Whatever else your portco needs.
You describe the broken workflow, the missing system, the feature your operators keep asking for. Your squad scopes it, designs it, and ships it. If you can dream it, we can build it.
A note on fit
Off-the-shelf software was never going to fit your portfolio company.
Off-the-shelf SaaS
Bend the business to fit the tool.
- Per-seat pricing that scales with headcount, not value
- One vendor's roadmap, on one vendor's timeline
- Workflows the operators quietly route around
- Three acquisitions, three tenant migrations, three integrations
- You rent it. Forever.
Custom software, by DevSquad
Bend the tool to fit the business.
- Built around the workflows that are the value of the portco
- Your roadmap, your sprints, your priority queue
- Designed for adoption. The people using it want to.
- Multi-entity from day one. New acquisitions slot in.
- You own it. It's on your balance sheet at exit.
Built to measure. Owned by you. Sold with the business.
From the value-creation side of the table
What operators say about DevSquad.
In the lower and mid-market, the buyer isn't a technology person. They respond to integration, standardization, labor efficiency, margin improvement. DevSquad gets that. Custom software is the enabler. The deliverable is operating leverage.
Jeff Revoy PE Operating Advisor ยท former CEO
A Porsche owner and a Toyota Camry owner are completely different customers. No other industry would market to them the same way. That was the limitation we kept hitting with every tool out there. DevSquad helped us build a product with better segmenting and targeting that drives more ROI for our business.
Chris Matson Founder & CEO, HiBeam
Next step
Let's talk about your portco.
Thirty minutes. Tell us about the fragmented processes, the outdated software, the SaaS your operators hate, and the spreadsheets you want to replace. If it's a fit, we'll scope what a squad could ship in your first 100 days.
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Let's talk
Online or in-person at our Salt Lake City office.