| ← New Money · Issue 007 · The Sunday Brief |
Sunday, April 19, 2026 |
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◆ Issue 007 · April 19
Inside
the org chart.
What HR knows that you don’t — until the all-hands.
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From the editor
Layoffs are usually visible 6–14 weeks before the all-hands. Recruiter behavior, hiring-system permissions, the cadence of skip-level meetings, an unscheduled CFO town hall — the leading indicators are operational, not financial. The people who see them coming are the people who run the systems that announce them.
The five signals this week. Plus: the under-priced asset class that’s “boring small businesses for sale by baby boomers”, the internal copilot you should build before a vendor sells it to your boss, the license-and-resell wedge, and when the CBO’s 10-yr outlook says federal interest spending finally crowds out programs.
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The 5 signals that mean a RIF is 6–14 weeks out.
From three RIF cycles inside and adjacent at McKinsey clients, plus the pattern Bloomberg layoff coverage confirms quarterly. (1) Recruiters stop returning external candidate pings — the req hold went into effect quietly. (2) Greenhouse / Lever permissions get audited (your hiring access changed). (3) Outside legal counsel shows up in two scheduled calls per week instead of two per month. (4) Skip-level meetings shift from quarterly to ad-hoc with no agenda. (5) The next quarterly all-hands gets a confirmed time slot but the calendar invite description is empty.
None of these mean “you’re fired.” They mean the org is preparing optionality. If three of five are present in your read of your company today, the right move is to be on the front foot — not paranoid. Refresh your offer-letter audit, send four discovery emails to operators in your network, and confirm the actual vesting schedule of your next equity tranche.
What to do this week
Run the 5-signal checklist on your company. Honestly. If 3+ are present, calendar 30 minutes Sunday to update your one-page resume, line up your next four discovery coffees, and reread your offer letter. Read this not as fear — as basic operating hygiene.
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Buying a boomer business: the seller-financing math.
Per BizBuySell 2025 transactions, the median SDE-to-price multiple on small businesses is 2.8x, with ~58% of deals closing with seller financing. Tactical example: a $900k revenue HVAC business throwing $260k SDE. Asking $720k. Structure: $180k buyer cash, $180k SBA 7(a), $360k 5-year seller note at 8%. Year-1 debt service: ~$104k. Cash flow to operator: $156k. ROI on cash deployed: 87% in year 1.
The catch: it’s a job, not a passive holding. You’re running an HVAC business for 30 hours/week or paying a $90k GM. The path looks like Issue 002 Play 04’s holding-co assembled, except 10x bigger and operationally heavy. Right for some readers, wrong for most. Don’t confuse with productized consulting.
What to do this week
If this is your category: spend 30 minutes scrolling BizBuySell’s 2.5–4x multiple range for businesses in your metro. Don’t inquire. Track three deals over the next 12 weeks — see what closes and at what discount to ask. Pattern recognition before pattern action.
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Build the team copilot before vendor sales does.
Every team has 10–15 recurring tasks that look bespoke but aren’t. The vendor pitch you’ll get in Q3 is a $200k/yr SaaS for “AI-augmented workflows.” You can build the same thing with Claude Projects, three Zapier connections, and a Notion DB in ~9 hours over two weekends. The unlock is institutional: the team artifact lives under your name. The vendor procurement doesn’t.
Reader case last month: a 6-person ops team built a meeting-notes-to-Notion-tasks-to-Linear pipeline with Cursor and the public OpenAI Assistants API. Saved each person ~3h/week. The team lead got pulled into two cross-functional reviews to show it off, then onto the platform team to ship it company-wide. The build was the promotion path. The vendor purchase would have been a line item.
What to do this week
List your team’s 5 most-resented recurring tasks. Pick the one with the cleanest input/output. Sketch a 90-minute Claude + Zapier + Notion build for it. The point isn’t the build — it’s arriving at Monday standup with a working v0.
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License-and-resell: $5k tools as $50k enterprise contracts.
The unsexy arbitrage: small, capable tools that solve a specific enterprise pain but lack enterprise sales motion. Buy a perpetual license or distribution agreement for $5–25k, repackage with implementation services + SLA + integration to a regulated industry, sell at $40–75k/yr. Real working examples in 2026: a compliance-text-search tool licensed at $8k, sold to four regional banks at $52k/yr each. Net $200k ARR in 9 months on a $25k upfront commitment.
The work isn’t the product — it’s the wrap. Procurement docs, SSO integration, on-prem deployment, the SOC2 paperwork, training. The technical founder you license from didn’t want to do any of that. Doing it for them is the entire margin.
What to do this week
Identify one indie tool you use that’d also solve a pain at three regional banks / hospitals / state agencies. Email the founder — not to buy it, to ask: “Would you license white-label distribution to regulated buyers? I’d handle SOC2 + procurement.” Most say yes immediately.
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When federal interest spending overtakes the defense budget.
Per the CBO’s March baseline, federal net interest spending hits $1.06T in FY2026 — already larger than the defense budget. By 2029, it overtakes Medicare. By 2032, it exceeds Social Security on the current path. This isn’t a forecast — it’s the math of compounding accrued debt at current rates.
Career implications, per Brookings fiscal-impact modelling: industries that depend on federal grant funding (academic biotech, climate research, lower-tier defense contracting) face structural compression starting ~2028. Industries that benefit from higher-for-longer rates (insurance, money-center banks, regional REITs in stable metros) are positioned the other direction. The bond-market thesis is becoming a labor-market thesis, just slowly.
What to do this week
If your employer depends on federal contracts or grants for >30% of revenue, read the CBO baseline. Not the summary — the actual schedules. Your visibility into your company’s 3-year outlook may be better than your CFO’s.
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◆ Chart of the Week
Federal interest: $1.06T — bigger than defense.
FY26 federal outlays
Interest already bigger than defense. Passes Medicare ~2029, Social Security ~2032 at current rates.
Source: CBO 10-year baseline, March 2026. Interest passes Medicare ~2029, Social Security ~2032 at current rates. The path is decided unless rates fall ~250bps or fiscal posture shifts. Neither is in the consensus 2026 forecast.
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◆ The Tape
$156K SDE on a small-biz buy |
$200K ARR from license-and-resell |
$1.06T Federal interest, FY26 |
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One favour before you go
Reply with one number: 01, 02, 03, 04, or 05 — which play you’d run first this week.
I read every reply. They shape what shows up in Issue 008.
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Go run something. See you next Sunday.
— The Operator
still at McKinsey, still building
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© 2026 New Money
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