Private Equity Value Creation Podcast Ep. 99: Josh Christensen, Mercato Partners | Building Billion-Dollar Ecosystems as a Minority Investor
Nov 13, 2025
In this engaging conversation, Josh Christensen, Director at Mercato Partners, discusses the unique advantages of minority growth investing and ecosystem building. With a wealth of experience in scaling companies, he reveals strategies for embedding sales and marketing expertise to drive substantial growth. Josh emphasizes the importance of founder commitment while navigating investments outside coastal hubs. He shares insights on community events that create genuine deal flow and the significance of relationship-building in achieving measurable value creation.
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Minority Stakes For Maximum Growth
- Mercado focuses on minority growth investments that preserve founders' control and maximize growth potential.
- They prioritize 100%+ growth by underwriting unit economics and scaling rather than forcing early profitability.
Prioritize GTM And Talent Levers
- Invest heavily in sales, marketing, and human capital because those levers commonly limit scaling at $15–$30M revenue.
- Focus resources where they accelerate 100%+ growth instead of over-engineering across irrelevant functions.
Founder Commitment Is A Leading Indicator
- Founders' willingness to stay and double-down signals belief in the upside and correlates with scalable opportunity.
- If a founder wants to exit majority control early, Mercado treats that as a negative signal about future growth prospects.
