A round that had outgrown the model.
All Clear Solutions started where most clearance businesses start. Man with a van. Cash on completion. Good word of mouth across Marina Alta. The kind of business that runs on the owner's reputation and the owner's hours, and grows in proportion to both.
It hit two ceilings at once. A growth ceiling — there are only so many jobs one operator can do in a week, and hiring a second van does not double the revenue, it doubles the risk. And a pricing ceiling — clearance is a commodity in a market full of competitors who clear free and resell the contents to make their margin. You cannot beat free. Working harder no longer moved the number. The years of work had built something real, but not something a buyer would pay properly for.
The brief was direct. Take what was already working — the relationships, the reputation, the regional knowledge — and build a business around it that is worth selling. Not a round. An operation.
Three pieces of work, sequenced.
The first was commercial. We sat down with the numbers and looked at where the money actually came from, what each job cost to deliver, and what the existing customer base was worth on a recurring basis versus a one-off basis. That session — what Prestige & Co calls a Financial Reality Session — surfaced what was actually capping the business. It was undercharging in a market that did not reward undercharging, and competing on a model — free clearance, resold contents — that capped both margin and respectability.
The second piece was repositioning. We built the proposition around Spain's Ley de Residuos y Suelos Contaminados — the 2022 Waste Law, updated in February 2026, which leaves liability for waste with the property owner until disposal is documented at an authorised facility. Most of the regional competition does not document anything. ACS now documents everything. That is not a marketing claim. That is a compliance moat — and in a region where the property market is heavily foreign-owned and risk-averse, it is exactly what estate agents, solicitors, and property managers want from a clearance partner.
The third piece was operational. New brand, new website, new pricing structure, new customer journey, and a B2B referral channel built into the architecture of the business — not bolted on as an afterthought. A retained monthly revenue line replaced the cash-job, cash-job, cash-job rhythm that capped what the business could be valued at. As Operating Partner, I worked alongside the owner through the transition rather than handing over a strategy deck and walking away.
What the business is now.
The business that exists today is not the business it was eighteen months ago.
It has retained monthly revenue. It has a documented disposal chain that protects every customer's legal position. It has a B2B referral channel into the property professionals across Marina Alta. It has a brand that does not compete on price because it has stopped selling the same thing as its competitors. The owner no longer chooses between working more hours and earning less per hour.
The owner is now evaluating a business exit. That conversation is private and ongoing. What is on this page is the work that made the conversation possible.
What other founders should take from this.
The lesson here is not specific to waste management. It is specific to any owner-managed business that has hit the ceiling that hours cannot move.
A business that competes on price is sold on price and bought on price. A business that competes on something else — compliance, documentation, a referral channel, a recurring revenue line — is sold on that something else, and at a different multiple. The work of an exit is not done in the last six months before sale. It is done in the eighteen to thirty-six months before sale, when the business is being shaped into something a buyer can pay properly for.
Most owners come to that work too late, after they have decided to sell, when the buyer they want is already looking somewhere else. The work that creates the buyer worth wanting is the work that happens before anyone is asking.
That is what All Clear Solutions did. It is what every business that exits well does.
