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Playbooks

What to do, in what order, when.

Tactical playbooks for the specific situations a founder faces in the run-up to a transition or inside a process.

  • Playbook
    Responding to an Unsolicited LOI

    Step-by-step for the founder who receives an unsolicited LOI: what to do in the first 48 hours, the first week, the first month. When to engage advisors, when to push back, when to walk.

Foundry

A publication for founders who want to think clearly about the businesses they have built, and what those businesses are becoming.

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Cordis Foundry is part of the Cordis Group family.
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Foundry · Cordis Group · 2026
Founder & Publisher, Ron Smith

Cordis Foundry does not produce business valuations. We synthesize how the field thinks about pricing, what buyers discount for, and the operational work that closes the gap. For valuation opinions, consult a registered appraiser.

Deal Notes draw on publicly reported transactions and on anonymized composite patterns observed across multiple Cordis engagements. Composite patterns alter sector, geography, size, and timing to prevent identification of any single transaction. Foundry does not publish information that would identify a Cordis client.

The Numbers, Power Rankings, and Deal Notes draw on published research from GF Data, SRS Acquiom, Bain & Company, Cherry Bekaert, Pepperdine Private Capital Markets, and Cordis Institute working papers (WP-001, WP-002). Source citations are linked from the dashboard footer and from the /research-sources page.