About this episode

Jared Johnson interviews Ivy Millman about the importance of customer due diligence in B2B acquisitions and its impact on revenue sustainability.

Jared Johnson sits down with Ivy Millman, CEO of WHIZDOM, to explore a missing piece in many lower middle market acquisitions: customer due diligence. Ivy shares how her background in accounting, Stanford, Apple, and decades of business-customer research led her to build a firm focused on helping buyers, investors, and operators understand what financial, legal, and technical diligence often miss. The conversation breaks down how independent customer interviews can uncover risks around retention, churn, concentration, loyalty, product issues, and transition vulnerability before a deal closes. Ivy explains her process, why customers often reveal more to a neutral third party than to sellers or buyers, and how these insights can shape valuation, confidence, and post-close growth plans. Jared also shares what he is seeing in SBA acquisition lending, including higher defaults, tighter scrutiny, and the growing need for real diligence before buyers commit to multimillion-dollar deals. Main Takeaways: - Customer due diligence fills a major gap left by financial, legal, quality of earnings, and technical diligence - For B2B acquisitions, revenue sustainability depends heavily on…

People in this episode

Host: Jared Johnson

Guest: Ivy Millman

Topics covered

• customer due diligence
• B2B acquisitions
• revenue sustainability
• customer retention
• business research

Keywords

• customer interviews
• retention
• churn
• loyalty
• transition vulnerability
• acquisition lending

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: WHIZDOM, Apple, Stanford

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