Marine and Jeremy came to Switch to prepare their company for a sale. Ten months later, they wanted to keep it.
The married owners run Brighten Solar, a residential solar and battery company in California with a twelve-person team. In October 2025, they were exploring a sale and needed to understand how ready the business was.
Brighten was already a good company. It had a strong reputation across its market, work going out on schedule, money in the bank, and a team that cared. What neither owner could answer was how much of that depended on them being there.
The Results: Stronger Sales, Better Visibility, Less Owner Involvement
Over the ten-month engagement:
- Sales went from 51% of target in Q1 to 108% in Q2.
- Forward visibility expanded from the end of the current month to at least six months out across signed work, pipeline, revenue, and cash.
- Actions started closing without an owner chasing them.
- Marine and Jeremy became less involved in daily operations.
They also called off the sale. Preparing Brighten for new ownership had given them a reason to reconsider leaving.
Exit Readiness: How Much Depended on the Founders?
Marine and Jeremy needed to understand how much of Brighten’s value depended on them personally.
We started with a Founder Dependency Audit, part of Switch’s Exit Readiness Assessment process. For Brighten, that meant founder alignment before touching operations.
Marine and Jeremy each worked through what they wanted from the company and how involved they wanted to stay. That gave the work a direction before we began changing operations.
As they worked through those questions, selling became less certain. A company that depended less on them would be easier to sell, but it would also be easier to own. They wanted to see what that company could look like.
What the OFI Analysis Found
Ian, Switch’s fractional COO, ran a value chain analysis, following the customer journey from first contact through final payment and identifying Opportunities for Improvement, or OFIs.
We organized the findings across the four areas of: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash.
People
Marine and Jeremy’s decision rights had never been formally set. Each stepped into whatever the week demanded, and conversations that needed a business meeting often happened at the kitchen table.
Accountability across the team also depended on them. When something slipped, one of the owners was usually the person who caught it and got it moving again.
Strategy
Marine and Jeremy had not yet worked out what they wanted for Brighten over the long term or how the company needed to support their own plans. Exploring a sale brought those questions into focus.
Without that shared direction, there was no forward-looking game plan linking a long-term vision to annual goals and quarterly work. The team stayed busy, but lacked a clear basis for deciding which priorities mattered most.
Execution
Nothing connected goals to meetings, decisions, and follow-through on a regular cycle. Information sat across tools, spreadsheets, inboxes, and personal knowledge. Handoffs were manual, and decisions often stayed in people’s heads.
Cash
Forecasting reached the end of the current month. There was no single view connecting signed work, project scheduling, pipeline, and operating capacity. Marine and Jeremy had limited visibility into what the months ahead would require.
Building the Operating System with Switch’s Growth Foundations Framework
People: Clear Responsibilities
We rebuilt roles, accountabilities, decision rights, and escalation paths around what the value chain analysis had found. Responsibility sat with a named person rather than with whoever noticed first.
For Marine and Jeremy, that meant clearer boundaries around their own roles, including which decisions each could make and when they needed to align.
Strategy: A Clear Direction and a Plan to Get There
We worked with Marine and Jeremy to clarify what they wanted for Brighten and how the company needed to support their own plans. That included their three-year picture, what the business needed to produce for them, and how involved each wanted to be.
We translated that direction into annual goals and company and role-level quarterly objectives and key results, or OKRs. The team could connect its quarterly work to where the owners wanted the company to go and decide what deserved attention and resources.
Execution: Managing the Work and Following Through
We put a meeting framework in place to review progress, make decisions, and follow actions through. Actions had named owners, and follow-up became part of the routine, so the team could see what was outstanding and who needed to act.
We also separated sales from marketing and gave each its own reporting, activity expectations, and management cadence. A business development playbook, updated sales materials, and a recruitment scorecard supported the changes.
Ian worked with the sales team week by week alongside the new reporting. During this period, sales went from 51% of target in Q1 to 108% in Q2.
Cash: Six-Month Financial Visibility
We built a forecast connecting signed work, project scheduling, recognized revenue, pipeline, and run rate. It extended visibility from the end of the current month to at least six months forward, giving the owners more information to plan with.
How Switch’s Fractional COO Helped the Changes Stick
Putting those changes into daily use took much of Ian’s time.
He coached Marine and Jeremy on staying within their roles and aligning before taking decisions to the team. They also worked on giving ownership discussions a proper place outside their marriage.
Ian ran team meetings, built standard operating procedures alongside the people who would use them, and followed up with individuals to help put the changes into practice.
Where It Got Harder
Building financial visibility took longer than anyone wanted. An outside finance firm was engaged partway through, but the work did not produce the intended result. The forecast came together later than it should have.
At closeout, Marine and Jeremy also said the sales restructuring and hiring should have started earlier. They were right.
What Stuck
The forecast, sales and hiring resources, role framework, and meeting system all transferred to named owners inside Brighten.
Both Marine and Jeremy pointed to clarity as the biggest gain. Jeremy singled out how differently sales was managed. Marine highlighted the leadership coaching and the outside perspective that came with it.
Marine and Jeremy were less involved in daily operations. That shift was still underway, and they continued to help the team make the new routines stick.
In Their Words
“What distinguished Ian was his ability to combine strategic insight with hands on execution. He did not simply provide recommendations. He led team meetings, developed practical SOPs, established clearer processes and accountability, and followed up directly with team members to ensure that the changes were understood and implemented... He brought structure, consistency, and clarity to our operations while helping our team take greater ownership of their roles.”
— Marine, CEO and Co-Founder, Brighten Solar
A Business They Wanted to Keep
Marine and Jeremy came to Switch preparing to sell. Ten months later, the team was taking more responsibility, the owners could plan further ahead, and they could see a way to run Brighten with less involvement in its daily work. They decided to keep it.
Preparing Your Business for a Sale?
Talk to Switch about an Exit Readiness Assessment to understand where your business still depends on you and what needs attention before a sale.
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