Family equity is what you build when you do not sell to private equity.
Private equity has a fund, a clock, and LPs it has to answer to. Family equity has a family. Same capital, completely different intentions.
This page explains what I mean by that, the eight situations where we help family business owners keep control while they grow, recapitalize or sell, and exactly how we help.
Capital from a family, into a family business, patient enough to stay.
Family equity usually comes from a single family office, a multi-generational family, or another family business owner who built something like yours and wants to own more of it.
A private equity fund is often a good partner for what it is built to do. It raises money from limited partners, it has to return that money on a schedule, and the schedule shapes every decision. A five to seven year hold means the next sale is planned before the first dollar goes in.
A family does not have that clock. It can hold for 20 years, take a minority position, accept a lower return for more certainty, and care about what happens to your name and your people after it owns part of the company. That does not make every family office a good partner. It means the incentives start in a different place.
These are patterns, not rules. Some families act like funds and some funds act like families. What matters is knowing which one is across the table.
Eight situations where family equity is usually the better answer.
Most owners do not want to sell anything. They want capital, a cleaner balance sheet, or a plan for the next generation, and they want to keep running the company. These are the eight places we spend most of our time.
Recapitalization
You want some chips off the table without selling the company. A minority recap can put real money in your pocket and leave you at 60% to 80% ownership, still running it. We help you see what a family office minority investor looks for, and how that differs from a private equity recap that often has a second sale built in.
Growth Capital playbook →Growth capital without a new boss
You need $3M to $40M to buy the building, add locations or buy out an uncle. There are at least seven ways to structure that, including preferred equity, a revenue royalty, seller paper and a family office that wants 8% and a board seat. A majority buyout should be the seventh option you look at, not the first one you are shown.
Growth Capital playbook →Taking out the bank
Your line was repriced, the covenants tightened, or you are tired of a personal guarantee on everything. Patient family capital can replace bank debt or sit alongside it. We help you compare the real cost of each option, including the parts that are not the interest rate.
Growth Capital playbook →Selling to a family office
Some family offices buy companies and plan to own them for decades. They do not advertise and they do not cold call, so most owners never meet them. We help you understand what they look for, how they tend to structure a deal, and how to prepare before the first conversation.
Selling playbook →Selling to another family business owner
Often the best buyer is a family that already runs something like yours: a competitor, a supplier or a customer who knows exactly what your team is worth. The multiple is one of six numbers in a deal. We help you look at cash at close, the seller note, the earnout, escrow and what happens to your key people before you sign anything.
Selling playbook →Formalizing your family office
If a liquidity event is coming, set up the holding entity and the family office before the exit. Doing it after can cost about 10x more and is sometimes impossible. We help you decide which functions to own and which to rent, and write the investment policy before you hire anyone.
Family Office playbook →Growing the company
Growth is rarely just a capital problem. It is usually a structure problem, a sourcing problem or a people problem. We help you name the choke point your family has built in its industry over decades, and look at acquisitions you could make with part of the proceeds instead of selling everything and buying a bond portfolio.
Investing and Acquiring playbook →Next gen growth
Your son or daughter wants to build something, inside the business or next to it. A family bank, a scoreboard before a title and rooms full of adults who are not their parent do more than any trust document. We help families set those up so the next generation grows the equity instead of just inheriting it.
Next Gen playbook →Four ways, from free to hands-on.
The library
80 fireside chats with full transcripts, nine playbooks, a 335-term glossary, a ranked book index and the Decamillionaire Trail Guide. No email and no paywall. Most owners should start here.
Show me the videos →The rooms
Family Office Club has run 300+ in-person events over 19 years and runs 16 a year now. Family offices that invest directly, family business owners and next gens are in the same room. The useful conversations happen before anything is packaged, and they happen in person.
See the events →Advisory
Our team works directly with a small number of family companies on recapitalizations, growth capital structure, family office design and next gen planning. We work on a flat retainer. We do not take a success fee on capital raised or on a sale.
Tell me your situation →Tools built for family companies
The free Family Business Claude Skill puts our nine situations and five scores into your own Claude. For companies that want more, we build role-specific AI tools inside your own accounts, so your team does more without adding headcount. If we ever part ways, you keep all of it.
Get the skill →A first generation founder with three daughters in the business.
I am Richard C. Wilson. I founded Family Office Club 19 years ago with no reputation and no track record, and I run it today with three of my daughters in the business. I serve as CIO of a $180M single family office, I wrote How to Start a Family Office, and I have put more than 1,500 investors on stage.
I am in the middle of the same questions this site covers, with my own kids. That is a big part of why I built it.
I am not a broker. I am not a bank. I am not a private equity fund with a clock.
We do not list companies, we do not run auctions, and we do not get paid when your family sells. That is why we can tell you to keep the business, to walk away from a 7x, or to not hire anybody at all. Nobody who earns a transaction fee can say that.
Tell me where you are.
Apply for access and tell us which of the eight situations you are in, or text (808) 600-9260. A person answers, not a bot.