Updata Partners Operating Partner Kate Winkler recently joined the Deal-Landia podcast to share her perspective on what it takes to build a company that attracts the right capital at the right time. Drawing on a 25-year career that has spanned CEO roles, investment banking, and growth equity, Kate offered a candid look at the bridge between operating a business and understanding how investors think.
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Deal-Landia: Investment Insights: The Art of Being Bought, Not Sold with Kate Winkler
Deal-Landia is a podcast hosted by Erik Stromquest that brings together seasoned leaders from across the worlds of banking, operations, and investing to share candid insights on business building, dealmaking, and growth. Each episode features conversations with operators and investors who have lived experience navigating the complexities of scaling companies, raising capital, and creating value. Whether you’re a founder, executive, or investor, Deal-Landia offers a practical and honest look at what it really takes to succeed in today’s market.
A central theme of the conversation was the importance of building solid foundations before pressing the accelerator on growth. Kate Winkler emphasized that companies which earn the attention of serious investors do so by getting the fundamentals right — a clearly defined ideal customer profile, a well-understood total addressable market, and a sharp read on market dynamics. Growth that is layered on top of a weak foundation, she argued, rarely compounds the way founders hope.
Kate also spoke to the concept embedded in the episode title — being “bought, not sold.” Her view is that the best outcomes for founders come when they’ve built something so fundamentally sound that strategic acquirers and investors come to them, rather than the other way around. That requires discipline early on: knowing your customer deeply, understanding what drives retention and expansion, and building a business that tells a clear story without needing to be oversold.