# Growth Consulting & Capital Readiness FAQs | Chesterton Hills [Public page](https://www.chestertonhills.com/faq) ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How We Work How engagements start, how they run, and how the firm is paid. ### What is your business model? We work with commercializable companies through **paid consulting engagements**, with the scope and fees set out in a signed agreement. Growth Execution and Investor Services offer retainer-based, project-based, and hourly engagements. Capital Readiness offers a full retainer-based program and preparation services by the hour or as a project. The full program combines education, training, mentorship, company development, and preparation, followed by Demo Day for connections only. Demo Day is full program only. We do **not** fundraise for clients, charge success-based fees, or work on contingency. ### Can you create a strategy for us to execute? Yes. We can build the plan with your team and hand it over for your people to run, execute it with you ourselves, or do both. If what you want is the strategy built and nothing more, that is a complete engagement on its own. ### We already have a strategy. Can you just execute it? Yes. Bring us the plan and we will run it. If the plan is sound we say so and get to work, and if something in it will not survive the market we say that too before anyone spends against it. ### How will you work with our existing team? We partner with your team from sales to product to leadership to create and deliver the engagement. We work alongside your people, in your meetings and on your calls. ### How does an engagement start? With a conversation about where the business is stuck, what has already been tried, and what the next year needs to look like. If there is a fit, we scope the work and agree on what it covers, what it does not cover, and the fees. Both parties sign an engagement agreement before work begins. ### What is the global network and how does it help us? A working network of commercial partners, operators, distributors, and capital allocators across North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. When a client enters a new market they arrive with that network already in place. We make the introductions ourselves and we are in the meetings that follow. The organizations we collaborate with are described on the [Partners](https://www.chestertonhills.com/partners) page. ### Services Our core growth work, capital preparation, and support for investors and owners. ### What does Growth Execution cover? Growth Execution is the core of our work helping companies grow: entering a new market, launching a product or service, building the commercial engine, rebuilding pricing and sales, and opening partnerships that create distribution. The full breakdown is on the [Growth Execution](https://www.chestertonhills.com/growth-execution) page. ### What does Capital Readiness cover? The full Capital Readiness program is a zero-equity, retainer-based incubator. It combines education, training, mentorship, and company development with data room preparation, the company narrative, materials, presentation coaching, negotiation training, and mock diligence. After preparation is complete, the company presents its business at Demo Day to invited members of our capital network whose investment interests match its industry. Demo Day is for connections only and is offered only through the full program. Hourly and project engagements cover preparation services and do **not** include Demo Day. We do **not** fundraise for you, solicit investments, negotiate transactions, handle funds or securities, or receive success-based or transaction-contingent fees. The full breakdown is on the [Capital Readiness](https://www.chestertonhills.com/capital-readiness) page. ### Is Capital Readiness only for startups raising a round? No. The same preparation applies to selling a business, licensing into a large partner, or taking on a strategic investor. An investor sizing up a company and a buyer weighing an acquisition are asking most of the same questions. ### Can an engagement be built around what we need? Yes. Growth Execution and Investor Services can be arranged on a retainer, as a defined project, or by the hour, with the scope and terms agreed in writing. Capital Readiness offers a full retainer-based program, hourly preparation, or a defined preparation project. Demo Day is full program only and is **not** included in hourly or project engagements. ### Our company is not based in the US. Are you able to help us? Absolutely. We work with clients across the globe and the firm is built for it. Our network runs across North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. A large share of the work is international expansion, taking a company that is established in one market into its next one. Whichever side of the firm you need, where you are based is not a constraint. ### How can you help us enter a new country? Market selection and sequencing, the entity and regulatory path, and the local relationships a new entrant needs from the first week: distributors, channel partners, operators, and the people who know the regulators and the buyers. We open those through the firm's network and we are in the meetings that follow. ### Can you help us on a fractional basis? Yes. We can hold a role inside your team for an agreed part of the week, which is often how a company covers commercial leadership, market entry, or investor work without hiring for it outright. Where there is no commercial leader in place, we can carry that seat until the right person is hired. ### Are there companies you will not work with? We do not work with companies in any of the following categories: cannabis, cryptocurrency, token based companies, prediction markets, and vaping and related products. Beyond that it comes down to timing. We price to the value of the outcome, and that works best for a company at the point where real expansion, a raise, or a sale is genuinely in view, because that is where the work provides the most value. If that is where you are, we will say so and tell you what would make the timing right. We would happily have the conversation again in a year. ### Scope The limits of our role and how we handle your information. ### Can you raise money for us? No. We do **not** fundraise for clients. Demo Day participation is offered only through the full Capital Readiness program. Chesterton Hills is **not** a broker-dealer, investment adviser, or placement agent. We do **not** offer, sell, or solicit investments or securities. Our role is purely advisory and connective; we are **not** involved in any deals or negotiations. Chesterton Hills is also **not** a venture capital firm, angel group, or other funding organization, we do **not** invest or provide any funding for our clients. Nothing on this site constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation to purchase any investment or security. ### Do you sell companies or run the transaction? No. We prepare a company for those conversations. We do **not** act as a broker, we do **not** market a business for sale, and we do **not** run or close a transaction. That work belongs with your bankers, your counsel, and your own team. ### Do you negotiate the deal or the terms? No. We prepare your team for the negotiation: what tends to be negotiable, where leverage sits, the terms beyond price, and how to hold a position. Founders do this once or twice in a career while the other side does it every week, and rehearsal is the only thing that closes that gap. We do **not** sit in the negotiation and we do **not** negotiate on your behalf. ### How does Demo Day work? Demo Day takes place after the preparation work in the full Capital Readiness program. We invite members of our capital network whose investment interests match your industry to hear your team present the business, ask questions, and make connections. Demo Day is offered only through the full program. Demo Day is for connections only. We do **not** fundraise, solicit investments, promote securities, negotiate terms, handle funds or securities, or receive success-based or transaction-contingent fees. Any later investment or transaction discussions belong to the company, the investors, and their respective advisers. ### How is our information handled? Confidentially, and we sign an NDA before sensitive material changes hands. Company information is used for the engagement and nothing else, and we do **not** use a client's name or details in outreach without permission. ### Do you give legal or investment advice? No. These are regulated activities and we do **not** do them. When we map the regulatory path for a market entry, that is commercial planning: what the requirements are, what they will take, and how long they will run. The legal work itself gets referred out to a legal partner in that market, and we make the introduction. Legal and investment questions belong with your own advisors. Chesterton Hills is **not** a broker-dealer, investment adviser, or placement agent. We do **not** offer, sell, or solicit investments or securities. Our role is purely advisory and connective; we are **not** involved in any deals or negotiations. Chesterton Hills is also **not** a venture capital firm, angel group, or other funding organization, we do **not** invest or provide any funding for our clients. Nothing on this site constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation to purchase any investment or security. Nothing on this page is legal or investment advice. ### Have Another Question? Tell us what you would like to know. We will help you understand how our services apply to your business. [Start the Conversation](https://zcal.co/jaspercannon/discoverycall) ## Advisory role and securities limitations Chesterton Hills is not a broker-dealer, investment adviser, or placement agent. We do not offer, sell, or solicit investments or securities. Our role is purely advisory and connective; we are not involved in any deals or negotiations. Chesterton Hills is also not a venture capital firm, angel group, or other funding organization, we do not invest or provide any funding for our clients. Nothing on this site constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation to purchase any investment or security. #### 2. No securities activity, and no offer Chesterton Hills is **not** a broker-dealer, investment adviser, or placement agent. We do **not** offer, sell, or solicit investments or securities. Our role is purely advisory and connective; we are **not** involved in any deals or negotiations. Chesterton Hills is also **not** a venture capital firm, angel group, or other funding organization, we do **not** invest or provide any funding for our clients. Nothing on this site constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation to purchase any investment or security. The firm is **not** a finder or a registered representative of any of them, and is **not** registered as such with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, any state securities regulator, or any comparable authority in any other jurisdiction. The firm is **not** a law firm and does **not** provide legal or investment advice. The firm does **not** offer, sell, solicit, or negotiate the purchase or sale of securities; does **not** raise capital on behalf of any person; does **not** act as an intermediary in, or a party to, any financing or transaction; and does **not** receive any commission, success fee, finder's fee, or compensation tied to a transaction. The firm's capital readiness and investor services consist of company assessment, commercial and operational support, education, training, mentorship, company development, preparation, coaching, materials, and connections, and the decision to invest, to accept an investment, to transact, or to proceed on any terms rests solely with the parties concerned. Demo Day participation is offered only through the full retainer-based Capital Readiness program, after the company's preparation is complete. The firm invites members of its capital network whose investment interests match the company's industry to hear the business presentation and make connections. Demo Day is connections only and is **not** a fundraising service. Hourly and project preparation engagements do **not** include Demo Day participation. The firm does **not** solicit investment commitments, negotiate terms, handle investor funds or securities, or receive success-based or transaction-contingent fees.