Advisory and Speaking.
Two ways I work with founders, operators, and the rooms around them. Start where it fits.
Calvin Quallis is the founder and former CEO of Scotch Porter, the men's grooming brand he built and sold over a decade, with the sale closing at the end of 2025. He now writes In the Middle, advises founders, speaks to operator rooms, and looks for durable businesses to acquire through QH Holdings. He works from inside the transition, not from the other side of it. That is the point.
A few founders a year.
I take a small number of advisory engagements. The founders I work with are usually building toward a sale, freshly through one, or sitting in the middle trying to figure out what comes next. Some of that is light advisory. Sometimes it is stepping in for a stretch as a fractional or interim operator, when a company needs real hands, not just a sounding board. Mostly consumer brands, where the decisions are about brand, retail, capital, and the personal cost of getting any of those wrong.
What you get
Light structure, direct access between sessions, and honest answers, including the ones I would rather not give.
What I don't do
I won't pretend to know more than I do, and I won't sell you a deck. I keep an engagement going as long as it's useful, and no longer.
Engagement structure
The cadence matches the work, anything from a few sessions to regular, hands-on involvement. If we are not a fit, I will say so on the first call and point you to someone who is.
Speaking.
I speak to founder rooms, M&A communities, brand and retail audiences, and the occasional university or accelerator. The talks are not about how to scale or win. They are about the conditions that actually matter, and the ones that quietly don’t.
Building toward a life you can actually live in.
For founders mid-arc, asking what they are really optimizing for. The filter I run every yes and no through. I built it after I almost missed the life it was supposed to buy.
When the sale is not the finish line.
For exited founders and the people who advise them. Nobody told me what the room feels like once the deal is done. This talk does.
Brand as the last sustainable margin.
For consumer operators wondering why their category is racing to the bottom. What brand actually buys you, and why it took me a decade to understand it.
PAST ROOMS / VENUES
TODAY Show (Shop Small with American Express), founder summits, Scotch Porter press appearances, university lectures, M&A community panels.