• Skip to main content

Gain Fresh Perspectives on What Drives Businesses into the Future

Join our semi-monthly Insights to Explore the Success Factors of Business in this Dynamic Environment

Join me in this excursion




Our Insights will enhance your outlook, allowing you to keep up with change and move forward with confidence even in turbulent times. You’ll get early insight into possible threats and discover new opportunities.

Designed for executives and decision makers, we skip the click bait and cut through the clutter to focus on those factors that we expect to have a lasting impact. Along the way we will hopefully provide you with inspiring perspectives and maybe even sparkle your dinner conversations.

Portrait_MH_2287_800px

But why listen to what I consider important? Because I spent most of my career sorting the wheat from the chaff. As a private equity professional I had to be quick to identify the most important parameters that drive a business’ success. Working with a variety of companies from a board level perspective provided me with unique insights into these success factors. Now I make this experience available to you.

Every second Wednesday you will receive a few interesting articles that my algorithm and I have curated for you. This is wrapped up in my short summary. From time to time the newsletter will also include Clarintelligence original articles.

On the Clarintelligence Website you will find in-depth guides on specific shifts that are happening and specific topics of interest. We call them Programmes. As a subscriber, you will get early access as soon as new programmes are launched.

Join me in this excursion




Homepage
About Clarintelligence


Don’t bore the ceo

My career in private equity started with a frustration and an insight at the same time. I soon got over the frustration. The insight stayed with me and grew to this day. This insight also pioneered the way for Clarintelligence.

As a rookie private equity professional, working the first week in my new job, coming with a bag of due diligence experience, my boss asked me to prepare our questions for the Management Q&A of a company we wanted to acquire (if you are not familiar with private equity, think of the Management Q&A as the first date after which both parties can decide whether or not there is a potential for marriage).

I did research on the business. Based on my previous experience I proudly came up with the list of 15-20 questions that any diligent consultant would come up with.

My boss politely suggested that I could throw this list into the garbage. To have a fruitful conversation with the management we needed to focus on the three to five questions that are most important for that particular business. And then we needed to go deep on them. This is what we did. And we managed to speak to them eye to eye, not only learning a lot about the business, but also positioning ourselves as a valuable potential partner.

So hats off to anyone who knows how businesses work. This is important. But the true art lies in finding those factors that have the biggest impact on the future of one particular business. So do more of fewer things, of the important stuff. Get to the questions that matter.

And be sure to not bore the ceo - or anybody else for that matter. If you are the ceo, recommend this site to everyone around you, so that they don’t bore you (though you don’t have to be ceo to recommend us, we appreciate any recommendation).

If you want to fly, find the X-Factor

This is why at Clarintelligence we help businesses identify and focus on those elements that have the biggest impact on a businesses’ future. We help them find the X-Factor.

By doing so we help executives develop strategies and adjust their businesses to a changing world.

We start by dissecting the components that make up successful, profitable and sustainable business models and how these components are changing in our dynamic environment. Based on these insights we then move on to helping businesses develop the right strategic options, so that they get ready to become airborne.


"The name of the bird tells you nothing. You need to talk about the feathers”

Richard Feynman


Who We Are

Martin Hoffmann

This is me writing here. I founded Clarintelligence drawing on my experience as private equity professional. In private equity I was fortunate to work with a variety of businesses. This means that I was able to draw connections between different business and detect common patterns. I was also fortunate to work with these businesses from a board level perspective. This, again helped me focus on what matters for a particular business. This also helped me learn not to ask stupid questions because senior management - as the name implies - tended to be much older and experienced than me. By now, I am one of the older chaps. As bad luck would have it, today’s business world is changing so rapidly that I basically had to remain in the learning mode, trying to keep the questions focused and smart.

I have also contributed to Entrepreneur Magazine and Equities Magazine. This probably won’t help you in any way, but I thought I’d mention it since we don’t know each other that well yet, and this is social proof that tells you I make at least that much sense that the editors there decided to deal with me.

Robot

We are supported by our AI bot. Consider him to be the intern for the moment. His current position is to support our human intelligence. We are aware that this means he has some big shoes to fill. We are busy training him to take on more tasks so that we can hopefully promote him to a VP role in the near future. Luckily bots tend to be loyal, so we expect him to stay with us, even if Google’s or Facebook’s headhunters reach out for him.

Contact & Press Enquiries

Contact


General Enquiries: mail@clarintelligence.com


Press Enquiries: press@clarintelligence.com

Journalists, access our Newsroom here


Clarintelligence provides Clarity and Intelligence to help executives lift the full potential of their businesses. It was founded by private equity professional turned publisher Martin Hoffmann.

© 2015–2025 · Clarintelligence GmbH · All Rights Reserved.
Imprint and Disclaimer || Log in