Your Next Chapter
What TPA Owners Who’ve Been There Want You to Know
We invite you into a conversation that comes from real discussions with real TPA owners — people who built their firms from scratch, were approached by aggregators, deliberated carefully, and ultimately merged with MAP Retirement. Their words, their experiences, and their advice are the heart of what follows. We’ve woven them into a single narrative because their stories, while distinct, follow a remarkably similar arc. You may find your own story in theirs.
Part One:
You Didn’t Build Your Firm to Sell It.
You built a firm because you saw an opportunity — a market that wasn’t being served well, clients who deserved better, advisors who needed a real partner. You hired carefully, grew deliberately, and somewhere along the way realized you’d created something genuinely good. Not just a book of business. A practice. A culture. A team of people who trusted you.
So when the merger invitation emails started arriving — and they did, probably more than a few — you deleted most of them. Maybe you took a call or two, more out of curiosity than intent. You listened politely, thanked them for their time, and went back to running your business.
…That was the right instinct.
But somewhere in the back of your mind, a different kind of conversation was beginning. Not about selling. About something more uncomfortable: whether the path you were on — the one that had served you so well — was still the right path forward.
For most TPA owners, that reckoning doesn’t arrive all at once. It accumulates quietly. A technology investment you keep deferring because you can’t justify the cost. An employee — one of your best — who you can see is ready for something bigger than your firm can offer. A recordkeeper conversation where you realize, with a small shock, that you’re no longer in the room where decisions get made. A cybersecurity assessment that keeps you up at night.
None of these things, on their own, demands action. Together, they ask a question you can’t ignore: What does the next five years actually look like if nothing changes?
The owners who’ve joined MAP Retirement sat with that question. They took it seriously. And they arrived, from different places and with different concerns, at remarkably similar conclusions.
…Here’s what they found
Part Two:
What the Landscape Actually Looks Like
Before anyone seriously considered a merger, they had to be honest about the environment they were operating in. Not the environment of five years ago — the one right now.
The industry is consolidating. That’s not a prediction. It’s already happening.
Recordkeepers are consolidating. The advisor industry is well into its own consolidation cycle. And the TPA space is clearly in this phase as well. The firms being built today are national in scale, institutional in their technology infrastructure, and increasingly the preferred partners of the broker dealers and recordkeepers who shape distribution in this industry.
Bob Carroll, one of MAP’s founding partners, put it plainly:
We are no longer in a growing industry. We are in a fully mature industry that is consolidating. Those who don’t have the scale and the capabilities to reinvest into technology are going to suffer from the inability to leverage their people.
That’s not alarmism. It’s arithmetic.
The broker dealers and recordkeepers who represent your best growth opportunities are rationalizing their TPA relationships. They don’t want to work with 100 firms. They want to work with six — firms that can integrate directly with their systems, speak with one consistent voice to thousands of advisors, and bring institutional-grade security credentials to the table.
The technology gap is real and it’s widening. AI and automation are no longer future-state planning items. They are present-tense competitive requirements. And the capital investment required to build that infrastructure — truly build it, not patch it — is beyond what most independent TPA firms can sustain while also running the business.
Mike Mulka, who built his firm from a startup with two people to eventually supporting 1,400 clients before merging with MAP, described the moment of clarity this way:
I needed a lot of money and a lot of time to implement those strategies. And by myself, I had none of those.
None of this means you have to do anything today. It does mean that standing still is a decision — and not a neutral one.
Part Three:
The Questions Worth Sitting With
Before evaluating any options, the owners who’ve made this journey found it useful to ask themselves a few honest questions. Not about valuations or deal structures — those come later. About what they actually wanted from the next chapter of their career and their firm.
Do you want out, or do you want to stay in?
This is the first and most important filter. Some TPA owners have built what Mike Mulka calls a “lifestyle firm” — a practice that serves them well, that they run with skill and pride, and that they’re genuinely not ready to leave. That’s a legitimate place to be. But it comes with its own calculus: the investments required to remain competitive are real, and deferring them has a cost.
Other owners have built firms they’re proud of — and are ready to keep building, but in a different way. They don’t want to exit. They want to contribute at a level they can’t reach alone. They want to see their employees grow into roles that don’t yet exist at their current firm. They want to be part of something that’s shaping the industry, not just serving it.
MAP isn’t looking for a single type of owner. Some partners arrive ready to keep building for years. Others are closer to the end of an active operating role and want to ensure a strong transition for their people. What MAP is looking for isn’t a specific exit timeline — it’s a specific kind of person: someone who has built something good, cares about what happens to it, and wants to do this with people they can trust.
What happens to your people if you don’t do this?
Every single owner we spoke with named this first. Not valuation. Not deal structure. Employees.
Mick Fouts, who built QPC over 22 years to approximately 1,200 clients, described it as carrying the weight of 30 families:
You don’t take it lightly. You’re responsible for individuals and their families.
The honest question isn’t whether your people are happy today. It’s whether you can offer them a future that matches their ambition. In a TPA practice, as Joe Burt observed, there’s usually a ceiling — only so many roles, only so many paths forward. At MAP, that ceiling is gone. Employees who would have plateaued are stepping into management and leadership roles. People who would have eventually left to find growth elsewhere are staying — and building.
What happens to your clients if the industry passes you by?
Your clients trust you. They’ve trusted you for years, in some cases decades. That relationship is the most valuable thing you’ve built. The question is whether you can continue to honor it.
The services your clients increasingly need — 3(16) fiduciary coverage, pooled employer plans, advanced payroll integration, direct recordkeeper connectivity — require infrastructure that most independent firms can’t build alone. And the security your clients and advisor partners expect — SOC 2 certification, institutional-grade cybersecurity — carries a price tag that demands scale to justify.
Sandra Eilers, who co-founded Retirement Solutions Specialist with her husband Jay in 2009 out of nothing more than a severance package and a borrowed laptop, described the moment cybersecurity became personal:
It’s a tough industry to be in when you have people trying to get into your email, get into your data. It’s scary. And I was scared.
That fear is real. And it’s shared. For your clients, for your advisor partners, and for the recordkeepers you work with, the security posture of their TPA is no longer a secondary consideration.
Part Four:
Evaluating Your Options
If you’ve decided that the status quo isn’t sufficient — that you want more for your people, your clients, and yourself than the independent path can reliably deliver — the question becomes: what are the real options?
The landscape is reasonably clear. Mike Mulka mapped it well from his own experience:
There’s the clean exit — sell your firm at a reasonable valuation, hand over the keys, and move on. For some owners at the right stage of life, this is the right answer. But it requires giving up the thing you built, the people you care about, and any participation in what comes next.
There’s the franchise model — sell to an aggregator that promises to keep everything the same, maintain your autonomy, and let you run your practice as you always have. This sounds attractive until you realize that the problems you were trying to solve — technology, scale, institutional access — remain entirely unsolved. You’ve monetized, but you haven’t advanced.
And then there’s a third option, which is what MAP Retirement actually offers: a genuine merger, with meaningful retained ownership, active participation in the growth of a shared enterprise, and a second opportunity to monetize what you build together.
The third option is a hybrid where you sell part of your firm, but you maintain ownership and you maintain an active hand in the process of merging and growing the firm.
The critical distinction — the one that separates MAP’s model from most aggregators in the marketplace — is what happens to your equity stake after the deal closes. Many PE-backed aggregators offer attractive upfront numbers but limit legacy owner participation in the upside growth.
You get paid well to leave.
You don’t get paid to build.
MAP is structured differently. Legacy owners retain meaningful equity and participate actively in the firm’s long-term growth. The people who know this business — who’ve served clients, navigated compliance cycles, built advisor relationships — are the same people making decisions and sharing in the outcome. That alignment is not incidental. It’s intentional.
Joe Burt, who built his firm organically to 3,000 plans over 16 years before joining MAP, described the structure this way:
The greatest benefit here is the structure that has been established, where a legacy owner gets a second bite at the apple. They get another opportunity to really monetize what they build — and what they’re going to build as part of MAP.
Part Five:
What Differentiates MAP
You’ve likely been approached by multiple aggregators. You may have had conversations with several of them. And if you have, you’ve probably noticed that their pitches share certain qualities: big upfront numbers, promises of autonomy, assurances that nothing will really change.
Here’s what the MAP legacy owners observed — as outsiders before they joined, and as insiders since:
MAP watched what didn’t work and built differently.
Chad Carroll, one of MAP’s co-founders, was direct about this:
We saw some aggregators come together and stumble. We saw some fall. We looked at what they did and we learned from it. And I think 100% we are doing it better.
What does “doing it better” actually mean? The owners point to a few specific things.
Integration over federation.
MAP is building one business, on one platform, with one set of systems. Not a collection of independent practices under a common brand. This is harder — significantly harder — than telling acquired firms to keep running as they always have. But it’s the only path to a premium exit for all shareholders. As Joe Burt observed, you can’t sell a collection of franchises at the value you can sell one unified business.
Communication and transparency.
Chad Carroll named this as MAP’s primary differentiator before anything else. The good, the bad, the difficult — all of it communicated openly, from the first conversation through every phase of integration. For owners used to operating independently, this kind of transparency can feel unusual. It also tends to build trust faster than any amount of polish.
Culture as a first filter.
We are not trying to be the biggest TPA. We are trying to be the best — and we’ve been deliberate about who we bring into the organization. Bob Carroll described the approach directly:
We are getting married. Before we ever let our private equity partner know we’re talking to you, we’re looking for a cultural fit first.
Mick Fouts had been approached by aggregators for years before MAP reached out. He’d gone down the path with some of them, further than others, without finding the right fit. What finally differentiated MAP for him was a single framing from Bob Carroll in their first real conversation: “This is truly more of a merger than it is an acquisition.“
That distinction mattered. Fouts still had years ahead of him in this industry. He didn’t want to sell and disappear. He wanted a voice. He wanted his people recognized and given opportunities. He wanted the culture that had made QPC good to survive the transition, not be absorbed into something unrecognizable.
I just didn’t want to be another cog in the system of some aggregator out there.
The private equity question.
The horror stories of some PE-backed aggregators are well known: firms acquired, cultures destroyed, owners marginalized by investors who know how to read a balance sheet but have never sat across the table from a plan sponsor.
MAP’s private equity partner, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, operates from a different starting point. Their founding ethos — shaped by founders who had their own bad PE experience and built LLCP to do it differently — is that entrepreneur-led businesses should be run by entrepreneurs. They provide capital, strategic perspective, and board-level support. They don’t run the business. The operators do.
Joe Burt, a self-described skeptic who asks a lot of questions and pushes hard, described his experience with LLCP this way:
I call them a unicorn. I said, you’re either the greatest fraud or the greatest unicorn. And I’ve determined they are the greatest unicorn — because they have done everything they said they would do. And fulfilled all of their commitments and then some.
Part Six:
The Process — What to Expect and How to Prepare
The due diligence process has a way of producing the same reaction from everyone who goes through it: a mix of dread, exhaustion, and ultimately, hard-won clarity. Every owner we spoke with had some version of PTSD about it, and every one of them said it was worth it.
Here’s what they wish they’d known going in.
Get your house in order — before you need to.
The single most consistent piece of advice across all of the owners is deceptively simple: know your numbers, have your documents organized, and understand your own business the way an outside investor will need to understand it.
Mick Fouts used a moving analogy that stuck:
It’s kind of like moving a house. You can get the big things over right away. It’s all the other little things — the stuff under the sink, in the attic, in the basement — that you still need to get moved over. Maybe downsize a little bit before you move.
Jay Eilers, who came to the process without a deep finance background, described the due diligence period as unexpectedly valuable: “It would have been a very valuable learning experience in terms of what, from a monetary perspective, your business is actually worth.” Know where your revenue comes from. Understand which clients are profitable and which are not. Segment your book. These aren’t things you do for the diligence process — they’re things you should be doing anyway, and they make the process dramatically smoother.
Bob Carroll offered the most tactical guidance. Know your EBITDA and your growth rate. Have five years of financials if you can. Understand that most TPA firms run on cash basis accounting, and that a PE-backed transaction will require conversion to accrual — so the earlier you understand that adjustment, the better you’ll handle it emotionally when it comes.
Be patient.
Chip Kuchevar, who built Blue Chip Retirement Plans over 26 years before merging with MAP, reframed the due diligence experience in a way worth holding onto:
I totally changed my mindset. It’s a good thing. If I’m on the other side, I would want to look under the hood, make sure to the nth degree that everything is on the up and up. It came to a point I started thinking: this is a good thing.
You won’t do it alone.
What distinguishes MAP’s process from most acquisition experiences is that the same people who will become your partners are actively coaching you through it. Here’s how Micah DiSalvo, who leads MAP’s merger and acquisition process, describes that commitment:
The day after closing, that seller becomes a partner of ours. Arm in arm, we’re growing the business together. We believe strongly and passionately in that — and I think that’s been a difference for us.
That posture shapes the entire diligence experience. MAP has delivered on its LOI in every case across many acquisitions — and in the one instance where a significant external event occurred mid-process, they honored the original price anyway.
Joe Burt, who described himself as someone who asks a lot of questions and pushes hard, put it simply:
You just go into it eyes wide open, understanding that there is somebody who is here helping you through the process. And when you get through it — it is a great day.
Joe Burt described closing day simply: his wife turned to him that morning and said, “Everything you ever worked for just paid off.” That’s the day you’re working toward.
Part Seven:
Life on the Other Side
Closing day is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a new one. And what happens next is ultimately what determines whether a merger is worth doing.
The owners who’ve made this journey are candid about the transition. It isn’t frictionless. There are new systems to learn, new processes to absorb, new ways of doing things that feel unfamiliar before they feel better. Mike Mulka told his team before the merger that bumps in the road were coming regardless — with the merger or without it. The difference was the quality of the bumps.
There can be bad bumps and there can be good bumps. These are overall good bumps.
For your employees:
The owners describe a consistent pattern. In the early months, employees follow their owner’s lead — if you communicate honestly about what’s changing and why, they extend trust they wouldn’t otherwise have. As the integration progresses, they begin to see what wasn’t visible before: opportunities that simply don’t exist in a firm of any size other than MAP’s. Leadership roles. Specialized functions. Career paths that were previously theoretical.
Joe Burt: “In a TPA practice, there’s usually a ceiling — only so many jobs, only so many roles. But at MAP, it’s different. We’ve created all kinds of new opportunities and will continue to drive even newer ones.“
Mick Fouts had a more practical relief: QPC had an aging workforce, and the ability to draw on MAP’s broader talent pool as longtime employees retire solves what was otherwise an unsolvable succession problem.
And then there’s the infrastructure that everyone quietly wanted but couldn’t justify alone. An actual HR team. A real IT department. Benefits packages that compete with larger employers. Monthly all-hands meetings where 300-plus people show up and you can see — literally see — who you’re part of.
We are getting married. Before we ever let our private equity partner know we’re talking to you, we’re looking for a cultural fit first.
For your clients:
The owners are consistent here too: disruption was minimal, and the net experience for clients has been additive. Services that had to be referred out — 316 fiduciary, cash balance administration, payroll integration, PEP structures — are now in-house. The SOC 2 certification that previously required a lengthy explanation now simply exists. And the responsiveness that built client loyalty in the first place hasn’t diminished — it’s been reinforced by infrastructure that makes it sustainable.
Mike Mulka described what changed in his client conversations after the merger:
Almost without fail, all of our clients had said this one thing: ‘What can you do, Mike, to make this go away?’ I couldn’t make it all go away before. Now I can.
For you:
The owners describe something that’s harder to quantify but consistently present: re-engagement. The problems that come with scale — the ones you couldn’t tackle alone — are now the problems on your desk. The institutional relationships you watched from the outside are now conversations you’re part of. Recordkeepers who once treated you as one of many are now asking what you want.
Jay Eilers:
I’m re-engaged personally. My role has changed. Looking at a 1,200-plan ecosystem versus a 12,000-plan ecosystem — it’s different. It’s energizing. And it’s exciting.
Part Eight:
What They’d Tell You
The MAP legacy owners were asked the same final question: what do you wish you’d known, and what would you tell a peer who’s sitting where you were sitting?
The answers, across seven different owners with seven different firms and seven different journeys, were remarkably consistent.
Start earlier than you think you need to.
The owners who felt best about their process were the ones who started looking — not urgently, not under pressure, but deliberately — before they had to. Chip Kuchevar: “Start looking sooner than later. We were in a really good spot. You always want to go out on top.”
Be honest with yourself about what lies ahead.
Joe Burt: “Be honest with yourself about what you are able to do and what challenges really do lie ahead — and look for somebody who can help you move forward in a way that is actually impactful.“
Don’t let perfect preparation stop you from starting.
Chad Carroll: “You’re not going to have all your files perfectly in line. You’re never going to be 100% ready. Don’t let that stress you out.” The MAP team has been through this process many times. They’re there to help.
Talk to someone who’s been through it.
Mick Fouts, Chip Kuchevar, Jay and Sandra Eilers — every one of them said some version of the same thing: call a MAP legacy owner. Don’t take our word for it. Take theirs.
Talk to a MAP legacy owner like myself. We can give you the story from the back. ~ Chip Kuchevar
I’ve had a couple of conversations with TPAs that are contemplating what Tom and I did. It doesn’t cost anything to talk. I’m very honest. I’ll answer any question you throw at me. ~ Mick Fouts
And then there is Bob Carroll’s line — the one that lands hardest precisely because it comes from someone who built the platform, not just joined it:
If you stand still, you’re already out of business. You just don’t know it yet.
A Final Word
This conversation began with TPA owners who built something real and then asked themselves, honestly, whether the road they were on was still the right one.
What they found wasn’t a sale. It was a next chapter — one that let them do more for their people, more for their clients, and more for themselves than the independent path could reliably offer. It wasn’t without difficulty. It wasn’t without change. But it was, by every account, worth it.
If that sounds familiar, let’s talk.
