I
In August 2025, I made what I thought was a serious investment in my future: $50,000 USD to Kadenwood Group, run by Louis Garoz.
The promise was simple — learn to build a boutique M&A advisory business. The outcome was not. This is how the pitch turned into a year of missed calls, extra expenses, and a refund that never came.
The pitch
In August 2025 I paid a total of $50,000 USD to a company called Kadenwood Group, run by Louis Garoz.
The pitch was a coaching program called “Dealmaker” to build a boutique M&A advisory business, capital raising, deal origination, the whole model.
I followed the process for close to a year.
I set up the outreach infrastructure myself, ran the campaigns, built out advisor relationships, did everything I was told to do (and spent over $20k of my own money to do so).
The support
The support itself was a big part of the problem.
Group coaching calls that were part of the program largely didn’t happen.
One on one calls were a different kind of frustrating, he’d show up 15 to 30 minutes late as a pattern, not an occasional slip, and there were times he didn’t show up at all.
When the person running your coaching program can’t reliably show up to the calls you’re paying for, that tells you a lot about what the rest of the engagement is going to look like.
The reality is that I paid $50,000 US dollars for a few videos I could’ve found on YouTube for free.
The program's public-facing materials describe the level of support participants are supposed to receive.
The refund
After close to a year of efforts and spending a total of over $70,000 USD, I had no closed deals and no real business to show for it.
In July 2026 I reached out directly and asked for a refund.
We got on a call (to which he, ironically, showed up 30 minutes late) and he agreed to send the money back within a few weeks.
I followed up in writing right after that call summarizing what we’d agreed, and he didn’t push back on any of it.
I feel like he didn’t push back because deep inside he knows the level of service I received isn’t even worth $500, let alone $50,000.
The silence
Two weeks went by, still nothing.
He wrote back and told me himself he needed more time.
That was over a month ago.
Since then it’s been silence for days at a time, occasional one word replies, and no refund.
What this really comes down to is that he’s not a man of his word.
He told me directly, both over the phone and in writing, that the refund was coming.
Not once, twice.
A month has passed since the second promise and he still hasn’t followed through, and now he’s just ghosting me on it entirely.
The program materials also describe a performance guarantee tied to the stated revenue target.
