Successful exits are planned.
Most owners sell once. They are expert operators and first-time sellers, advised by people who do this every week. We work with privately held companies between $2M and $150M in revenue, usually eighteen to thirty-six months before a transaction — because that is when the outcome is still yours to change.
- $2M – $150M revenue
- North America
- Owner-operated and founder-led
What goes wrong
None of these are failures of nerve or negotiation. They are failures of preparation, and every one of them is visible years ahead of time.
Selling on timing, not readiness
Fatigue, a health scare, or a cold call from a buyer starts the clock. The company goes to market as it happens to be, rather than as it could have been.
Growth that does not transfer
Revenue climbs while the value stays locked in the owner's relationships and judgment. A buyer pays for what continues without you.
One buyer
A single interested party sets the price and the terms. Competition is the cheapest value creation available to a seller, and it has to be arranged in advance.
Diligence finds it first
Concentration, unrecast earnings, undocumented process — all of it surfaces eventually. Finding it yourself, early, costs a fraction of what it costs at exclusivity.
What preparation is worth
The same company, taken to market three ways. Preparation does not change what a business earns — it changes how much of that a buyer is willing to pay for, and how much of the price survives diligence.
Not client data. Not a forecast. The shape of the argument, drawn.
Taken to market when the moment arrived, with whatever happened to be in place.
The obvious gaps closed. One or two of the hard ones still open at launch.
Every readiness gate green before the first buyer was called.
Illustrative sale price, as a multiple of adjusted EBITDA
How we work
Timing review
Before anything else, an honest answer to one question: is this the year? We decline mandates that are not ready, and say why.
Discovery and valuation
Three years of history, recast earnings, and a value range built on more than one method — with the method shown, not asserted.
The plan
A written value-creation roadmap: what to fix, who owns it, what it is worth, and what buyer-ready means for this specific company.
Process
Only once the readiness gates are green. Then a competitive process, run properly, with the owner's objectives — not just price — as the measure.
Is this your year?
A partner walks through the timing question the way we ask it in a first meeting — what makes an owner ready, what makes a company ready, and why those two answers are so often years apart.
Until it is filmed, the same ground in writingA conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
We will tell you honestly whether this is your year — including when the answer is no, or not yet. Most first conversations end in a plan, not a mandate.
Start the conversation