How we work

How a sale actually goes.

Most founders have never seen this process from the inside, and nobody explains it plainly. So here it is, plainly.

Before anything else

Is it time to sell?

This is the question we start with, and it’s a real question — not a formality on the way to signing you up.

A traditional advisor shows up after you’ve decided. That leaves the hardest part — deciding — as the part you do alone, usually with people who love you but have never sold a company.

We’d rather be in that part with you. Some of the founders we talk to should sell this year. Some should spend eighteen months fixing two or three things first and sell for considerably more. And some shouldn’t sell at all, and mostly need someone to help them work out why they thought they should.

You’ll get a straight answer, including when the straight answer is “not yet.”

Have that conversation
The process

Four stages, start to close.

Step 01

Decide if it’s time

A conversation, not a pitch. Where you are, what you want on the other side of this, and whether the business is in a shape that gets you there. If it isn’t yet, we’ll tell you what would need to change and roughly how long that takes.

Step 02

Understand what you have

Real modeling on your actual numbers. What the business is worth today, where the value genuinely sits, what a buyer will push on in diligence, and what deal structures would mean for what you actually walk away with. No boilerplate valuation range.

Step 03

Go to the right buyers

Positioning the company in its best and most accurate light, then running a real process to buyers who should genuinely want it — strategic acquirers, sponsors, or the right individual. A narrower list, better prepared, beats a mass mailing every time.

Step 04

Get you to the close

Negotiation, diligence, and the long middle stretch where deals quietly come apart — requests pile up, momentum stalls, and you still have a company to run. We carry that load and stay in it until it’s signed.

While all this happens

You still have a business to run.

The most common way a good deal goes wrong is that the founder gets pulled into it so completely that the business softens underneath them — and a buyer notices in month four. Our job is to absorb the process so you can keep running the thing they’re buying.

Plain answers

Questions founders actually ask

What does an M&A advisor actually do?

We work out what your business is worth and why, prepare it and its story for market, find and approach the buyers who should want it, run the competitive process, negotiate the terms, and manage diligence through to closing.

Put another way: a buyer does this every quarter with a team behind them. You do it once. We’re the team on your side of the table.

Is my business big enough?

We work with businesses in the $1M–$10M EBITDA range. If you’re not sure where you land, that’s an easy thing to sort out in one conversation, and it costs you nothing to find out.

How long does a sale take?

For a well-prepared business, plan on six to nine months from launch to close, and longer if preparation is needed first. Anyone promising a fast number without seeing your numbers is guessing.

What if I’m not sure I want to sell?

Then you’re exactly the person we’d like to talk to. Most of our first conversations are with founders who haven’t decided. Nothing about that first conversation commits you to anything.

How are you paid?

We’ll walk you through fees openly in our first conversation, before you’re asked to commit to anything. We’d rather explain it properly in context than post a number here that doesn’t fit your situation.

Will my employees or competitors find out?

Not from us. Confidentiality is managed deliberately at every stage — what gets shared, with whom, and when. It’s one of the things a real process protects and an informal one usually doesn’t.

One conversation. No pitch, no pressure.

Thirty minutes to talk through where you are. Sometimes the answer is “not yet” — we’ll tell you.

Talk to us