हितकारी · the problem

You'll do this once. Everyone across the table has done it many times.

Selling a business isn't a transaction you learn from — there's no second attempt. The buyer has done this before; so has their lawyer, and the broker a hundred times. One turn, with most of your net worth on the table.

A lone figure at the edge of a sea of fog, the path ahead hidden

Three problems, one table

Flip through them. They stack.

Problem 1 of 3 · the untested number

The number in your head has never been tested.

The business is usually the largest asset an owner holds — and the only one that's never been valued. Everyone offering to check the number wants something: the broker's free valuation is a pitch for your listing; the buyer's number is an opening position.

So the most important figure in your financial life stays a guess — until the one moment it's too late to fix.

Most owners hold most of their wealth inside the business. Most businesses that go to market never sell. This isn't rare — it's the default.

A figure leans over a stone well, dropping a pebble into the dark to listen

Problem 2 of 3 · the angles

Everyone at the table has an angle.

Not villains — incentives. The broker is paid when the deal closes, not when the right deal closes. The buyer's team is paid to argue your number down. Even the friendliest advice in the room tilts, gently, toward sign.

The one thing you can't buy at a normal deal table is the one thing you need most: someone whose answer is allowed to be no.

A lone figure before a fogbound signpost, its blank arrows pointing every direction

Problem 3 of 3 · no undo

There is no undo.

One signature. A low price shows up in the buyer's second year; wrong terms — the earnout, the non-compete — you live inside. And unprepared, one bad quarter turns "someday" into a fire sale on someone else's schedule.

An exit decided in a fog doesn't feel like a mistake at the time. That's what the fog is for.

A fountain pen touches paper; a single drop of ink spreads
1 / 3

Put together

"The biggest financial decision of my life — made alone, against professionals, with no way to tell who's being straight with me."

What the problem asks for

Someone with nothing riding on your answer.

A tested number, every assumption stated. A written read on what a sale would actually ask of you. And at the table, one chair paid for the call being right — flat fee, no commission, the same whether you sell, keep, or walk away. What that looks like, step by step and price by price, is on the next page.

Two figures walk a ridge above the clouds at dawn, one carrying the heavier pack

See how it works.

Not selling yet? The problem starts years before the deal. The earlier the look, the more the fix is worth.

The work, step by step → Start with one conversation →