If you're thinking about selling

This page is written for you, not about me. Most owners I talk to have never sold a business and are slightly annoyed that everyone assumes they know how it works. Fair enough. Here's how it works.

August 2026

You don't need to be selling to talk to me

Most of the conversations I want are with people who aren't selling and might not for five years. I'd rather know your business now than meet you the week a broker sends out a book.

If you're two years out, three years out, or just curious what your shop is worth, that's a useful call for both of us. I learn how the business actually runs. You get a number and a read on the market that costs you nothing.

What the first conversation is

Thirty minutes on the phone. No NDA, no financials, no document request.

I want to understand what you do, who your customers are, what makes the work hard, and what you'd want to happen if you ever stepped back. I'll tell you what I'm looking for and whether your business is a fit. If it isn't, I'll say so on that call rather than string it out.

I'm not going to ask for your tax returns on a first call. Anyone who does hasn't earned it.

What happens to your people

This is the question that actually matters and it usually comes up fourth, after price. Let's put it first.

I'm buying the business because the people in it know how to do something I don't. Firing them would be destroying the thing I paid for. That isn't sentiment, it's arithmetic. In a skilled trade with an aging workforce, the crew is the asset.

What I'd want is the opposite: keep everyone, pay them properly, and hire an apprentice or two because most shops in this space have nobody under fifty and no training pipeline. If you've been carrying someone through a hard stretch, tell me. I'd rather know.

What I won't do

• Strip it and flip it. I'm not raising a fund with a five-year clock. The good businesses in this space have run for thirty years and will run for thirty more, and that's the point.
• Move the work. These are route and relationship businesses. Consolidating your shop into a facility three states away destroys the customer base along with the reason I bought it.
• Rename it on day one. Your name on the building is worth something to your customers. That's an asset, not a legacy issue.
• Retrade you. If I put a number in front of you and diligence turns up something we both missed, I'll tell you what changed and why. What I won't do is find a small problem in week eight and use it to reprice the deal. That tactic is common and I think it's contemptible.

Do you need a broker?

Honest answer: sometimes, and it depends what you want.

A broker runs a process, brings multiple bidders, and will usually get you a higher headline price. That's real value and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It also takes six to twelve months, costs you 8 to 12% of the proceeds, puts your business in a book that circulates through your industry, and means your employees may hear about it before you tell them.

Selling directly is faster, quieter, cheaper, and you talk to the person who'll actually own it. You'll probably leave some money on the table versus a competitive process.

If a clean auction and the highest possible number is what you want, hire a good broker. I'd rather lose to a fair process than talk you out of one.

What's it worth?

Small industrial services businesses generally transact somewhere between three and six times adjusted earnings. Where you land inside that depends on things you can mostly control:

• Does it run without you? The single biggest swing. A business that needs the owner in the building every day is worth materially less than one with a manager who could run it for six months while you're gone.
• Customer concentration. One customer at 40% of revenue is a discount. Nobody above 15% is a premium.
• Clean books. Personal expenses through the business are normal and every buyer expects to add them back. But they have to be findable and explainable.
• Certifications. AS9100, ITAR registration, NADCAP, these are worth real money right now, particularly with defense sourcing rules tightening in January 2027.
• The crew. A trained team with someone under forty is worth more than an identical business with a crew that all retires in five years.

If you want a rough read on your own numbers, send them or don't, I'll give you an honest range either way, and I won't treat the conversation as the start of a sales process.

You don't have to sell all of it

Plenty of owners want out of the day-to-day but not out of the business, or want to take some money off the table while their kid decides whether they want it. Majority purchase with you retaining a slice and staying on the board is a normal structure and often a better one. You keep upside, I keep your judgment.

Seller financing is also normal. It usually means a better price for you and a better-aligned buyer.

Who I am

Fifteen years in mission critical industries. Aerospace and defense at Boeing, semiconductors at Intel, then five years as an operating partner at Intel Capital building the public sector practice.

Operating partner is the part that matters for this conversation. It didn't mean writing checks and going to board meetings. It meant getting inside about fifty companies. Understanding how they actually made money, where they were stuck, and working alongside their teams to fix it. Some of it was hands-on. That's the closest thing on my résumé to what I'd be doing with your business.

After that, cybersecurity at SecurityScorecard, and most recently pointing an AI platform at the physical economy: waste management, HVAC, chemical engineers, lumber yards.

I'm buying with my own capital and bank financing, not a fund. I sign personally, which is a good thing for you: it means I can't afford to overpay or to break what I buy. There's no investment committee and no fund clock, and you're talking to the person who will actually own it.

On timing. Plan on 60 to 90 days from a signed letter of intent. I'll bring proof of financing before you take your business off the market, so you're never sitting in limbo waiting to find out whether the money is real.

I've published most of my research on this site, including the categories I looked at and rejected. You can judge whether I know what I'm talking about before you spend thirty minutes on me. The longer version is here.