Insights
M&A insights for founders selling a business
What buyers know, written down for founders
Before you sell a business, know how buyers set a multiple, why add-backs fail, what a letter of intent is really saying, and when to keep a stake. These 16 articles, each built on a chapter of The FNDRS Playbook, cover them, and a glossary defines 35 terms buyers use. Read them before you talk to anyone, including us.
Articles · M&A
How a sale really works
You will sell a business once. The people across the table buy companies for a living. These articles are here to close that gap before it costs you.
Lists · M&A
What to check, item by item
Each list names what a buyer finds and the fix for it, one numbered item at a time.
Element by element
Hear the elements explained
FNDRS Faculty explain each element of the FNDRS Elements™ framework: what it is, what it means to a buyer, and where an owner starts. Choose a tile to watch it here: 18 of the 36 have a session of their own so far, and the rest play their part of their family's film.
Troy HoffmanTime
Glossary
The terms buyers use, in plain language
35 terms from the sell-side process, each with its own page: what it means, what it changes in a sale, and where it comes up in the articles and the playbook.
- Add-back
- Adjusted EBITDA
- Cash at close
- CIM
- Competitive tension
- Data room
- Definitive agreement
- Due diligence
- Earn-out
- EBITDA
- Enterprise value
- Equity value
- Escrow and holdback
- Exclusivity
- GTMA
- Indemnity
- Indication of interest
- Letter of intent
- Management meeting
- Multiple
- NDA
- Net proceeds
- Non-compete
- Owner earnings
- Private equity buyer
- Quality of Earnings
- Recapitalization
- Retrade
- Rollover equity
- Second bite
- Seller note
- Strategic buyer
- Teaser
- Trailing twelve months
- Working capital peg
Guides, checklists, and figures
Go further than the articles
Guides that walk through the work, checklists to print, and published figures checked at their source.
Every engagement begins the same way
A confidential conversation about objectives, timing, and options. No pitch. No obligation.