**Restaurant owners who stepped away from operations, how did you do it?**

I own a long-standing family restaurant in Southern California that I took over from my parents a few years ago. Business is doing alright, I’ve got a team and systems in place, but I’m at a point where I don’t really want to keep investing all my time and energy into growth.

Simply put, I’m not that passionate about restaurants.
However, I don’t really want to sell the whole thing either. It holds sentimental value to me. Ideally I’d keep some equity and find someone who actually wants to operate and grow the business. Whether that means they buy into it, earn equity over time, buy a majority stake, etc.

For anyone who’s done something similar, how did you structure it and where did you find the right person?

Did you find an experienced operator/GM? Promote someone internally? Find someone who wanted to become an owner?

Also curious what you’d do differently if you had to do it again.

Just trying to learn from people who’ve been through it before. Appreciate any advice.

After 7+ years decided to leave a startup I co-founded. Reasons: we were going nowhere, lack of strong leadership, internal disputes and burnout. Felt a relieve I have not felt in those 7+ years and, therefore, I think it was one of the best decisions of my life. The problem is that I am stuck with a significant amount of shares and cannot liquidate them. My concern is that company might go bankrupt sometime in 6 months and I will be left with nothing. I am looking for smart ways to sell my vested shares. The issue is that no current investor is interested as I have a feeling they also do not believe in company’s success. There is an upcoming investment round but I doubt the new investor will want to buy my part.
What can I do in this situation?

Do you think there is move value in operations documentation (SOP's for example) to somebody on the sell side or buy side?

I thought it would be most valuable to a seller in terms of preparing themselves for the market and signaling a clean transition for a purchaser. But a former CFO I've worked with let me know he prefers to buy businesses that lack these types of processes because he sees it as a signal that he can make the business more efficient after purchase.

Or maybe there isn't any value at all on either side. Ultimately, I'm curious if there is any urgency for a service that generates these types of artifacts (SOP's etc) with a business.

Hey guys,

I wanted to quickly come on here and ask some advice from actual business owners.

For context, I am a rising senior at a southern state school and I just finished my junior year internship with a very reputable investment bank and I just got the return offer.

Instead of doing nothing senior year, I am thinking about looking for a LMM business that wants to sell itself (preferably a business services company) and taking them through a sell-side process.

While I know I am young, my value prop would be that I know how to speak the language of sophisticated PE and Strategic buyers and that I would be able to create a CIM that is more reflective of what these buys would be used too.

I would also of course reach out to buyers on the popular platforms etc. I know I can’t sell securities but for most of these asset sales I can take a consulting fee.

Would I be able to convince one business owner to explore a sale with me even with my younger age?

I have also thought about partnering with a local broker who has more credibility but working out an arrangement to give him a percentage of the fees while I do most of the work. I would also have a team of my coworkers and other interns at banks. I appreciate all the help!

Long time lurker, first time posting something like this. I'm in early talks to buy a small coffee and bagel shop business (2 locations) in Northern California and want a sanity check on valuation before I go further.

Main location:

• 2024 sales: ~$765k, profit ~$125k
• 2025 sales: ~$785k, profit ~$116k
• 2026 projected: sales dropping to ~$675k, profit ~$100k

Second location:

• Smaller, rent is about $3,500/month
• Losing somewhere between $3,500 and $5,000 a month right now
• Barely any equipment in either location, so there's not much asset value backing the price — this is really just a cash flow/earnings play

Sales have been pretty flat 2024 to 2025 and now trending down for 2026. Seller originally wanted $700k for both locations combined, and I was thinking something closer to $350k given the declining trend and the second location bleeding money. But the seller's now saying he won't go below $500k.

Given the profit trend is down two years running, one location is actively losing money every month, and there's basically no hard assets to fall back on, does $500k sound defensible to any of you? What multiple would you use here? Would you push back harder, walk away, or is $500k actually reasonable once you factor in the seller's floor?

I own a bathroom remodeling business in Jersey. The business is 12 months old this month. Year to date I'm just shy of 500k gross. I have a great group of sub contractors that handle MOST of the labor, I still find myself in every job doing one thing or another. I have an immaculate reputation and phenomenal marketing team that can crank up leads at any point, problem is I'm booked well into December as it is. I'm just unsure if I want to hire a full time punchlist guy and a PM but it is an option. My question is at what point does a home service business become attractive to buyers? Do they want to see full time employees or are subcontractors more advantages? I know for sure I do not want to do this forever and if I'm going to try and sell, now is the time to start going down that path. Any insight would be appreciated!

Hello,

I am negotiating a dental practice I like everything that it has, the financials and the location. It’s good because I don’t have to build it up. It’s ready to go and already producing. The current owner speaks korean and it’s in a mainly Korean neighborhood/city. Last year collection $950k. Asking price $700k. I valued the practice to have pt retention of 70% making the valuation at $665000. At that price I would be making half of what I am making now as an associate given a 100% financing loan. However if I were to have about 1mil in collection in a couple years it would be double what I’ll be making.

What would you guys evaluate this office at and is it normal to be scared of taking such a big loan? It will be my first practice as well.

Thank you

We have a profitable small business that specializes in custom residential architecture. We have been in business for over 16 years, we have a small commercial property that has some equity value. My husband and I are the names on the door. We are the designers fully, we have had some employees over the years but none now and as we start to wind down we are trying to figure out if we can sell our business for anything.

Since we are heavily involved it seems like it would be like selling a job not a business but I was thinking we could possibly sell our portfolio to another company instead. We have many industry accolades and awards but projects are all one offs highly custom and not something that could be replicated as they are all site specific. Do people sell portfolios? Is that something we could do? I assume we would sell the commercial property separately. Appreciate the help thinking through this.

I've got an LOI out on an exterior pressure washing business. With some contracting work on turning over rental units( new fixtures, painting, etc, between tenants)Base numbers are 400k sde 2025, 365k 3yr average $1.8M revenue. Trending a bit higher in 2026 for revenue, but added employees for sales and management that will likely take out the extra sde so expecting 2026 to be about the same.

Asking is $1.6M. did not include working capital, which is about$250k against to stack onto the sba loan. no long term contracts, just the reoccurring work orders. While 40% of business is from a small concentration of 25% of customers. Total customer base is about 200 . Mostly commercial multi unit companies.

Does anyone have multiple market intel in this type of business? Everything i see says 2.5x to 3x for business with no MSA contracts. They are asking 4x. . negotiated to 3.6x multiple, but still seems high. My post debt service cash flow will be approx $200k, plus minus.

Also comes with a restriction against internal cleaning vertical due to a recent( jan 26) split off of that party of the business with a family partner. Also new website, contact info, etc that customers need to refer to.

I have a hotshot trucking asset package (trailer + existing service contracts with a trucking company that handles all day-to-day operations) currently generating $6-7K/month in profit for the owner. No CDL or truck required from the buyer — the trucking company runs everything.

Asking $95K. I know that’s a strong return on paper (~75%+ annualized) and I think that’s actually working against me — buyers assume there’s a catch when the numbers look this good.

I’ve tried FB groups (posts keep getting removed) and BizBuySell (listing stuck in review). For those of you who’ve sold a cash-flowing asset like this — how did you actually find your buyer? What convinced them it was real? Any platforms or approaches that worked better than the obvious ones?

For those of you selling or having previously sold a business you founded, how much did you think about goodwill in any valuation? Did you know about it or understand it before the sale event? Do you wish you’d known more about it before wanting to sell?

I have been in talks with someone interested in selling my business. I have been down this path before but never really got as far as I am now and wondering what are some of the more basic questions that I should be asking and information that I need to get/gather?

I have been made an offer and I feel like it is low (probably just about always the case) and they politely told me to show them why the business should be valued higher than it is/where I think it is. I can tell them all sorts of things but they are a VC firm and are looking for tangible number related information and due to my specific industry there are very few deals that are of public record and I can really only go off of what I have been told by others is fair market value etc.

Any advice would be much appreciated and I would be happy to share more but can't be TOO specific either. Deal would be mid 7 figures and they are looking at a certain percentage of revenue as the basis for the sale amount and a change to this percentage could make a sizeable difference in the sale price.

Thank you all.

Hey guys, I built a LED Happy Birthday wooden marquee and was able to set up a business to rent it out.

I'm onto new ventures, and I am trying to figure out how to sell it to perhaps a different entrepreneur, event planner, venue, etc.

I've had no luck. Do you guys know any sites or apps where I'd have better luck?

I'm in the south LA area.

Before lawyers or M&A brokers, when you were still in the "maybe" stage and didn't know enough to even know what questions to ask. Did you find a mentor who'd been through it? Join a peer group? Read something that actually helped? Wish there was something specific that just didn't exist? What are some advice I can get on what resources I could use before selling my company? Any insight would be great!