Four real Exit Desk reports generated from 26-question intake submissions, calibrated to different revenue scales and industries — from Main Street under $1M to lower-middle-market $3M–$7M, across trades, professional services, and digital media. Nothing redacted.
Every Exit Desk report is generated from your specific inputs — 26 questions across five buyer diligence dimensions. The reports below were generated from fictional but realistic business profiles, each calibrated to a different point in the small-business exit market: a Main Street commercial landscape operator under $1M, a residential HVAC services company at $3M–$7M, a professional services advisory firm at $3M–$7M, and a digital trade media platform at $1M–$3M.
Read the sample that fits your business — or your client's business — and see exactly how a serious buyer would frame it: looking for what the numbers don't show, where the risk concentrates, and whether the revenue survives the founder walking out the door.
Apex Landscape Group is a DFW commercial landscape maintenance operator doing under $1M in revenue with 40 recurring monthly contracts, mostly office parks and HOAs, and an owner who describes himself as strategically involved but not running daily field operations. The SDE range of $200K–$500K on a recurring commercial book with low customer concentration and long tenure is an attractive profile for an SBA-financed acquisition — this is the kind of cash-flow-positive, route-based service business that individual buyers actively look for.
Financial cleanliness is the single largest obstacle to a successful sale. If the books cannot be cleaned to underwriting standard, the realistic buyer pool collapses from SBA-financed individuals (70–80% of sub-$1M buyers) to cash-only buyers, which is a materially smaller market and will reduce both the speed and the price of any transaction.
Pinnacle HVAC Services is a 22-year-old residential and light commercial HVAC operation in the Phoenix metro generating between $3M and $7M in revenue with $500K to $1M in EBITDA. The business has a strong local brand, a fleet of 12 owned vehicles, and a meaningful service contract base in a high-growth Sun Belt market that is actively consolidating. The concern is that the founder runs it day-to-day, the business deteriorates meaningfully without him, and the management layer underneath has not been tested in an autonomous capacity.
The correct response to casual inbound interest is not to negotiate. It is to acknowledge interest, continue positioning the business, and create a structured process where multiple buyers compete simultaneously.
Meridian Advisory Group is a Southeast-focused HR and organizational consulting firm generating between $3M and $7M in revenue with EBITDA in the $500K–$1M range — a profile that puts it squarely in the awkward middle for professional services acquisitions. The firm is small — nine total headcount including contractors — which means this is a people-and-relationships acquisition, and the diligence will center almost entirely on whether those people and relationships survive a transaction.
The two senior consultants who manage most client relationships are the most valuable transferable assets in Meridian. Stop considering equity and execute. Structure retention agreements, equity grants, or stay bonuses with 24–36 month vesting periods tied to a change of control. If a buyer discovers during diligence that the two people who hold client relationships have no contractual incentive to stay, the offer will include a significant holdback.
FitWire Daily is a sub-3-year-old digital trade media platform covering the fitness and wellness industry. The thesis is straightforward: fitness and wellness lacks a definitive B2B media brand the way other verticals have theirs, and FitWire is positioning to own that category. The question for any buyer is whether a 100,000-subscriber platform with under three years of operating history and repeat-but-uncontracted revenue has crossed from promising into provable.
If a buyer reviews the content library and finds that a meaningful percentage could be generated by ChatGPT with industry prompts, the valuation conversation changes fundamentally. The Founder needs a clear, specific answer to: "What does FitWire produce that AI cannot?" — backed by engagement data showing the audience values those specific content types.
These reports were generated from fictional inputs. Your report is generated from your actual 26-question intake — which means every finding, every diligence pressure point, and every pre-market action references your specific business, your specific industry, your specific scale, and your specific answers.
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