A competitive sale at three and a half times what the owner expected

The owner had a number in his head and it was low. Not because the business was weak, but because from the outside it looked like it ran on him, and that's what an outsider prices.

Making the business legible

We spent the runway turning habit into documentation. Process written down. Production and rights recorded properly. The reporting a buyer would eventually ask for built before anyone asked for it, which matters more than it sounds, because reporting assembled during diligence looks like reconstruction.

What went to market was a company, not a founder with revenue attached to him.

What moved

Several publishing houses came to the table. They ended up bidding against each other, and it closed for more than three and a half times what he'd been prepared to accept.

The business hadn't changed much in those months. What changed is that it became possible to evaluate, and that's what a buyer is really paying for.