My first professional job was as a corporate lawyer working on mergers and acquisitions for one of the largest law firms in the country. That's where I learned how large deals actually work from the inside. The mechanics, the structure, where transactions succeed and where they fall apart.
After business school, I started two businesses of my own. The first was a direct-to-consumer publishing business focused on the gluten-free diet. We published annual restaurant and grocery guides to help people navigate a diet that, at the time, most people had never heard of. The second was a lead generation business for hearing aids, built on search and affiliate marketing strategies to find and capture demand for hearing care.
I sold both to strategic buyers without ever listing either business for sale.
I sold both to strategic buyers without ever listing either business for sale. These were sub-$1 million deals with no investment banker and no advisory team. So I did everything for the deals myself. I made mistakes, figured it out, and got them done.
What that experience made clear is something the M&A world doesn't fully reckon with: the smaller your business, the harder it is to sell. Large deals have experts for everything. Small deals don't. The owner navigates a complicated, high-stakes process alone and often for the first time, rarely knowing what they don't know.
The smaller your business, the harder it is to sell.
That's the gap Self Made Sale exists to close.
I have an MBA from Wharton, a JD from Harvard Law School, and a BA from Amherst College.
