Coming soon
Exit Insider
The show for owners who are going to sell one day.
Selling your business is the biggest financial decision most owners ever make, and almost all of them are doing it for the first time.
Exit Insider is where you find out what buyers look for, what actually creates value, why deals fall apart, and what to get right before you're sitting across from somebody who's done this 40 times.
Hosted by Joe Lau, who's sold 3 businesses and looked at over 100 from the buyer's side.
Real conversations. Lessons people paid for the hard way. First episodes are being recorded now.
Your exit should not be a mystery.
Everybody teaches you how to build a business. Almost nobody teaches you how to sell one.
By the time most owners start looking into it, they're already dealing with:
- A business that depends too heavily on them
- Financials that create unnecessary questions
- Buyers who see risk instead of opportunity
- Deal terms they do not fully understand
- Due diligence surprises
- Pressure to accept less because they are emotionally ready to be done
Exit Insider gives you the conversations you need before that happens.
The goal is simple: help you prepare earlier, understand more, and walk into your exit with stronger leverage.
Built for owners, not for dealmakers.
This show is for you if you:
- Own a profitable, established business
- Do somewhere around $1M to $5M a year
- Are thinking about selling in the next 6 to 36 months
- Want to sell to an outside buyer
- Have never sold a business before
- Are worried about how much of it still depends on you
- Care about what you actually keep
- Want most of the money at closing and fewer strings after
You don't need to be ready to sell tomorrow. You just need to care about having better options when the time comes.
Why these guests
I bring you the other side of the table.
The show is built for sellers. But sellers make better decisions when they understand how the other side thinks. So I talk to:
- Owners who have recently been through it
- Buyers
- M&A advisors and brokers
- Private equity people
- The attorneys and accountants who work on these deals
- Wealth managers
- Coaches who help owners through the transition
- Other experts who help owners protect their outcome
These guests are not here to sell you anything. They're here to answer the questions you need answered before selling:
- What makes a buyer trust a business?
- What makes a buyer hesitate?
- What kills a deal?
- What do sellers get wrong over and over?
- What matters more than the asking price?
- What would you tell an owner 12 months out?
The guest might sit on the other side of the table. The conversation is always for you.
The lessons owners usually learn too late.
What we cover.
Deciding to sell
What makes an owner start thinking about it, and what they wish they had done earlier.
Building buyer confidence
The people, the systems and the numbers that make a business easy to understand and possible to run without you.
Valuation
What moves the number, where owners are usually too optimistic, and what actually earns a premium.
Owner dependency
Why a business that only works because you are there is a risk to a buyer, and what to do about it.
Due diligence
What they ask for, what they find, and how to be ready before it turns stressful.
Deal structure
Cash at closing, earn-outs, seller financing, clawback clauses, rollover equity. The terms that decide what you actually receive.
Lessons from real exits
What sellers went through before, during and after, including what they would never do again.
Life after the sale
The emotional, financial and personal changes that come after the business isn't yours anymore.
Relaxed, honest and specific.
This isn't an interview where somebody reads a polished bio and gives rehearsed answers.
It's a real conversation about the turning points, the moments the deal nearly died, the things nobody saw coming, and the decisions that changed the outcome.
I'm after useful stories, not perfect answers.
We may talk about money, but we do it with curiosity and respect. The point is not to pressure anyone into revealing private deal terms. My goal is to uncover the decisions and lessons behind the numbers.
Hosted by
Joe Lau
I've started multiple companies, sold 3 of them to third-party buyers, and looked at over 100 businesses from the buyer's side of the table.
I started this show because owners deserve to understand this before they're in the middle of it.
I've had a deal go wrong. I've sold with no leverage and known it while I was doing it. And I know the difference between selling a business that depends on you and selling one that stands on its own, because I've done both.
So I bring the right people into the conversation, and you get to learn from it before it's your turn.
Read Joe's storyHave you been through an exit?
Exit Insider runs on people with real experience, not opinions.
If you've built one, sold one, bought one, or helped somebody through it, what you know might stop another owner making an expensive mistake.
The best conversations are honest and specific.
Guests get a relaxed 45 to 60 minute conversation, recorded remotely, and a full episode to share with their own audience.
Applications are reviewed for one thing. Will this help an owner getting ready to sell?
Want to know where you stand?
The podcast gives you the perspective. The call puts it on your business.
On the Exit Reality Check Call we work out:
- What your business would likely sell for today
- What you need to walk away
- Where a buyer will knock money off
- Whether the gap is big enough to be worth fixing
If I can't show you a gap worth fixing, I'll tell you that on the call.
Book Your Exit Reality Check CallStart getting ready before you start selling.
You don't need to put the business on the market today. You need to understand what will affect your options when you do.