Your Business Is Your Biggest Asset. Plan Like It.

Most owners have 70–90% of their net worth locked in a single illiquid asset: the company. We help Seattle-area business owners turn concentrated business wealth into durable family wealth — before, during, and after a sale.

Before a sale (the 2–3 years that matter most)

The highest-leverage planning happens years before a transaction: entity and tax structuring (including QSBS eligibility where it applies), cleaning up owner-dependent earnings, retirement plan design that shelters income today, and estate moves that are only possible while the valuation is still low. If a sale is even a possibility within five years, the planning clock has already started.

During a transaction

We work alongside your M&A advisor, attorney, and CPA — modeling after-tax proceeds under different deal structures (asset vs. stock sale, earnouts, rollover equity) so you can compare offers on what you keep, not the headline number.

After the sale

Sudden liquidity is its own planning problem: replacing a paycheck with a portfolio, managing a concentrated stock position from rollover equity, charitable and family gifting, and the identity shift no one warns you about. We've guided owners through the whole arc.

Common questions

When should I start exit planning?

Two to three years before a sale, minimum. Tax structuring, QSBS holding periods, and estate strategies all have clocks that start well before a letter of intent.

How much do I need from the sale to retire?

Work backward from spending: annual after-tax spending, minus other income, capitalized at a sustainable withdrawal rate — then add taxes and a buffer. We build this number with you before you negotiate, because knowing your "enough" changes how you sell.

What's different about advising business owners?

Concentration, illiquidity, and taxes. A W-2 executive's plan is mostly allocation; an owner's plan is mostly structure and timing.

Selling in the next five years — or just want to know what the business needs to be worth? Book a meeting — fee-only, fiduciary, no products.