For owners getting ready to sell
Will an SBA Buyer's Lender Fund Your Sale?
70–80% of listed businesses never sell — most die in the buyer's underwriting. Find out if yours is financeable, at what price, and what to fix — before you list.
Verified against the current SBA SOP 50 10 8. And we don't sell your lead.
Get the Kit →Founding price: $67 Personal / $197 Professional · instant download
Most owners think selling is a marketing problem — find a buyer. The data says it's a financeability problem: the buyer shows up, their lender runs the numbers, and the deal dies on price, books, or structure. Since SBA 7(a) is the most common way small businesses get bought, being SBA-sellable is what keeps your sale alive — and this kit gets you there.
Written by Thomas Hartwell, author of the FUNDED series of industry-specific SBA lending guides.
What the kit answers
Your defensible price
The most an SBA buyer can actually finance — computed from your cash flow the way a lender rebuilds it, striking the add-backs you can't document. The number that sets your real ceiling.
Is your business SBA-sellable?
A verdict on the structural gates: do your books reconcile to your tax returns, can you document your add-backs, are you ready to fully exit, does the business run without you.
What to fix before you list
A sellability red-flag score, a book-cleanup checklist, and the seller-note standby math — so you fix the deal-killers before a buyer's lender finds them.
What's in the kit
The Exit SBA-Ready workbook (Excel)
Defensible SDE, max buyer price, seller-note standby, a sellability red-flag score, book-cleanup and exit-readiness checklists, and a plain-English glossary.
Pre-Sale Exit-Readiness Plan (Word)
Your fill-in prep plan: price, books, structure, transferability, and the sale package to hand a buyer.
Seller Document Tracker (Excel)
Everything a buyer's SBA lender will demand from you — tracked from "not started" to "ready."
AI Prompt Pack (seller's side)
Prompts to recast your SDE, prep for diligence, and draft your add-back schedule — without inventing numbers.
Verified against the current rules
Every rule the kit tests — the seller's full exit, the earnout ban, the seller-note standby math, the valuation cap, IRS-transcript verification — is verified against the current SBA SOP 50 10 8. Hartwell Labs LLC is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
We don't sell your lead
The free "sell your business" tools you'll find elsewhere exist to sell your contact information to brokers and buyers. We sell books and tools. Your business's information never leaves your spreadsheet, and your email is never sold.
Two licenses
PERSONAL
$97
one-time
- ✓ Prepare your own business for sale, forever
- ✓ All four kit files
- ✓ Rule-change updates included
- ✓ 14-day refund window
PROFESSIONAL
$247
one-time · one named professional
- ✓ Everything in Personal
- ✓ Use with unlimited clients (brokers, advisors, CPAs)
- ✓ Single-office training
- ✓ 14-day refund window
Every delivered copy is stamped with the purchaser's email. Educational tool, not financial, legal, tax, or brokerage advice, and not a guarantee your business will sell or that any buyer will obtain financing.
Hartwell Labs LLC is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Full disclaimer.
Get the kit — founding price
Founding launch pricing — the price rises to $97 / $247 after launch.
PERSONAL
$97 $67
prepare your own sale, forever
Buy Personal →PROFESSIONAL
$247 $197
unlimited client use
Buy Professional →Instant download · secure checkout by Stripe · 14-day guarantee · we don't sell your lead.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "Exit SBA-Ready" actually tell me?
Whether an SBA buyer's lender will finance the sale of your business — and at what price. Most small businesses are bought with an SBA loan, so being financeable reaches the largest pool of buyers. The kit computes your defensible cash flow the way a buyer's lender will, the highest price an SBA buyer can actually pay, and the structural red flags (books that don't reconcile, undocumented add-backs, founder dependency, a seller who won't fully exit) that get a sale killed in underwriting.
Why do most listed businesses never sell?
Research from the International Business Brokers Association and Pepperdine University's Market Pulse project has tracked this since 2012: even broker-represented deals close only about half the time, roughly twice the overall market's rate — so 70–80% of businesses that go to market never sell. They rarely die for lack of a buyer; they die in the buyer's underwriting, on price, books, and structure. This kit is about being in the group that closes.
How is my defensible price different from my asking price?
Your asking price is what you want. Your defensible price is the most an SBA buyer's loan can actually cover at the coverage lenders require — and it's set by your cash flow after the lender rebuilds it from your tax returns and strikes any add-backs you can't document. The kit shows the gap, and shows that cleaning up your books before you list is the highest-return thing you can do to raise it.
What's in the kit?
Four files: the Exit SBA-Ready workbook (your defensible SDE, the max price an SBA buyer can finance, the seller-note standby math, a sellability red-flag score, a book-cleanup checklist, an exit-readiness checklist, and a plain-English glossary); a pre-sale Exit-Readiness Plan (Word); a Seller Document Tracker (everything a buyer's lender will want from you); and an AI prompt pack for the seller's side.
Is this financial or brokerage advice?
No. It's an educational tool that shows you how SBA lenders evaluate a business for sale, so you can prepare. It's not financial, legal, tax, or brokerage advice, and it doesn't guarantee your business will sell or that any buyer will get financing. Hartwell Labs LLC is not affiliated with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Work it alongside your CPA, a qualified business appraiser, and your attorney.