The 249 Million Mistake: What I told my friend on the beach about selling his agency

This weekend my family and I met up with some family friends who were visiting sunny Florida from one of the states that’s experiencing devastating cold.

We’re on the beach with all of our kids playing and having fun while I was recovering-

(read: laying down half asleep, exhausted, sore everywhere)

-from an ‘over 35s’ soccer game I had the night before.

That’s when my buddy Dave leaned back in his beach chair with the smile of a man who’d already spent the money.

“We’re thinking about selling the agency,” he said.

“Accountant ran the numbers. 1.2M revenue, 40% margins, solid multiple.”

He took a sip of his beer like he was already negotiating.

“Six million. Easy.”

I sat up. Sand falling off my back.

“Dave, I love you man. But I need a napkin.”

His wife Sarah laughed. “Oh here we go. Mark’s about to ruin our vacation.”

She wasn’t wrong.

Here’s the thing about Dave.

Good dude. Hard worker. Built something real.

But he also works 55 hours a week IN his agency and his wife works another 40 hours in it.

He closes every deal.

She handles every upset client.

She approves every deliverable before it goes out.

Their agency doesn’t run without them.

And he had no idea why that mattered.

What made this conversation worse?

Dave knows someone—friend of a friend—who sold their agency to VidIQ for 250 million.

And Dave genuinely believed his situation was “basically the same.”

“Same industry.

We get our clients better results. If they got 250M, we should at least get 6M, right?”

I grabbed the napkin.

“Dave, do you know WHY VidIQ paid 250M for that agency?”

“Because they were good?”

“No. Because VidIQ was a strategic buyer.

And that agency had something VidIQ desperately wanted that had nothing to do with their service work.”

See, that agency wasn’t just running client projects.

They’d built an e-learning arm for YouTube creators.

Courses. Training programs. Thousands of paying customers.

VidIQ didn’t buy an agency.

They bought an audience.

A customer database.

Educational IP they could plug directly into their platform and monetize forever.

That’s a strategic acquisition.

The agency was a Trojan horse for the real asset.

“Dave, what does YOUR agency have that a strategic buyer would pay a premium for?”

He thought about it. “Good clients? Good reputation?”

“Those aren’t strategic assets. Those are table stakes.”

“A strategic buyer pays a premium when you have something they can’t easily build themselves.

Customers. Technology. IP. Distribution.”

“You have none of that. Which means you’re not getting a strategic buyer.”

“You’re getting a financial buyer. And financial buyers?”

I started writing on the napkin.

“They do math.”

Left side of the napkin—what Dave THINKS he’s selling:

1.2M revenue

480K profit

5x multiple

= 6M valuation

Right side—what a financial buyer actually sees:

“Dave, if you and Sarah disappeared for 6 months, would the agency still be running?”

Long pause. “Probably not.”

“Who closes your deals?”

“Me.”

“Who handles the clients about to cancel?”

“…Sarah.”

Here’s the math:

Revenue: 1.2M

Dave’s Profit: 480K

But financial buyers calculate Adjusted EBITDA—profit AFTER paying someone to replace the founders.

To replace Dave & Sarah:

Account Director: 100K

Sales Lead: 80K

Ops Manager: 60K

Total: 240K

480K minus 240K = 240K Adjusted EBITDA

At a 4x multiple (generous for a founder-dependent agency)…

Real valuation (AT BEST!): 960,000.

Not 6 million.

The 249 million difference between Dave and the VidIQ deal?

It wasn’t talent. It wasn’t effort. It wasn’t even revenue.

It was what they were actually selling.

Dave stared at the napkin like I’d cancelled Christmas.

“So because I don’t have strategic assets…”

“You’re getting financial buyer math. And financial buyer math is brutal when the business depends entirely on you.”

Sarah jumped in. “Okay, so what do we actually DO about it?”

Now we were getting somewhere.

Because here’s what most business owners don’t realize:

Knowing your valuation is worthless.

Knowing how to INCREASE it is everything.

Dave’s problem isn’t that his business is worth 960K instead of 6M.

His problem is he has no idea which levers to pull to change that number.

Should he focus on removing himself from operations first?

Or building recurring revenue?

Or documenting systems?

Or creating strategic assets that might attract a different buyer class?

Without a roadmap, he’s just guessing.

And guessing is how you spend 3 more years grinding 55-hour weeks only to discover your “exit” barely covers two years of salary.

You know what happens to entrepreneurs who don’t figure this out?

They go to market expecting 6M.

They get lowballed at 800K.

They feel sick.

They pull the listing.

They go back to working 55-hour weeks—resentful, exhausted, and wondering what went wrong.

Three years later, they try again.

Same result.

They never fixed the actual problem.

That’s why I built something for entrepreneurs like Dave.

And maybe like you.

The “Exit-Able” Valuation Scorecard

This isn’t a generic calculator you fill out yourself.

This isn’t a “guesstimate” based on industry averages.

My team and I will research YOUR specific business and build a custom scorecard showing:

Your Current Valuation Reality

What your business is worth TODAY using the exact methodology financial buyers use.

Not your accountant’s optimistic napkin math.

Not comparisons to strategic exits that don’t apply.

The real number.

Your Buyer Type Analysis

Are you positioned for strategic buyers or stuck with financial buyer math?

What would it take to attract strategic interest? We’ll show you exactly where you stand.

Your Key Person Risk Score

The #1 factor that tanks valuations.

Most founders think they’re a 3 out of 10. They’re usually an 8.

You’ll know your actual number—and what’s driving it.

But here’s the part that actually matters:

Your Personalized “Value Maximization” Roadmap

This is why the scorecard exists.

Not just to tell you where you are—but to show you exactly what to fix and in what order to maximize your company’s value.

You’ll get:

The 3-5 highest-leverage moves specific to YOUR situation

Which lever to pull FIRST (hint: it’s different for everyone)

The projected valuation impact of each fix

A 90-day action plan so you’re not guessing

Dave’s roadmap might say:

“Remove yourself from sales first. Document your delivery process second. Add 12-month contracts third. Projected value increase: 2.1x.”

Yours might be completely different.

That’s the point.

Generic advice is worthless.

Prioritized, specific action based on YOUR numbers is everything.

This offer is limited.

I’m only doing 5 scorecards for businesses generating over 1M in revenue only.

If you’re generating less, I will not run the report because you need to focus on growing, not selling just yet.

Why only 5? Because my team actually has to RESEARCH each business.

Pull data. Analyze your situation. Build a custom roadmap.

That takes time.

5 spots. 7 days. Then this closes.

I don’t know how many are left as you read this. Could be 4. Could be 1. Could be gone.

Here’s how to claim yours:

Reply to this email with:

Your business name and what you do

Your annual revenue and revenue mix (e.g. 40% subscription, 60% one off sales)

Your approximate profit margin

How many hours/week YOU work in the business

Number of employees or contractors

If you’re doing 1M+ in revenue, my team will research your business and deliver your personalized scorecard—including your Value Maximization Roadmap—within 48 hours.

If you’re too late, I’ll let you know and you can join the waitlist for next month.

But if you’re anything like Dave—believing a fantasy number while financial buyers sharpen their knives—you can’t afford to wait.

Every month you delay is another month compounding the wrong strategy.

Reply now with those 5 details.

Let’s get you the real number—and more importantly, the exact roadmap to make it bigger.

Mark Dhamma The guy who ruins satisfying beach vacations with napkin math

Mark Dhamma, MA

‘The Mil-A-Month Mentor’

Helping 7-Figure Entrepreneurs Scale Toward 1M/Month So You Can EXIT On Your Terms

18 Years Coaching Entrepreneurs

MA Positive Organizational Psychology

Advanced NLP & Hypnotherapy Specialist