An Advisory Division
of 7Mills.

Why we built this

I didn't sell my first business. Not because it wasn't a good business — it was. But because it wasn't ready. The financials were a mess. I was the business. Nobody else could explain how things worked. When I started talking to buyers, those things were obvious to them before they were obvious to me.

That experience is what BuildExitReady is built around. Not a framework I read somewhere — a mistake I made directly, and then spent years figuring out how to help other people avoid.

The data is consistent: 70–80% of businesses listed for sale never complete a transaction. The ones that do sell for 50–70% less than their potential. None of the reasons are mysterious. Owner dependency, opaque financials, undocumented processes, contracts that don't survive a change of control. These are predictable problems. The window to fix them is 3 to 5 years. Most owners start thinking about it 6 months before they want to sell.

The 7 Mills Framework

The framework takes its name from the seven types of mill that powered the industrial world before mechanisation. Each mill solved a different problem. Together, they made a complete system.

The 7 dimensions of exit readiness work the same way. No single dimension determines your multiple. But weak performance in any one of them will be found in due diligence — and will cost you.

Who we work with

Owner-managed businesses between £2m and £10m revenue, typically planning an exit in the next 3–5 years. The mix is broad — professional services, trade businesses, distribution, specialist manufacturing. What they have in common: good businesses with structural gaps they haven't had a reason to fix yet. That's exactly when we're most useful.