There is a difference between a business you can run and a business you can transfer. Most owners don't find out which one they built until they try to sell it.

Nitin Khanna is the founder of N3 Business Advisors, a Toronto M&A firm that does one thing: sell construction companies. His team has completed over 100 transactions and speaks with roughly 100 business owners every month — HVAC, electrical, plumbing, general contracting — at enterprise values between $1M and $25M. Before that he managed over $600 million in assets. Before that he was an entrepreneur from the start, with his first company at 15 and his first sale at eight years old.

In this conversation with LeanScale co-founder Anthony Enrico, Nitin breaks down what actually makes a company transferable, why the seller — not the market, not the number — is almost always the reason a deal collapses, and the one-week test that shows you exactly how dependent your business is on you. Plus: why every business sells twice, what a buyer is really paying for, and the $15M deal that slipped four months because the seller went sailing.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

The three things that must be true before a business can sell — and which one is never ready

The 90-day owner-dependency test — and the one-week version you can actually run

Why time kills deals, told through a $15M transaction that slipped four months

CHAPTERS

00:00 — Cold open + intro

01:50 — Three things have to be true before a business sells

03:09 — Every owner exits — the five doors out

07:58 — A business you can run vs. one you can transfer

14:37 — The most expensive employee is someone just like you

16:55 — ROT: return on time, and the $500 hour

23:49 — Clean financials: every business sells twice

27:44 — "I'm not buying your past. I'm buying your future."

35:30 — Rolling equity and the second bite at the apple

39:42 — What the M&A process actually looks like

47:15 — Time kills deals — the seller who went sailing

54:58 — The 90-day test — and how to actually start

ABOUT THE GUEST

Nitin Khanna, CFA, CAIA, is the founder and president of N3 Business Advisors, a Toronto-based M&A advisory firm focused exclusively on the construction, trades and engineering sector. His team of 13 has completed over 100 transactions and speaks with roughly 100 owners every month, from HVAC and electrical to plumbing and general contracting, at enterprise values between $1M and $25M. Before founding N3, Nitin held senior finance roles at TD Financial Group, TransGlobe Asset Management, Aecon Construction and Carillion Construction, managing over $600 million in assets. He writes to a newsletter list of roughly 20,000 owners about the mistakes he made building his own firm, under the line that anchors everything he does: every owner exits, few do it well.

ABOUT THE LEANSCALE PODCAST

The LeanScale Podcast is the show for GTM operators building the next generation of revenue infrastructure. Hosted by Anthony Enrico, co-founder of LeanScale, we go deep with the operators, founders, and executives shaping how modern go-to-market teams are designed, scaled, and transformed.

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▶ Learn more about LeanScale: https://www.leanscale.team

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KEYWORDS / TAGS

Mergers and Acquisitions, M&A, Selling a Business, Exit Planning, Business Valuation, Owner Dependency, Transferable Business, Lower Middle Market, Construction M&A, HVAC Business for Sale, Succession Planning, Letter of Intent, Due Diligence, Data Room, Rolling Equity, Second Bite of the Apple, Earnouts, Clean Financials, Recurring Revenue, Delegation, Return on Time, Entrepreneurship, Founder Journey, RevOps, GTM, N3 Business Advisors, Nitin Khanna, LeanScale, Anthony Enrico

HASHTAGS

#MergersAndAcquisitions #MandA #SellingYourBusiness #ExitPlanning #BusinessValuation #SuccessionPlanning #Entrepreneurship #ConstructionIndustry #HVAC #FounderJourney #RevOps #GTM #LeanScale #LeanScalePodcast

You Didn't Build a Business. You Built a Job. | Nitin Khanna on 100+ Exits

The LeanScale Podcast with Anthony Enrico

You Didn't Build a Business. You Built a Job. | Nitin Khanna on 100+ Exits