NBC Sports Bought My Company and Then Switched It Off.

On Purpose.

My name is Mac Lackey

I've started, scaled and sold six companies. Exits in the seven and eight figures, to domestic and international buyers, public and private. Two of those exits landed nearly back to back, which sounds glamorous but mostly involved a lot of very long days on multi-hour phone calls with lawyers.

If you're anything like me, you're tired of hearing that your company is worth "five times EBITDA, maybe six if the market's strong."

Because none of my six exits sold for a number that fit the standard multiples. Not one.

One company was barely generating revenue when it sold for $15 million to a European public company. Most CFOs would have laughed at that number. But this specific buyer needed our technology, our customers and our content, and they did their own math on what those things were worth to them.

I also sold 75% of Mountain Khakis, an outdoor apparel brand, to a buyer from outside the industry. They paid nearly double what anyone inside the industry would have paid for 100% of the business.

Read that again, slowly. Three quarters of the company, for almost twice what the "obvious" buyers would pay for the whole thing.

That's the gap I want you to see in your own business.

This matters because a buyer is going to value your company their way whether you like it or not. If you walk into that conversation thinking in industry multiples while they're thinking in strategic value, you're negotiating with half the map. And the half you're missing is the half with the treasure on it.

Most of the exit world works on financial multiples. My process works on identifying and developing strategic value, meaning what your business makes possible for a specific buyer, and how to quantify that using the buyer's own math.

That's my differentiator, and it shapes everything else. It means looking well beyond private equity and your three closest competitors, to outside-industry buyers, suppliers, customers and family offices, which is where some of the biggest premiums can come from. It means you're the person running your exit, with the tools to do it properly. And it means you start from your own diagnosis, the Exit Readiness Assessment, so you're working on your actual gaps instead of someone's generic checklist.

I call my process ExitDNA

When you apply it within your company, you can build a business that runs better whether or not you ever sell it. You get a clear view of how buyers will value you, and a documented plan to close the gap between the buyer's number and the one you want. Most important, you get options. My whole goal for you is the option to sell, on your own terms, at a premium, if and when you choose. Whether you ever use that option is entirely up to you.

There's something you should know about how ExitDNA was made.

It wasn't all clean exits and champagne. Early on I was a heads-down founder buried in the grind, the classic "if I stop working, everything falls over" type. One of my businesses failed in the middle of a litigation that I still rank as one of the worst things I've ever gone through. Bar none.

I once failed to disclose a convertible note as debt, and it got red-flagged in due diligence. Nothing like watching a buyer's lawyer circle something in red to make you feel twelve years old again.

I watched a $15 million deal, four hours from closing, almost get blown up by a shareholder with about 200 shares. Two hundred shares. I aged visibly that day.

And honestly, I believe I left millions on the table over the years by not doing the simple, smart things earlier.

After I sold my sixth company in the fall of 2018, I did something I'd never had time for. I spent months talking with former employees, partners and mentors about what had actually worked.

One thread kept showing up. In my best outcomes, I'd run the business through the eyes of a prospective buyer. Those companies became better businesses. And they attracted buyers even when I had no plan to sell.

ExitDNA is that lens, turned into a repeatable system.

Now, you "could" do what I did...

Start six companies. Scale them. Sell them to buyers foreign and domestic. Get sued along the way. Get red-flagged in diligence. Sit in a conference room while one tiny shareholder holds a deal hostage. Spend six years on a public company board learning how acquirers actually think. Then spend months interviewing everyone you've ever worked with to figure out which parts mattered.

It works. I just don't recommend it as a weekend project.

Or you can get ExitDNA, which puts the whole thing in one place.

You get the foundation, the frameworks, the recorded trainings, the expert sessions and the actual tools I'd want in my hands, so you can start building buyer-ready value now instead of scrambling in the six months before a sale. You can use it even if you've never sold a company, never read a letter of intent, and still think "deal room" sounds like a casino.

Here's just some of what you'll discover inside

• The "single sheet of paper" test — How to find the one asset in your business a buyer will pay a premium for, and why it's usually something you've stopped noticing long ago
• "Buyer's Math" — How a software company bankers had valued at $3 million was set to hand its buyer $12 million in year one, by the buyer's own conservative numbers
• The single biggest problem buyers find in due diligence, and how to fix it years before anyone asks
• Why the question "why are you selling?" can be what I call "an absolute death blow," and how to answer it
• The late-in-the-deal moves (even after the price was already agreed) that, in aggregate, earned me close to an additional million dollars
• How 200 shares worth about $5,000 almost tanked a $15 million closing, and the "hidden" clause to check in your own paperwork today to prevent it from happening to you
• Why the buyer who'll pay the most is often NOT in your industry, and how I sold 75% of a company for nearly double what in-industry buyers were offering for the whole thing
• The cold call I made to an NBC Sports executive LONG before I was ready to sell, and why NBC started due diligence the morning after my company went to market
• Why none of my six exits sold for a number that fit the standard EBITDA or revenue multiples, and what buyers were really paying for
• The "Solid Gold Buyer Sheet" — The simple spreadsheet exercise that turns up buyers most bankers don't even know exist
• "Reverse due diligence" — The question that flips the power in the room and makes you look like a master negotiator
• The "One-Page Trick" I learned from Bank of America's founder, Hugh McCall, and how it surfaces potential deal killers before the lawyers start billing
• The "fatal flaw" one CFO and certified fraud examiner says exists in every financial spreadsheet, and what happens when a buyer finds it before you do
• Why I'm confident AI is about to shrink buyer pools and speed up exit timelines, and what that means if you plan to sell in the next few years

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Already convinced? See what's included and the price →

Here's the deal...

I built ExitDNA based on what I learned from six exits, one ugly failure, years on the buy side, and months of hard conversations about what actually moves the needle in an exit. I cut the theory and kept what I'd actually use, so you can get through it at your own pace and start applying it to your business right away.

I made the expensive mistakes, from convertible notes circled by a buyer's lawyer to discovering what a company was really worth after the ink dried, so you don't have to. Everything's here, in one place, ready when you are.

Built on principles that don't expire

Buyer psychology doesn't change with the market. Neither do the things that kill deals in diligence, the reasons outside-industry buyers pay premiums, or what happens when your team tells a buyer five different stories. That's the foundation of ExitDNA, and it has held across six exits and more than two decades of building companies.

What does change, like buyer pools, timing and the impact of AI, is covered too. The most recent sessions deal directly with how AI is reshaping who buys companies and how fast deals move.

By all means, hire a banker. Just not first.

A good banker can be worth every point of their fee, once you know what you're selling. The problem is the order.

Bankers tend to take the path of least resistance: private equity, plus a few big players in your own industry. The buyer who'd pay the most is often someone outside your industry trying to break in, and that buyer usually isn't on the list unless you put them there. Many bankers won't take a deal under about $5 million at all, and for those who do, minimum fees can push the percentage far above the usual rate.

ExitDNA is the work you do before anyone takes a percentage: understand your strategic value, build your own buyer list, and get ready for diligence. Then, if you do hire a banker, you hand them a better company and a better list.

The Investment

At this point, you're likely wondering...

"What's it going to cost me to access Mac's 20+ years of exit experience?"

Think about it this way...

If ExitDNA helps you discover one simple, long-forgotten company asset a buyer would happily pay a premium for... far beyond what any multiple says. That alone could be worth seven figures to you.

If you wanted to hire me to walk you through your exit one-on-one, I'd have to charge somewhere north of $100,000 for my time. It would be 100% worth it, but I'm not available for that type of engagement right now.

When this material came bundled with my one-on-one and group time, clients paid up to $12,000 for it. ExitDNA is the same frameworks and tools, self-paced, without my calendar attached.

The good news is, ExitDNA doesn't cost anywhere close to $12,000 today.

When you join today, you get the entire ExitDNA program for a one-time payment of just $1,997.

That's it. No ongoing monthly access fees. No upsells or one-time-offers selling you on "the extra thing that makes ExitDNA faster or more effective."

Literally everything you need is inside the members area. And it's all available to you on day one for a one-time payment of $1,997.

So what's the catch?

Because I made ExitDNA self-paced. I'm not on calls with you every week, and I'm not reviewing your work. That's exactly why the price can be this low. You get the frameworks, the trainings, and the tools I wish I'd had 20 years ago, and you run them on your own business on your own schedule. You're an owner. You're used to doing the work. I just want you doing the right work, early enough for it to make a difference.

If you want a business that runs better, a clear view of how buyers will see it, and the option to sell on your terms instead of under pressure.

Why "I'll deal with it when I'm ready to sell" is the most expensive (and risky) plan there is

Most owners start preparing the day they decide to sell. By then the cheap fixes have become expensive, and the buyer sets the pace. A buyer can drag a deal out, let your cash run down, and come back with a lower number.

ExitDNA flips that. The bulk of my work goes in before a company ever goes to market, because preparation is the biggest risk mitigant there is, and it compounds. The deal you like at the beginning only survives to closing if you did the work first.

And if I'm right that AI is about to shrink buyer pools and speed up timelines, "later" may arrive sooner than you planned. Every year you wait is a year of improvements your eventual buyer won't have to pay you for.

A warning before you go

You're going to make mistakes on the way to an exit. Everybody does. I've made most of them personally, some of them twice, and at least one in front of a buyer's lawyer. The point of ExitDNA is that you get to make the cheap mistakes now, on a spreadsheet or workbook, instead of the expensive ones later, in a deal room.

You already have an idea where the gaps are in your business. Let's close them while you've still got plenty of runway.

~ Mac Lackey

P.S. Somewhere in your business is a single sheet of paper a buyer would pay a premium for. NBC Sports found mine. I'd rather you find yours first. Get ExitDNA now

P.P.S. You have a full 30 days. If ExitDNA isn't for you, for any reason, my team refunds every dollar.