Your personal deal guide
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Issue-spotting to support your own diligence — not tax, legal, or investment advice.
The route ahead
Four camps that slow buyers down
Each pitfall can be avoided if you have the right guidance, at the right time.
- Camp one
Hidden Crevasse
Things hidden in the docs you didn't know to look for.
- Camp two
Due Diligence
What to ask next, and gather what's still missing.
- Camp three
Basecamp
Find out early if a deal is worth pursuing before you engage your professionals.
- Camp four
Waiting Game
Get answers to your questions 24/7, day or night. Stop waiting for replies.
The hidden contract clause
What stops people
Buy your next business with eyes wide open. The clause that decides whether you keep the building sits on page 11 of a lease nobody read to the end.
What stands beside it
DealSherpa reads every document the way a CPA, an attorney, a coach and an SBA lender would, and names what it found and the page it is on.
Sherpa
Sample deal
You
The facility lease is up for renewal — what happens to it if I buy the business?
Answered as Attorney
64%The executed facility lease carries an assignment and change-of-control clause: a transfer of a majority of the membership interests is treated as an assignment and needs the landlord's written consent, and the clause sets no period within which the landlord must answer. The renewal option is exercisable no later than 180 days before the current term expires, and nothing in the lease says the option survives an assignment made without consent.
This is issue-spotting, not legal advice. DealSherpa is not a law firm and does not represent you. Have a licensed attorney review any document before you sign or rely on it.
Ask about this deal — the numbers, the lease, what to do next.
Ask
Sherpa
Sample deal
What's missing
Landlord's written consent to assignmentMissing- Payroll detail behind the $22,800 health-insurance add-backMissing
- Personal financial statementMissing
- Business planMissing
Master Due Diligence Checklist — 18 of 30 items received.
What to ask next
Drafted from your checklist
Ask the seller for leases for each location, including any renewal options and the current rent schedule- Ask the seller for revenue by customer for the last two or three years, so concentration is visible
- Ask the seller for a list of current employees with role, hire date, pay and whether they are full or part time
Questions you didn't know to ask.
What stops people
The broker has done this a few hundred times, this might be your first. Know what to ask and where to dig to be confident you've got the full picture.
What stands beside it
The Coach lens keeps the next question in front of you and a running list of what is still missing. The request to the seller is drafted from your checklist.
Turn back at basecamp, not halfway up.
What stops people
Don't waste thousands of dollars of professional time only to find out the deal was never going to work.
What stands beside it
A Report Card on the deal before anyone is paid: the letter, the reasons behind it, and what would move it.
No card required. The trial covers one full deal analysis.
Report Card
Sample deal
Overall Grade
D+
D+ (69.2/100) from Financials B-, Legal/Risk F, Customer Quality A+, SBA Readiness D-. 0.8 more points would reach the next letter.
- FinancialsB-Payroll detail behind the $22,800 health-insurance add-back is not in the workspace.
- Legal/RiskFLandlord's written consent to assignment is not in the workspace.forced · consent missing
- Customer QualityA+Top customer is 18.5% of revenue.
- SBA ReadinessD-DSCR is 1.45× at the quoted rate, under the 1.50× most lenders want.
Missing information
Landlord's written consent to assignment is not in the workspace. Legal/Risk is forced to F until it is.
Payroll detail behind the $22,800 health-insurance add-back.
Actual weakness
DSCR is 1.45× at the quoted rate, under the 1.50× most lenders want. Reaching 1.50× moves SBA Readiness +14.4 pts.
Top customer is 18.5% of revenue.
Recomputes from current state. Change an assumption or add a document and the grade moves.
It shows its work
Sample deal
Normalized SDE
$682,800
82%[1] Sunbelt HVAC — Profit & Loss FY2024.pdf · p.2Sunbelt HVAC — Profit & Loss FY2024.pdf · p.2
- Net income480,000
- Interest45,000
- Depreciation120,000
- Amortization15,000
- Owner's Family Health Insurance Premiums22,800
The citation opens the page it came from, with the line it used marked. Tabular figures on.
Waiting for Answers
What stops people
Waiting on your CPA's email for 3 days or a call back from your attorney slows your deal to a crawl.
What stands beside it
DealSherpa answers on your schedule, 24/7. Ask it what you need to know and it will tell you and even cite its source so you can be confident in the answer.
The summit
Confident Decisions
You've asked all the questions and gathered all the docs. DealSherpa hands you what you need to make a confident decision with a full package of what the lender needs to fund it.
The package
SBA Lender Package
After an analysis, DealSherpa automatically creates an SBA lender package with everything an SBA lender asks for.
SBA 7(a) package
Sample deal
Sources & Uses statementReady- DSCR, three scenariosReady
- Facility leaseReady
Personal financial statementWaiting on you
Landlord consent letterRequested from seller- Business planWaiting on you
Total uses
$2,460,000
Equity injection
$310,000 (12.6%)
7(a) loan
$1,900,000
Sources & Uses statement · Sample deal · tabular figures on
You close on a business you understand, and the guide is still beside you.
Pricing
Spend $150 to avoid a $900,000 mistake
Plans are counted in deals, not seats or tokens.
Every plan includes a pooled AI budget that scales with the deal count.
Fair questions
Worth asking before you trust it.
- Isn't this just ChatGPT?
- ChatGPT does not have your documents, cannot point at the page a number came from, does not track what is missing, and will answer confidently without a source. An unsourced answer on a business purchase is worse than none. Worst of all, it can pull random information from the web. DealSherpa uses only your uploaded documents and inputs to grade and give guidance.
- How is this different from the tools that already exist?
- Most of them hand you a verdict. Sherpa coaches the questions instead: a CPA, an attorney, a coach and an SBA lender you can ask, and every answer shows how it was derived.
- Can I trust an AI with a decision this size?
- No, and we are not asking you to. It does not decide. It gets you most of the way there and leaves a trail your CPA or attorney can check. If it could not show its work, you should not trust it.
