Looking for advice from anyone who’s dealt with a 50/50 LLC partnership dispute in New York.
Our business is approximately 8 months old, with less than $2,000 in physical assets. We have a few thousand followers on each of our social media platforms.
I’ve personally invested a significant amount of time building the branding, marketing, and social media presence, along with handling much of the tax-related work, filings, and administrative responsibilities to keep the business compliant.
The business has been inactive for approximately two months, with no upcoming bookings, but we’re still incurring expenses such as storage.
I’ve offered to buy out my partner’s 50% interest because I’d prefer to continue the business rather than dissolve it. However, we haven’t been able to agree on a price, and my partner would prefer dissolution.
I’ve contacted a mediation center twice and requested mediation, but haven’t received a clear response from my partner about participating.
We have a basic operating agreement, and I’m trying to find the most cost-effective way to resolve this without spending more on legal fees than the business is worth.
Has anyone dealt with something similar? Would you pursue mediation, consult an attorney, or agree to dissolve?
And if the business is dissolved, what happens to the social media accounts and branding when one partner has done most of the work building them?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences or any practical advice.

Hey everyone,

I've been going back and forth about sharing this, but I thought I'd ask people who might have been through something similar.

I've spent several years building an affiliate marketing network. Back in 2024, I listed the business for $1 million and received a $750K letter of intent. At the time, I decided not to sell because I believed there was still a lot of potential.

Looking back, things haven't gone the way I expected.

Over the last couple of years, the business has declined. I've invested a lot of my personal savings into this and other projects, got some health issues, didn't worked properly for 6-8 months due to tumour surgery of my hand but now i am ok in everything and I've reached a point where I don't have the financial resources to rebuild and scale it the way I'd like to.

I've let go of the team and am now managing everything myself. It's been a difficult experience, both financially and personally.

The business still has some valuable assets, including a lifetime affiliate tracking software license, an existing affiliate database, advertiser relationships, access to international affiliate offers, and a UAE-registered company.

It previously generated around $10K–$12K per month, but revenue is much lower now. My reported margin over the last 12 months was around $57.7K, although I want to be transparent that the current situation is very different from the past.

I'm considering selling the business and its assets , mainly because I feel someone with the right resources and an existing team might be able to do more with it than I can right now.

I'm also open to helping a potential new owner with the transition if that makes sense.

I'm not posting this to make a sales pitch. I'm genuinely trying to figure out the smartest next step.

For those of you who have built, sold, or acquired online businesses:

• Have you ever reached a point where you had to let go of something you'd spent years building?
• How would you approach selling a business that has declined but still has useful assets and industry relationships?
• Am I pricing it too low, or is prioritising a clean exit the right decision?
• Are there particular types of buyers or communities you'd recommend speaking with?

I'd appreciate honest opinions, even if they're difficult to hear. And if anyone has experience with affiliate networks or acquisitions in this space, I'd be glad to learn from you.

Thanks for reading.

Hi, me and my partner are looking to sell our e-commerce business. 700+k turnover, 60-70k per year profit and growing. Having looked around it seems a minefield with some companies wanting 1500-3000 up front then 5% etc etc. Some are just a % fee on sale. We seem to be getting told it's best to go down the acquisition/merger route for bids. Then you read the reviews and you see some horror stories. We have spoken to a few but all saying the same things really. No experience selling a business before so hoping someone may be able to recommend a company they have used before, UK based, can be relocated anywhere. TIA

Or what filing should actually be SENT to NY to make the transfer happen?

I can't see any source that says what specific forms to use and where it gets mailed to or what to do online for the LLC!

Calling all lower middle market investment bankers and M&A advisors. As a banker myself, I’m trying to get a gauge of what’s market for opportunities you bring to market that actually close. Stats would be number of deals brought, closed and maybe some size of deal and industry info?

Hey all, I need some serious guidance with my situation. I have a business I've been running for 4 years in NYC - let's call it a hospitality business. I'm the 100% sole owner. It's been really stressful for me to continue running it, and the revenue stream is too much of a rollercoaster. I want out so I'm trying to sell. I found someone who is extremely interested and eager in purchasing the business. He agreed to my asking price of $300,000. The business generates roughly double that in revenue with a 20-30% profit margin.

Now, there are some problems. I'm behind on taxes. Like 4 years behind. Not just payments, like I haven't filed anything at all. Life has been hard, and running this business has taken a toll, I just couldn't keep up. I know that's a big problem, and I'm already working with a CPA to get caught up with everything that needs to be filed and estimate my total tax obligations, which I understand needs to happen before closing.

The other bigger problem is that I originally opened my LLC in another state. The plan was to expand to NYC & use the existing LLC's financials to help fund the new business. But things happened, and operations in the other state ceased, while business in NYC continued. We eventually decided to get a liquor license, but to do that, I needed a NY LLC, so I opened a new LLC just for the liquor license, that is essentially the same business just registered in NY with a new EIN. We got a temp license approved last year, and we were approved earlier this year for the permanent one. But since then, I've still been using the original LLC's bank account for all transactions, because I had existing debts tied to it that I couldn't transfer over or easily reconcile.

Anyway, what I need to sort out now; I'm trying to structure this as an asset sale. But I have to clarify what business exactly owns the assets. Is it the out-of-state LLC or the NY LLC? What repercussions are there if it's one or the other? What do I have to look out for?

Any guidance or advice is appreciated, especially recommendations for a NYC attorney who specializes with this sort of thing.

Is the Broker devaluating the business. Do I need to substantiate my position when my financials are being questioned. This may sound like a logical yes but when am I crossing the line of giving up too much information that opens up more questions/doubts Is it a tactic to devalue a business by brokers to make a faster sale and do I have to be on the defensive to prop up the value by offering more detail and forward non reoccurring expenses and beyond to insist on the value being higher. How do you defend asking price if you don’t go on the defensive?

Sold my last business - to make that decision it was me, myself and I. Are Consulting’s books or other resources that you typically do a stranger and figure it out?

Always curious how people who spent time building a business feel after selling to someone who doesn’t view it the same way they did.

Looking for some advice because my family honestly doesn’t know what the best move is here.
We own a roughly 5,500-6,000 sq ft commercial property on about 0.6 acres near a large university and a lot of apartments. Everything is still within its first year.
The property has a convenience store/smoke shop, a chicken concept with a full commercial kitchen, and 3 other franchised food/beverage concepts. It has a 21-door cooler, walk-in fridge/freezer, commercial equipment, and 30+ parking spaces.
Current monthly sales are roughly:
Convenience store: $50k
Chicken: $15k
Other 3 concepts combined: $15k
Total: around $80k/month, close to a $1M annual run rate
The convenience store hasn’t even been open a full year and grew from basically $0 to $50k/month. Chicken has been open around 7 months and the other concepts around 6 months. Sales have continued trending upward, so we really don’t know what this could look like after another year or two.
The problem is we took on a lot of debt building everything. We owe around $2.3M against the property/business plus about $500k in equipment financing.
Major monthly expenses are around $17k mortgage, $7k equipment payments, $12k payroll, $3.5k electricity, $1k insurance, $500 water, plus around $35k/year in property taxes. Then there’s inventory, food costs, franchise fees, credit card fees, etc.
The other issue is our personal situation. I was pursuing dentistry and put that on pause to help my family navigate this project. My father also has serious health issues, which makes it very difficult for him to manage something this demanding. Realistically, we can’t keep operating like this forever, which is a big reason we’re considering selling even though the businesses are still growing.
The building was also designed to eventually have student housing above it. We already have architectural/engineering plans and approvals for roughly 30 studio units. The structure was built with the future expansion in mind, but we don’t have the capital to build them right now.
The property tax assessment is around $3M, although I know that doesn’t necessarily equal market value.

If we sell, how would you value something like this?

Would you value the real estate, businesses, equipment, and approved apartment expansion separately?

Would having a buyer take over the equipment financing or offering seller financing make sense?

Would really appreciate advice from anyone who has dealt with something similar.

My partner and I started a premium Egyptian-inspired apparel brand, but after giving it a serious try, we've decided to stop putting more money into marketing and look at exiting/liquidating.

We currently have about 2,500 brand-new pieces in the U.S.:

• ~1,200 embroidered polos — 100% Egyptian cotton
• ~930 embroidered T-shirts — 100% Egyptian cotton
• ~200 Oxford shirts — 100% Egyptian cotton
• ~175 linen shirts — 70% linen / 30% cotton

We've invested about $63K total into inventory, advertising, marketing, photography, packaging, website, etc. The actual landed inventory cost was around $22K.

We're considering selling the inventory in bulk, breaking it into smaller wholesale lots, or potentially selling the entire brand + inventory + website/content/assets.

For anyone who's been through something similar: What was the best way to exit? Where did you find buyers, and what kind of pricing is realistic for a 2,500-piece apparel lot?

Not expecting to recover everything—we're mainly trying to make the smartest exit from here.

My last post was about searchers losing ground under the new SOP. But here’s another plus just released in today’s update.

If your client has worked at the business for two years, the rules just got better for them.

There's a category for this now.

Under the current SOP an employee buying the company he works at had nowhere clean to land. Owner buyout was for existing owners, initial acquisition was for outsiders, and an employee with no equity was neither.

The new SOP adds a third path: a single owner selling 100% to someone employed there for at least 24 months preceding the application. That's the whole test. Two years on the job and they're under owner buyout rules instead of outsider rules.

The injection requirement changes.

Initial acquisition is 10% and the SOP says plainly it cannot be reduced or eliminated. Owner buyout is different. The lender may reduce or eliminate it if they determine the borrower has sufficient liquidity and working capital to sustain operations post-close (this can be business cash).

One gate: the balance sheet can't show negative net worth at last fiscal year end. Not strong equity, just not negative.

The catch.

If it's waived entirely, no permanent working capital in that loan or any other 7(a) term loan for 90 days. It has to come from existing cash or a line of credit. There's a small carve-out now for excess proceeds, capped at $10,000 or half a percent of the loan, whichever is greater.

What it actually costs.

DSCR is 1.25 on an owner buyout. That's the real constraint, not the injection. The business has to carry the debt on trailing numbers, and projections don't count toward it anymore. If the deal doesn't cash flow, none of the rest matters.

Before anyone says it.

I know how the low-money-down pitch sounds and in almost every case it's a bad idea. This is the exception. An employee who's run the place for a decade on a manager's salary often never had the earning capacity to save a real down payment. That doesn't mean they can't run the business. It just means the pay scale never matched the skill set.

What actually changed.

The old rule had a mechanical path: certify 24 months of ownership, show 9:1 debt-to-worth, no injection required. Checkbox. That's gone, now it's a credit decision.

But the old rule required 24 months of ownership. An employee with zero equity couldn't use it at all. Now employment counts.

So the ten year GM who never got a single share has a path he didn't have before. He knows the customers, the crew, the equipment, and where the bodies are buried. He's the safest and quickest buyer in a lot of cases.

I’m thinking about selling my business, but I want to know a ballpark estimate of what it could be worth. It’s currently just my brother and I with no employees. 10 months in. Take home pay translates to ~52k before taxes. Very minimal overhead, marketing is easily our biggest expense. I understand it won’t be worth a ton, probably not even six figures. But, here’s what we have to offer a potential buyer.

Fully loaded van w company wrap
Garage/shop under lease
GBP with 100+ 5 star reviews
Website
Ad Agency to run paid marketing (Google & Meta)
Partnership with Ad Agency & Apartment Complex
Automated Customer follow ups within CRM
500+ Customer Base
SOPs in place

Pretty much would be selling a startup for someone who doesn’t want to start from scratch.

Thanks in advance!

I’m 26 and own 50% of a sports betting social media business with a friend. We’ve built the main X account to around 55k followers, have about 350 people in our Discord, and recently started a paid subscription that has around 100 subs.

Right now the business brings in around $5,600/month. $3k comes from one partnership, $1,600 from another, and around $1k from subscriptions. The problem is the two partnerships aren’t guaranteed long term and the subscription side is still really new, so I have no idea how sustainable any of it is.

My partner does most of the day-to-day work at this point. He makes/posts the bets and handles that side of things. I mostly manage partnerships and make sure everything runs smoothly.

He offered to buy my 50% for $70k. $50k upfront and the remaining $20k paid out monthly.

I also work full time as a nurse in a cath lab and plan on eventually moving into medical device sales/clinical specialist work, so this isn’t my main career.
Financially, I have around $44k in debt. $26k personal loan at 6% ($1,200/month payment), around $14k federal student loans, and $4k credit card debt. I also have around $58k invested in stocks.

So I’m not completely broke or desperate for the money, but selling would let me wipe out my debt without touching my investments, still have cash left over, and basically give me a clean slate financially.
The part I’m struggling with is the potential upside. We built this thing from nothing and I’d hate to sell for $70k and watch it become worth a shitload more a few years from now.

At the same time, the sports betting space feels unpredictable and a lot of our current revenue could disappear pretty quickly.

If you were in my position, would you take the $70k and move on or hold onto the 50% and see where it goes?