The Extraordinary Exit.
A book for founders thinking about selling. By Andy Harris and Jonathan Sherrill.
The short version. A book for founder-operators thinking about selling, in the middle of it, or looking back at what just happened. Covers the ground the deal team walks you through, plus the part that team isn't built to address. By Andy Harris, a sell-side advisor who has done this hundreds of times, and Jonathan Sherrill, a founder who built and sold his company. Foreword by Mark Moses.
By Andy Harris and Jonathan Sherrill
How to sell your business for maximum value, protect your legacy, and walk away with no regrets.
January 2026. Foreword by Mark Moses, founder of CEO Coaching International.
Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most major retailers.
Gold Medal, 2026 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Reviewed by Kirkus.
Why This Book
Two seats at the table.
Most books about selling a business are written by advisors. They tell you how the process works from where they sit. Useful, but partial.
Andy Harris has worked hundreds of deals as a sell-side advisor. He's seen what kills value, what creates it, and what founders miss when the right voice isn't sitting across from them telling the truth. I built Quicken Steel from one employee in a shuttered sawmill, grew it to No. 386 on the 2022 Inc. 5000, and sold it that same year. Clean exit, a strong advisor, no earn-out. By every measure on the deal side, I did most everything right.
And I was still blindsided by what happened to me personally after the wire hit.
That's the book we wanted to write. The deal mechanics from someone who runs them. The lived experience from someone who's been through it. Both, on the same pages, instead of in separate books that never quite meet.
The Arc
Six phases, sixty-plus traps.
The book maps the full passage of selling a privately held business: six phases, more than sixty distinct traps inside them, and roughly forty of those traps showing up before the wire ever hits your account.
The phases are the same ones you'll see on the Exit Map on this site, because the map came out of the book. Before the Decision, Assembling the Team, Preparing the Business, Going to Market, Due Diligence and Closing, After the Close.
Each phase has its own gravity. The decisions you make at the start compound through the ones you face at the end. A weak choice in Phase 2 can cost you a million dollars in Phase 4. A clarity gap in Phase 1 can leave you sitting at the wire wondering why you did this in the first place.
What's Inside
The mechanics that move the number.
The book covers the technical ground that actually changes what you walk away with. A few of the concepts that get worked through at length:
The Other Half
The personal piece most M&A books skip.
If the book stopped at deal mechanics, it would join a shelf full of useful M&A handbooks and add another one. What sets it apart is the second half of the conversation.
What it does to your identity to sell the thing your name is on. The dinner-party question you can no longer answer cleanly. The Tuesday morning after closing when the calendar is empty and the phone has stopped ringing. The marriage that has to adjust to a version of you it hasn't met yet. The investment posture you've never been in before, where you live off proceeds instead of earned income, and the psychological weight of that shift even when the math is fine.
The deal team can't help you with any of this. They're not built for it and they're not paid for it. The book names this directly because somebody had to.
This is also the ground Waypoint stands on. The book opens the question. The rest of this work picks it up from there.
Endorsements
What people are saying.
"A masterclass in how to exit a business the right way: strategically, profitably, and with purpose. This book belongs on every entrepreneur's shelf."
Adam Coffey, CEO, Board Member, 4x Best-Selling Author"Andy and Jonathan's expertise and dedication shine through in this book."
Wayne Cooper, Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Group"This book completely reframed how I think about exiting a business. Andy Harris and Jonathan Sherrill share insights that turn a complex, high-stakes process into a clear path to financial freedom and growth."
Verne Harnish, Founder, Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) and Scaling UpThe Authors
Two seats at the same table.
Andy Harris is President of North American Strategies and Managing Director at STS Capital Partners. Three decades in M&A. Has participated in hundreds of transactions ranging from $20 million to $1 billion, helping business owners achieve premiums of 40 to 100 percent above market value by identifying the right strategic buyers. Lives in California, works globally.
Jonathan Sherrill is the founder of Waypoint and a former manufacturing CEO. He started working in his family's metal roofing business at fourteen and eventually helped sell it. The acquirer let him go at thirty-four, with a three-year noncompete waiting on the other side. He built Quicken Steel from scratch, starting in a shuttered sawmill with one employee, and sold the company in 2022. Now he spends his time with other founders working through the personal side of selling. Lives in Florida with his wife Dana and their daughter Faith.
Mark Moses, founder of CEO Coaching International, wrote the foreword.
Read the book.
Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook.
If the book opens a question for you, bring it to me.