We named it Handshake because that's still how we believe deals should feel.
Most owners selling a business hire a broker who's never run one, a lawyer who's never run a deal, and a CPA who's never run a negotiation. The owner ends up carrying the weight alone. We built a firm that carries it with them.
Logan started as a mechanical engineer at Toyota and spent two years operating inside a private equity firm before going out on his own. He's spent the last decade-plus founding companies and operating businesses across financial services and the trades.
The PE chapter was the most useful education he could have asked for — not because it gave him a playbook to copy, but because it showed him exactly when institutional money helps an owner and when it eats them alive.
Sometimes the right buyer is a PE firm. Sometimes the right buyer is your GM, your family, or the operator down the road. The work is knowing which one your business actually wants — and being willing to tell you when the obvious money is the wrong money.
Zack has founded three companies from nothing and operated each one through every stage from zero customers to seasoned book. He's also Logan's partner in the businesses they own and run together.
He's started from zero three different ways and knows what it costs to build something out of nothing. That experience shows up in how he reads a business, what he respects about an owner, and what he refuses to overlook in diligence.
Logan is the engineer who turned operator. Zack is the builder who built three times over. Every deal we take on gets seen from both sides at once — by two people who've actually run businesses, not just talked about them.
It's not a gimmick. We're both serious coffee drinkers — the kind who care about the roast and where it came from.
But coffee means more to us than the cup. It's how communities meet each other. It's how good conversations actually start. It's the small ritual that turns a meeting into a relationship — which is the same idea behind the handshake.
Business should feel personal. So when we say grab a coffee, we mean it the old way.