Trajectory Exit · Exited Founders

    Sell your company for what it's actually worth.

    Most founders walk into a sale having never seen their business the way a buyer will. An Exited Founder — an operator who's already sold a company — gets you ready, builds the plan, and puts you across the table with your number and your buyers already in hand.

    Find your Guide Become a Guide

    A guide for the biggest transaction of your life.

    Get ready before the buyer calls.

    Your Guide runs the Quality of Exit™ assessment — the 9 factors buyers actually score — and shows you the gaps while you can still fix them.

    Build the plan to your number.

    A 24-month plan, forecast-to-actual, and a diligence-ready data room — so your value is real, not a story.

    Know your buyers.

    See who would buy you, what they'd likely pay, and who's shopping now — before you ever engage a banker.

    Why a guide, not just a banker

    A banker shows up at the transaction. An Exited Founder works the two years before it — when the value is actually built. And you're never doing it alone: every Guide is backed by a fractional bench (fCFO, fCTO, fCGO) for the specialist work.

    How it works

    01

    Know your number.

    Start with the free GO Report — a real enterprise-value range in minutes.

    02

    Get matched with a Guide.

    Tell us about your business; we introduce you to the right Exited Founder.

    03

    Build the plan to your exit.

    Your Guide runs the readiness plan, the data room, and the buyer map.

    Get matched with a Guide

    Guides

    Your Guide is an Exited Founder.

    The person who leads your engagement has been through the exit you're preparing for. They own the relationship and the plan; the fractional bench delivers alongside them. Every Guide is a member of the Exited Founder Network.

    Dan Kihanya

    Dan Kihanya

    Exited Founder · Guide

    Exited: MyPoints.com · consumer rewards / internet direct marketing · 2000 (IPO)

    Co-founder of MyPoints.com — the consumer-rewards company he helped take to IPO (exited 2000) — and a Princeton-trained engineer (BSE, Mechanical Engineering) who's since been a founder, operator, investor, and advisor across the startup ecosystem. He launched Cellfire's award-winning mobile-coupon product (acquired by Catalina Marketing), co-developed India's first coalition loyalty program, i-mint (later acquired by AMEX as Payback India), and helped scale the Wizely fintech app past 2M users (acquired by India's OneCard). He was founding Managing Director of REI Co-op's Path Ahead Ventures, and host/creator of the Founders Unfound podcast.

    early-stage strategyfundraisingproduct-market fitcustomer growthmarketing & product
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    Courtney Wiley

    Courtney Wiley

    Exited Founder · Guide

    Post-Exit Tech Founder · NFL Mom · Patent Holder · 33rd AAF to Raise $1M · FastCo World-Changing App · Google Demo Day Winner

    Courtney Wiley is the post-exit cofounder of ShearShare, the largest provider of on-demand salon and barbershop space rentals. Before ShearShare, she managed an award-winning salon and ran a consulting firm helping brands including Zendesk, Zenefits, and Qualtrics accelerate international sales and marketing. Across two decades in tech marketing, Courtney held leadership roles at Marketing Advocate, Oracle, and RightNow Technologies, where her demand and revenue work contributed to the company's $1.45B acquisition. ShearShare was named a 2022 Fast Company World-Changing Ideas app and won Google Demo Day in 2018. Courtney is a patent holder and the 33rd African-American woman to raise $1 million in venture funding.

    marketingbrandmarketplace & SaaS growthfundraising
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    Catherine Jones

    Catherine Jones

    Guide · Deal Advisor

    $72B+ in transactions. Every side of the table.

    Catherine Jones is the Deal Doula, a transaction coach for founders and executives navigating the deals that define the next chapter of their business. The hardest part of any deal is never the terms. It's the people in and out of the deal room. Emotions, egos, and conflicting priorities derail even the most well-structured transactions. Everyone around you has an agenda. Catherine doesn't. With 25+ years as a finance attorney, from Wall Street to General Counsel at Virgin Mobile Latin America and Upside Business Travel, she has been in the rooms, negotiated the terms, and lived the pressure from every side of the table. She brings that experience to founders now: not just the deal mechanics, but what it actually feels like to be the person making the call.

    navigating the dealthe human side of a salefounder/CEO guidance through the transaction
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    Patrick Donka

    Patrick Donka

    Guide · Fractional CFO

    Fortune 50 to the startup garage — the CFO who makes the numbers a buyer will trust.

    Pat Donka is a Chief Financial Officer whose track record runs from the Fortune 50 technology space to ambitious mid-market and startup companies — the rare finance leader who's managed a global P&L and also sat in the finance chair of an early-stage company finding its model. He's led M&A from the inside — due diligence, integration, divestitures, and joint ventures — driven EBITDA improvement and revenue-cycle discipline, steered turnarounds and restructurings through real change management, and raised capital through investor relations, road shows, and the board room. His range spans software, technology, AI/ML, SaaS and recurring-revenue models, healthcare, telecommunications, manufacturing, and energy. A CPA with a Master of Management from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Pat brings founders the thing a buyer scrutinizes first: clean, defensible financials, sharp FP&A and unit economics, and a management story that survives diligence. He's the Guide who gets your numbers — and your data room — buyer-ready before a sell-side QoE ever has to.

    sell-side finance & QoEM&A, due diligence & integrationFP&A, analytics & metricsturnarounds & restructuringcapital raising & investor relations
    EmailLinkedIn

    Find your Guide

    Tell us about your business. Dave reads every one of these.

    Unsure whether you need an exited-founder Guide or an investment banker?Read our advisory comparison guide

    FAQ · Clarity on the Process

    Common questions

    Last updated:

    No. Trajectory is not an investment bank and charges no banking fee. We provide coaching and preparation, not a transaction.

    No. We don't replace investment bankers; we prepare founders so bankers succeed. Our Reverse-Engineered Readiness methodology identifies risks 18 to 24 months before an LOI, so when you're truly prepared, your banker can focus on getting you the best deal.

    Earlier than most founders think. Our exit program runs 9 to 24 months, and our fractional CFO, CTO and Chief Growth Officer practices put seasoned operators in the seats buyers scrutinize 18 to 24 months before an LOI, so gaps are fixed before they cost you at the table.

    An assessment your Guide runs of the 9 factors buyers actually score. It shows you the gaps in your business while you can still fix them.

    Coaching from an operator who has already sold a company, so the advice comes from having done it. Your Guide is an Exited Founder who gets you ready, builds the plan and puts you across the table with your number and your buyers already in hand.

    Exited Founders: operators who have already sold a company. A Guide gets you ready, builds the plan to your number, and helps you know your buyers before you ever engage a banker.

    A two-day, in-person, cohort-based session in Seattle during regular business hours, designed to accelerate your exit readiness. The next one is in Winter 2027, dates to be announced, at $5,000 per company with a co-founder or CFO second seat for $3,000.

    A give-to-get model for M&A data, like Payscale for M&A: contribute anonymized transaction data and unlock access to practical valuations and private equity multiples.

    Have a specific question about your company or timeline?

    Talk with a Guide
    Founding cohort

    You've exited. Become a Guide.

    We're building a network of exited founders who help the next owner get ready to sell — and net more when they do. You'd be one of the first.

    You guide the work.

    You run the framework and own the relationship; our fractional team (fCFO, fCTO, fCGO) delivers the specialist work alongside you.

    Founding terms we won't offer again.

    No training requirement and no training fee. No annual fee. Later Guides will pay both — you won't.

    You keep what you build.

    Keep your fees; earn a share of every ERA you run, plus anything you mark it up; referral fees split 50/50.

    Your name, your practice.

    You're a 1099 contractor — with your name on our website, a Trajectory email address, and the tools to run your clients. You bring your own clients and build your own network.

    Modeled on EOS — independent, certified, keep your practice. We give you the framework, the brand, the tools, and the team behind it. The one thing we won't teach: you already exited.

    Apply to be a founding Guide
    Founding Cohort · By Application Only

    Apply to be a founding Guide

    Short and straight — tell us who you are and how you work.

    Focus areas
    Select all sectors where you have direct operating or exit experience

    🔒 Direct review by Dave Parker & Trajectory leadership. Strictly confidential.

    Two ways in. Pick yours.

    I'm a founder — find a Guide I've exited — become a Guide

    Prefer email? dave@gettrajectory.com