THE BARATELLI INSTITUTE · Mentoring at Scale
ROUTE 3 OF 6 · FOR WEALTH BUILDERS

For the 30s-50s business owner, self-employed professional, and founder building real wealth on top of an operating business.

You're past the salary stage. You own the business, you run the practice, you signed for the SBA loan, or you started the company that will eventually be the liquidity event. This route is the operator’s reading list — the buyer’s side and the seller’s side of the M&A table, the tax-strategy floor under both, the investing first-principles that travel across decades, and the small-town real estate playbook that turns operating cash into hard assets that compound.

$99 to $349 per guide. Read three free chapter extracts before you commit — read the work →

Recommended path.

Pick the side of the M&A table you'll be on next. The rest of the route compounds on top of it.

These are reading paths, not bundles. Every Guide is sold individually on Gumroad — there is no discount, no package, no “buy three save X.” The dollar totals below simply add up the à-la-carte prices for the practitioner who follows the recommended path. Buy one and stop. Or buy the three that match your week. The Library is built to compose on the shelf, not to upsell at checkout.
If you buy one
Business Buyer’s Guide or Liquidity Event Playbook
$99
Same M&A vocabulary, opposite sides of the table. Read the one for the next move.
If you buy three
Operator’s starter set
~$297
Tax-strategy is the floor under every dollar you earn or sell. First Principles is the rulebook for what to do with the proceeds.
The full route
Wealth Builder full kit
~$595
For the operator who plans to be acquired, plans to acquire someone else, and plans to be the strategic buyer for both. The full operator stack.

Every guide in this route.

Primary first.

Business Buyer's Guide
Primary · Acquirers

The Business Buyer’s Guide

$99

The reference for SBA borrowers, search-fund / ETA buyers, and owner-operators acquiring a $2-30M EBITDA closely-held business. Sourcing, quality-of-earnings, SBA 7(a) underwriting, asset vs. stock vs. §338(h)(10) tax math, working-capital peg from the buyer’s seat, escrow and R&W, day-1 to day-100 operating cadence.

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LEP
Primary · Sellers

The Liquidity Event Playbook

$99

The eight planning mechanisms that capture $5M-$15M of value before a sale closes. QSBS qualification and stacking. F-reorg structure. State-residency change with audit defense. Charitable substitution (CRT/CLT/DAF). Working-capital methodology negotiation. R&W insurance procurement. ESOPs as alternative exit. Founder transition design.

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Tax Strategy Decoded
Primary (forthcoming)

Tax Strategy Decoded

In editorial · ~$149

The strategic tax floor for the business owner. Entity structuring (S-corp vs LLC vs C-corp post-OBBBA), reasonable comp, PTET coverage across 33+ states, SALT cap workarounds, §199A in the post-OBBBA environment, the §1202 QSBS clock that starts at formation, retirement-plan stacking for the closely-held business.

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First Principles
Primary · Capital allocator

First Principles of Master Investing

$99

The synthesis volume distilling Buffett, Munger, the Outsiders CEOs (Singleton, Murphy, Graham, Malone), Philip Fisher, and a global cast — Li Lu, Wang Chuanfu (BYD), 3G Capital / Jorge Paulo Lemann, the Japanese sogo shosha. The owner-mindset capital allocation framework for the founder thinking about durable compounding.

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Business Owner's Playbook
Primary (forthcoming)

Business Owner’s Playbook

In editorial · ~$149

The operating-owner’s desk reference — the “floors of people” condensed into the seat the founder actually occupies. Org design, comp design, partner agreements, the board you don’t have yet but will need, the CFO hire (or fractional), the recurring cadence that separates the operator from the entrepreneur.

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Gent
Secondary

Gentrifying Small Towns

Multi-stakeholder reference · $99

The five-stage gentrification arc told from five stakeholder seats — mayor, developer, civic CFO, long-term resident, newcomer. Tax-increment-financing math, the construction-productivity gap, the NIMBY-by-newcomers dynamic, and the policy levers at each stage. For the operator turning business cash into geographic bets.

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AI
Secondary

AI Integration Decoded

Combined edition · $99

Practitioner-grade AI integration. Model selection, audit-defensible prompt patterns, the workflows where AI moves the needle today vs. where it doesn’t yet. Useful for the owner running a service business about to absorb 30% of its workflow into AI.

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Free tools sized for this stage.

Run your numbers in the browser.

§1202 QSBS CalculatorShow tax-free millions on founder stock. Liquidity Event SimulatorSell-now vs hold, tax + residency. Asset vs Stock Sale§338(h)(10) side-by-side. Working Capital PegTTM 12-mo + normalizations. State Tax MigrationCA/NY audit defense built in. SBA Financing Packet5-test underwriting scoreboard. Deal MultiplesEV/EBITDA, comps, tornado. DCF Sanity CheckSensitivity tornado, 5 inputs. Three-Statement BuilderIS + BS + CFS, 3-year forward. CapEx JustificationNPV/IRR/MIRR + MACRS. Business Estimated Tax1120-W + PTET in 33+ states. Concentrated Stock Diversification10b5-1, exchange fund, CRT. AI Task-Discovery Catalog200+ AI tasks by role & weekly work.

All tools for this route on the filtered catalog →

Not for you?

Pick the route that matches where you are right now.

Route 1
Student
HS, college, recent grad.
Route 2
Working Adult
20s-30s, salaried, first wealth.
Route 4
Family Office
$5M+ NW principals.
Route 5
Specialist Practitioner
PE, CFO, CPA, attorney, RIA.