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Over the last three decades, I’ve started, scaled, and exited 6 companies across…
Artículos de Mac
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Mac Lackey ha compartido estoAlmost no one is actually ready for an exit. And it shows. When a new client comes to me, I ask them the same 5 questions. Usually, the answers are a mess. They’re grinding 60-80 hours a week on things a buyer won’t pay a dime for. They have no documented edge. And if they turned off their phone for a month, the whole machine would break. That’s is why I created the 5-Week Exit-Ready Challenge. I’ve spent decades building and selling companies. I know exactly what a buyer looks for—and what makes them walk away. We spend 5 weeks fixing your gaps with real data and real systems. In 5 weeks, we move you from "guessing" to actually being Exit Ready. If you’re ready to build a real asset instead of just a high-paying job, the link is in my bio. Let's get to work.
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Mac Lackey ha compartido estoYour team isn’t slow… YOU have your foot on the brakes. We’ve all been there: a project stalls, deadlines slip, and you feel like you’re the only one pushing things forward. You're working 12-hour days wondering why nobody else has that same "sense of urgency." But have you looked at the bottleneck lately? Is it them or is it you? The phrase "let me take a look at that" is a total momentum killer. Every time you say it, you’re sending a clear message: I don’t actually trust you to finish this. After a while, your best people just stop taking initiative. Why bother if you’re just going to change it anyway? They aren't slow, they’re just waiting for your permission to move. Real speed doesn’t come from you working more hours. It comes from giving your people the actual power to say "yes" without checking with you first. Trust the people you hired. If you feel like you can't, that’s a hiring problem, not a time problem. If you’ve successfully scaled a team without losing your mind, what was the one rule you set for yourself to stop micromanaging? I'd love to hear your approach.
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Mac Lackey ha publicado estoI’m already done with "AI-powered" sales scripts. I spend my day talking to founders, entrepreneurs, and my high-level coaching clients… and we all have the same "inbox exhaustion." It’s a massive disappointment. You want to connect with the person behind the brand, but you’re met with a script that sounds like every other "optimized" template out there. Let’s be clear: I love automation. When you’re receiving thousands of inquiries, you need strong systems. You need a way to guide people through your programs without losing your mind. But there’s a massive difference between scaling your workflow and outsourcing your soul to AI. An yes… I know there are tools that promise that "perfect human tone." I’ve tried them all. But let’s be honest…you can still sense that AI vibe. Here is exactly what I do to keep my systems high-tech but high-touch. It’s simple, but it has made a huge difference for us: • I write every single "automated" reply myself. I don’t ask an AI to "mimic my tone." I sit down and write the templates exactly how I would speak. Does it take 15 minutes of my time? Yes. Could a bot do it faster? Maybe. But the second a lead feels a bot, the connection breaks. When they feel me, that’s when they know I’m pulling from 30 years in the trenches. • Systems and AI for qualification, humans for connections and closing. Every lead goes through a structured backend that doesn’t just organize. It interprets and prioritizes. By the time my team steps in, they know exactly where to focus. It’s tempting to let the AI do everything because it’s faster, but it’s a massive risk. In 2026, automation should be the bridge to a conversation, not a wall that prevents one.
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Mac Lackey ha compartido estoSTOP WASTING THE OPPORTUNITY. Recessions, panic, confusion and chaos make your competition vulnerable. If you are watching the headlines on AI (or anything) and "pivoting", you may think they’re being agile, but you’re actually slowing down. If you want to outpace people, you have to play a different game. While everyone else is "analyzing" themselves into a coma, here is how you actually take ground: 1. Stop chasing the "New" : Shiny objects are a trap. The highest-leverage work in your business is probably the boring stuff you’ve been ignoring. Pick one thing that actually moves the needle and ignore everything else. 2. Hoard cash: This isn't about being "safe." It’s about being the only person in the room ready when the deal of a lifetime appears. Survival is the baseline; being ready to strike is the goal. 3. Repeat (and repeat) your vision: Your team is distracted by the same noise you are. If you aren't repeating the mission until you’re sick of hearing yourself speak, they’ve already forgotten what matters. 4. Speed, not perfect: In a volatile market, "waiting for more info" is a slow way to die. A "good" decision made today at 100mph will always beat a "perfect" decision made too late. Confusion in the market is a gift. While the rest of the world is slowing down to "figure it out," that is your signal to hit the accelerator. If you’re feeling the pressure to play it safe but know you should be pushing harder, let’s talk. You don't have to figure out this market alone. I’m helping founders stop the second-guessing and start taking territory while everyone else is distracted.
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Mac Lackey ha compartido estoMost founders believe bigger revenue means a better exit. In reality, buyers are thinking about something else entirely: RISK. A company can be growing fast, hiring aggressively, and still feel extremely risky to an acquirer. Unstable revenue. Heavy customer concentration. Margins that move too much quarter to quarter. None of these show up in the headline numbers. But they show up immediately during diligence. And the moment buyers start seeing uncertainty, the conversation changes from “how big is this company?” to “how much risk are we taking on?” That shift is what quietly drives valuation. If you want to learn how to spot the hidden risks buyers care about and gain an edge when preparing a company for sale, subscribe to my newsletter. The link is in my bio.
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Mac Lackey ha compartido esto"I’m ready to sell." Usually, when I hear a founder say those words, it’s already too late to get the best price. Why? Because that sentence is usually followed by: • "...I'm burnt out." • "...I need money." • "...The market is shifting and I'm nervous." These are all reactive triggers. In the world of M&A, reactivity is a scent that buyers can smell from miles away. It turns a "Strategic Acquisition" into a "Fire Sale" faster than you can sign an NDA. The best time to prep your business for sale is when you’re having the most fun running it. That’s when you have the leverage to say "No"—and that's exactly why buyers will say "Yes" to a higher number.
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Mac Lackey ha publicado estoIf I stopped coaching founders tomorrow, this is what I’d leave them with. Most founders don’t fail because they’re lazy. They fail because they build businesses that look successful but are structurally weak. Revenue can hide this for years. Until it doesn’t. Here are a few truths many founders learn too late: 1. Build leverage before you build lifestyle. Too many founders rush to create a “freedom business.” Nice house. Flexible schedule. Good income. But if the business only works because you’re in the middle of everything… You didn’t build freedom. Its just a job with better branding. 2. Revenue is the most misleading metric in entrepreneurship. Revenue makes everyone feel safe. Investors celebrate it. Teams report it. Founders post it. But revenue can hide terrible fundamentals: Fragile margins. Unpredictable customer acquisition. Founder dependency. Operational chaos. 3. If the business needs you, it’s not a business. It’s still a job. If every major decision, relationship, and problem flows through the founder, buyers and investors will see risk—not opportunity. And risk doesn’t get premium valuations. 4. Optionality is built years before it’s needed. You can’t wake up one day and decide you want to sell. By the time founders think about optionality, it’s usually too late. Optionality comes from years of: Clean systems. Transferable relationships. Predictable revenue. Structural leverage. 5. Growth without control is one of the most dangerous things in business. Growth hides structural cracks. Founders celebrate the numbers while the foundation quietly weakens underneath them. Then one change happens: A channel stops working. Margins tighten. Key people leave. And suddenly the “high-growth company” looks fragile. 6. Premium exits are engineered. Not negotiated. Most founders think exits are about finding the right buyer and negotiating a good multiple. They’re not. Premium exits happen when the business is structured in a way that makes it strategically valuable to someone else. That takes years. Not a banker. Not a pitch deck. Not a negotiation tactic. Structure creates leverage. And leverage is what buyers actually pay for. Be honest: Which one of these do you think most founders get wrong?
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Mac Lackey ha compartido estoGrowth is the fastest way to kill your company. Most founders are addicted to the "Growth at All Costs" drug. They think more revenue solves all issues. It does not. It just scales any chaos you haven’t addressed. If you are the primary bottleneck—the one making every decision and putting out every fire—you haven't built a company. You have built a high stress cage, and scale makes it worse. An exit ready business is not built on hustle. It is built on systems. Investors do not buy your talent. They buy your absence. If the machine stops the moment you take a vacation your valuation is as low as your personal freedom. Stop scaling a mess. Start building structure. The goal is not to be the hero. It is to be irrelevant. Agree or disagree? Let’s argue in the comments.
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Mac Lackey ha compartido estoIf everything in your day is flexible, don’t be surprised when nothing important gets done. For a long time I realized too many things in my day were still optional. “I’ll work out if I have time.” “I’ll focus on the important work later.” “I’ll be more present tonight.” And when the day gets busy, those things are usually the first to disappear. So a few things stopped being a discussion. They just happen. Movement in the morning. A few priorities that actually move the business forward. Being present with the people that matter. Nothing extreme. Just standards. Over time this turned into a simple framework I sometimes share with clients to help them define their own daily non-negotiables. If you'd like the simple framework to map out your own Daily Non-Negotiables, just let me know here or send me a message and I’m happy to share it. Also curious… What’s one thing in your day that you really try not to skip?
Mac Lackey ha comentado una publicación
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Use code NOTLUCK for 25% off
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Mac Lackey ha respondido a un comentario
1 mes
Yurii Chaika Exactly! it’s rarely about learning more or working harder. It’s about having the right people and structure around you to challenge assumptions, surface blind spots, and force better decisions.
Mac Lackey ha comentado una publicación
1 mes
Thank you for the kind words Rita Ainsworth and for shouting from the rooftops “there is a better way”
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Mac Lackey ha recomendado estoMac Lackey ha recomendado estoWe just crossed a threshold in longevity medicine: brain longevity. Today I'm announcing BrainYears™: the world's first functional brain age clock at lab-grade accuracy. The question our team started with: why does functional brain health have no equivalent to VO2 max, HbA1c, or coronary calcium score? We can measure biological aging across nearly every organ system with precision. The brain had been the gap. We built the system to close that gap. A 15-minute cognitive assessment, clinic-administered. It captures 643 ERP biomarkers from your brain's electrical activity and calculates your functional brain age. Not a memory game. Not a structural measurement where intervention is too late. Objective, neurological measurement, derived directly from how your brain processes information in real time. The model achieves r = 0.923 accuracy, matching MRI-derived brain age models. Mean absolute error: 4.4 years. A brain age test without an intervention is just a number. BrainYears™ is built into the Sens.ai Incorporated platform for in-clinic use. The same system that measures your brain delivers neurofeedback training and brain stimulation protocols with measurable outcomes. We measure. We intervene. We measure again. In our study, participants improved their functional brain age by 5.18 BrainYears™ in 56 days. The control group showed no change. BrainYears™ launches in select practices in May 2026. The full scientific manuscript, co-authored by Sens.ai Incorporated and Buck Institute for Research on Aging, is now published on BioRxiv. Huge thank you to the entire Sens.ai Incorporated team, Corey Julihn Geoff Telfer, and Eric Verdin and team Buck Institute for Research on Aging for making this all possible. The era of brain longevity medicine starts now. #BrainYears #CognitiveLongevity #Neuroscience #BrainHealth #LongevityMedicine
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