Why I Started Icon Business Advisors

Editor’s note: Icon has grown since this post went up. Icon Deal Flow is now Icon Acquire, and our work runs through six services: Icon AI, Icon Exit, Icon Acquire, Icon Capital, Icon Partner, and Icon Commercial. We also trimmed a few figures and lines so the post matches how Icon works today.

The Gap Nobody Was Filling

If you own a lower middle market business, you already know the problem. You’re too big for business brokers who treat your company like a listing on a bulletin board. You’re too small for the Wall Street investment banks to return your phone calls. And you’re stuck in between, making one of the most consequential decisions of your professional life with inadequate support.

That gap is why Icon Business Advisors exists.

I’m Daniel Askew. I’ve spent 25 years building, scaling, and selling businesses, with more than $450 million in sales across my 25-year operating career.

Through all of that, I learned something that stuck: the people who helped me the most weren’t the ones with the fanciest credentials. They were the ones who had actually done it: operators who understood the weight of payroll, the complexity of growth, and the emotional reality of letting go of something you built from nothing.

When it came time to figure out what was next for me, I didn’t want to become a consultant who hands you a report and disappears. I wanted to be the advisor I always needed: someone who gets it because they’ve lived it.

What Icon Actually Does

Icon Business Advisors is a Nashville-based AI consulting and M&A advisory firm for lower middle market business owners. We are operators who advise. We help owners put AI to work, sell their companies, buy businesses, raise growth capital, and build operating value, with the care of someone who has been in your chair.

Our six services are Icon AI for putting AI to work inside your business, Icon Exit for sell-side M&A and exit planning, Icon Acquire for buying a business, Icon Capital for raising growth capital, Icon Partner for fractional operating leadership, and Icon Commercial for the real estate side of a deal.

We run our own work on AI, which lets a small team cover a lot of ground for every client.

Why the Lower Middle Market Matters

Lower middle market companies employ a lot of people and anchor their communities. They represent decades of work, risk, and sacrifice by the owners who built them.

And when those owners are ready to sell, raise capital, or plan their next chapter, they deserve better than what the market currently offers. They deserve an advisor who treats their business with the same seriousness a much bigger deal gets, because to them it’s worth everything.

That’s what we do at Icon. We do it because it’s real, it matters, and too few firms do it well.

What You’ll Find Here

This blog is where we share the things we wish someone had told us: practical guidance on selling a business, raising capital, working through due diligence, understanding valuations, and making the decisions that shape your financial future. No jargon, no theory, just the stuff that actually matters when real money and real lives are on the line.

If you’re a business owner thinking about what’s next, you’re in the right place.

Daniel Askew is the Founder and CEO of Icon Business Advisors, based in Nashville, Tennessee. He can be reached at iconbusinessadvisors.com/contact.

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Complete Guide: How to Sell a Business in Tennessee: A Complete Guide for Owners