Weeks Consulting Group · Ed Weeks Jr.
Owner Advisory & M&A Experience, Built in the Business
Buying, building, and selling a business changes how you advise an owner. Ed Weeks Jr. has sold an equity stake, acquired and operated companies, helped owners prepare for a sale, and lived through businesses and deals that did not work out.
That experience shapes Weeks Consulting Group’s owner advisory, M&A advisory, and acquisition advisory work today. Ed works with established, owner-led businesses in the lower middle market, generally with $2 million to $20 million or more in revenue, across the United States and in select situations elsewhere.
The starting point is your decision: grow, acquire, raise capital, recapitalize, prepare for an exit, sell, or hold. The job is to help you make that decision with a clear view of the business, the terms, and what comes next. Sometimes the right answer is to keep the business and improve it.
Decide before you transact.
From Wall Street to running the business
Ed’s 33+ years of business and operating experience span brokerage, entrepreneurship, pharmaceutical sales, and advisory work. Weeks Consulting Group LLC was formed in 2024; the career began long before the firm.
Brokerage and a first ownership exit
Ed began in brokerage on Long Island, then moved to Park Avenue with the organization that became UBS. He later became executive vice president of a boutique brokerage and held about a 25 percent equity stake. He sold that stake near the height of the dot-com boom and used the proceeds to fund his first major venture.
Interactive Outdoors: growth met a funding limit
From about 2000 to 2002, Interactive Outdoors combined a digital hunting and fishing publication on CD-ROM and DVD with commerce inside the video. The business raised outside capital and sold trail cameras, but demand outpaced the cash available to fund inventory. Additional capital was not secured, and the company shut down.
It was an early lesson in the difference between demand and a business that can afford to fulfill it. That distinction still matters in capital strategy: growth has to be funded, not just forecast.
AstraZeneca and Wall Street advisory
Ed then spent about a decade at AstraZeneca as a sales professional, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in pharmaceutical sales. This was commercial operating experience, not an M&A executive role.
As Head of Advisory at a Wall Street advisory firm afterward, he led origination and conversion into more than 10 paying engagements across M&A, capital, and strategic advisory. The work covered biotech, technology-enabled businesses, and entertainment companies. This is the basis of the 10+ advisory engagement figure; it is not a count of completed M&A transactions.
HV Social Media: building through growth and disruption
Ed founded HV Social Media in 2015, serving medical and dental businesses. Around February 2020, it reached approximately $1.8 million in monthly recurring revenue, with 75+ clients and 20+ contractors. COVID reduced revenue to nearly zero in about two months. The company survived that disruption but did not return to its peak.
Principal acquisitions and ownership exits
These were transactions involving Ed’s own ownership interests, separate from client advisory work. They include a completed brokerage stake sale, a business acquired and later sold, and an acquisition that closed but ultimately failed.
GoldLeaf: acquisition, operation, and sale
Ed acquired the e-commerce company GoldLeaf in 2021, when it had a few hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue. He operated the business, brought in partners with sector experience, and later sold it to those partners. The acquisition and subsequent sale were completed principal transactions, not a WCG client engagement.
A lead-generation acquisition that did not transfer well
Ed restructured HV Social Media so its operating history could support the acquisition of a separate lead-generation agency under HV Media Group. He sourced the business, conducted diligence, negotiated, structured, and closed the acquisition.
The acquired agency depended heavily on its founder. Clients left, and the combined entities failed. Closing the deal had not solved the transferability problem. That experience informs how Ed looks at owner dependence, customer retention, and post-close operating risk. HV Social Media itself was founded by Ed in 2015, not acquired by him in 2022.
For owners and buyers, the practical question is whether the earnings and customer relationships will hold after ownership changes. See what buyers look for in a business acquisition.
The proposed 2020 agency roll-up
In 2020, Ed worked on a proposed digital agency roll-up involving businesses with about $50 million in combined revenue and roughly 15 percent profit. The plan targeted approximately 20 percent profit through back-office integration. He originated targets, worked with owners, negotiated, led diligence, structured the proposed acquisitions, and coordinated with the SPAC.
The SPAC fell through, and the roll-up did not close. The $50 million describes the agencies’ combined revenue in the proposal, not completed transaction value.
Owner advisory and sell-side preparation
Alongside his principal experience, Ed has worked with owners facing a sale. Two completed sale situations can be shared anonymously: owner-side preparation for a Southern California home services company, and support for the owner of a digital education company through a sale. Client names, transaction values, and multiples remain private.
These owner-advisory situations are separate from both Ed’s principal transactions and the mixed advisory engagements from his Wall Street period.
Today, sell-side and exit preparation can include readiness, positioning, buyer strategy, and process coordination. The work starts with what an owner can substantiate: the financial record, how the business runs, and how much it relies on the person selling it. Paper Before Price explains why that preparation matters before a price discussion.
Acquisition infrastructure for a MedSpa roll-up
Ed designed the acquisition infrastructure for a MedSpa roll-up, with a front end for identifying targets and a back end for integration. At least six acquisitions were later completed using that infrastructure, totaling more than $50 million to his knowledge.
His role was architecture and target identification. He did not conduct diligence, negotiate, structure, or close those six acquisitions.
How that experience informs the advice
A purchase price is only part of a transaction. The business has to transfer, the capital has to fit, and the owner has to understand the obligations that remain after closing. Ed’s experience brings those questions into the discussion early.
- Owner advisory: assess business value, owner dependence, and the tradeoffs between growing, selling, and holding.
- M&A advisory and transaction structure: examine how the proposed terms fit the owner’s objectives and the realities of the business, alongside the appropriate legal and tax specialists.
- Acquisition advisory and buy-side mandates: where a buyer already has a thesis, support screening, origination, owner conversations, evaluation, and coordination through diligence.
- Capital strategy: consider whether growth capital, acquisition financing, or a recapitalization supports the next move.
Buy-side origination sits within a defined mandate. Owner judgment remains the center of the practice. Explore WCG’s advisory services or read Should I Sell My Business or Keep It?
What the experience figures measure
- 33+ years: Ed’s business and operating experience. Weeks Consulting Group LLC was formed in 2024.
- $500M+: Ed’s estimate of a combined career-scale measure: about 70 percent deal or transaction value and 30 percent business revenue advised, operated, or supported. Most of the transaction-value portion comes from the Wall Street advisory period. This mixed figure is not closed M&A value.
- 10+ advisory engagements: mixed M&A, capital, and strategic advisory engagements, not completed M&A transactions. Principal acquisitions and owner-advisory work are characterized separately.
Education and professional designation
Ed holds an MBA and earned the CM&AA designation in 2020 through the AM&AA program at Columbia University. His M&A and advisory experience dates to about 2015. Read the shorter Ed Weeks Jr. biography.
Work directly with Ed
Ed leads each WCG engagement, bringing in independent specialists from his network when the situation calls for them. Those specialists are not WCG employees or partners in the firm.
Qualification is free. Decision work and private advisory start at $5K+; advisory and mandates start at $10K+. Transaction success fees of 2%+ apply only where appropriate and permitted. Scope, responsibilities, and fees are set out in a written engagement. See how an advisory engagement starts.
WCG is an owner advisory practice, not a broker, lender, or large investment bank. It does not provide legal, tax, or securities advice, sell securities, or issue quality of earnings reports. It is not a marketing agency, AI consultancy, or coaching program.
If you are weighing an acquisition, a sale, a capital decision, or what to do next with the business, start with the qualification assessment.
The assessment begins the free qualification process. Paid advisory work follows an agreed scope; the assessment does not book a free consulting call.