A modern advisory for the people who built the business.
Lodestar is an AI-native M&A advisory for owner-operated trades businesses — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and the specialized trades — across New Jersey and the tri-state. We help owners understand what they’ve built, what it’s worth today, and what it would take to sell it well when the time comes. Quietly, and entirely on your terms.
lode·star (n.) — a star that shows the way; the fixed point you navigate by.
Selling the business you spent a lifetime building is a passage most owners make once. We’re the fixed point you take it by — so you always know where you stand.
Not another firm a thousand miles away.
If you own a trades business, you know the routine — the postcards, the cold calls, the emails from firms hundreds of miles away that want to buy your business or “help” you sell it. Most have never set foot in the tri-state, and have no idea how a deal in this market actually gets financed and closed.
Lodestar is the opposite. It’s rooted right here — based in New Jersey, working across the tri-state — and led by a principal with a background in commercial real estate, lending, and deal structuring, plus real relationships across the local trades and inspection world. Through our sister companies, we've arranged millions in financing for small-business owners on their commercial real estate — so we know firsthand how these deals get funded and closed.
So when you talk to Lodestar, you’re talking to someone accountable, who actually works in this region and has done this kind of work before — not a call center, and not a name on a mailer.
We work for the owner. Only the owner.
There’s a quiet conflict buried in a lot of the firms reaching out to owners. When the buyer pays the middleman, the middleman works — by design — for the buyer. The owner becomes the product, not the client. It’s why so much “free to you” outreach is really about finding someone a cheap deal.
Lodestar is built the other way around. We represent you. We’re paid only when you sell well, which means our interest and yours point in exactly the same direction. We never list your business, and we never take it to a buyer you haven’t approved. The trust isn’t a slogan — it’s the structure of the firm.
A real number — not a guess to win your business.
A valuation is only useful if you can trust how it was built. Ours are held to a standard most of the “instant estimate” tools online aren’t.
Built on actual closed deals.
Your range is anchored to real, maintained transaction data for businesses like yours — not a rule of thumb pulled off a blog.
The math is the math.
The number is calculated from your real financials against that data. We don’t inflate it to win you, or lowball it to win a buyer.
A person signs off.
Every valuation is reviewed by a person before it reaches you. It’s a preliminary opinion of value — and an honest one.
Find out what you’ve built. Confidentially.
A private, no-obligation valuation — a baseline that’s yours to keep, whether you ever sell or not. Nothing gets listed. Nobody finds out.
Start a confidential valuationLodestar is a trade name of Superhumancy LLC. Advisory services only. Any valuation is a preliminary opinion of value, not a certified appraisal, and nothing on this site is an offer or solicitation to buy or sell a business or any security. Lodestar does not provide legal, tax, or accounting advice.