Where Legacy Meets Opportunity for Small Business Owners
Keeping local businesses rooted where they belong.
BEAM Collaborative keeps communities strong by helping local businesses, anchor partners, and public sector leaders make smarter decisions that guide ownership transitions, strengthen supplier networks, and keep jobs, wealth, and value rooted in the region.
Main Street Legacy
The Main Street Legacy Program keeps local businesses alive and locally owned. We help retiring owners transition with purpose, new buyers step in with confidence, and communities stay strong through every change.
Start Your Journey with BEAM
Buying or selling a business doesn’t have to feel complicated.
BEAM built a clear, step-by-step system to show you where you stand, what you need, and how to move forward.
Backed by $30 billion in data and years of experience, it starts with two simple tools:
The Readiness Score and the Decision Guide.
The Readiness Score
Your first step toward clarity.
It’s free, fast, and gives you a clear picture of what to focus on next.
The Readiness Score shows how prepared you are right now. In just a few minutes, it measures your experience, finances, and goals to reveal your best next move—whether that’s buying, merging, or selling a business.
The Decision Guide
It’s the practical, personal blueprint that helps turn your goals into a real plan.
Are you a Buyer?
You’re ready to buy a business but don’t want to start from scratch.
BEAM makes entrepreneurship achievable by helping you find, evaluate, and acquire existing businesses that fit your skills and goals. We guide you through every step so ownership feels attainable, not overwhelming.
Are you a Seller?
You’ve built something that matters—and you want it to live on.
BEAM helps business owners plan their exit with purpose, preserving jobs, relationships, and the legacy you worked decades to create. We connect you to capable buyers who will carry it forward with the same care you’ve shown.
Anchor Partners
BEAM Collaborative's Anchor Partners are large institutions—such as hospitals, universities, utilities, and corporations—to protect supply chains, preserve local vendors, and strengthen regional economies.
You want your community impact to be real, not just a headline.
Vendor Continuity
When a trusted supplier retires or closes, it can disrupt your operations.
Our analysis identifies at-risk vendors, estimates the true cost of losing them, and maps viable succession or replacement options.
BEAM Rating Scale
Knowing which suppliers are ready—and which need support—matters.
The BEAM Rating Scale gives anchors a clear view of each small business’s strengths and challenges across five key areas: leadership, operations, talent, customer engagement, and financial health.
Our Partners
BEAM IQ
BEAM IQ is a suite of AI tools that helps small business owners make clear, confident decisions. It connects platforms like SMB.co and C-Model.io to simplify buying, selling, and growing a business.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Buying or selling a business should feel achievable, not confusing.
BEAM IQ helps buyers find the right opportunity and sellers plan the right exit.
Through our partnership with SMB, buyers can explore real businesses for sale, and sellers can get a free valuation and connect with qualified buyers
Strategy & Growth
Running a business shouldn’t feel like guesswork.
BEAM IQ helps you turn focus into progress and habits into growth.
Through our partnership with CModel, you can build the structure, discipline, and accountability that turn everyday actions into long-term results.
Applied Research Center
BEAM’s Small Business Applied Research Center is where ideas become strategy.
We study how small businesses shape local economies and partner with you to use that insight to guide policy, investment, and regional growth. Our research turns data into understanding—and understanding into better decisions.
Private Sector
You want your community impact to be grounded in reality.
BEAM’s research gives universities, hospitals, nonprofits, foundations, and corporations a clear picture of the small-business ecosystem. We turn data into insight that guides smarter investments, partnerships, and growth strategies.
Public Sector
You want to keep jobs local and protect your tax base.
BEAM’s data-driven research helps public leaders translate complex economic data into clear, actionable strategies that preserve local ownership, strengthen employment, and grow community wealth.
Recent Research Reports
Steel City Roots
Steel City Roots is an indoor farming initiative that addresses the critical challenge of food insecurity in Pittsburgh.
Innovate PGH - Pittsburgh Robotics Study
BEAM Collaborative was engaged by Innovate PGH to study regional robotics purchasing and highlight opportunities for small, local, and diverse businesses.
What People are Saying . . .
"I'm in many meetings, and our discussion with BEAM really encouraged Dollar to move forward with an ideation session. What they do is really solution oriented. I was truly impressed with their approach to diverse business engagement."
●Jim McQuade | President of Dollar Bank
"BEAM has been a partner in helping us with our global ESG goals by moving us think outside the traditional procurement box. BEAM helps me to think differently about the way we do business."
● Amy Baudino | Vice President of Portfolio Management
"BEAM has helped me design my sales strategy and increased my profits by 50% percent over a one-year period"
● Taylor Ford | Owner of Taylor Made IT Services
"...What stood out for me is that BEAM Collaborative, unlike a lot of other entities out there, is itself a very mission-driven enterprise with important sources of earned income."
● Xavier de Souza Briggs | Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution
"BEAM was able to guide me through the expansion and attraction process by making introductions to key regional business allies"
●Paul Douglas | President JPI Group
"With BEAM in the conversation, we were able to negotiate a longer term contract which assures our growth and ability to hire employees"
● Blayre Britton| President CDI Printing
"One thing that I really like about the structure of our engagement with BEAM is we're not trying to solve all the world's problems at once."
● Will Pickering | CEO of Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority