Fewer than 20 staff: is licensing still possible?

• Polyshares states no headcount floor, only real operating history, across accounting, legal, construction, logistics, manufacturing and more.
• Mode lowers its bar to 10 staff for accountants and 6 for law practices.
• A business that used to be bigger benefits where buyers use peak headcount.

Watch how each buyer counts. Some count only full-time office staff who write records.

A small team generates a small archive, while each deal still costs the buyer the same in calls, legal review, scrubbing and transfer. Advertised deals mostly begin near $100K, and we doubt a 12-person firm's records would reach that in most trades.

• Years. A tidy, single system covering fifteen years may count for more than staff numbers.
• A rare trade. Work few others have documented is the kind of gap buyers pay to fill.
• A bigger past. Buyers that count peak headcount may still take you.

One rejection is no reason to bin your records. These thresholds are new and keep shifting, since almost every advertiser here appeared in September or October 2026. Keep the archive and check again in a few months.