Free scorecard
Is your business ready for a buyer, bank or investor?
Answer 20 questions across the five areas every acquirer, lender and investor scrutinizes. Get an instant 0–100 readiness score, see exactly where you stand, and learn what to fix before you go to market.
What we measure
Five areas that decide your valuation
A buyer is not just buying revenue. They are buying the quality and durability of it. These are the five dimensions that move price, deal certainty and how hard the due diligence will be.
Financial quality
Clean, reliable numbers a buyer can trust without rebuilding them.
Customer & revenue
How concentrated, recurring and predictable your revenue really is.
Owner dependence
Whether the business runs, and keeps running, without you.
Growth & market
A credible growth story in a market a buyer wants exposure to.
Documentation & governance
Contracts, records and controls that survive due diligence.
The scorecard
20 questions, 5 minutes
Answer honestly: Yes, Partly or No. Score each as it is today, not as you intend it to be. Your headline score appears as soon as all 20 are answered.
Financial quality
Are your annual accounts produced on time and reconciled, with no major restatements of prior years?
Can you produce monthly management accounts (P&L, balance sheet, cash) within 15 days of the month end?
Is your reported EBITDA clean, with owner perks and exceptional items clearly identified and documented (a defensible add back schedule)?
Are gross margins by product, service line or customer understood and stable over the last three years?
Customer & revenue
Does your largest customer represent less than 20% of revenue (and your top five less than 50%)?
Is a meaningful share of revenue recurring or contracted, rather than one off project work?
Do you track and retain customers well, with churn and net revenue retention you can evidence?
Are your key customer relationships held by the company and team, not personally by the owner?
Owner dependence
Could the business operate normally for three months without the owner present?
Is there a second layer of management that can run day to day operations and make decisions?
Are core processes documented so a new owner or team could follow them without you?
Are key supplier, banking and customer relationships institutional rather than tied to you personally?
Growth & market
Has revenue grown, or held firm with healthy margins, over the last three years?
Do you have a clear, evidenced pipeline or growth plan a buyer could continue?
Do you operate in a growing or resilient market, with a defensible position in it?
Do you have a genuine competitive edge (brand, technology, switching costs, distribution) that is hard to copy?
Documentation & governance
Are customer and supplier contracts written, current, and transferable on a change of ownership?
Is your cap table clean, with clear share ownership and no unresolved disputes or options overhang?
Are IP, key assets, licenses and employment contracts properly owned and documented by the company?
Are tax, legal, regulatory and compliance matters up to date with no material open issues?
Your readiness score
Answer all 20 questions to reveal your score. 0/20 answered.
This scorecard is an indicative self assessment, not financial, legal or tax advice, and is not a valuation. Your score is a starting point for a conversation, not a guarantee of any outcome or price.
Why it matters
Different buyers, the same questions
Whether you are selling, refinancing or raising, the people writing the check are testing the same thing: how reliable and transferable your business really is.
A buyer
A trade buyer or searcher pays for predictable cash flow they can run without you. Concentration, owner dependence and messy numbers all come straight off the price.
A bank
A lender funding the deal underwrites your ability to service debt. Clean financials, stable margins and recurring revenue widen your debt capacity and terms.
An investor
A minority or growth investor backs a credible plan and a team that can execute it. Governance, documentation and a defensible market position decide the valuation.
Frequently asked questions
Know your number. Then improve it.
Book the 30 day exit readiness review and turn your scorecard into a costed, prioritized plan to maximize your price.