How much of it is you?
It's the first thing anyone outside your business works out, and it sets what they'll pay, what they'll lend, and whether you could step back for a month without it costing you.
31 questions, scored against your own numbers. Allow 45 minutes to an hour, most of it looking things up.
Why this is worth knowing
Most owners find out what their business is really worth at the worst possible moment. When somebody offers to buy it. When a bank asks for the last three years. When they need to stop, and discover they cannot.
You may be selling. You may be raising money, or borrowing against it. You may be planning neither, and just want to know whether the thing runs without you. Most owners don't realise how close those three are: the same seven things decide all of them. A buyer judges those seven hardest though, so that's the standard we use, whether or not you ever meet one.
The gap is rarely the revenue. It's that a buyer isn't paying for what the business earned last year. They're paying for what it will keep earning after the person who built it has gone, and almost everything that determines that sits outside the profit and loss.
There's a difference between a business and a job with staff.
It is worth knowing which one you own before somebody else tells you.
What it asks
31 questions about how your business actually runs, plus five about the business itself, in eight parts.
- How your week actually goes.
- Who your customers are and how much of next year is already spoken for.
- What happens when you're not there.
- What exists in writing rather than in somebody's head.
- What your accountant has finished, and when.
They aren't difficult questions, but some are uncomfortable, and a few will take you a minute to find. For some, that discomfort is kind of the point, and it's most of why it takes the time it does. Every question is something a buyer or investor would ask in the first fortnight of looking at you, and the ones you can't answer quickly are the ones they'll press on hardest.
What you get
- A number out of 100, and whether that makes you a job, a business, or something on the way.
- Seven readings of the things a buyer weighs, each with what it means for you rather than a score.
- The specific things a buyer would notice first, drawn from your own numbers.
- And three of your answers that they would most likely ask about before anything else.
You can read it on screen as soon as you finish, and you can also have it emailed to you to review offline.
Being straight about what it is not
It's not a valuation, and it doesn't tell you what your business is worth or what anyone would pay. It's also not financial, accounting, legal or other professional advice.
The assessment scores what you tell it. Nobody checks your answers, inspects your books, or rings your accountant. Answer it carelessly and you'll get a careless result, and that would be nobody's fault but yours.
It is free, and so is the report. You don't need to give us an email address to read it on screen, and if you leave one we'll send it to you as well. There's a longer, paid report for anyone who wants to go further afterwards. Nothing in the free one is held back to sell it.
What's the plan? What are you getting it ready for? Where are you taking it?
Sell it, now or one day
Whether there's an offer in front of you or it's still years away, most of what moves the number isn't financial, and most of it is fixable.
Start the assessmentRaise capital or borrow
An investor or a bank isn't buying the business so much as underwriting whether the earnings survive you, which is stricter in places and kinder in others.
Start the assessmentStep out of the middle
No transaction and no deadline, just whether the business could run for a month without you, and what specifically stops if it can't.
Start the assessment
Set aside 45 minutes to an hour, and have last year's revenue and your most recent accounts within reach.
Your answers save as you go, so it doesn't have to be one sitting, and the sheet will email you a link back to it if you'd rather finish later.
Your answers are yours. We do not sell them. We do use anonymised data, aggregated, to establish industry, regional and other statistics.