Most of your net worth is locked in the business, and it only becomes retirement if a buyer actually closes. What stops them is rarely the business itself. It is owner dependence, shaky financials, or revenue a buyer cannot count on (Exit Planning Institute). I am an investment banker, and this free Exit Score tells you what the business is worth today, how each type of buyer reads it, and whether to go to market, fix something first, or wait.
Free · Two questions to start · No account needed.
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An investment banker and exit planner who advises owners through the sale of their business, and wrote the book on it.
readiness signals scored
valuation methods triangulated
diligence items tracked
report types you can hand over
Why so few make it to the close
have no written plan to transition out of the business
have never sought advice on a transition
of the owner's net worth is locked in the business
have had a real valuation in the last 3 years
Source: Exit Planning Institute · State of Owner Readiness
I spent years advising owners through the most consequential transaction of their lives, selling the business they built. Almost none of them had any idea what to expect, or why things were the way they were.
I wrote Capture to fix that on paper. Exit OSx is the other half of the answer, the operational layer that turns the framework into something you can run, between meetings, on your own terms, before any buyer is in the room.
It's the workspace I use with my own clients. Now you can use it too.
Two questions get you a value range. Eight more get you the Exit Score: how ready the business is to be handed over, how each buyer type reads it, and what is costing you the most. Then it takes a position on the only question you actually asked.
Most owners negotiate the headline number and then find out how little of it arrives on closing day. Exit OSx scores you separately for each buyer type and shows what that buyer typically puts on paper, so you can see the trade before you pick a lane.
A competitor or adjacent acquirer
95% cash at close, 5% earnout over 2 years
Buying something they would otherwise have to build: your customers, your territory, a capability that plugs into what they run. They can pay the most because you are worth more inside their company than standing alone.
Watch out. The most cash of the three, and the deepest scrutiny of whether your contracts actually assign to a new owner.
A financial sponsor, 5 to 7 year hold
60% cash at close, 15% rolled into their newco, 20% earnout over 3 years, 5% seller note
Buying a platform they can lever, grow, and sell again. The price follows what a lender will finance, which makes predictability worth more to them than upside.
Watch out. The headline number is not the number. Two fifths of it depends on their plan working, and a quality-of-earnings review will test every add-back you have taken.
An individual operator-buyer, SBA financed
50% cash at close, 30% seller note at 7% over 7 years, 15% earnout, 5% rollover
One person buying a job and an asset at once. The deal is financed rather than funded, so what a bank will lend against you matters more than what you are theoretically worth.
Watch out. The longest tail. A note this size means you are financing your own exit and carrying the buyer's execution risk for years.
Typical lower-middle-market terms, drawn from BVR and Pratt’s Stats commentary and the Axial deal-terms surveys. Starting points you tune against your own situation inside the product, not a prediction about your deal.
EBITDA multiple, discounted cash flow, and public-company comps, weighted in a blend you can adjust. No black box. Then we itemise it: your sector band, and every driver that moved you inside it, priced in turns of EBITDA.
A valuation on its own is trivia. The question underneath it is whether the sale funds the rest of your life, and you cannot answer that from a business number alone. Exit OSx is the only exit platform that carries your personal balance sheet, your retirement model, and your company valuation in one place, because the gap between them is the whole decision.
Your business value flows straight into your personal balance sheet. Update the business, and the statement moves. No second data-entry chore, no version that is quietly out of date.
What the business has to sell for, after tax, to fund the life you want. That figure is the point of the exercise, and almost nobody has calculated it.
The distance between what the business is worth today and what you need. It is the only honest answer to whether you can afford to sell yet.
Every action is tied to a real readiness signal in your business. Each one shows which buyer type cares, how long it takes, and what it costs, so you can decide what's worth doing and what isn't.
“As a CFO of a larger company, we frequently purchase companies from founders. The book breaks down complex processes and decisions into actionable, understandable, time-phased elements.”
“Advice from someone who's been there, not just theory.”
“A blueprint for how to design life both now and even after said exit.”
“A valuable resource for any business owner, whether an exit is near or still years away.”
Exit OSx white-labels to your practice. Your brand on the diagnostic, the valuation, and every client touchpoint. Exit planners, investment bankers, fractional CFOs, CAAS-model CPA firms, and wealth managers.
See the advisor program →A free account shows your buyer scorecard and a value range. Paid plans unlock the full analysis: $199/mo billed annually ($2,388/yr) or $249/mo monthly. Advisor accounts $299/mo (includes 1 owner site) + $149/mo per additional site. 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans.
