Exit Readiness Scorecard
Assess your company across seven key pillars of exit readiness. Identify gaps and estimated multiple impact.
Most businesses aren't sale-ready. Buyers expect documented processes, professional management, diversified customer bases, and clean cap tables. Going to market unprepared means accepting lower valuations, longer timelines, and more deal friction. A readiness scorecard reveals your gaps and tells you what to fix before approaching buyers.
This scorecard evaluates you across operational maturity, financial documentation, customer quality, management depth, and strategic positioning. It shows where you stand relative to the market and prioritizes improvements that will have the highest impact on valuation.
Seven Pillars of Readiness
Priority Improvements
Exit Readiness Dimensions
Exit readiness spans five dimensions: operational maturity (documented processes, systems, automation), financial hygiene (clean books, three years audited, recurring revenue documented), customer quality (concentration, churn, contract length, switching costs), management team (depth, documentation, key person risk), and strategic positioning (market opportunity, competitive moat, technology stack). Buyers evaluate all five.
The Readiness Spectrum
Scoring below 50 means you're early-stage and unprepared to sell. Expect 2-3 year holding period before buyers will seriously engage. 50-75 means you have foundational elements but gaps exist. You might sell but at compressed multiples or with condition adjustments. 75-90 means you're market-ready. Professional buyers will engage quickly. Above 90 means you're investor-ready and can command premium terms.
Prioritizing Readiness Improvements
Don't fix everything. Fix what matters most for your buyer profile. If selling to a strategic buyer, professionalize management and fix customer concentration. If selling to a PE firm, show EBITDA multiples and growth scalability. Focus your improvements on what your likely buyer cares about.
Common Mistakes
Assuming you're ready before you are
Most founders overestimate readiness. If you haven't had professional audits, documented your processes, or diversified your revenue, you're not market-ready. Get real assessment from a broker or banker before approaching buyers.
Trying to fix everything at once
Readiness improvements take time. Prioritize the 3-4 items that will have the highest impact and fix those. You'll never achieve 100% readiness. Aim for 80+ and focused strength in your buyer's priority areas.
Ignoring customer concentration risk
Buyers automatically assume customer concentration will kill a deal. If your top three customers are 60%+ of revenue, fix this before marketing. It's the #1 readiness killer.