01
Map the dependence
A holistic review shows exactly where the business leans on you and one or two others: which decisions, which relationships, which knowledge. You can't remove what you haven't named.
Q
Common question
I want to sell my business. How do I make it run without me?
Buyers pay for transferability. A business that depends on its founder gets discounted, earn-outed, or passed over, however good the numbers are. The work of removing yourself is unglamorous, it takes months not years, and it's worth more than most growth initiatives.
01
How a buyer sees you
Every question a buyer asks is really one question: what walks out the door with you?
Due diligence will probe whether the customer relationships are yours or the company's, whether the know-how is written down or in your head, and whether the team can make decisions when you're not in the room. If the honest answer is "it all runs through me," the price reflects it. The discount for founder-dependency is usually far larger than founders expect, because the buyer is pricing the risk that the value disappears on handover.
02
The only solution: systems
Make the business provably transferable.
02
Move it into systems
Standards, processes and know-how go into systems the company owns. The manual work gets automated, so the operation doesn't depend on heroes, you, or anyone else.
03
Prove it runs
Delegate decisions, step back progressively, and let the record show the business performing without you in the room. That evidence is what moves the multiplier.
The same review a buyer would run. We assess businesses for acquirers, so we know exactly what diligence looks like. Running it on yourself first means you fix the discounts before anyone prices them. How we work with buyers