Owner Dependency Score
Measure how much your business depends on you and what that dependency could be costing you at sale.
Example scenario—not a forecast or verified benchmark. Enable JavaScript to edit inputs, view charts, save locally and export your analysis.
Example inputs
- Annual SDE or EBITDA
- 600,000
- Multiple a buyer might pay without the owner issue
- 3.5
- I personally close most new sales.
- 4
- Our biggest customers expect to deal with me directly.
- 4
- We generate leads through marketing or a team, not just my personal network.
- 3
- Work gets delivered to standard when I am not involved.
- 3
- Quotes, pricing, or scoping need my review before they go out.
- 4
- A manager other than me runs day-to-day operations.
- 2
- Employees can make routine decisions without asking me.
- 3
- If I took a 4-week vacation with no phone, revenue and quality would hold.
- 2
- Hiring, firing, and spending decisions all come to me.
- 4
- Key supplier, lender, and partner relationships run through someone besides me.
- 2
- Customers would stay if I left the business.
- 3
- Our processes, pricing logic, and know-how are written down.
- 2
- Important passwords, contracts, and files are accessible to others.
- 3
- Much of what makes us good lives only in my head.
- 4
Example results
Owner dependency: 66% (Owner-dependent), worth an estimated $477K valuation discount, with sales & revenue the most owner-reliant area.
- Owner dependency
- 66%
- Estimated valuation discount
- $476,700
- Discount as % of value
- 22.7%
- Effective multiple after discount
- 2.71x
- Value recovered by fixing the two weakest areas
- $168,420
- Independence score
- 34/100
What stands out
Sales & revenue: 67% owner-dependent
Hire or develop a seller who closes without you, and move your top 10 accounts to a named account owner within 6 months.
Delivery & operations: 67% owner-dependent
Promote an operations lead and document how work is scoped, priced, and quality-checked so it no longer needs your sign-off.
Decisions & management: 67% owner-dependent
Write decision rights (who approves what, up to what dollar amount) and run a weekly leadership meeting you do not chair.
The business cannot survive a 4-week owner absence
This is the first test most buyers and lenders apply. It also means illness or burnout is a direct business risk.
About $477K of value at risk (22.7% discount)
Buyers often respond to owner dependency with a lower price, a longer transition, or more of the price in an earnout.
Next actions
- Hire or develop a seller who closes without you, and move your top 10 accounts to a named account owner within 6 months.
- Promote an operations lead and document how work is scoped, priced, and quality-checked so it no longer needs your sign-off.
- Take a planned 2-week absence within 6 months as a test; log every call that reaches you and fix the cause.
Model assumptions & limitations
- Discount curve (0% at full independence, about 15% at 50% dependency, up to 35% at full dependency) is an illustrative rule of thumb, not market data.
- Full value uses your inputs: $600K earnings × 3.5x. Change the multiple to match your own estimate.
- Four questions are reverse-scored; all five areas are weighted equally.
- Recovered value assumes the two weakest areas reach 75/100 independence.