A scale-up CEO needs to be able to answer five questions before adding cost, headcount, or partner programmes on top of the business. This diagnostic surfaces where you actually are.
Fifteen honest statements across five foundations. Rate each one. The output is a traffic-light score per foundation and a one-paragraph read of what to do next. No email capture. No download. Just an honest mirror.
Rate each statement 1 (not at all true) to 5 (fully true, audit-grade)
Commercial—
GTM—
Deployment—
Quality—
Organisation—
// 01 · Commercial model
What the customer is paying for, and why.
Pricing, packaging, and the value story. If you cannot say in one sentence what the customer is paying for, you cannot scale a sales motion against it.
We can explain in one sentence what the customer is paying for and why they should care.
Pricing and packaging fits how customers actually buy. Units, seats, or usage match the value being created.
We can defend our price point against the next-most-credible alternative with data, not opinion.
—/ 5
Not yet rated
Rate the three statements above to see an operator's read.
// 02 · Go-to-market
Who you sell to, and how you actually win.
Segmentation, motion, and win/loss honesty. Most scale-ups try to sell to everyone and call it a strategy.
We know which customer segments win for us and which we should not be selling into right now.
Our average sales cycle and win rate by segment sit in a dashboard somebody owns.
For every closed-lost in the last quarter we can name the reason and the lesson.
—/ 5
Not yet rated
Rate the three statements above to see an operator's read.
// 03 · Deployment
How a new customer gets to value.
Implementation, time-to-value, and the dependence on heroics. A deployment motion that needs the founder in the room does not scale.
A new customer reaches productive use in a defined, repeatable time-to-value that we publish to prospects.
Implementation does not require the founder, the CTO, or the single best engineer to be in the room.
Deployment risks are scored, owned, and reviewed before contract signature, not after.
—/ 5
Not yet rated
Rate the three statements above to see an operator's read.
// 04 · Quality and supportability
How the business holds together after the sale.
Support, retention, expansion, and the quality of revenue you actually book. Scale-ups that ignore this discover it in renewal season.
Customer issues have a routing map from first touch to engineering with named owners at each step.
We measure quality of revenue (retention, expansion, NPS, escalations) not just headline ARR.
A new support hire reaches competence in weeks, not quarters, because the playbook exists and is current.
—/ 5
Not yet rated
Rate the three statements above to see an operator's read.
// 05 · Organisation
The people running the business.
Ownership, decisions, and operating maturity. The other four foundations fail if the organisation cannot run them.
Every box on the operating model has one named owner who can explain how the box runs.
We can describe how the business actually works on one page, and it matches reality.
Decisions about where to invest the next pound come from data, not from the loudest voice in the room.
—/ 5
Not yet rated
Rate the three statements above to see an operator's read.
// Overall scale readiness
An operator's read
—/ 5
Complete all 15 statements to see the overall reading.
// Take it with you
Whitepaper and Claude prompt
Two artefacts to run this with your chair, PE operating partner, or board. The whitepaper explains the five foundations and the decision rule. The Claude prompt runs the diagnostic conversationally, marker by marker, and returns a foundation-by-foundation traffic light plus an overall verdict at the end.
A ten-minute self-assessment for chairs, PE operating partners and CEOs testing whether a growth-stage B2B SaaS business is actually ready to scale. It scores fifteen markers across five foundations (Commercial Model, Go-to-Market, Deployment, Retention and Support Discipline, Organisation) on a traffic-light basis. The output is a level, a foundation-by-foundation read and the single foundation to fix next. Free, browser-based, no email captured.
Who is the diagnostic for?
Chairs and CEOs pressure-testing scale-readiness before a raise or a step-change hire. PE operating partners running a portfolio review or a first-hundred-days diagnostic. Boards preparing an exit process. Answer for one operating unit, not the aggregate group.
How long does it take?
About ten minutes if you know the business. Fifteen markers, three per foundation, one traffic-light answer each. No email, no signup, nothing leaves the browser.
What are the five foundations?
Commercial Model (pricing, packaging, defensibility). Go-to-Market (segmentation, sales motion, partner mix). Deployment (implementation cost and time). Retention and Support Discipline (NRR, GRR, support cost per customer). Organisation (leadership team, hiring plan, board rhythm). Each foundation has three markers. Scale-readiness is any single foundation, not the average.
What does traffic-light scoring mean?
Green means the marker is at a scale-ready standard, amber means it works today but will not survive a doubling of revenue, red means the marker will actively block scale. The decision rule is worst-signal-wins per foundation, and any single red foundation caps the verdict, whatever the rest looks like. Scale-readiness is not an average.
Do I need to give an email address?
No. The diagnostic is free and browser-based. There is no signup, no lead form and no gated result. The whitepaper and Claude prompt that accompany the tool are also free and require no email.
What do I do with the result?
Fix the single foundation the diagnostic flags before spending on the others. Then run the diagnostic with your CEO, CRO and CFO independently. The foundations where their score is lower than yours is where the business narrative and the operating reality have diverged.
// GET IN TOUCH
Clarity when it counts.
For a board, advisory or fractional engagement, or a working call on the next stage, email directly. Thirty minutes is usually enough to test fit.