Exit Readiness Scorecard
A 12-18 month readiness scorecard for technology companies preparing for buyer diligence, investment banking preparation, or PE exit planning.
Founder-CEOs, CFOs, boards, and sponsors preparing a technology company for a sale, capital raise, or valuation event.
Use this before hiring a banker, opening the data room, or telling the board the company is ready for market.
What to inspect before the next operating call
Revenue quality
Buyers pay for revenue they can understand, defend, and carry forward.
ARR/MRR rules
Document definitions, exclusions, expansion treatment, contraction treatment, and reconciliation to financial statements.
Retention
NRR, GRR, logo churn, cohort retention, renewal calendar, and top-account exposure.
Sales motion
Pipeline coverage, win rate, sales cycle, CAC payback, channel concentration, and forecast accuracy.
Contract hygiene
Assignment clauses, pricing terms, cancellation rights, service levels, and customer-specific obligations.
Operating durability
A buyer has to believe the company can run without heroic founder intervention.
Leadership
Executive bench, role clarity, decision rights, succession risk, and key-person dependencies.
Finance
Board pack quality, close cadence, working capital, revenue recognition, deferred revenue, and add-back support.
Delivery
Gross margin by segment, utilization, backlog quality, implementation capacity, and customer success coverage.
Technology
IP assignment, architecture documentation, security posture, release process, cloud cost control, and technical debt.
Diligence readiness
The data room should prove the story before buyers find the gaps.
Data room
Index, ownership, refresh cadence, document quality, version control, and evidence behind each claim.
Valuation narrative
Growth thesis, margin path, moat, customer proof, product roadmap, and value creation plan.
Issue list
Known buyer objections, remediation status, owner map, and clear explanation of unresolved risks.
Process timing
The workback schedule from market launch, management presentation, diligence, LOI, and close.
Turn the resource into operating work
- 01
Score every category
Rate revenue quality, finance hygiene, leadership durability, delivery capacity, technology risk, and data-room readiness.
- 02
Separate blockers from polish
Identify which gaps can kill a process, which affect valuation, and which only improve presentation quality.
- 03
Assign remediation owners
Put one owner, one artifact, one due date, and one board-review cadence behind each gap.
- 04
Build buyer evidence
Turn claims into documents, data exports, retention proof, technical artifacts, and diligence-ready explanations.
- 05
Re-score monthly
Run the scorecard monthly until the company is ready to withstand buyer diligence without narrative drift.
Where this work sits
Transaction Advisory Services
Operator-led buy-side and sell-side diligence for technology middle-market deals. Financial rigor, technical diligence, and integration risk in one workstream.
View serviceValuations
Defensible valuation work for SaaS, services, IP, ARR/MRR, cap tables, and exit readiness in technology middle-market transactions.
View serviceOffice of the CFO
ARR waterfalls, board reporting, FP&A, unit economics, forecast accuracy, and finance infrastructure for technology companies scaling or preparing for exit.
View serviceInvestment Banking
Sell-side readiness, capital raise preparation, data-room cleanup, and operating narrative for technology companies preparing for buyers or investors.
View serviceAsset Deal vs. Stock Deal: Technology M&A Decision Guide
A board-level decision guide for choosing asset deal, stock deal, or hybrid structure in technology middle-market acquisitions.
Open guideTransaction Advisory Services vs. Investment Banker: M&A Readiness Decision Guide
A decision guide for choosing transaction advisory, investment banking, or integrated sell-side readiness support before a technology middle-market M&A process.
Open guideCommon questions
How far ahead of a sale should exit readiness start?
Twelve to eighteen months is ideal. That gives enough time to fix reporting, customer concentration, founder dependency, technical debt, IP documentation, and data-room gaps.
Is this a replacement for an investment bank?
No. It prepares the company before and alongside the banker-led process. The banker owns market execution; the scorecard hardens the operating story.
What is the most common readiness gap?
Founder dependency combined with weak finance infrastructure. Buyers can forgive some polish gaps, but they price control risk when the company cannot prove repeatable operating cadence.