How each question is chosen
Every question is there because research on your industry found that number moves the value of businesses like yours. Each one carries a typical range and a badge saying how much it matters.
From research to a question
Nobody wrote these questions from a template. Each one exists because research on your industry found that number moves the value of businesses like yours.
- ResearchThe industry dossier studies how businesses in this code really make money and what normal looks like.
- The inputsIt names the operating numbers that feed each input of the valuation, and how much each one matters.
- The questionEach number becomes one plain question, with a hint saying where the answer lives.
- The rangeEach question carries the typical range for your kind of business, so your answer has something to be measured against.
The dossier keeps a reverse index: start from a number you run the business on, and it tells you which part of the valuation it lands in, which way it pushes, and how hard. The questionnaire is generated from that index, so a question can’t exist without a reason.
Anatomy of a question
- The question, in plain words, with the formal label underneath.
- The badge: one to three ▲ for how much the answer matters.
- The box for your answer, with its unit.
- The tag saying whose number it is: yours, an inference to confirm, or the industry median.
- “Moves your value by”: how far this one answer can swing the value.
- “Where to find this”: the report, ledger account or billing screen that holds it.
Why some questions get three triangles
How to read it. The badge comes from the industry research: first-order inputs change the value directly and a lot; second-order ones matter at the margin. The badges also weight the progress bars and the share of the value resting on your numbers.
A three-triangle question deserves a document. A one-triangle question can take your best estimate.
Every answer meets a typical range
| Question | Low quartile | Median | High quartile | The sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly charge per seat | $14 | $22 | $32 | $24.90 |
| EBITDA, % of revenue | 8% | 16% | 25% | 16.9% |
| Capital spending, % of revenue | 0.5% | 1.5% | 3.5% | 1.5% |
| Months of revenue under contract | 0 | 6 | 12 | 7 |
| Largest customer, % of revenue | 2% | 5% | 12% | 7.9% |
| Service gross margin | 58% | 68% | 76% | 62% |
Typical ranges for an own-platform hosted-voice provider, from the industry dossier. The quartiles are the middle half of comparable businesses.
Skip a question and the studio uses the median for your type, marks it as an assumption, and lets it swing across the whole typical range when it tests the value. That’s why answering narrows the range.
Ranges are set per business type, not per code: a reseller’s gross margin band (42–58%) is a different population from an own-platform provider’s (58–76%). Averaging the two would describe no real business.
- Where the bands live. Each input stores its low quartile, median and high quartile per business type, from the dossier’s benchmark tables.
- Ratio bands. Some bands are a share of another input (EBITDA as a share of revenue), so the range scales with your size.
- Questions that don’t price. A few questions feed the plan or the diagnosis rather than the value; their card shows a $0 effect on value. See “Moves your value by”.
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