For founder-led businesses

Build it like you're going to sell it. Even if you never do.

PeakRatio measures how much of the business still runs through you, then closes the gap. Worth more, and you're not trapped running it.

Whatever's next
Improve it, step back from it, or sell it. All three come off the same number.
The measure

Every owner-led business has a ratio. Most have never measured theirs.

What the business produces, against how much of you it consumes. That one number decides whether you can step back, borrow well, scale, or sell. We read it across eight areas, from your documents rather than your own answers, and score each one against the same standard. What you do next follows from the number.

01
Where you stand

The read

Fixed fee · fixed scope · agreed on the call

A structured read across the eight areas that decide what your business is worth and how much it leans on you. You get your score, what is dragging it, and the moves that shift it most, in the order to do them. If it does not tell you something you did not already know, you do not pay for it. See exactly what that buys, and what it can’t tell you →

The eight areas assessed
The Numbers & Margins Pricing & Charging Sales & Pipeline Customers Operations & Delivery People & Decisions Systems, Data & KPIs The Owner & Risk
Each one scored against the same scale
Reactive Stability Systematic Excellence

Most owner-led businesses start at Reactive or Stability in five or more of the eight. That is the normal starting point, and it is the opportunity.

Book the 15-minute call How the read works →
02
What changes

The work

Scoped from your plan

We work the plan with you, in the order the read ranked it. The numbers start telling the truth early enough to act on, and the business begins to run when you're not in the room.

The ways we fix it
Fractional COO Operational Excellence Commercial Management Business Systemisation Strategy Facilitation AI & Automation M&A Integration
Where the diagnostic leads →
03
What you keep

The result

When you're ready

It runs without you. The risk is out before a buyer ever looks, or you simply step back and let it turn. Light-touch advisory to keep it there.

Includes
Exit-Readiness Review Ongoing advisory
Step back, or sell →
The read The work The result
Proof it works

The same work, already done.

Real engagements, result first. Each one maps to a stage.

The read → The work
Loss → ~£100k profit
A blind acquisition, turned round

The owner bought without diligence. We did it, fixed the operation, and reached roughly £100k profit in about five months.

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Integration · The result
~£25k of checking, ~5× faster
Hiring AI as a new starter

Hundreds of post-deal procedures still named the old systems. AI flagged every stale one and its owner in a fifth of the time. People kept the decisions.

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Run without you
A system that runs without its makers
The change process that ran itself

A fragile process living in two spreadsheets, rebuilt into one controlled system that now runs high-value change independently of the people who built it.

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The read
The honest answer was to close
Everything to save it, then the truth

A specialist oil-and-gas fabrication business the market had moved past. We overhauled how it bid and rebuilt relationships, then told the owner to stop investing.

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Integration · The work
Two businesses, finally one
Year one after the acquisition

A year on from the deal, two businesses were still running as two. Decisions nobody owned, changes never finished, and the operational work that closes the gap.

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The read · The work
One honest read of the position
When every change hides the truth

Every change spawned a new cost centre until nobody could see the real position. We simplified the structure and installed a reporting rhythm.

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The read
Reframed in under four weeks
The read nobody had done

Months of senior effort had stalled on an initiative nobody could explain. Reading the document nobody had read surfaced the real question.

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The work · Systems
Why the software got shelved
Don't automate a broken foundation

An expensive analytics system was delivered on time and still got shelved, because the data underneath it was run by hand. Fix the foundation first.

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Why me

Built by an integrator, not a consultant.

BV
Brian Valentine · Founder

I connect the front and back of the house.

Fifteen years across subsea engineering and £100m+ systems design, plus post-acquisition integration and buyer-side experience. I've sat where the funders sit, so I know what they actually look for, and I build the business to stand up to it.

Find your starting point

Not sure where you are? Two taps.

What's weighing on the business right now?

Recommended

See it →

Looking at buying a business rather than fixing your own? I run the same read on a company you are considering, in three grades. Checking a business before you buy it →

Ready when you are.
Fifteen minutes. Tell me what's heavy about running the business right now and I'll tell you honestly whether the diagnostic would help. If it wouldn't, I'll say so.
Fixed fee, fixed scope. See exactly what that buys, and what it can't tell you →