The Founder's Compass

This is a diagnostic of your business across four dimensions: Story, Evidence, Engine and People. Twelve questions, a few minutes, and one rule above all others: the instrument only works on true inputs. Answer the version you would give a trusted adviser, not the version you would give a room you were trying to impress.

At the end you get four verdicts and the thing most frameworks never produce: a single named priority, your Next Move.

Two rules apply throughout. When your honest answer sits between two levels, take the lower one. And a Critical reading in one dimension does not average out against strength in the others.

100

The First Hundred

The first hundred founders to complete the diagnostic can request a full written assessment, by human eyes rather than an instrument. Free. Details at the end.

Your Verdicts

Read the four verdicts as a pattern, not as four separate scores.

An instrument produced these verdicts. For the first hundred founders, a person writes the full assessment. Free. Details below.

Now write your Next Move in one sentence.

It needs three things to function as a decision rather than another item on a list: the specific action, not a category of work; a timeframe, this week, this month or this quarter; and the reason it comes first.

Then answer the harder question underneath it: what has this been costing you, every week you have not acted on it?

Copies your four verdicts and Next Move as plain text, to keep or to share with a co-founder.

Free. One hundred founders. Then it closes.

The First Hundred

What you have just seen is the self-scored version. There is a fuller one.

The Compass has been refined over years, in advisory rooms and in due diligence, by people who have founded, scaled and exited businesses of their own. Before the book behind it is published, it is being road tested properly: one hundred founders, each receiving a personal written assessment within 24 hours of submitting. Not a template and not a machine's report. Your written answers are read alongside your scores above, and you receive the four verdicts as we see them and the one move we would make first.

It is free while the hundred last. One thing is asked in return: answer the four questions below honestly. The instrument only works on true inputs.

Before you write: anonymise. Do not name your company, your clients or your people. Describe the position, not the identities: "our largest client is forty percent of revenue", not who that client is. The assessment needs the shape of the situation, never the names.

Your first name Your email Your assessment will be sent here. It goes on no list without your say so. Your business, in one sentence Story. Which sentence in your story are you least sure would survive a stranger's first hard question, and why? Evidence. What is actually proven in your business, signed, renewed, paid, and what is still assumed? Is there a number you have stopped looking at squarely? Name it. Engine. Walk through how a new customer becomes a paying customer, and tell me what would break first if you doubled revenue in the next six months. People. Who is in the wrong role for this stage, and what is the conversation you have been putting off?

You may send me occasional Compass material worth reading. Optional, and never more than monthly.

This tool gives the verdicts. The book teaches the instrument.

The Founder's Compass was developed through thirty years of founding, scaling and exiting businesses, and refined in advisory and due diligence work with founder-led companies. The full method, with the case material behind every verdict, is coming as a book.

Until then, the written assessment above is the fullest version of the instrument available. One hundred founders. Free.