The score is arithmetic, not opinion. No model writes it, no adviser adjusts it afterward, and the same thirteen answers always produce the same number. Everything needed to reproduce it is on this page.
Owner dependence is not one thing. A company can have written procedures and still stop dead when the owner is unreachable, because every customer of consequence calls him directly. So the score is built from four separate measurements, weighted.
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| Weight | Questions | What it measures | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decisions | 30% | 4 | Who is allowed to decide, and how much they can decide without you. |
| Relationships | 25% | 3 | Whether your customers and suppliers belong to the company or to you. |
| Process | 25% | 3 | Whether the way the work gets done exists anywhere outside your head. |
| Continuity and reporting | 20% | 3 | Whether you would see a problem in time, and what happens when you are not there. |
The weighting is our judgement about what actually holds a $3M–$20M company hostage to one person. Decisions carry the most because an unraised spending limit taxes every single day. Continuity and reporting carries the least because it is the cheapest of the four to fix once an owner decides to.
These are the questions exactly as an owner is asked them, in the order they are asked. Answers always run best to worst: the first choice scores 3 points, the second 2, the third 1, and the fourth 0.
Each answer scores 3, 2, 1 or 0 points. Each dimension is then scored on its own — the points earned across its questions, divided by the points available. The points available are: Decisions 12, Relationships 9, Process 9, Continuity and reporting 9.
The overall score is the weighted sum of those four figures, expressed out of 100. It is rounded exactly once, at the end. Nothing is rounded before that, so a dimension displayed as 65 may carry slightly more or slightly less than 65 into the total.
A worked example. An owner scores 6 of 12 on decisions, 3 of 9 on relationships, 6 of 9 on process and 5 of 9 on continuity and reporting. That is 0.500, 0.333, 0.667 and 0.556. Weighted at 30, 25, 25 and 20 percent, that comes to 0.511, and the overall score is 51 — the Owner-Dependent band.
Cut-points are inclusive and apply to the rounded overall score. The same cut-points are used to band each individual dimension.
0–39
The owner is the operation. Decisions, pricing, customer relationships and reporting all run through one person, and a month of absence would stop the revenue.
40–64
The business survives a short absence but not a long one. A management layer exists in title, and the decisions that carry money still return to the owner.
65–84
The team runs the work day to day and the owner sets direction. What remains attached to the owner is usually pricing judgment, the largest accounts, or the plan for an absence nobody chose.
85–100
The company runs on written rules, a management layer with real authority, and relationships held in the company's name. The owner's absence changes the mood, not the numbers.
Why it matters
The Value Builder System puts a company that does not depend on its owner at 4.49x pre-tax profit, against 2.93x for one that does. That is roughly 50% more for the same earnings.
The Owner Dependence Score does not estimate what a company is worth. It measures the thing that moves the multiple, which is a more useful question for an owner who is not selling anything this year.
The spread
Figures published by The Value Builder System. Rusk & Co. maintains a register of every statistic it publishes, and any figure without a primary source does not ship.
2.93x
4.49x
Owner-Dependent
Owner-Independent
It is a self-assessment. It measures what an owner believes is true about the company, which is usually close and occasionally not. The gap between the two is itself informative, and it is one of the first things we look at together.
It is not a valuation, and it is not a readiness certificate for anything. It does not read your financials, and it makes no claim about your industry, your market or your people.
The cut-points are ours. They are a considered judgement about where a company stops being one kind of business and starts being another. If we change them we will publish the change on this page and say why, rather than quietly re-band anyone who has already been told which one they are.
Rusk & Co. is a Houston firm that works inside established Texas businesses — $3M to $20M in revenue, across mechanical contracting, manufacturing, distribution, trucking, professional services, and medical and dental practices. We built the Owner Dependence Score because some version of question one is the first thing we ask a new owner, and it was worth having the answer written down before the first meeting instead of after it.
Take the assessment — thirteen questions, about six minutes →
Chris or Kourosh reads every completed assessment.