Free. About 5 minutes. No call.
What the Founder Bottleneck Score measures
The Founder Bottleneck Score is a free 20 question diagnostic that scores five areas from 0 to 100. You get your score, your extraction stage, and the single area most worth fixing first.
Free. No account required.
Five areas. One number.
The map draws five squares around a founder square at the center: sales, delivery, operations, systems and team. One line runs from each area back to the founder, and the weight of the line is how much that area waits on a founder decision before it can move. The score puts a number from 0 to 100 on each of those five lines. The weights drawn here are an illustration, not a benchmark.
Five areas
The five areas
Five areas, each scored 0 to 100 from four questions: Sales, Delivery, Operations, Systems Maturity, and Team Readiness.
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Your result
Score + Stage + Constraint
The report names a binding constraint when one of the five areas is below 60. When nothing is below 60, it names your weakest area and says nothing is binding.
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Sales
How much of the sales process depends on the founder's relationships, reputation, and personal close?
- Are deals stalling when you're out of the office?
- Does the team close at your rate without you on the call?
- Could a new salesperson sell from what's written down?
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Delivery
How much of the delivery quality depends on the founder's personal judgment and oversight?
- Does quality drop when you aren't reviewing the work?
- Are clients escalating past your team to reach you?
- Does the team know what good looks like without your input?
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Operations
How much of the business's daily operation routes through the founder's decisions?
- Are approvals queuing up when you're busy?
- Does the team know how to resolve recurring issues without you?
- Can the business run for one week without a founder decision?
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Systems Maturity
How much of the business's operating knowledge is documented versus living in the founder's head?
- Is your process written down well enough that a new hire could follow it without asking you?
- When someone needs to know how work gets done, do they look it up or ask a person?
- Does a person have to carry work from one tool to the next?
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Team Readiness
How capable is the team of holding the business's output and client relationships without the founder?
- When someone makes a call you'd have made differently, does it stand?
- Do clients trust your team to resolve issues?
- Is there a person on your team who could run the business for a month?
Reference
The five areas and the four stages
The same five, written out at length: how to stop being the bottleneck in your business, and what a business that runs without you actually is.
| Area | What it measures | The check |
|---|---|---|
| Sales | How much of the sales process depends on the founder's relationships, reputation, and personal close. | Could a new salesperson sell from what's written down? |
| Delivery | How much of the delivery quality depends on the founder's personal judgment and oversight. | Does the team know what good looks like without your input? |
| Operations | How much of the business's daily operation routes through the founder's decisions. | Can the business run for one week without a founder decision? |
| Systems Maturity | How much of the business's operating knowledge is documented versus living in the founder's head. | When someone needs to know how work gets done, do they look it up or ask a person? |
| Team Readiness | How capable the team is of holding the business's output and client relationships without the founder. | Is there a person on your team who could run the business for a month? |
| Stage | Score band | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Stage 0 · Trapped | 0 to 39 | You're the business. Nearly every critical function, sales, delivery, decisions, quality, routes through you personally. Hiring won't fix it. The dependency is structural, and it caps what the company can become until the architecture changes. |
| Stage 1 · Delegated | 40 to 59 | You've moved the tasks but kept the judgment. The team executes and the small things flow, but most decisions with weight still climb back to you. Without changing the architecture, the same ceiling holds, and the version of you that meets it is busier. |
| Stage 2 · Systemized | 60 to 79 | Real structure is holding. Routine work runs on process rather than on you, and the business can take you being away. What's left is the judgment and the edge cases that still route upward. This is the hardest and most valuable stretch to finish. |
| Stage 3 · Transferred | 80 to 100 | The business runs without you in the middle. Day to day the work moves and the calls get made without routing through you. You're additive to the company, not essential to its day. The constraint now is what you choose to build next. |
Sample results
What the score looks like
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Stage 0 · Trapped
Founder Bottleneck Score Binding constraint: Operations
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Sales 25/100
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Delivery 42/100
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OperationsBottleneck 17/100
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Systems Maturity 42/100
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Team Readiness 42/100
Your next move
Your binding constraint: Operations, at 17. Pick the decision that waits on you most often and set an explicit limit the team can act within: a dollar figure, a scope, a rule. Below the line, they decide without asking. Start with one. Taking Operations from 17 to 67, the first score above the Systemized floor, moves your overall from 34 to 44. That's arithmetic on the 20 answers you already gave, not a forecast.
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Stage 3 · Transferred
Founder Bottleneck Score Weakest area: Team Readiness
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Sales 92/100
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Delivery 92/100
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Operations 83/100
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Systems Maturity 75/100
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Team Readiness 67/100
Where to press next
Nothing is binding. Your lowest area: Team Readiness, at 67. Name the one person closest to running it and give them a real test: a week where you're genuinely unreachable. What breaks is your next development plan for them.
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How it works
Three steps from first question to report.
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Answer 20 questions
20 questions across the five areas, written for founders of $1M to $5M B2B service companies.
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Get your score instantly
Your report is generated in your browser from your answers. Give a first name at the start and your email at the end, and it opens. No call required. After question 20 there are three short questions in your own words. Jordan reads those himself, they shape the notes that follow, and answering them is what sends you the four one-page worksheets.
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See your first move
Your extraction stage, the single constraint most worth fixing first, and the first move to make on it.
Questions
What founders ask before they take it
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What's the Founder Bottleneck Score?
It's a free diagnostic that measures how much of your business still depends on you. 20 questions score five areas from 0 to 100: Sales, Delivery, Operations, Systems Maturity, and Team Readiness. The overall score is the mean of the five, and it places you in one of four extraction stages.
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How long does it take?
About 5 minutes. 20 multiple choice questions, four in each of the five areas, and nothing to look up or prepare. Your answers are scored in your browser as you go, so the report is ready the moment you finish the last one.
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What do I get?
A score out of 100, a score for each of the five areas, your extraction stage, and your binding constraint: the one area below 60 that is holding the rest down. The report names the first move to make on it. Answer the three open questions at the end and four one page worksheets come with it.
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Is it free?
Yes. No payment step, no account, and no call required to see your result. You give a first name before the first question and a work email at the end, and the report opens. An engagement is priced separately, as a single project fee scoped after the diagnostic.
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Who is it for?
Founders of $1M to $5M B2B service businesses: consultancies, agencies, advisory practices, and other founder-led service companies. The questions assume you have a team to hand judgment to and not much system holding it. Earlier or much larger, the score still runs, but the reading is less useful.
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What happens after I get my score?
The report stays open, and a copy is emailed to you so you can find it again. Jordan reads the three open questions himself and the notes that follow are shaped by what you wrote. If the score points at an engagement, what follows is the D.E.B.T. methodology, run over 16 weeks. If it doesn't, the report is still yours to act on.
Free. No account.
Find out which stage you're in
20 questions, and the report names your binding constraint and the first move to make on it.