DealVet

Free Buyer Readiness Assessment

Would you know the right business from a $200,000 mistake before you wire the money?

Most rocks are just rocks. A few are geodes: plain gray outside, gold crystal inside, and no way to tell from the surface. Businesses for sale work the same way. This free 5-minute assessment scores how ready you are to tell them apart, then shows you exactly where you’d get fooled.

Plain rock, or a fortune in crystal? You can’t tell from the outside. Neither can a first-time buyer reading a listing. That’s the skill this measures.

20 questions · about 5 minutes · free · your report on screen and in your inbox

Built from the frameworks professional buyers, CPAs, and M&A advisors use. Educational only, not financial or legal advice.

The mistake costs six figures. Once.

A first business usually runs $200,000 or more, and for most buyers that’s their savings, home equity, or a retirement account. There’s no refund window. Overpay for padded profit and you don’t lose a fee. You lose the years it took to save the money.

The hard part: the winner and the business that just swallows your cash and never pays you back look identical from the outside. Same broker. Same tidy listing. Same “owner retiring.” What separates them hides in places first-time buyers rarely check:

  • Padded profit. Sellers lift the price with add-backs: expenses “added back” to profit on the claim that you won’t have them. Some are fair. Some are fiction, and since businesses sell at a multiple of profit, every fake dollar costs you two or three.
  • One whale customer. When a single customer is a third of revenue (called customer concentration), your income depends on someone who never agreed to stick around after the sale.
  • A business that is really the owner. If it only runs because the seller works 70-hour weeks and holds every relationship, the revenue tends to leave when the seller does.

Professional buyers check all of this before they pay. This assessment measures whether you would too.

What you’ll get

A personalized readiness report, about three pages, on screen the moment you finish and emailed to you so you keep it. It scores you from 0 to 100 across the six dimensions experienced buyers get right:

  1. Money & Runway. Do you have a down payment, personal runway, and a cash cushion, or would one slow month make you the bank for your own business?
  2. Financial Fluency. Can you read a profit-and-loss statement (P&L) against the tax returns and tell real SDE (Seller’s Discretionary Earnings — the owner’s true annual take) from a padded number?
  3. Deal-Evaluation Instinct. Would you catch the classic deal-killers: customer concentration, owner dependence, three down years dressed up as “retiring”?
  4. Operator Fit. Do your skills and your available time actually match the business you’d be running?
  5. Temperament & Discipline. Can you stay skeptical once you like a deal, and walk away when the numbers say to?
  6. Team & Process. Do you have a CPA, an attorney, and a map of the process (NDA, then the letter of intent or LOI, then due diligence, then close), or are you a lone buyer?

For every dimension, the report gives your score, what it means, the specific mistake you’re set up to make, how to fix it, and a first step you can take this week.

Sample result — not your score

61 / 100

“Mostly ready, with a couple of blind spots.”

An example, scored the way yours will be: one overall number out of 100, six dimensions underneath, and the specific places you’d get fooled.

Where you’re strong

  • Financial Fluency 78% · You can tell real SDE (Seller’s Discretionary Earnings — the owner’s true annual take) from a profit number padded with add-backs.
  • Temperament & Discipline 67% · You stay skeptical until the numbers earn it, and you can walk away.

Where you’re most likely to get burned

  • Money & Runway 33% · Thin reserves. One slow month and you’re paying the business’s loan out of your own savings.
  • Deal-Evaluation Instinct 44% · You’d miss one customer carrying a third of revenue, or an owner the business can’t run without.

Start here: DSCR (debt-service coverage ratio) = the business’s yearly cash flow ÷ your yearly loan payments. You want at least 1.2×. Under that, one slow month makes you the bank.

That’s a condensed preview. The full report runs about three pages: all six dimensions scored, your strengths, the mistakes you’re set up to make, and your next steps in order.

See a full sample report →

The two-minute why

Alex on why smart people buy bad businesses, and what your score actually measures. The video is being recorded; the assessment works today.

Who this is for

Take it if

  • You’re buying your first business, largely with your own savings
  • You’re browsing listings and want to know if you’re actually ready to act on one
  • You have a deal in front of you and a nagging feeling you’re missing something
  • You’d rather find your blind spots now, while they’re free to fix

Skip it if

  • You’ve bought companies before and have a deal team on call
  • An M&A advisor, CPA, and attorney are already working your deal
  • You want a specific business vetted. This scores you, not the deal — that’s what DealLoupe’s Deal Pre-Screen is for

Who built this

Alex Mez holding a cut geode, its gold crystal facing the camera.

Alex Mez has spent more than 30 years in financial markets and runs his own FINRA Registered Broker-Dealer / Licensed Securities Firm. He built this assessment from the frameworks professional buyers, CPAs, and M&A advisors use when they take a small business apart before anyone pays for it.

He is not a CPA or an attorney, and this is not financial or legal advice. Think of it as the checklist the pros carry in their heads, turned into a score, while no deal has your emotions yet.

Fair questions

Is it really free?

Yes. No card, no trial, no upsell in the middle. You get the full report on screen and by email. The assessment introduces you to DealLoupe’s tools; some of those are paid, this isn’t.

How long does it really take?

20 multiple-choice questions. Most people finish in about 5 minutes. No essays, no documents to upload, and you can retake it whenever you want.

How is it scored, and is it accurate?

Every answer carries points across six readiness dimensions, and your overall score is the average of the six, from 0 to 100. It’s a self-assessment, so it’s exactly as honest as your answers. And it scores you, the buyer. It doesn’t evaluate, certify, or guarantee any specific business.

What do I do with my result?

The report ranks your gaps, then gives each one a fix and a concrete first step. Most buyers start with their two lowest dimensions and close them before making offers. You’ll also get a pointer to the free 10 Red Flags guide for the deal-side patterns.

What happens to my email?

You get your report, then the occasional buyer’s tip from Alex. Unsubscribe in one click, any time. We don’t sell or share the list.

Who built this?

Alex Mez, whose background is just above: 30-plus years in the markets, and he runs his own FINRA Registered Broker-Dealer / Licensed Securities Firm. He’s not a CPA or an attorney, and everything here is educational, not financial or legal advice.

Five minutes now, or a six-figure lesson later.

See your score, your blind spots, and your first three moves before you look at another listing.

20 questions · about 5 minutes · free · report on screen and emailed