Our formulas are public.
Our evidence is earned.

We publish the box, in full: every formula, every anchor, every cap, here for you to check. What we keep is the thing no one can copy overnight: the discipline of where every number comes from, and a calibration ledger that only reality can write. Check our arithmetic; that is what it is for.

The equation

Revenue times margin is EBITDA, so the multiple is an EBITDA multiple and the equation is arithmetic, not metaphor. The model's whole job is to compute the margin and the multiple from observable structure, and to refuse to move for anything else.

The fourteen dimensions, three models

The diagnostic scores fourteen dimensions on behaviourally anchored 1–5 scales, grouped into three models: WHY (business model: segments, pricing, revenue mix, unit economics, customer experience), HOW (operating model: capability, efficiency, sourcing, governance), WHAT (technology model: product, data velocity, architecture, AI, security and resilience). The readiness index weighs them:

The caps are the model's causal spine: execution cannot outrun strategy. A platform resting on an undesigned business model is capped, and the diagnostic says so out loud.

The anchors do not stand alone: the WHY questions are read through the four value-creation lenses of the business-model literature, novelty, lock-in, complementarities, efficiency (Amit & Zott), the segments question through jobs-to-be-done, and the architecture question through the integration-versus-modularity rule (Christensen). We cite the research our anchors rest on, so you can trace every one to its source.

The multiple

The base interpolates between a services anchor (≈6× EBITDA) and a software anchor (≈18×) on the recurring-revenue share; the quality factor scales it by readiness. The anchors are a stated model, published in full: marked ASSUMPTION until the calibration ledger graduates them.

The multiple, by sector

The 6× to 18× band is not pulled from the air. It is where the market clears, sector by sector. The band is set by what a company makes; its place within the band is set by revenue quality, the exact variable Engine 2 moves.

Third-party comparables, 2025 to 2026, cited as published (Aventis Advisors, DealMatrix, Windsor Drake, market M&A references). Recurring revenue carries a premium above 60% over one-off work for the same EBITDA; that premium is what the model reads as your recurring share. The bands are context for the anchors, marked ASSUMPTION until the ledger graduates them, never an appraisal of your company.

The margin

The first bracket is the frontier benchmark for the revenue mix; the second is the share of that frontier the operating model actually collects, driven by the capped HOW score.

Provenance: five marks, no exceptions

Every figure the machine prints carries one of five marks: LAW LAW+ MARKET ASSUMPTION SIMULATION. Law is cited to the rule and dated. Market is benchmarked to third-party data. An assumption says so, and moves the moment you supply the real number. A simulation is a what-if on your own declared scores, computed by the same engine, and never becomes a headline.

The calibration protocol

The anchors change only through a pre-registered ledger: each engagement records the baseline scores, the scenario chosen and the model's prediction at entry, before any outcome is known; it closes once, with realised numbers and evidence. At five closed engagements the anchors are refit, by a human, in a versioned commit; an automated test fails if an anchor ever moves without its ledger entry. Our test chain runs more than ninety invariants on every change, including: raising a readiness score can never lower a lawful euro, and eligibility belongs to the granting bodies alone, never to the model.

The industry around the model: five forces, priced

Generations of managers were trained inside Porter’s five forces: analyse the industry, position better, defend the margin. The St. Gallen school’s answer, which we share, is that the forces describe the box, not the way out — competition happens between business models, not products. So the kernel uses both, in order. First the forces are read as industry gravity: each pressure names the dimensions it taxes. Buyer power taxes pricing and segments. Supplier power taxes sourcing and unit economics. Rivalry taxes pricing power and customer experience. Low entry walls tax product, IP and architecture. Substitutes tax product and AI leverage. High gravity is margin the industry collects from you every year — Engine 1 reads it directly.

Then the model prices the escape: pattern confrontation — testing your model against the published pattern library — and the ERRC discipline draw the move that changes the game instead of fighting it, and Engine 2 prices what the changed structure is worth. The forces tell you what staying costs; the kernel tells you what leaving earns. Both numbers carry their marks.

Beneath both sits the St. Gallen magic triangle — Who do you serve, What do you offer, How do you produce it, and how does the model earn (Value). Every one of the fourteen dimensions belongs to a corner, and the engine applies the school’s own test: a program that changes two or more corners is business-model innovation and can defend a re-rate; a program that changes one is an improvement, and Engine 1 counts it honestly without inflating the multiple.

From stated to estimated: the mathematics

The engine speaks three registers, and every number tells you which one it is in:

• STATED — the kernel formulas above: published, deterministic, checkable by hand. Alpha only, by construction: the model moves structure, never markets.
• MARKET — empirical priors: sector median EV/EBITDA per industry (source: Damodaran, NYU Stern, dated on every screen). The structure premium is the difference: Δ = multiple_computed − median_sector — what your design earns beyond (or below) where your sector simply trades.
• EARNED — the calibration ledger: predictions registered before outcomes, closed once with evidence; anchors refit only through it.

Already running on these mathematics: the PE lens (a scenario’s value on a four-year hold, (EV₁/EV₀)^¼−1, in IRR points, SIMULATION); the dilution mirror (lawful capture ÷ last post-money = equity not sold); evidence-weighted readiness (the index carries an interval that narrows as answers gain evidence); the decay clock (scores are dated; un-rescored numbers widen and expire); All-Weather revenue balance (each revenue line tagged by growth/inflation environment, coverage scored across the four quadrants — risk parity applied inside an operating company).

The roadmap, in partnership with academic groups (system dynamics for operating models, causal estimation for the fourteen, real options for staged programs, sequential decision models over business-model patterns): v2 replaces one public dataset with estimated cells per industry × geography × size; v3 simulates. The marks never change: stated, MARKET, SIMULATION, and only the ledger graduates anything to earned.

What we do not do

• No fabricated case numbers, ever. Our proof line stays empty until a mandate reconciles.
• No revenue forecasting: the model moves structure, not sales.
• No score inference from documents: scores are declared and dated, by named seats, and disagreement between seats is reported as a finding, not averaged away silently.
• No macro assumptions: no interest rates, no market sizing, no narrative multiples.

The anonymous benchmark opens at twenty companies: sector and size band only, nothing else stored. Add yours from the diagnostic.