How close is your firm to running without you?
Get your Founder Gravity Score - free, in under five minutes.
Every founder-led firm depends on its founder to some degree. The question is how much, and where. The Founder Gravity Score measures the pull across the six areas where founder dependency hides - and names the specific patterns holding you in place, each with a first move you can make this month.
See where the firm still needs you
The exact patterns holding you back
A first move you can make this month
No preparation needed. Your result is instant.
Where founder dependency hides
Founder Load
The decisions, sign-off and clients that route through you. Every one is a day you can't be away.
Team Capacity
Whether anyone can act, manage or cover without you. When they can't, you're the fallback.
Process and Method
Whether the work runs on written method or on your memory. Memory can't be handed over.
System Leverage
Whether your systems carry the load, or you do it by hand. Manual work quietly becomes your job.
Strategic Risk
What breaks if you're away for two weeks, or three months. This is the part buyers price hardest.
Commercial Model
Whether revenue, pricing and overflow depend on you. Sell more and the pull only grows.
Who it's for
Built for founder-led professional-services firms - and the people who can't yet step out of them.
You run a firm of around 5 to 50 people. Professional services - a practice, an agency, a consultancy - founder or partner-led, in the UK or Ireland. Big enough that a team depends on you, established enough that it's worth fixing properly.
It works, but it works because of you. The business is successful. That's not the problem. The problem is that the success is yours to carry - the decisions, the key clients, the difficult calls all route back to your desk, and a proper holiday proves it.
You want to get ahead of it, not just out of it. Maybe you know you need to hire, but not into the chaos as it stands. Maybe you're years from selling but know the business is worth more when it can run without you. Founder dependency is very fixable - and the earlier you start, the easier it goes.
How it works
1. Answer 23 short questions
Honestly, as things actually are. Under five minutes, no preparation.
2. Get your Founder Gravity Score
Your number, your tier, an instant six-domain breakdown.
3. See your strongest patterns
Each one named, each with a first move you can make this month.
Who's behind it
Most founders tell me they spend the week firefighting. They're right. But they're doing it wrong.
I'm Diarmid Sloan. I've built and sold three software companies, including a £2.5m exit. I've also served more than twenty years with the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, much of it as a watch commander. Taking command at incidents, often first on scene, with incomplete information, limited resources and competing objectives.
I read the situation first - what happened, what's happening now, what could happen next. Then I plan against it with what I've got, and act, in order. The biggest flames aren't always the ones to tackle first.
Founder dependency is the same kind of problem: recognisable patterns, each with a first move that fits it. The Founder Gravity Score names your patterns and the move each one needs. What it can't tell you is whether any of it holds without you - only somebody else running it can.
