Scout Score & Matching
Which four of these forty are worth an hour?
Your feed shows only the listings that fit your buy box. Each one gets a Scout Score, so you can see which are worth your time.
Viable
Scout Score, out of 100
- Deal economics8.1/10
- Financial quality3.6/10
- Risk profile7.4/10
01 — Two questions
Is it a good business? Is it right for you?
These come apart constantly. A superb business outside your budget is still not your deal. A mediocre one that fits your profile perfectly is still mediocre. So we answer them separately.
74
Scout Score — the business
Deal quality on its own terms, 0–100. Deterministic: the same inputs always produce the same score, and it moves only when the deal does.
4 of 4
Your buy box — the fit
Your feed shows only listings that meet every criterion you set: industry, budget, geography, business type. Near misses are shown separately.
02 — What goes into the score
Four categories, each out of ten.
- Deal economicsThe SDE multiple against sector benchmarks, debt-service coverage, and how long the deal takes to pay itself back.
- Financial qualityRevenue trend, gross margin, and how hard the add-backs are working. The same ground a quality-of-earnings review covers.
- Risk profileCustomer concentration, how much revenue actually recurs, and how much of the business walks out with the current owner.
- Deal structureWhether the seller will carry a note, what the lease looks like, and whether the business clears the SBA bar.
03 — When something can't be scored
A missing number is missing — not a zero.
Listings are uneven. Plenty never mention add-backs, or the lease, or customer concentration. Scoring those as zero would punish a good business for a thin listing. It would quietly rank the best-written listings above the best businesses.
So a category is earned ÷ assessable. A factor we couldn't assess is removed from the denominator, not counted against the deal. If the add-backs weren't disclosed, Financial quality is scored out of what remained. The Deal Room then says the factor wasn't assessed, rather than pretending it failed.
It also means a score built on very little says so. The way to move it is not to argue with it. Get the documents and verify the earnings, at which point the score is recomputed on numbers that were checked.
04 — Matching
Your results meet every criterion you set.
A listing only reaches your results if it meets your whole buy box. Listings that come close are shown below them, with how close they are and what they miss. A listing that doesn't state a figure you require isn't counted as meeting it.
Close to your buy box
75%- IndustryHVAC & Plumbing
- Budget$1.15M
- LocationGreenville, SC
- EmployeesNot stated
The employee count isn't stated, so we can't confirm it fits. The listing shows under your results as a close match, not in them.
05 — Try it without an account
Score a deal you're already looking at.
The free Deal Analyzer runs the same scoring engine on figures you type in — no login, no card. It's the quickest way to see whether the score agrees with your own read.
Stop reading forty listings to find four.
Set a buyer profile and let everything arrive scored.
Start freeNo credit card to sign up.