It means the business still needs you personally to function at a high level — approving pricing, resolving escalations, making the calls only you can make. It's the difference between a business you own and a job you can't leave. The score measures how much of your day-to-day is genuinely irreplaceable versus how much could run through a system or a team member instead.

No — if anything, it's a sign you built something worth being needed for. Almost every successful owner starts highly dependent, because in the early years, being the one who handles everything is exactly how the business survives. A high score just means it's time for the next stage: building the systems that let the business keep that same quality without you personally touching every decision.

You answer 16 questions across 8 areas of the business — sales, pricing, scheduling, customer escalations, hiring, financial visibility, vendor relationships, and documented systems. Each area is weighted based on how much it typically affects profit and business value, then combined into one overall percentage and a breakdown showing exactly where the dependency is highest.

Generally, anything under 25% suggests the business could largely run without you for a real stretch of time. Most established owners land somewhere in the Moderate to High range — the goal isn't necessarily zero dependency, it's getting low enough that the business can grow, be sold, or survive your absence without everything slowing down.

It depends on how deep the dependency runs, but meaningful, visible progress is usually possible within 90 days on the highest-priority category alone — the goal isn't overhauling everything at once, it's fixing the single biggest dependency first, since that tends to make every other one easier to address.