The playbook
How the business runs. Written procedures for the jobs only you know how to do today, with the customers, suppliers and people involved.
Your business runs on what you know. Let's get it written down.
Transfer Ready turns short phone calls with you into a written playbook of how your business works and how it performs, so the next person can run it, whether that's a manager, your family or a buyer.
For owners of businesses with 2 to 50 employees. We're starting with a small group of North Carolina owners.
When everything runs through you, the business is worth less
Most small businesses keep their most valuable knowledge in one place: the owner's head. How jobs get priced, which customers need special handling, what the supplier terms are, what to do when the main machine breaks. Little of it is written down, because there has never been time.
That works until you want a week off, a successor or a sale. Buyers and lenders pay less for a business that depends on its owner, and undocumented processes make it harder to sell at all.
What owners and buyers told us
We interviewed business owners and a buyer in North Carolina before building anything.
2 to 3 times more
What a buyer of an IT services company said he would pay if the processes were written down. Today he is paying about one year of the owner's earnings, because everything sits with the owner.
4.0x vs 7.5x
Median sale price as a multiple of EBITDA for owner-run manufacturers compared with professionally managed ones, across about 4,700 sales.
“Our orders would not go out if I took vacation.”
Owner of a food products company
Everything is in the handbook. He is leaving for ten days and gets six to eight requests a year to value his company.
Owner of a cleaning company with documented processes
Multiples: Stratford Analytics, “The Working-Owner Discount,” DealStats data 2015 to 2025.
One short call becomes a written procedure
You explain how something gets done, the way you would to a new manager. Transfer Ready writes it up as steps anyone can follow and marks the decisions that still need you.
“When a quote request comes in, I look at the square footage first.”
“Repeat customers get five percent off, but only if they paid on time last year.”
“Jenny keeps the supplier prices. I double-check anything over ten thousand.”
How we quote a job
- Measure the square footage from the request or a site visit.
- Price materials from the current supplier sheet, kept up to date by Jenny.
- Take 5% off for repeat customers who paid on time last year.
- Send quotes over $10,000 to the owner for review.
Needs the owner: only quotes over $10,000
Fifteen minutes at a time, from your phone
You talk. Transfer Ready does the writing, connects your numbers and keeps everything current.
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Pick a time for short calls
Daily or weekly, about 15 minutes, from your iPhone. Each call covers one part of the business, such as quoting, ordering or hiring.
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Explain it the way you would to a new manager
The call is transcribed as you talk. There are no forms to fill in and nothing to type.
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Your playbook takes shape
AI turns each conversation into written procedures, checklists, and lists of customers, suppliers and key contacts, stored as plain files you own.
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Your numbers sit next to the work
Connect your payment data, starting with Stripe, so revenue and margins appear beside the processes that produce them.
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Ask, correct and keep it current
Ask questions in plain English, such as “what do we do when a delivery is late?” Fix anything that's off, and every answer updates the playbook.
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See what it's worth
Follow a readiness score and a value range that rise as more of the business is written down and less of it depends on you.
Three things you can hand to anyone
Your manager, your family, your banker or a buyer can open them without calling you.
The numbers
How it's performing. Revenue, margins and trends from your payment data, shown next to the processes behind them.
The value
What it's worth to a buyer. A readiness score and value range, with the gaps that would lower an offer and what to fix first.
Made for owners planning their next ten years
Transfer Ready is for owners of businesses with 2 to 50 employees who want options: selling to an outside buyer, passing the business to family, selling to employees, or stepping back without everything stopping.
It works alongside your CPA, attorney and banker, and gives them the documentation they will ask for.
Questions owners ask
Do I need to be good with computers?
No. If you can take a phone call, you can use Transfer Ready. We call at the time you pick.
How much of my time does it take?
About 15 minutes per call, daily or weekly, whichever suits you.
Who owns the playbook?
You do. It's a set of plain text files you can download at any time and open in any editor, including Obsidian.
Who can see my information?
Only you and the people you choose to share it with, such as your CPA, a manager or a successor.
Are you a business broker?
No. Transfer Ready doesn't sell businesses or take a commission on a sale. It builds the documentation that brokers, lenders and buyers will ask for.
Start with one conversation
We're starting with a small group of North Carolina owners. Book a 15-minute call to see whether Transfer Ready fits your business.