Assess a Business Before You Waste Weeks Pursuing the Wrong Opportunity
Whether you're assessing your first business purchase or your fiftieth, AcquiLens helps you research the business before you call the owner, and then it guides you through the initial conversation with the seller.
It checks owner dependency, customer concentration, customer reviews, financial trends, and risks from AI and changes in the market sector.
By the end of the initial seller call, you'll be able to decide whether the business deserves more of your time and whether to progress to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), so the seller can share detailed confidential information with you.
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The questions that decide whether the business is worth investigating further; all answered before you sign anything
Before you spend more time reviewing a business, you need answers to some important questions, including:
- Is the business too dependent on the owner, and would buying it mean buying yourself a job?
- Does the business make enough profit to pay you a reasonable income?
- Are its sales and profits growing, stable or declining?
- Does one customer provide too much of its revenue?
- Is AI likely to reshape the sector and enhance or destroy the business?
- What other market trends could threaten the business or industry?
- Do the customer reviews suggest that the business may be in decline?
These questions can separate a promising opportunity from a costly mistake.
AcquiLens helps you check these areas before your initial seller call and updates the business assessment as the seller answers your questions.
This gives you a consistent process to follow, makes important risks less likely to be overlooked, and it provides you with key strength and risk-based information about the business to help you decide whether to proceed, or not.
Green flags
- Trading for more than 10 years
- Sales and profit stable or growing year on year
- Gross profit margin at or above sector norms
- No customer above 10% of sales
- Consistently strong customer reviews
- Day-to-day operations run without the owner
Amber flags
- Trading for 5 to 10 years
- Sales or profit declining, or trend unclear
- Margins below the sector comparison
- A customer between 10% and 25% of sales
- Mixed or ageing customer reviews
- Owner still involved with sales or service/product delivery
Red flags
- Trading for less than 5 years
- Sales or profit fluctuating
- Business has an owner-adjusted loss
- A customer above 25% of sales
- Poor reviews or unresolved customer complaints
- Reason for sale is financial or operational distress
Research the business before you speak to the seller
Before you even speak to the seller, AcquiLens:
Reviews the seller's website
AI reviews the seller’s website to identify what the business actually does, whether the owner appears to be actively working in it, and what the buyer should confirm directly with the seller.
Analyzes customer reviews
The buyer can select any relevant review site and paste in as many reviews as they can find. AI then identifies recurring themes, considers review recency trends, and flags specific reviews worth raising with the seller (for example, a pattern of unresolved service complaints).
Assesses AI and market risk for the sector
Acquilens assesses whether AI technology and other market changes are likely to enhance, have little effect on, or harm the business’s sector. The AI and market assessments are benchmarked to the country in which the business operates, helping you avoid entering a sector that may already be in decline.
Assesses margins, profit and financial trends
AcquiLens compares the business’s gross profit margin with typical levels for its sector. It also shows whether sales, profit and gross profit margin are increasing, stable, decreasing or fluctuating. The app also calculates owner-adjusted profit (SDE), to give a clearer picture of the earnings the business generates. Together, this information helps you understand the business’s financial performance, identify areas of concern and decide what needs further investigation.
Then, as you run the initial seller call, AcquiLens updates live, showing strengths, risks and matters requiring clarification as the conversation unfolds, so you finish the call with a clear next step:
- Proceed to an NDA;
- Ask more questions, or;
- Move on to the next business acquistion.
Ask The Right Questions
Never miss the question that would've killed the deal. A guided seller-call flow covers trading history, sales, margins, customers, people and reason for the sale.
Identify Strengths & Risks
Identify the business's strengths, discover what could cause you problems, and know if it can operate without the current owner, or if you would simply be buying yourself a job.
Fast Next-Step Decisions
One clear decision to make: Do you sign an NDA, ask the seller more questions, or move on to the next deal.
Built for anyone assessing a small business acquisition
Whether you are searching for your first business purchase, looking for your next acquisition or you're regularly reviewing businesses for sale, AcquiLens gives you a consistent way to screen each opportunity.
AcquiLens checks owner dependency, customer concentration, financial trends and seller discretionary earnings (SDE), and whether AI is likely to enhance, have little effect on, or work against the business's sector, so your time goes to the deals worth pursuing, not the ones that were always going to fail on risks you'd only spot a few calls in.
AcquiLens works for any sector and any business size, and is built for buyers in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Sector benchmarks, terminology and currency adjust automatically to the country the business is based in.
Finish Your Initial Seller Call With a Clear Decision
AcquiLens brings the business assessment together into a structured summary of strengths, key risks and incomplete information, so you can decide whether to proceed to an NDA, seek further clarification, or stop considering the opportunity before investing any more time or money.