The reason for my recurring love of the institutional readiness topic is that SaaS companies are often overly confident that their perspective on their performance is enough to drive a high valuation. The truth is the opposite. Many SaaS companies aren’t prepared for institutional capital or strategic acquisition. Their lack of institutional readiness will cost them opportunities and value. This interactive institutional readiness tool (below) was developed to help SaaS companies maximize value.

One of my recent institutional readiness articles focused on SaaS due diligence preparedness. Another on the value of process and documentation. And yet another on the strategic and organizational implications of preparing a SaaS to be acquired in the future. And back in April, I wrote about the perils of revenue recognition, which is yet another significant piece in the institutional readiness puzzle.

All of these articles are helpful, but today we’ll try and simplify things by giving you a self-service tool. By spending 10-15 minutes with the tool, you can get a readiness score and personalized recommendations for improving your SaaS. It’s a quick way to hone in on institutional weaknesses.

SaaS Institutional Readiness Tool

When we were acquired, and throughout the process leading up to the transaction, we felt prepared. We had great bankers and attorneys, and we had invested in systems, processes, and documentation that validated the performance of the company. Our internal ops team and preparation put us on solid ground throughout the process. We had a high level of institutional readiness because of intentional and deliberate effort.

Today, as part of our Beacon9 SaaS Advisory, we help SaaS companies grow and shore up their institutional readiness. Sometimes they’re aware of their weaknesses, but more often they’re not. This seems to roughly align with sometimes they think they’re worth a billion dollars, and more often, they’re not. The under-appreciation of institutional readiness often runs alongside the over-appreciation of self-valuation. The irony is that real valuation increases with readiness.

That brings us to the SaaS Institutional Readiness Tool (below). The interactive tool was designed to help SaaS founders, executives, board members, bankers, and investors focus on the high-level concepts of institutional readiness. It’s 19 questions, with an overall score and personalized recommendations based on your answers. Using our recommendations and articles on related topics, you should be able to focus on areas within your business that can improve your valuation and widen your pool of potential investors or buyers. In the end, you’re looking to validate revenue, growth, and future value, while minimizing risk and uncertainty.

We hope you find the SaaS Institutional Readiness Tool (below) useful and valuable.