Blog
Valuation
15 published.
·2 min
How profitability affects valuation
Margin does not just raise the earnings the multiple is applied to — it raises the multiple itself. Why the effect compounds, and what a five-point improvement is actually worth.
·2 min
How recurring revenue affects valuation
Why contracted revenue is worth two to three times what project revenue is worth, the four tiers buyers actually distinguish, and how to move revenue up a tier before you sell.
·3 min
Common valuation mistakes
Nine errors that show up in almost every first valuation, what each one costs in euros, and the check that catches it before a buyer does.
·2 min
SDE vs EBITDA
Which earnings figure applies to your business, why the multiples attached to them are not interchangeable, and the €400,000 mistake owners make when they mix the two.
·2 min
DCF valuation explained
Discounted cash flow without the spreadsheet mysticism — what the discount rate actually represents, why terminal value is usually most of the answer, and when a DCF is worth building.
·5 min
Customer concentration: what the evidence actually says
One big customer is supposed to cost you a full turn on your multiple. That figure has no source. What the research does show is different, more specific and more useful.
·2 min
Revenue multiple explained
When turnover is a defensible basis for value, what the ranges actually are by business model, and the two situations where using one costs you money.
·7 min
The number in the middle that nobody can source
Every risk that supposedly lowers your business value passes through one figure in the discount rate. The profession's own guidance says there is no data source for it.
·6 min
The private company discount, and the case against it
Being unlisted is supposed to cost you 20 to 30 percent of your value. The published estimates run from zero to fifty, and the best-identified ones cluster far below what practitioners apply.
·6 min
Size moves your multiple more than anything you control
The best-supported finding in SME valuation is also the least useful advice: bigger businesses sell for more. Here is the evidence, and why the causal version of it is probably wrong.
·6 min
Where SME multiples actually come from
Every multiple you have read was published by someone selling something. Here is who collects the data, how, and why two datasets covering the same businesses disagree by a factor of two.
·3 min
EBITDA multiple explained
What actually sets your multiple — size, growth, concentration and owner dependence — and why the sector average you found online is the least useful number in the calculation.
·3 min
How to value a business
The whole process in seven steps — from the earnings figure you start with to the range you end up defending. Written for owners doing this for the first time.
·2 min
Revenue multiple or EBITDA multiple?
One of these two methods will flatter your business and the other will not. Which one applies depends on facts about your company, not on which number you prefer.
·3 min
How EBITDA affects your valuation
Two companies with identical revenue can be worth three times different amounts. Almost all of that gap comes from what is inside EBITDA — and what should not be.