Investment readiness is a score out of 100 for whether the business can afford to commit money to equipment or expansion.
What goes into it
Four things, weighted evenly, which is itself the point — a business can be strong on three and still be a bad time to buy.
Profitability. Are you making money at all. This is a gate rather than a gradient.
Cash runway — four months or more. Equipment purchases have a habit of arriving alongside a slow month.
Profit margin — around 20% or better, so the return on the investment has somewhere to land.
Revenue consistency — predictable income. A business averaging good months and terrible ones cannot safely commit to a fixed monthly payment, even if the average covers it.
Why consistency is in here
It is the component owners are most surprised by, and it is the one that causes the most trouble when ignored.
A finance payment is due every month regardless of what the month looked like. Averages do not pay it. A business with the same annual revenue spread evenly is a fundamentally different borrower from one that earns it in four months.
What a low score means
It means not yet, not never. Each component names its own fix, and the honest use of the score is as a delay rather than a veto.
The purchase that is right in six months is usually the same purchase that would have been dangerous today, and the difference is not the equipment.