The Founder-Dependency Benchmark
How much of an agency's revenue still moves through its founder — measured across four dimensions, with the thresholds where growth stalls.
2026 edition
- 4
- Dimensions scored
- 0–100
- Composite index
- 5
- Markets covered
Request the report
One email address. The file arrives from SSA directly; nothing else is sent.
What the benchmark measures.
What it measures
Four dimensions: origination (who sources the pipeline), conversion (who closes), retention (who the client trusts), and concentration (how much revenue sits in the top three accounts).
How it is built
Scored engagements and diagnostic reads from founder-led services firms between £2M and £40M in revenue, across the US, UK, UAE, Singapore and Japan. Each dimension is indexed 0–100; the composite is the Founder-Dependency Index.
What you get
The distribution by revenue band, the four dimension curves, the thresholds where founder-sourced revenue begins to cap growth, and a scoring sheet you can run against your own numbers.
Score yourself in two minutes.
Want a number before the report arrives? The scorecard returns an index in about two minutes, in the browser, with nothing to submit.
Field notes on founder dependency and agency growth
One note when there is something worth reading: a diagnostic finding, a market read, or a piece of the benchmark. No sequences, no digests, no forwarded offers.
- What the diagnostics keep finding, market by market
- Entry conditions as they change in Japan, the Gulf and APAC
- Early cuts of the Founder-Dependency Benchmark
Start with the founder-dependency audit.
Ten working days, fixed fee, a written read your team owns. The fee credits against the build that follows.