# The Owner Evidence Checklist

A Build Own Sell field guide. Build or buy a business worth owning.

A claim is useful when another person can inspect its source, period and limitations.

## Financial evidence
- [ ] Profit-and-loss statements with currency, period and accounting basis.
- [ ] Bank/payment reconciliation, not just a dashboard screenshot.
- [ ] Revenue mix separating subscriptions, services, usage, lifetime sales and prepayments.
- [ ] Normalized earnings bridge with source-backed adjustments and replacement labor.
- [ ] Customer concentration, refunds and outstanding fulfillment obligations.

## Customer and market evidence
- [ ] Cohort retention or appropriate repeat-purchase evidence.
- [ ] Repeat usage and documented customer outcomes.
- [ ] Acquisition channel contribution and cost, including founder effort.
- [ ] Evidence that customers choose this rather than a readily available substitute.

## AI, data and platform evidence
- [ ] Model/provider cost and failure behavior, with a fallback test.
- [ ] Human-review minutes per completed job and escalation volume.
- [ ] Code, contractor IP, data rights and license inventory.
- [ ] Customer and platform assignment/transfer requirements.
- [ ] No private data distributed under a generic “marketing consent” checkbox.

## Independent operation
- [ ] Another operator fulfills a job without founder intervention.
- [ ] Billing, refunds, backup and incident procedures are tested.
- [ ] Credentials and vendor accounts are transferable through permitted processes.
- [ ] Owner-hours log and defined transition commitment.

## Transaction readiness
- [ ] Financial, strategic and individual-operator buyers evaluated separately.
- [ ] Price, enterprise/equity bridge, cash at closing and contingent terms separated.
- [ ] Relevant professionals and jurisdictional requirements identified.
- [ ] Owner-authorized teaser, named-buyer document access, expiry and revocation.
- [ ] Related-party relationships and paid placement disclosed.

Start with the most expensive unknown. The checklist is education, not an appraisal, legal opinion or guarantee of a sale.