How buyers actually evaluate SaaS in 2026 — the framework most sellers don't know
[draft / preview only] The four-step diligence pattern serious acquirers run, with what each step is silently testing for — and the specific data points they'll request that you'd be smart to prepare in advance.
This is a placeholder body for the design preview. The real article goes here once design is signed off.
Typical paragraph rhythm: medium-length, conversational, declarative. Numbers preferred over adjectives. Periodic concrete examples that ground the abstract claim.
Step 1 — The financial cleanliness check
Before a serious acquirer touches the product, they want to verify your numbers can be trusted. This is silent — they won't tell you it's happening, but everything in week 1–2 of conversation is about this.
Specifically, they're looking for: are Stripe charges from real third parties (not your own card or your sister's company), is the MRR number reproducible from raw transaction data, are refunds and chargebacks within normal bounds.
"Send me your Stripe restricted API key with read-only on charges, customers, subscriptions" — that's the watershed message. If you don't have one ready, you've already lost a multiple-shifting argument.
Step 2 — The retention test
Acquirers care less about gross churn than about cohort retention curves. They want to see Month-3 and Month-12 retention specifically, not blended monthly churn.
Step 3 — The transferability check
How easily can ownership move? Domain, Stripe account, infrastructure, customer-facing emails, code repository. Each of these has a story buyers want — and gaps here move multiples by 0.3–0.8×.
Step 4 — The dependency audit
How much of the business is "you specifically"? Buyers haircut hard for owner-dependency. The fix isn't pretending you're not the founder — it's documenting what's documented and writing a 30-day handover plan you can hand them at LOI.
This is a draft outline for the design preview. The fully-written version will publish at launch.