The Product Ladder Scorecard
Most expert-led businesses hit a ceiling made of their own calendar. The scorecard measures how much of the structure is actually built around you, and shows you exactly where it isn't.
At the end you get a chart of your own ladder with the gaps visible, and a report naming the rung to build first. It goes to your inbox, and you can read it on the screen before you go anywhere.
Free, and it measures structure, not how good you are at the work. Plenty of excellent operators score low, and the report names what to build first, not what to buy.
What it measures
The Product Ladder Scorecard measures how much product architecture exists in an expert-led business, across six areas: the Blueprint, the Hook, the Course, the Programme, the Immersive and the Frame. Sixteen questions. Three minutes. You get a chart of your own ladder with the gaps visible, and a report naming which rung to build first.
The score is not a judgement on how good you are at the work. Twenty years of practice and a full diary do not show up here, because neither of them is structure.
What it measures is how much of the business runs without you being personally present. Each section is scored separately, because a business can be strong in one place and have nothing at all in another.
The order matters more than any single score. Rungs hold each other up. A course with no Hook beneath it has nobody to sell to, and a programme with no Frame underneath runs on your memory and your evenings. That is why the weakest section is not always the first thing to build.
Built once, extended at every rung. Most start with one rung and add.
The operator
The method came out of a business, not a whiteboard.
Danny Savage pitched an earlier business, Igloo Disco, on BBC Dragons' Den and did not get investment. The Dragons said it was the Danny Savage Show and that the whole thing ran on him. They were right.
Mixmasters was what he built next, with structure underneath it from the start. A five-rung product ecosystem over eight years: a free group at the bottom, then lead magnets, courses, a membership, a live programme and 40+ retreats at the top.
Then, months after stepping away from it, he rebuilt the method from scratch in an unrelated industry.


Three-time Key Person of Influence graduate. Featured in Entrepreneur Magazine by Daniel Priestley. Number one music podcast on Apple Podcasts.
On taking the scorecard
"I think I just learnt more about myself, my business, my goals and my potential in the last three minutes of answering your questions than I have in the last 30 years of being self-employed. 'I wish' just became 'I will'."
"The Product Ladder Scorecard gave me instant, honest clarity on my business model. Seeing the breakdown across all six rungs made it immediately obvious where my gaps were and why things weren't scaling the way I wanted."
"It gave me clear insight into the real needs of my business, showing me exactly where the gaps and holes are. In just a few minutes, it helped me see the structure, or lack of it, in a way I hadn't before."
Free. Sixteen questions, three minutes, and your report lands straight away.