Self-assessment
Check it yourself, or have it checked
Three tools, each a set of checks built from running these businesses. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
readiness checks
AI checks
pre-peak checks
The Cat’s Whiskers
Cat’s Whiskers self-assessment
Thirty-six readiness checks across seven foundations.
What it tells you
Foundation Ready
Strong foundations. External investment in platforms, acquisition and channel expansion is likely to generate returns. The focus shifts to optimisation and scale.
At Risk
Meaningful gaps in one or more foundations. Continued investment will generate diminishing returns until they are addressed. A prioritised fix programme comes before scaling.
Foundations First
Critical gaps across multiple foundations. The kindest advice a business in this position can receive is to stop, rebuild the base, and then grow.
The Barking Cat AI Diagnostic
AI self-assessment
Twenty-one checks across the five foundations, and the three AI Inventory questions that come before any of them.
What it tells you
- The lowest-scoring foundation, named as the one most likely to be binding.
- This self-assessment is that hypothesis layer, offered for a leadership team to run on itself.
Bulletproof for the Golden Quarter
Pre-Peak Checklist
Find your constraint before the traffic arrives.
What it tells you
Fix what you can. For what you cannot fix in time, make the call Currys and The Works both made: decide whether the operation can carry the demand you are about to buy, and where it cannot, soften the promise or decline the sale rather than disappoint the customer.
Download the full playbook as a PDF: fifteen pages, no form, no email, no gate.
Or have it checked
The Barking Cat Review applies them to your business by walking it as a customer does, measuring what it finds against your numbers, and naming the constraint that is actually binding.