A practical method for resilient businesses
Discover Why Your Business Could Fail. Before It Does.
Every business has hidden vulnerabilities. Pre-Mortem Analysis helps you identify risks, challenge assumptions and strengthen your business model before problems become reality.
The idea
Planning asks how you will succeed. A pre-mortem asks how you could fail.
Imagine your business has failed three years from now. What caused it?
By treating failure as something that already happened, Pre-Mortem Analysis makes it easier to name uncomfortable risks, expose untested assumptions and act while there is still time.
Imagine
Picture your business three years from now - and assume it has failed. Write down what happened.
Analyse
Identify the causes, the assumptions behind them and how likely and damaging each one is.
Prevent
Turn your most critical vulnerabilities into concrete actions, owners and review dates.
The book
The book behind the method
Pre-Mortem Analysis is a practical guide for entrepreneurs, students and advisers who want to make better decisions by looking at failure first. Readers receive access to the digital workbook and analysis tools on this platform.
- Run a structured pre-mortem on your own business model
- Recognise the assumptions your plans quietly depend on
- Assess and compare risks without false precision
- Turn vulnerabilities into practical preventive actions
The workspace
Your analysis, in one clear workspace
Describe your business model, capture causes of failure, score them on a risk matrix and turn the priorities into an action plan. Save your progress, return any time and export a professional PDF report.
- Step-by-step guidance with autosave
- Interactive likelihood × impact risk matrix
- Action plans with owners and deadlines
- Professional PDF report of your analysis
Top priorities
- Single importer dependency 16
- Churn after price increase 16
- Large café customer leaves 9
Impact ↑ · Likelihood →
Who it is for
Built for people who make business decisions
Entrepreneurs & business owners
Spot the weak points in your business model while they are still cheap to fix.
Startup founders
Test your riskiest assumptions before you spend your runway on them.
Business students
Learn a structured, evidence-based way to evaluate business plans and cases.
Consultants, coaches & educators
Facilitate sharper conversations with clients and students, and leave them with a clear report.
Practical applications
Where a pre-mortem makes the difference
Launching a new venture
Challenge the business plan before investing savings or raising money.
Entering a new market
Expose assumptions about customers, partners and regulation in unfamiliar territory.
Launching a product
Find out what could make customers ignore, reject or abandon it.
Making a major investment
Stress-test the decision before it becomes irreversible.
Annual strategy review
Add a failure lens to your planning cycle and track risks over time.
Teaching and coaching
Use a structured exercise that turns business cases into active learning.
Free tools & resources
Start for free
Take the free Quick Scan in about five minutes - no account needed - or create a free account to try the full analysis workspace.
Illustrative case: a subscription coffee roastery
A fictional, illustrative case showing a complete pre-mortem from failure story to action plan.
Likelihood vs. impact: scoring risks honestly
How to use a five-point scale without pretending to know the future.
Assumption testing checklist
A one-page checklist for turning a belief into evidence.
Get started
Ready to look back from the future?
Create a free account to save your business profile and run your first pre-mortem analysis. Own the book? Activate your code for the full workbook and reports.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is a pre-mortem analysis?
A pre-mortem is a structured exercise in which you imagine that your business - or a decision, product or project - has failed at a point in the future, and then work out what could have caused that failure. It helps you identify risks and weak assumptions while there is still time to act.
How is this different from a SWOT analysis or a risk register?
A SWOT lists strengths and weaknesses in the present. A pre-mortem starts from an imagined failure in the future, which makes it easier to voice uncomfortable risks and to trace them back to the assumptions your plans depend on. The result can feed a risk register and an action plan.
Is the Quick Scan really free?
Yes. The Quick Scan takes about five minutes, needs no account and gives you instant results. Your answers are stored anonymously for statistics only.
Do I need the book to use the tools?
No. A free account lets you create a business profile and run a first analysis. Book owners unlock the full workbook, more analyses, templates and PDF reports by activating the code from the book.
Is my business data private?
Yes. Your analyses are only visible to you. Our administrators cannot open them unless you switch on temporary support access in your account settings. You can export or delete your data at any time.
Practical insights, occasionally
Short articles on risk, assumptions and better business decisions. No spam; unsubscribe at any time.