How Matching Works
The matcher is a set of plain rules, not a black box or an AI guess. It runs in your browser and gives every opportunity a score from 0 to 100 for how well it fits your answers.
A score is not a prediction. It measures fit with what you told us. It says nothing about whether a business will succeed or how much it will earn.
The six factors
| Factor | Weight | What we check |
|---|---|---|
| Capital fit | 30% | Estimated cash to start (upfront costs plus working capital) against your budget. |
| Skills fit | 20% | Whether your skills are ones that help, or whether people commonly start without special skills. |
| Time fit | 15% | Your weekly hours against the rough minimum the business needs. |
| Business type | 15% | Whether it’s a type you said you want (local service, online, acquisition and so on). |
| Location | 10% | In-person versus online. If you choose online only, in-person businesses are left out. |
| Requirements | 10% | Mandatory licenses or credentials, and operating complexity. |
These are starting weights chosen by design, not validated predictors. We’ll adjust them as we learn what helps people most.
Hard limits that can’t be outweighed
- Too expensive: if the low end of the cash needed is more than $500 or 50% above your budget (whichever is larger), the opportunity is left out, and we tell you why.
- A stretch: if it’s just above your budget, it can score at most 59 and is shown separately as a stretch.
- Unknown costs: if we can’t verify what something costs, we never treat it as free. It is capped at 59.
- Missing a required credential: capped at 59. Choosing a skill never counts as holding a license.
- Far too little time: less than half the hours it usually needs is capped at 59.
Preferences and goals
Your preferences (for example, testing an idea before spending) and goals nudge scores up or down by at most 10 points in total, so they can reorder close calls but never rescue a poor fit. Income targets are used only to point out mismatches; we don’t forecast earnings.
Assumptions
- “I’m not sure” about budget is treated as up to $2,500. “More than $25,000” is compared against $100,000.
- Time ranges are compared at their top end (for example, 5–10 hours counts as 10); “flexible” counts as 15 hours.
Ratings
80 and above: strong fit. 65–79: good fit. 50–64: possible fit. Below 50, or anything capped, appears under “partly fit or a stretch”.
Data quality
Every opportunity shows whether its figures are verified or estimated, its sources and the date it was last reviewed. Records past their review date are flagged; records far past it are removed from results until re-reviewed. No one can pay to change a score or ranking.