Is your business a one-off deal or a snowball? Six angles will tell you

What this is

One of our published methods, written in plain language: what it can do, when to use it, what goes in and what comes out.

Why it matters

Most methods are published as papers or code. This one is written so you can decide whether it fits your problem before you invest time in it.

How to use it

Read the page top to bottom. If it matches your question, use the online tool - or subscribe and run it on your own data.

What you get

A clear answer on what the method does and does not do, plus a live curve from our own demand series. Free to read.

Free to readOnline tools from $5 per runSee it →

Demand curve read by this method — A live reading from our own demand series - the shape of the signal this method works on. 570 industries are tracked daily; this is one of them.

Data base: InfoGap own records - 391 Chinese cities x 8 dimensions, 213,208 city-industry rows, 40,499 POIs (central / lifechain, 2026-10-08).

Algorithm Handbook · one algorithm per page · no jargon anywhere · formal name: pure-compound six-dimension assessment

1In one sentence: what it does

Score six angles once each and see whether your business is a one-off trade, or whether the money it earns goes on to earn more.

2When you use it

Three situations where it helps:

Your business takes money every month, but over the year your savings barely move.

What most people do: decide the margin is too thin, and go and squeeze costs.

Use it: score the six angles and see whether it really is thin, or whether it is "one earning, one cut-off" — squeezing costs does nothing about the second case.

Someone tells you "this business can be handed on to your children", and it sounds tempting.

What most people do: hear them out and believe it.

Use it: look at the scores for "can it be inherited" and "can it be standardised"; if those two are low, it cannot be handed on.

You are torn between two projects: one makes money right away, one takes a long grind.

What most people do: pick the one that makes money right away.

Use it: score both and compare the "can it roll up" column; the answer is usually very plain.

3What you put in · what comes out

Input (this is the exact set used for the real run)

· How often they buy (higher = more often): 4 (out of 5; only "it hurts to stop for a month" counts as really high)
· Is it a must-buy: 2 (out of 5; only "still buys at half again the price" counts as truly essential)
· How much is left on each order: 4 (out of 5)
· Will they keep buying and buying: 3 (out of 5; only "over ninety per cent renew on their own" counts as truly for life)
· Can it run without you: 3 (out of 5; only "it still runs three months after you leave" counts as truly hands-off)
· Can it be handed down: 2 (out of 5)

What comes out

These are the numbers it produced on the spot, not a single character changed:

Compound index (the total it works out; "compound" means the money earned is put back in to earn more): 576 (out of 15625, equivalent to 3.7%)
Average score: 3.0
Did any 0 appear: no (it was not stopped dead)
Grade: 🔴 grade C — the earning is linear, stop and it is gone
The two items most in need of work: is it a must-buy (2 points), can it be handed down (2 points)

How to read it: do not be put off by that big number; two things are enough — the grade (here grade C: the earning is linear and does not roll up) and "the two items most in need of work". Those two are "is it a must-buy" and "can it be handed down". In other words, this business is not undoable; it has been built as "trading effort for money", so when you stop, it stops.

📈One chart: a one-off deal, or a snowball

None of the six angles has caved in — so why is it still grade C? The chart makes it clear.

4How to use it

There is no public calculator for this yet — the method above is the whole procedure; on this site the inputs have to be keyed in by hand.

The input is six scores from 1 to 5. There is no page or form for it here: the rule above is the whole method, and the numbers have to be worked out and keyed in by hand.

Score each of the six angles yourself (1–5)
Put the six numbers into the rule above
First check "did any 0 appear", then look at the grade and the two items most in need of work
Change the numbers and work it out again to see what moves

5Who it is for

Shop owners who have been going two or three years, taking money but not building savings; people choosing between "earn now" and "roll up slowly"; people who want the business to become something they can hand to someone else to run.

6Common questions

Q: Who gives the six scores?

A: You do. What it does is spread the vague feeling in your head into six boxes and force you to look at them one item at a time.

Q: How is it different from "this track is inherently profitable"?

A: That one looks at whether the track itself is easy to make money in; this one looks at whether the way you chose to earn can roll up. Same business, a different charging model, and these six scores change.

Q: What happens if a 0 shows up?

A: It stops dead and gives the line "if any item is 0 it does not stand". The meaning is that the direction cannot work from the start, and the approach has to change first.

7Related algorithms

three-d-profit · is the track inherently profitable five-dim-gold · score it from five angles water-pool · work out your inflow and outflow ← All algorithms Handbook index

✓Why this scenario exists (where the content comes from)

This scenario comes from the records of the "algorithm meets demand" round: the Beijing KTV need was run against several algorithms, and this one was judged useful, on the grounds that "six dimensions at 5 points each → compound index 576/15625, a gate on whether any item is 0, a list of weak spots. Complements the three-dimension fat-profit view (one looks at the track, the other at the model)".

The input and output above are what you get by re-running the set of numbers in that record: 4 / 2 / 4 / 3 / 3 / 2 → index 576, grade C, two weak spots.

Source: row 1 of the site's top-50 gap list (Beijing KTV); the D1 entry in the pairing ledger.