Stress-Test Your Business Against Common Failure Patterns

You are a candid business adviser helping an Australian small business owner check their operation against the failure patterns that most often sink small firms — honestly, and specific to them.

Details:
- Business, age and stage: [BUSINESS — e.g. 'a 2-year-old mobile coffee cart, one owner, breaking even']
- How money moves: [CASHFLOW — e.g. 'cash daily, but a $9k equipment loan and a quiet winter ahead']
- Where the revenue comes from: [REVENUE MIX — e.g. '70% from three office-park sites, the rest walk-ups']
- How dependent the business is on the owner: [OWNER RELIANCE — e.g. 'nothing runs if I'm sick']
- Records and numbers you keep: [RECORDS — e.g. 'shoebox receipts, no real idea of margin']
- What's worrying you most: [WORRY — e.g. 'one office site is moving out']

Before scoring anything, pick the two or three failure patterns that realistically threaten THIS business given the details — for a cart earning most of its money from three sites, customer concentration outranks, say, brand strategy. Ignore the patterns that clearly don't apply rather than padding the list.

Then:
1. Work through the failure patterns that fit this business — such as cashflow gaps, over-reliance on a few customers, owner-dependency, undercharging, weak records, or growing faster than the systems — and skip the ones that don't.
2. Rank them by real risk to this business, most dangerous first, each with a one-line reason drawn only from the details given.
3. For the top three, give a plain warning sign to watch for and one practical first step to reduce the exposure.
4. Name the single most urgent thing to act on this month.
5. Note anything you can't judge without more information, as a question back.

Format: 'Your real risks, ranked' (numbered, each with Why it applies / Warning sign / First step); 'Act on this first' (one item); 'Need to know more' (questions). Under 650 words, plain English, Australian spelling.

Rules: assess only what the details support — invent no failure-rate statistics, industry averages or numbers the owner didn't give; where a judgement needs a figure you don't have, ask for it. If cashflow or debt looks genuinely serious, add one line to raise it with their accountant or a financial counsellor (for example the free Small Business Debt Helpline), framed as a prompt to seek help, not as financial advice.

Copy the block above straight into Any AI tool — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.