Your brand is a balance sheet of decisions.
Some decisions compound (equity). Some decay (debt). The Decision-Capital Index scores ten of yours and tells you what your brand is actually worth in strategic capital — and where you're running a deficit. Ten questions. Ninety seconds. The maths is open at the bottom.
The thesis (and the maths)
Brand isn't a thing. It's a balance sheet.
Every company is constantly making strategic decisions — how to name the product, how to position, who to talk to, what to publish, what to leave to a template. Some of those decisions accrue as equity: they compound across years, they get easier to defend, they become moats. Some accrue as debt: they decay, they need topping up, they cost more to fix later.
The Decision-Capital Index treats brand the way an accountant treats a balance sheet. Each of the ten questions above is a real strategic decision Studio Nine has watched companies make — and watched land as either equity or debt. The £ values are illustrative weightings (calibrated against what we see for Series-A-to-C B2B companies) — not your actual P&L. The relative scale is what matters.
How the score is calculated
- Each question has a maximum swing in £ — bigger for decisions that compound or decay harder (founder broadcast at £200K, naming at £80K).
- Answer A on each question is full equity (+max). Answer D is full debt (−max). B and C sit at +50% and −50% of max respectively.
- Net Decision Capital = Equity total − Debt total. DCI Score = Net / total possible × 100, capped at ±100.
What we mean by debt
Brand debt is the same as financial debt in one key sense: it has a service cost. A generic positioning doesn't kill you on day one — but every month you keep paying interest in the form of harder sales conversations, more expensive paid acquisition, more competitor confusion. The fastest way to score better next quarter is to refinance the highest-cost debt first, not to spread effort evenly.
The "Refinance with us" CTA is the only place this turns commercial. Otherwise the tool is free, ungated, and you can copy the result and ignore us.
Read the framework essay: Brand is a balance sheet. Here's how to read yours.