Evaluate the business.
Does the model make sense? A system can pass every structural assessment and still be wrapped in a business model that does not add up. Step 6 reads the surface of the business the same way Step 1 reads the surface of the product.
- Why the business model is a diagnostic tool independent of structural and evidence assessment.
- Five consistency checks: pricing, guarantees, capacity, "why sell it," and AI claims.
- What business signals reveal that metrics cannot.
- Completing the six-step evaluation — the full assessment architecture.
Step 6 shifts the analysis from the system to the business surrounding it. Where Steps 2 through 5 examined what the system does and how well the evidence supports its claims, Step 6 examines the economics of the operation offering the system to investors. The question is whether those economics are consistent with a legitimate trading operation.
This is the bookend to the evaluation process. Step 1 reads the surface of the product. Step 6 reads the surface of the business. Together, they frame the structural and evidence assessments that occupy the steps between them. Step 6 deploys the Vendor Credibility pillar toolkit.
Why the business model is a diagnostic tool.
A business model is a second, independent source of information about a system's legitimacy. The economics of an operation constrain what is plausible. If a system generates the returns it claims, certain business decisions follow logically and others do not. When the business decisions do not follow from the claimed performance, the inconsistency itself is a finding.
The five business consistency checks.
What business signals reveal.
Completing the six-step evaluation.
With Step 6, the evaluation reaches its conclusion. An investor applying the full system has assessed the system across six dimensions: the surface presentation (Step 1), current structural risk (Step 2), forward-looking structural risk (Step 3), evidence quality (Step 4), false assurance mechanisms (Step 5), and business model consistency (Step 6).
Each step produces specific findings. Taken together, they produce a structural picture that accounts for the system's architecture, evidence base, assurance mechanisms, and commercial context.
Frequently asked questions.
The Algo Institute's Step 6 examines five dimensions: whether pricing aligns with claimed performance, whether performance guarantees are present, whether capacity constraints are acknowledged, whether there is a credible answer to "why sell it," and whether AI claims are substantiated with specifics. Each tests whether the business is consistent with the system's stated capabilities.
Pricing is a diagnostic tool. If a system genuinely delivers claimed returns, its price should reflect that value. When a system claiming substantial returns is priced as a commodity product, the arithmetic itself is diagnostic. Either the returns are real and the price makes no sense, or the price makes sense and the returns require scrutiny.
Credible answers are specific: capital limitations, revenue diversification, regulatory advantages, or capacity beyond what the operator can deploy personally. The Institute does not treat selling as automatically disqualifying. It treats the quality and specificity of the answer as a credibility signal. Vague or evasive responses are the concern.