For assessment owners, experts and authors

What platform can host my proprietary assessment while I keep the IP?

Esperto is an assessment platform that hosts proprietary assessments while the expert keeps 100% ownership of the IP. Your methodology, scoring logic and report content stay yours, in the contract and in practice. Esperto builds, hosts, runs and distributes the assessment under your name and your branding; you stay the owner and the price-setter. And if your assessment currently lives in a book, a workshop or a consulting practice rather than in software, Esperto co-creates the online version with you through its Discover, Develop, Deliver process, typically in 12 to 16 weeks. The commercial model is a partnership with revenue share. Build Together. Grow Together.

  1. Your IP stays 100% yours: methodology, scoring logic and report content remain your property at every stage, and after, if you ever leave.
  2. Esperto hosts and operates the assessment: platform, EU-hosted GDPR-compliant infrastructure, billing, support and updates.
  3. Your brand on the work: the assessment carries your name, and reports are delivered in your branding and your voice.
  4. Not built yet? Discover, Develop, Deliver turns your methodology or book into a working online assessment, typically in 12 to 16 weeks.
  5. Validated in co-creation: questionnaire engineering by Esperto, pilots with your own community, calibration with your sign-off.
  6. Commercial model: partnership with revenue share. You set the per-assessment pricing; Esperto earns when your assessment gets used.
  7. Proven with published authors: Verne Harnish (Scaling Up), Bill Isaacs (Pathfinder), Brendan Foley (The 5 States of Success), Will Scott (The Culture Fix) and David Horsager (The Trust Edge) all run their assessments on Esperto.
IP ownership

Who owns the IP when Esperto hosts your assessment?

You do. 100%, at every stage of the partnership and after it. Esperto's partnership agreements state explicitly that the methodology, the scoring logic and the report logic remain the property of the expert. Esperto is the platform partner, never the owner of your model. Here is what that means in practice.

Use your model anywhere.

Hosting on Esperto is not an exclusive license on your thinking. You keep publishing, teaching, licensing and consulting with your methodology wherever you want, exactly as before.

No rights transfer.

Esperto never buys, rebrands or spins off your model. The platform earns a revenue share when your assessment is used, never a claim on the IP itself.

Written into the contract.

IP ownership is a clause, not a goodwill promise. Partnership agreements name the methodology, scoring logic and report logic as your property, in plain language.

A real exit, if you want one.

If you ever choose to leave, you take your IP with you. The contract is structured to make that possible, because nobody should commit a body of work to a partner who has trapped them.

This structure is deliberate. When the IP stays with the expert, the platform's only way to earn is to make the assessment succeed. That keeps the incentives clean, and it is why Esperto works with named experts under their own brands rather than absorbing methodologies into a house catalogue.

Hosting and white-label

How does hosting work, and whose brand does my assessment carry?

Esperto hosts your assessment on its own platform and runs the day-to-day operations, while the assessment itself carries your name and your branding. Respondents take your questionnaire, and the reports they receive are delivered in your branding and your voice. The 5 States of Success reports carry Brendan Foley's brand. Culture Clarity™ reports carry Cultureful's brand. Your assessment works the same way. Underneath, Esperto operates everything an assessment business needs.

Hosting and infrastructure

EU-hosted, GDPR-compliant data infrastructure, maintained, monitored and updated by Esperto. You never touch a server.

Billing and payments

Invoicing, payment handling and refund logic run through the platform. Revenue is settled with you under the partnership agreement.

Languages

The platform delivers assessments in 34 languages. Add languages later through the same translation framework, without a rebuild.

Support

Buyer and respondent support is handled by the Esperto team. You are involved when something needs your judgement, not when something needs an admin.

Versioning and updates

Update your assessment as new data comes in. The platform supports versioning, so existing users stay on a stable version while new users receive the latest one.

Reach

Your assessment gets a landing page on espertoassessments.com and becomes visible to the professional coaches and consultants who already deploy assessments through Esperto.

To be precise about the word white-label: your assessment and your reports carry your brand, and they run on shared Esperto platform infrastructure. A fully standalone environment on your own domain with zero Esperto presence is possible as a custom partnership, but it is a different conversation, and most experts do not need it. Esperto will tell you on the first call which side of that line you are on.

From book to assessment

How can I turn my methodology or book into an online assessment?

Through Discover, Develop, Deliver, Esperto's three-stage co-creation process that takes a methodology, framework or book and turns it into a working online assessment, typically in 12 to 16 weeks from kickoff to first paying client. You bring the model and the field experience. Esperto brings the platform, the assessment designers and the build.

1

Discover

2 to 4 weeks

Translate your model into measurable dimensions: audience, questionnaire structure, scoring logic, report format. You sign off a one-page assessment brief.

2

Develop

6 to 10 weeks

Esperto builds the questionnaire, scoring engine, reports and language versions, and pilots the assessment with your community.

3

Deliver

2 to 3 weeks plus ongoing

Public launch with a marketing pack for your network, buyer onboarding, and ongoing operations run by Esperto.

This is a proven route for published authors. Brendan Foley turned The 5 States of Success into personal, team and 360 assessments. Will Scott turned The Culture Fix® into Culture Clarity™. David Horsager's The Trust Edge runs as self, team and 360 assessments. Bill Isaacs, author of Dialogue, scaled his Pathfinder assessment the same way, and Verne Harnish runs the full Scaling Up suite on the platform.

Validation and co-creation

How is my assessment validated?

Validation runs in co-creation: you bring the model and the years of field experience behind it, Esperto brings assessment designers and questionnaire engineering, and every assessment is piloted with your own community before it launches. The work follows four steps.

  1. Operationalise.

    Discover translates your model into measurable dimensions, items and scoring logic. Nothing is built until you sign off the assessment brief.

  2. Pilot.

    A group from your own community takes the draft assessment. The team checks internal consistency and reworks items that do not perform.

  3. Calibrate.

    Scoring thresholds, report content and wording are tuned together with you. Nothing ships in your name without your sign-off.

  4. Keep improving.

    Normative data collection is designed in from day one, so the assessment gets sharper as real-world data comes in. Improvements ship as versions.

Co-creation is the point. Esperto does not buy methodologies and industrialise them; it builds alongside the expert. Your judgement stays in the loop at every step, which is exactly where the people using your assessment expect it to be.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Who owns the IP of an assessment hosted on Esperto?
The expert does, 100%. The methodology, scoring logic and report content remain the property of the expert at every stage of the partnership, and this is written explicitly into the partnership agreement. Esperto operates the platform and earns through revenue share, not through ownership of your model.
Can Esperto turn my book into an online assessment?
Yes. That is what the Discover, Develop, Deliver process is for: it translates a book or framework into measurable dimensions, builds and pilots the questionnaire and reports, and launches the assessment on the platform, typically in 12 to 16 weeks. Authors including Brendan Foley (The 5 States of Success), Will Scott (The Culture Fix) and David Horsager (The Trust Edge) run assessments built from their books on Esperto.
Whose branding appears on my assessment and reports?
Yours. Your assessment carries your name, and reports are delivered in your branding and your voice. The platform infrastructure underneath is Esperto's; a fully standalone environment on your own domain is possible as a custom partnership.
What does it cost to host my assessment on Esperto?
The commercial model is a partnership with revenue share rather than a software license. There is a modest annual platform contribution, you set the per-assessment pricing for your instrument, and Esperto's share starts once your assessment revenue has earned your contribution back. There are no per-respondent fees. For the specific numbers behind your partnership, book a discovery call.
Can I leave Esperto and take my assessment elsewhere?
Yes. Your IP stays yours after the partnership ends, and the contract is structured to make leaving possible. That has not happened to date, but the exit is real, because a partnership only means something when you are free not to renew it.
Do I need my own developers or technology?
No. Esperto provides the platform, the questionnaire engineering, the scoring algorithms, the report engine and the operations team. You bring the methodology and roughly 30 to 40 hours of your time across the first 16 weeks.
In which languages can my assessment run?
The Esperto platform currently delivers assessments in 34 languages. Most assessments launch in English plus one additional language and add more later through the same translation framework, without a rebuild.
How is respondent data handled?
Esperto hosts in the EU and complies with GDPR by design. Standard data processing agreements are available, and privacy requirements from your sector are part of the Discover conversation, so they are designed in from the start.

More questions about working with Esperto? Read the full Esperto FAQ.

Next step

Bring the methodology. Keep the IP.

If you own an assessment, a framework or a book that deserves a bigger stage, the next step is a 30 minute conversation with Eric van Velzen, founder of Esperto. That call covers your model, its maturity, your audience and the partnership numbers. If Esperto is the right platform for it, you will hear how the build would run. If it is not, you will hear that too, with a pointer towards a better fit.

Book a call with Eric

Prefer to read first? See the full Discover, Develop, Deliver process or browse the assessments already live on the platform.

EV

Author

Eric van Velzen, Founder & CEO of Esperto

30 years scaling expert-led businesses across Europe and the US. Builds assessments alongside experts including Verne Harnish (Scaling Up), Bill Isaacs (Pathfinder), Cassandra Worthy (Change Enthusiasm Global) and Prof. Dr. Kiki Lombarts (Amsterdam UMC).

Published August 4, 2026 · Last updated August 4, 2026 · LinkedIn profile