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Updated Jul 06, 2026 · Affirmology_BusinessPlan_GapWorkbook_v1.md
How to use: each section has CLOSED (what I filled in from your docs) and VOICENOTE (what I need from you). You can answer by number, e.g. "3b: the Korea cost is..." Skip any that don't apply.
CLOSED from Affirmology_CoFounderAgreement_v1.html + FundingStrategy_Memo. You already have this locked, most people don't.
Major Decisions requiring BOTH founders: sale of the company; new equity grants above 1% single / 5% cumulative in 12 months; debt above $25K; hiring/firing C-suite; materially changing the business model or core purpose; distributions above a set threshold; removing a co-founder from operations; amending the operating agreement; any single capex above $25K.
Sol's unilateral domain: brand, visual identity, voice/tone, content, social, community. Jeff can override only for documented material financial/legal/reputational harm or mission conflict, and only after 30-day mediation then a 2-of-3 board vote.
Distributions: fund a 6-month operating reserve first, then quarterly, default 50% reinvest / 50% distribute pro-rata (board-adjustable). Founder salaries are separate from distributions.
VOICENOTE: - 1a. Are those Major-Decision thresholds right ($25K debt/capex, 1%/5% equity)? Raise or lower any? - 1b. Keep distributions at 50/50 reinvest/distribute, or lean more toward reinvestment early? - 1c. Anything about governance you want stated differently for investors' eyes?
CLOSED: Jeff 67% (residual), Sol 25% target (10% vested to start, +5%/yr to 25% by ~yr 3), Pool 8% (holds Colin tentative ~2% + up to 5% vestable advisor, Randy, future hires). CEO (Jacque O'Rourke) 5 - 10% later, potentially 10 - 20% over time, from broad dilution + your stake, structured so you stay majority. Equity ladder at $1.5M post: $30K=2%, $50K=3.3%, $75K=5%, $150K=10%.
Note: your co-founder doc says Sol's earn-in to 25% is "1% per qualified $25K+ investor she introduces." You told me it's now "10% vested + 5%/yr to 25%." I've used your newer version. Flagging the difference.
VOICENOTE: - 2a. Confirm your exact founder % (I have 67%). - 2b. Sol's path to 25%: purely time-based (+5%/yr), or still tied to investors she brings? Pick one. - 2c. Round 2 later: rough target size and valuation you'd want to signal (e.g., $X at $4 - 6M post after Faena)?
CLOSED from RaiseTiers_UseOfFunds + MoneyList. Per-tier line items exist ($50K: ~$27 - 30K founder runway 3 mo, tech buffer, $5K demo kit, cards/gear, event essentials; $75K adds a 4th month + Palapa deposit + assistant start + light ad test; $100K fully funds events + app-ops + bigger ad/affiliate test; $150K adds a $25 - 40K fixed-scope "take v1 to production" contract). Immediate buys: Mac mini ~$800, Sol laptop ~$1 - 1.5K, Claude Team ~$125/mo.
VOICENOTE: - 3a. Your combined founder pay: lock it at $8K/mo, or is it $8 - 10K? - 3b. Confirm ~$8K/mo covers you and Sol's Miami living (I removed a stray "Korea" line that came from an old budget doc, ignore it). - 3c. Sept 11 launch event budget and 11/11 Palapa venue, real numbers? - 3d. Demo experience kit, roughly what's in it and what does it cost (headphones count, iPads, table, AV)? - 3e. You flagged a "significant item you forgot to price" and "so much more marketing equipment", tell me what those are.
CLOSED: per-audio cost $0.13 - 0.27 standard (up to ~$1 premium); a full Understanding verified at ~$0.20/person (Sol $0.20, Jeff $0.19, Staci $0.17); lean monthly overhead $53 - 73 before ads; ElevenLabs grant zeroes the voice line for 12 months; cost-discipline is built into the code (spend cap ~$0.45/reading, stop-on-credit-error, overnight throttle). Margins ~98%, matching the 70 - 90% category norm. Working model assumptions: ARPU ~$27/mo, CAC ~$55, churn ~10% early → 5 - 7%.
VOICENOTE: - 4a. Comfortable with ARPU $27 / CAC $55 / churn 10% as the conservative starting numbers, or nudge any? - 4b. Any real willingness-to-pay signal from testers yet (what would they pay, for which tier)?
My proposed sequence, built on your 7-beat runway: Weeks 1 - 2 (July): beta to the ~25 inner-orbit cohort, collect feedback + testimonials. August: open to your wider warm list with the "private first look" framing; start a small nano-tested ad test; app live Aug 11 - 13. September: Sept 11 Miami debut (sales test); Sept 24 - 26 Faena (recruit affiliates + demo); begin affiliate onboarding. Oct - Nov: scale winning ads, activate affiliates, 11/11 gathering; target $10 - 20K/mo revenue.
VOICENOTE: - 5a. How many warm names are on your send list, roughly, and what's the split between "beta tester" and "investor"? - 5b. How many 1:1 conversations can you and Sol realistically run per week? - 5c. What monthly ad budget feels right to start ($1K? $2.5K?), and who runs the creative? - 5d. When do affiliates actually start bringing people, at Faena, or before?
CLOSED from the MC agreement: Sept 24 - 26 at Faena; you + Sol are MCs; you get a main-room table, an upstairs demo room, 20 team tickets, a discount code, parking, an assistant, comped meals [to confirm], AV, and permission to mention Affirmology from stage. Partnership is at the verbal/draft stage (agreement drafted, ready to sign).
VOICENOTE: - 6a. Is Julia's deal verbally locked, or still in motion? Signed yet? - 6b. Fill the blanks: Julia's full name/entity, table number, meals confirmed? - 6c. Your conversion goal for Faena, how many signups and how many affiliates recruited?
CLOSED figures: Assistant (Randy Green) $1 - 2K/mo + 1 - 3% equity; app-ops $500 - 2K/mo (or $25 - 40K fixed contract to harden v1); event staff (Lauren, Glo, Randy) per-event pay + affiliate commissions; CEO (Jacque O'Rourke, COO at Aurea) $20 - 25K/mo + 5 - 10% equity, 4-yr vest/1-yr cliff, a post-Round-1 decision. My proposed hire order: assistant first (frees you), then the app-hardening contractor at $100K+, then app-ops, then CEO once revenue supports it.
VOICENOTE: - 7a. Is Randy confirmed as the assistant? Start when? - 7b. Do you want the app-hardening contract in the $150K plan, or keep building it yourself longer? - 7c. When does the Jacque-as-CEO conversation realistically happen (revenue level or date)? - 7d. Event staff, rough monthly budget you'd commit at each raise size?
CLOSED from CompetitorAnalysis. The field splits in two, each missing the other's half: info-first astrology apps (Co-Star ~$21M raised/no audio; The Pattern text-only; CHANI ~$600K/mo single-astrologer; Sanctuary human-marketplace; Nebula broad/generic) deliver information to the logical brain as entertainment; generic audio-wellness apps (Calm declining from its generic ceiling, Headspace pivoted to B2B, Insight Timer community-led) deliver to the subconscious but aren't about you. Affirmology alone does both: verified four-system personalization (earns the logical brain) + subconscious-first audio (creates change). Why they can't easily copy: four-system depth + agentic council, neuroscience-grounded methodology, first-party voice/personalization (not a bolt-on), and the trust-and-transformation position rather than information-as-entertainment.
VOICENOTE: - 8a. Which competitor, if any, actually worries you, and why? - 8b. Anything on the moat you want emphasized harder (the corpus? the council? the community?)?
CLOSED: the income ladder is proven in-category (micro 5 - 30K followers = $30 - 80K/yr; mid 50 - 200K = $150 - 500K/yr; elite 500K+ = $1M - 10M+), at 70 - 90% margins because digital assets replicate at ~$0. Affirmology is the engine/IP/brand shortcut so creators skip years of building; their members must open accounts + give emails (list growth + segmented marketing). The exact revenue-share vs markup mechanics are NOT yet decided.
VOICENOTE: - 9a. How do creators earn, a % of their members' subscription revenue, a markup on audios they sell, or both? Your instinct? - 9b. What do they get at launch vs later (just an affiliate link? a dashboard? white-label audio generator?)? - 9c. Have you talked to any actual astrology/HD creators who'd use this? Names we could cite as interested?
This is the one section I can't fill from files, it needs what's actually happening. Right now we can honestly say: LLC filed and active; demo runs cloud-native; pipeline proven end-to-end; unit costs validated; founders + a few testers have full audios built.
VOICENOTE: - 10a. What have your testers (Sol, Staci, Marc, and the inner orbit) actually said, favorite lines, "this got me," anything that landed hard? - 10b. Did anyone say they'd pay, or ask to buy? At what price? - 10c. Any usage signal, did people listen all the way through, re-listen, share it?
CLOSED directionally: product depth (Vedic, deeper HD channels, voice cloning, multilingual, more suites), a Wynwood loft (~$6K/mo) as demo/studio/event space funded by revenue, not the raise, a practitioner (Affirmologist) certification arm, and community/retreat programming.
VOICENOTE: - 11a. What revenue level triggers the Wynwood loft (e.g., "$X MRR and we sign the lease")? - 11b. Retreats, weekend or week-long, how often, roughly what do they charge? - 11c. International, is it on the map at all in years 2 - 3, and which market first?
I've drafted the checklist; these need your real status. Items: an "for self-realization, not medical or financial advice" disclaimer; a data-privacy approach for birth data (where stored, who accesses); music licensing (is Suno cleared for commercial use, or do we need Epidemic/Lyria?); the Affirmology trademark; and standard Terms of Service + Privacy Policy for the app.
VOICENOTE: - 12a. Is the "Affirmology" trademark filed yet, or still to do? - 12b. Do you have an attorney lined up for the operating agreement + these filings? Budget? - 12c. Music: are we clear commercially on the current beds, or is that still open?
CLOSED: the Startup Grant gives ~33M characters (~680 hours) of voice free for 12 months; you qualify (under 25 employees, real product); the application is drafted and ready; response comes in about a week; caveat, it reverts to free tier when the 12 months or credits run out, so treat it as one year of runway on the voice line, not permanent.
VOICENOTE: - 13a. Green-light to submit the application this week? (My strong recommendation: yes, it removes your single biggest recurring cost from the raise story.)
My proposed quarterly frame: Q3 '26 launch beta → app live → first paying members → Faena; target a first few hundred users. Q4 '26 scale winning ads + affiliates, 11/11 gathering; target ~$10 - 20K/mo revenue and ~1,000 users. Q1 '27 creator program at scale, app hardened; grow toward a few thousand users. Q2 '27 Round 2 prep on traction.
VOICENOTE: - 14a. What subscriber number do you want to be able to claim by November? By end of Q1 '27? - 14b. Do these quarterly milestones feel right, too aggressive, too soft?
Just dump your voicenote answers here (by number is easiest). I'll close every one into the plan + model, finalize the term sheet with your $75K tier, and hand you clean final versions ready to send.