Opening

Welcome. Here's the map.

Opening

Running a young company is the loneliest job you'll ever love

• Everything is your job. Marketing, pricing, ops, books, sales - all of it lands on you.
• Nobody around you gets it. Friends mean well. They've never made payroll or priced a product.
• Momentum stalls without accountability. You know roughly what to do. Doing it alone, month after month, is what breaks.
• Ignitor exists so you never have to figure this out alone again.

Opening

You're on a path, not an island

Everything we do today is aimed at moving you one rung up this ladder.

Opening

How today works

• Experience sharing, not advice giving. "Here's what I did" - never "here's what you should do."
• Confidentiality. What's said in this room stays in this room. That's a commitment, not a vibe.
• Phones down, laptops closed - except during exercises.
• Every block ends with you writing something down about your own business.
• Ask the dumb question. Someone else is stuck on it too.

Opening

The one promise

• Not a binder. Not inspiration. Not a to-do list you'll ignore.
• Three goals, on paper, said out loud to people who will ask about them.
• Everything between now and then feeds that plan. Take notes accordingly.

Founder Operating System

You are the bottleneck. You are also the engine.

• At your stage, every limit in the business is a limit in your calendar or your head.
• That's not a flaw. It's the stage you're at.
• The goal is not to work more hours. It's to point yourself at the right work.
• This block builds the system that decides where you point.

Founder Operating System

The operating system, in one line

• The vision tells the quarter what matters.
• The quarter tells the week what matters.
• The week tells today what matters.
• Break the chain anywhere and you're back to reacting to whoever emailed last.

Founder Operating System

Where did last week actually go?

• Most founders guess wrong by ten or more hours a week.
• Four buckets: making, selling, admin, firefighting.
• The business grows on making and selling.
• It drowns in the other two - quietly, one "quick thing" at a time.

Founder Operating System

Track energy, not just time

• Two lists from last week: what gave you energy, what drained it.
• Draining work gets done slowly, badly, and last. It costs more than its hours.
• Delegate, automate, or delete the drains first - even before the "low-value" stuff.
• A founder running on empty is the most expensive problem in the company.

Founder Operating System

The 3-year picture (vivid vision, lite)

• Pick a date three years out.
• Describe an ordinary Tuesday: revenue, team, customers, your role, your hours.
• Write it in present tense, like it already happened.
• If it doesn't scare you a little, aim higher.

Founder Operating System

What a good one sounds like

Numbers, names, and a date. That's what makes it usable.

Founder Operating System

Quarterly goals that survive contact with reality

• Three goals max per quarter. Four is zero.
• Each one has a number and a date.
• Each one has a next physical action you could do this week.
• Written where you'll see them weekly - not in a doc you'll never reopen.
• When reality hits: shrink the goal, don't abandon it.

Founder Operating System

The weekly CEO hour

• One hour. Same time every week. Door closed, phone off.
• Look at the three numbers that matter in your business.
• Check quarterly goals: on track, or adjust.
• Pick the week's one needle-mover and put it on the calendar first.
• This is the least skippable hour you have. Guard it like a client meeting.

Customer and Offer

Who exactly is your customer?

• "Everyone" is not an answer. It's a hiding place.
• Name a real person who has actually paid you. Start there.
• Age and job title are table stakes. What matters is the moment they go looking.
• Narrow feels scary. Narrow is what makes your marketing cheap.

Customer and Offer

What pain do they wake up with?

• Nobody buys your product. They buy a better Tuesday.
• Sort it: pain they'd pay to make go away vs. annoyance they tolerate.
• Use their words, not yours. Steal phrases from real conversations and reviews.
• Say their problem better than they can, and they'll assume you have the answer.

Customer and Offer

What are they doing instead of you?

• Your real competitor is usually "do nothing" or duct tape.
• List the top three alternatives: a competitor, DIY, and ignoring the problem.
• You have to beat the alternative, not just differ from competitors.
• Your price gets judged against the alternative too - not against your costs.

Customer and Offer

The target customer worksheet

• WHO - a specific person, not a demographic.
• PAIN - in their words.
• MOMENT - what triggers the search for a fix.
• ALTERNATIVES - the top three things they do instead.
• WIN - what better looks like, concretely.

You'll finish the full page at home. Today we build its spine: the UVP.

Customer and Offer

The UVP formula

• One sentence pair. Every bracket has to be specific enough to exclude someone.
• If it could hang on a competitor's wall, it's not done.

Customer and Offer

Fuzzy vs. sharp

Customer and Offer

Your brand story in four sentences

1. Here's the problem we kept seeing.
2. Here's why the existing options fail.
3. Here's what we built instead.
4. Here's what your life looks like now.

Memorize it. It's your answer to "so, what do you do?" for the next year.

Customer and Offer

Pricing psychology for founders who undercharge

• You are not your customer. You see the sausage being made. They see the relief.
• Price signals quality. Too cheap reads as risky, not generous.
• Resistance is part of every sale. A wince is not proof your price is wrong.
• Scared to raise prices? Raise them on the next customer, not the existing ones.
• If nobody has ever said "that's too expensive," you are underpriced.

Customer and Offer

The offer ladder

Premium exists partly to make core feel sensible.

Customer and Offer

Where founders get the ladder wrong

• Everything priced like an entry offer - so nothing carries margin.
• No premium tier - so your best customers have nothing bigger to buy.
• An entry offer that leads nowhere - free samples with no next step.
• Ten offers instead of three - so nobody, including you, can explain what to buy.

Money Mechanics

The honest version

• You don't need an MBA. You need a napkin and three questions.
• Does each sale make money? (unit economics)
• Will we have cash in 13 weeks? (the forecast)
• Am I getting paid? (on purpose, not by accident)
• Answer those monthly and you're ahead of most businesses your size.

Money Mechanics

Unit economics on one napkin

• Price - what they actually pay, after discounts.
• COGS - what it costs to make or deliver one.
• Cost to sell - ads, platform fees, commissions, shipping: getting one sale.
• Contribution - what's left to pay overhead and you.

Money Mechanics

Napkin example: a product business

• Candle sells for $32.
• Wax, wick, jar, label, box: $9 (COGS).
• Marketplace and payment fees, ads, shipping supplies: $8 (cost to sell).
• Contribution: $15 per candle - about 47%.
• 400 candles a month = $6,000 toward overhead and you. Now growth has a number.

Money Mechanics

Napkin example: a service business

• Branding package sells for $1,200.
• Contractor help and software: $250 (COGS).
• Discovery calls, proposals, revisions you don't bill: ~6 hours at your $75 target rate = $450 (cost to sell).
• Contribution: $500 - about 42%, not the 79% it looked like.
• For services, the invisible cost is almost always your unbilled time.

Money Mechanics

Where product businesses leak margin

• COGS creep - nobody has re-quoted suppliers since launch.
• Packaging that's prettier than it is profitable.
• Freight and shipping eaten "just this once" - forever.
• Touching things twice - repacking, relabeling, moving inventory around.
• Discounts that quietly became the real price.

Money Mechanics

Where service businesses leak margin

• Scope creep - "small favors" with no change order.
• Underpriced hours - your rate was set when you were desperate.
• Unbilled work - revisions, calls, "quick questions."
• Projects with no end date - the longer it runs, the less you made per hour.
• Proposals for people who were never going to buy.

Money Mechanics

The 13-week cash forecast

• One row: cash in the bank. Thirteen columns: the next thirteen weeks.
• Each week: plus cash actually arriving, minus cash actually leaving.
• Thirteen weeks because a quarter is far enough to act, close enough to be real.
• The moment a future week goes negative, you have weeks to fix it instead of days.
• Update it every Monday. Fifteen minutes, inside your CEO hour.

Money Mechanics

When a week goes red: three moves

• Pull revenue forward - collect what you're owed, take deposits, presell.
• Push spending back - renegotiate timing before you're desperate, not after.
• Cut once, deeply - not four times shallowly. Shallow cuts burn morale twice.
• And arrange credit while things are fine. Banks lend umbrellas on sunny days.

Money Mechanics

Pay yourself on purpose

• Put a salary line for you in the budget - even a small one.
• "Whatever's left" means the business buys your labor at $0 and the P&L is lying.
• A business that can't pay you isn't profitable. It's a job with extra steps.
• Raise your pay on a schedule, like you would for any key hire. You are one.

Money Mechanics

Raise money, or not?

• Most Ignitor-stage businesses shouldn't raise. Customers are the best investors.
• Revenue is funding without dilution, interest, or a boss.
• Raise (a loan, a line, outside cash) when unit economics are proven and demand outruns your cash.
• Don't raise to find product-market fit, cover losses, or feel legitimate.
• Money amplifies the machine you already have - including a broken one.

Sell, Market, Leverage

Selling when you hate selling

• You don't hate selling. You hate pitching.
• Pitching is talking at someone. Selling is helping someone decide.
• The best salespeople at your stage ask more than they talk.
• You already sell every time you explain what you do. We're just aiming it.

Sell, Market, Leverage

Their life, not your features

• Rule of thumb: for every fact about you, one sentence about their life.
• They're not buying what it is. They're buying what it does for them.

Sell, Market, Leverage

A sales conversation that doesn't feel gross

1. Ask what they're trying to fix. Then be quiet.
2. Mirror it back in their words.
3. Show only the part of your offer that fixes that.
4. Ask: "Want me to put together how that would work?" - a small yes, not a corner.

If it's not a fit, say so and point them somewhere better. That's how referrals start.

Sell, Market, Leverage

Pick two channels. Max.

• At your stage, depth beats presence.
• A channel "works" when you can trace a paying customer back to it.
• Two channels done weekly beat six done "when I have time."
• Ignore where competitors "should" be. Go where your buyer already looks.

Sell, Market, Leverage

Choosing your two: match the moment

• They search for it → Google, SEO, marketplaces.
• They discover it → Instagram, TikTok, markets, retail shelves.
• They're referred to it → partnerships, communities, past clients.
• They compare before buying → your email list, reviews, case studies.
• Circle one channel you can pay to test, one you own outright.

Sell, Market, Leverage

Content and social without burning out

• One core piece a week. Then slice it: clips, captions, an email.
• Document, don't perform - show the work you're already doing.
• Batch a month of posts in one sitting. Future-you says thanks.
• Consistent and boring beats brilliant and gone.
• Unsubscribe from the guilt: silence on four platforms costs you nothing.

Sell, Market, Leverage

AI is your first hire

• A $0 research analyst, first-draft writer, and ops assistant - on call.
• It does volume. You do judgment. Never flip that.
• Never ship a draft you didn't edit. Your voice is the moat.
• Start with one workflow that hurts weekly - not ten tools you'll abandon.

Sell, Market, Leverage

Concrete wins you can have this week

• Research: "Summarize the most common complaints in these 50 reviews of my competitor."
• Drafts: product descriptions, FAQ answers, and proposal boilerplate from your bullet points.
• Ops: turn a rambling voice memo into a step-by-step SOP.
• Sales: "Here are my call notes - draft the follow-up email in my voice."

Sell, Market, Leverage

Referrals by design, not accident

• Happy customers refer when asked at the right moment: right after the win.
• Make the ask a step in your process, not a hope. "Who else is wrestling with this?"
• Make it easy: hand them one sentence they can forward.
• Thank loudly. Reward if it fits your business.
• Track it. Your best channel might already be this one.

The 90-Day Plan

Pick three. Only three.

• Look back at everything you circled, starred, and wrote today.
• Choose three goals for the next 90 days. Not five. Not four.
• Each one gets a number and a date.
• If everything is a priority, nothing is.
• Your audit, your UVP, your napkin - the goals are probably already on those pages.

The 90-Day Plan

The plan fits on one page

For each of the three goals:

• The goal - with its number and date.
• First action - something you can do this week.
• What I'll stop doing to make room for it.
• Who checks on me - your cohort, by name.

The 90-Day Plan

The accountability contract

• In a minute, you'll say your #1 goal out loud to this room.
• Write all three where you'll see them in your weekly CEO hour.
• 30-day check: your cohort will ask you about them. That's the point.
• Asking for help early is the move, not the failure.

The 90-Day Plan

What monthly looks like: stucks and wins

• Every month you bring one stuck - a real, current problem.
• And one win - because you'll forget to notice them otherwise.
• The table responds with experience shares, same rules as today.
• You leave every session with fresh 30-day commitments.
• Today lights the fire. The monthly cadence keeps it burning.

The 90-Day Plan

What happens next in Ignitor

• This month: finish your target customer worksheet and your first 13-week forecast.
• In 30 days: your first stucks-and-wins session. Bring the plan.
• Ongoing: monthly cohort days, EO Portland learning events, guest speakers.
• Past $100K: you'll join EO Accelerator learning days twice a year.
• Past $250K: Accelerator. Past $1M: EO. The ladder is real - people climb it.