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# 7 · The first ninety days

One operator, no money raised, a laptop and an agent seat.

## Days 1 to 10: build the machine on yourself

- Build the **sales site** exactly the way a customer's will be built: public repository, GitHub Pages, custom domain, the agent doing the work from your brief. This is the product demo and the first test of the playbook.
- Write the **first playbook** (`prototypes/webmaster-playbook.md` is the starting point) and the **setup checklist**.
- Build the **three mock-ups** in this vault as real repositories, so you can show a change happening live. Ten minutes each with the agent.
- Open the **operator's vault**: playbook, templates, pricing, the sales notes. Everything you learn goes in it.
- Decide the company basics: name, the sales domain, the invoicing tool, the bank account. One afternoon.

## Days 11 to 30: the first five customers, at the free-then-take-it-away price

- Rebuild five local businesses' sites unasked, on preview URLs, and send them. Two hours each.
- Give the ones who respond the customer session for two weeks.
- Take it away on day fifteen. Sign the ones who call, at the published setup price, with the first month of maintenance free.
- After each setup, update the playbook and the checklist with what took longest. **Time every setup.**

## Days 31 to 60: ten customers and the monthly note

- Send the first monthly notes. This is where the maintenance package earns its price, so do it properly: what changed, what you noticed, one suggestion.
- Ask every customer for one introduction. Start the referral offer.
- Publish the prices on the sales site if they are not already.
- Set up the change-log review as a weekly habit: what are customers asking for? That list is the upsell menu and the roadmap.
- Add the second and third templates to the operator's vault, from the shapes of sites customers actually asked for.

## Days 61 to 90: twenty customers, and the numbers

- Twenty on maintenance is about £1,800 of monthly recurring revenue at the assumed mix. With setups and on-demand work the month is over £3,000. Compare to the Small scenario and adjust prices.
- Measure the three numbers that matter: **setup hours per customer** (target: under five by customer twenty), **maintenance minutes per customer per month** (target: under an hour), **churn** (target: nobody leaves in the first ninety days who has used the customer session).
- Write down what broke. Every incident becomes a rule in the playbook, the same way every published vault on sgit.ai produced a rule.
- Decide whether to hire the second operator at fifty or to stay small and profitable. Both are fine. The plan works either way.

## What to have by day 90

| Artefact | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| A sales site that is itself the demo | public repository, GitHub Pages |
| Twenty live customer sites, each a repository the customer owns | GitHub |
| Twenty customer vaults with brief, materials, notes and playbook | the operator's vault store |
| The operator playbook, versioned, with the rules learned | the operator's vault |
| Ninety days of change logs | in every repository |
| A number for setup hours, maintenance minutes and churn | the operator's vault |

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