From vaults, a file in the seed packEverything on this sheet is the source site's own text; the newsroom's chrome is outside it.
The business model
Every figure here is a hypothesis to be tested by the first twenty customers. The arithmetic is shown so it can be redone, and the app's calculator moves every input.
Time and cost per level
| Level | Price | Person's time | Model and hosting | Gross per hour of a person |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | £50 | 0 | about £0 | automated |
| Your X-ray vault | £150 | 20 minutes | about £1 | about £450 |
| Standard | £500 | 3.5 hours: intake check 0.5, run 0.5, review 1.5, handover 0.5, admin 0.5 | £20 | about £137 |
| Tailored | £1,500 | 9 hours: sessions 2, preparation 1, custom analyses 2, review 3, sign-off and admin 1 | £40 | about £162 |
| Re-X-ray, Standard | £350 | 2 hours | £15 | about £168 |
Payment fees of about 2% are left out of the table and included in the calculator.
Break-even
Two founders at a modest salary and the tools they need: about £12,000 a month, a hypothesis.
| Mix in a month | Revenue | Person hours |
|---|---|---|
| 20 kits, 5 vaults, 11 Standard, 3 Tailored, 3 Re-X-rays | £12,800 | about 73 |
After about £650 of model, hosting and payment fees, that is just above break-even. Seventy-three hours is under half of one person's working month. The rest is selling, and improving the catalogue.
Why it scales
- The catalogue compounds. The first X-ray in a sector takes the longest; by the third, a sector pack takes the custom work out of the next.
- The review is the bottleneck, and it is a skill that can be taught. One reviewer handles about thirty Standard X-rays a month, around £15,000 of revenue.
- Partners scale it without hiring. An accountant with fifty clients is fifty potential X-rays at year end.
- The Re-X-ray is the recurring revenue, without a subscription. Customers come back when the next quarter's numbers are in, and each repeat is cheaper to run because the vault already holds the last one.
- The kit sells while nobody is working. It is also the answer to "could I not do this myself?": yes, and here is how.
What would change the numbers
- Review time. If a Standard review takes three hours rather than one and a half, the Standard level earns about £95 an hour. Measure it from customer one.
- Price. £500 is low for what a board gets. Test £750 on the fifth customer.
- Repeat rate. The model above assumes one in four Standard customers comes back within six months.