David is a first-time founder. He starts a business helping other first-time founders. He pays €395 per month for the platform and a 20% revenue share. The question is when his new business pays him more than his old job. The answer animates below.
Manchester. Mid-thirties. Just left a corporate role to start First90, a service that walks first-time founders through the first ninety days of running their company. He has the niche. He has done it himself. What he wants is to know whether the math holds.
David
Founder, First90 · Manchester, UK
"I sold my last company eighteen months ago. The mistakes I made in my first ninety days cost me four developers and a year. I want to walk other first-time founders past those traps."
The model. Setup fee €1,500 per founder onboarded (intake, plan, week-by-week roadmap). Retainer €100 per month for ongoing weekly check-ins, document review, and second-opinions. Conservative growth: one founder in month one, ramping to five new per month by year end. No marketing budget assumed; word of mouth and the Inception-generated marketing site only.
02 / The stack
The cost stack, in two parts.
The factory's pricing is deliberately simple. One subscription for the platform. One revenue share for alignment. No setup fee, no per-seat, no upsells. The split is the same whether David has one customer a month or fifty.
Part one
Platform subscription
€395 / month
Hosting, infrastructure, branded login, marketing site, deck, dashboard, agent compute up to a fair-use limit. Same price whether David serves one customer or many.
Part two
Revenue share
80 / 20
Eighty percent of David's gross revenue stays with David. Twenty percent goes to the factory. We win when David wins, not before.
David 80%
VBF 20%
Why this shape. The platform fee covers the infrastructure regardless of David's traction. The revenue share aligns the factory's incentive with David's growth. If David earns nothing, the factory earns nothing on top of the subscription. If David scales, the factory scales with him.
03 / Year one
Twelve months, watched in twelve seconds.
David's monthly take-home (orange) ramps as new customers arrive and retainers compound. The dashed red line is what he was earning at his old job. The question is when the orange line crosses it.
Month
0
New customers
0
Active retainers
0
Gross revenue
€0
VBF share (20%)
€0
Platform fee
€0
David's take-home
€0
04 / The crossover
Month six. The line crosses.
Six months in, David's monthly take-home from First90 exceeds what his old job paid. From here, every additional customer compounds the gap. Retainers, particularly, keep adding value with each new month rather than consuming new sales effort.
Crossover, month six
€5,330 > €4,500
First month David's First90 take-home exceeds his previous salary
Old job
€4,500
Per month, before tax. Capped by employer.
Month six, First90
€5,330
Per month. Uncapped. Compounding.
05 / Beyond
End of year one.
By month twelve, David has forty active retainers and adds five to six new founders a month. His annual take-home is more than double his previous salary. The factory has earned its share, and earned it visibly: he is on the platform every day, and the platform pays him back in operational leverage.
Month 12 take-home
€10,050
2.2x his old monthly salary
Year one total to David
€58,000
Net of platform fees and VBF share
Year one total to VBF
€19,200
Platform fees + 20% revenue share
Produced by Taylor, Business Analyst
Conservative-case numbers. The customer-acquisition curve assumes word-of-mouth only and no marketing budget. A founder with even modest paid acquisition would compress the timeline; a founder in a slower-converting niche would extend it. The shape, however, holds: platform cost is fixed, revenue share is proportional, the operator's net rises with their traction. Both sides win when traction arrives. Neither wins when it does not. That is the alignment.
Now multiply
Same math. Many verticals.
One vertical, one operator, one set of unit economics. The same shape applies across categories. A claims firm, an immigration consultancy, a patient navigator, a tax practice. Each starts the same way, ramps at its own pace, breaks even on its own curve. The platform serves them all.
For the operator
The platform fee is the only fixed cost. Everything else scales with traction. If the niche works, the operator wins more than the factory. If it does not, the factory loses with the operator.
Fixed cost: €395 per month
Variable cost: 20% of gross, only on actual revenue
No salary, no equity, no exclusivity
Operator owns brand, customers, and exit
For the factory
Subscription revenue is steady and small. Revenue-share revenue is volatile and concentrated. The factory's incentive is to make every operator successful, not to lock anyone in.
Subscription revenue covers infrastructure
Revenue share earns alongside operator success
One platform serves dozens of operators
Improvements propagate to every vertical
Your turn
Run the numbers on your niche.
The math works on conservative assumptions. The math works better on yours. Start a conversation with Patrick, walk through your dimensions, see what the curve looks like for your business.
