Industries
A product, a channel, and a P&L that has to stand without the owner hiding in the hours.
The owner is still in the work. Price has to carry materials and time. The pack has to survive a shipper. The books have to be separate from the household. Direct-to-consumer, wholesale, and a second location are not the same business.
A price that covers materials and forgets the hours will not hold when the first hire arrives. Revenue that looks fine on a weekend stall is a different number once the owner’s week and a wage are on the statement.
What sells in person is not what survives a carton, a carrier, or a buyer’s shelf. The pack that worked at the market is not the pack a wholesaler will take.
Opening a second door or selling wholesale is not a bigger version of the first channel. It is a different operation sharing the same owner.
Early-stage work is the same method applied sooner: pricing and margin that include the hours, inventory control by channel, a pack spec that survives a carton and a buyer’s shelf, and a P&L that puts owner time and the first wage on the statement. Read it on What we do.
~20%
Small businesses that close in the first year.
BLS Business Employment Dynamics / SBA-cited survival: about one in five exits by year one.
~50%
Small businesses that do not make it to year five.
BLS Business Employment Dynamics: roughly half of new firms are gone by year five.
50+ hrs
A common owner week before that time is on the P&L.
Owner-week surveys commonly land at 50 hours or more before that labor is costed.
81%
U.S. small firms with no employees — the owner is still the labor.
Federal Reserve Small Business Credit Survey: nonemployer firms are 81% of U.S. small businesses.
A price that covers materials and forgets the hours will not hold when the first hire arrives.
What sells in person is not what survives a carton, a carrier, or a buyer’s shelf.
Revenue that looks fine until the owner’s time and the first wage are on the statement.
Wholesale, a second location, and the original channel are not the same operation.