11. 24-Month Gated Roadmap (Fallback Only)

Verdict first: the recommendation is not to start FormDrop. This roadmap exists for the DACH-agency fallback, in case you go ahead anyway. See WHAT-TO-DO-AND-AVOID.md.

Target: $1k+ MRR at ~15 hrs/week or $3k+ MRR full-time by month 24, profitable, ≥80% gross margin, ≤3% monthly revenue churn. Rule: nothing in a later phase starts until the current phase's gate is hit. Gates and stop rules are in WHAT-TO-DO-AND-AVOID.md. The detail for days 1–90 is in 08-90-day-plan.md.

Phase 1: Prove agencies will pay (Months 0–3) → Gates day 45, day 90

Track	Work
Decision	Week 1: confirm German ability and agency access, and price a purchase of an existing form backend.
Customers	20–30 agency calls. Concierge pilots for 10 agencies.
Product	Thin v1: endpoint, spam filtering, EU email with per-client domains, per-client workspaces, AVV and TOMs, German docs, Paddle billing, abuse controls.
Distribution	Outbound to 130 agencies in total. 10 German long-tail pages.
Pricing	Freelancer €9, Agency €39, Agency Plus €79. Pilots get founding pricing locked for 12 months.
Exit	Day 45: 3 / 5 paying (kill test). Day 90: 8 / 15 paying.

Phase 2: Make it stick (Months 4–6) → Gate month 6

Track	Work
Product	Client read-only inbox, monthly per-client report the agency can forward, delivery monitoring and alerts.
Distribution	Paid migration service off US form backends. A free German "Kontaktformular-Check" tool. 20 German pages in total.
Metrics	Sites per agency, revenue churn, delivery rate, share of customers from outbound vs search.
Exit	$500 MRR (15 hrs/week) / $1k MRR (full-time), revenue churn ≤4%

Phase 3: Find a second channel (Months 7–12) → Gate month 12

Track	Work
Product	Webhooks, n8n / Make / Zapier, workspace handover to a client's own account.
Distribution	Pitch 5 EU hosts or agency networks on a white-label or bundled offer. Community presence in German-speaking Astro and Framer groups.
Ops	Help center in German, onboarding emails, churn-reason survey, second email provider on standby.
Exit	$800 MRR (15 hrs/week) / $1.8k MRR (full-time), ≥3 sites per paying agency on average

Phase 4: Hold or sell (Months 13–24) → Gates month 18, month 24

Track	Work
Product	Nothing new unless ≥5 paying agencies ask for the same thing.
Distribution	All effort on the single best channel from months 1–12.
Checkpoint	Month 18: $1k / $2.5k MRR. Missing it means preparing a sale listing.
Decision at month 24	At target with churn ≤3%: run it at low hours, or sell. Below $1k: stop, and sell the code and customer list.
Exit	$1.2k+ MRR (15 hrs/week) / $3k+ MRR (full-time), profitable

Revenue path (illustrative, not a forecast)

Month	Full-time: customers	Full-time: MRR	~15 hrs/week: customers	~15 hrs/week: MRR
3	15	~$450	8	~$250
6	33	~$1k	17	~$500
12	60	~$1.8k	27	~$800
18	83	~$2.5k	33	~$1k
24	100	~$3k	40	~$1.2k

Assumptions:

Blended ARPA ~$30 after annual discounts.
Monthly revenue churn ≤3% after month 6.
≥70% of new customers from outbound and referrals, since search traffic is assumed near zero.
The ceiling test: at 3% churn, $3k needs ~$90 a month of replacement MRR plus growth, about 7 new agencies a month by months 18–24. At 6% churn it needs twice that.

If churn runs above 5%, this path doesn't work. You've sold to one-site freelancers. Fix the buyer mix or stop.

Budget guardrails (bootstrapped)

Hosting, EU email sending, storage and spam scoring below 5% of revenue. Merchant-of-record fees about 5–6%, more on €9 plans.
One-off costs before month 3: a data-protection review of your AVV and TOMs, terms and imprint reviewed by a lawyer, cyber or indemnity insurance. Keep them under ~€3k (estimate, unverified).
Zero paid acquisition inside the 24 months unless a channel shows payback under 2 months.
No certifications (ISO 27001 and similar) inside the 24 months.
Keep 6 months of costs in reserve. They're small, so this is easy.
Stop date: write down now that below $1k MRR at month 24 means stop and sell.