Target: an MRR ladder. The plan below aims for $5.5k MRR (~15 hrs/week) or $10k MRR (full-time) by month 24, with ≥90% gross margin and ≥80% month-3 retention. The $20k rung (Tier B) needs everything here plus a channel that works without you.
Rule: nothing in a later phase starts until the current phase's gate is hit. Gates and pivot 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 the pain (Months 0–3) → Gates day 30, day 90
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Customers | 15–20 MSP calls. Concierge service for 5–8 paying MSPs. |
| Product | v1: per-client email intake (two providers), 8 backup-product templates, "teach it" rules, ping URLs, multi-client board, alerts to email / Teams / Slack / PSA ticket email, daily digest, monthly white-label PDF. |
| Reliability | External watchdog, public status page, database standby, restore test of your own backups. |
| Distribution | 4 product guides, a setup video, 2 community posts. |
| Pricing | Solo $39 / Team $99 / Growth $199. Pilots keep founding pricing for 12 months. |
| Exit | 8 paying MSPs (15h) / 15 (full-time), ≥80% month-1 retention, zero missed failures |
Phase 2: Make it trustworthy and repeatable (Months 4–6) → Gate month 6
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Product | Alert grouping, maintenance windows, run-time and size checks, template-change detection, audit log. |
| Distribution | 10 product guides total. "Caught it" stories. Referral offer: one month free each way. |
| Ops | Help center, templated support replies, in-app parser test screen. |
| Metrics | Classification rate, alert latency, false-alarm rate, reports sent. |
| Exit | $800 MRR (15h) / $1.5k (full-time), ≥25% trial-to-paid |
Phase 3: Proof for clients and insurers (Months 7–12) → Gate month 12
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Product | Restore-test log with quarterly reminders, evidence export, webhooks, EU/US data region, Microsoft Entra ID sign-in if MSPs with 10+ techs ask. |
| Distribution | Ask every MSP with 3+ months for a public review. One MSP peer-group talk or podcast. Test one partner listing (a PSA or backup-vendor marketplace) if one is open to small vendors (unverified). |
| Ops | Churn-reason survey. Onboarding emails. |
| Exit | $2k MRR (15h) / $4k (full-time), ≤3% monthly logo churn, 10+ / 20+ reviews |
Phase 4: Scale what works (Months 13–24) → Gates month 18, month 24
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Product | Native API for the single PSA most customers use. APIs for the 2–3 most-used backup products. SLA and RPO per client, for MSPs with 50+ clients. SMS alerts only with caps and country allow-lists. |
| Distribution | Double down on the single best source of trials from months 1–12. |
| Team | A part-time contractor for support or parser templates, only if support takes more than a third of your hours. |
| Checkpoint | Month 18: $3.5k (15h) / $7k (full-time). Missing it means putting everything into the best channel. |
| Decision at month 24 | Above target with churn ≤3%: aim for $20k in year 3. $1k–5k: run it as a profitable tool, or sell it. Below $1k: stop. |
| Exit | $5.5k MRR (15h) / $10k MRR (full-time), profitable |
Revenue path (illustrative, not a forecast)
| Month | Paying MSPs (~15 hrs/week) | MRR (~15 hrs/week) | Paying MSPs (full-time) | MRR (full-time) |
|---|
| 3 | 8 | ~$400 (founding prices) | 15 | ~$800 |
| 6 | 12 | ~$800 | 20 | ~$1.5k |
| 12 | 25 | ~$2k | 48 | ~$4k |
| 18 | 42 | ~$3.5k | 82 | ~$7k |
| 24 | 64 | ~$5.5k | 115 | ~$10k |
This assumes blended ARPU rising from ~$55 (founding prices, smaller MSPs) to ~$87, monthly logo churn of 2–3% after month 6, trial-to-paid ~25%, and ≥40% of trials from search, community and referral. For $20k at month 24, you'd need ~230 MSPs, twice the full-time path. If churn runs above 5%, fix parsing and alert noise before spending any time on growth.
Budget guardrails (bootstrapped)
- Hosting, inbound and outbound email, and tools below 10% of revenue after month 6, and under ~$600 a month in total.
- Zero paid acquisition before month 6. After it, only channels with payback under 3 months.
- No SMS until there are caps, metering and country allow-lists.
- Keep a reserve equal to 6 months of costs. They're small, so this is cheap.