Target: the MRR ladder in WHAT-TO-DO-AND-AVOID.md. The planning line is $10k MRR by month 24 full-time (~$5k at ~15 hrs/week), profitable, ≥85% gross margin, ≥80% month-3 retention. $20k is a stretch path, set out at the end.
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 lift (Months 0–3) → Gates at day 14, day 30, day 90
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Technical | Razorpay API spike (failures, mandates, payment links). Partner and OAuth terms. |
| Customers | 20 merchant calls. 5 paid leakage audits. 5 concierge pilots. |
| Product | Thin v1: webhook ingest, WhatsApp → SMS → email with UPI pay link, mandate-expiry alerts, 10% holdout, monthly ₹ report. Encrypted keys, DPA. |
| Pricing | Founding price: 50% off for 6 months for the first 10. |
| Exit | 10 paying, median lift ≥3× fee against holdout |
Phase 2: Make it repeatable (Months 4–6) → Gate at month 6
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Product | Failure-reason decoding (different message per reason). Hindi templates. Weekly one-line merchant update. Self-serve onboarding under 15 minutes. |
| Distribution | Leakage calculator page. LinkedIn posts with anonymised numbers, twice a week. 2 billing or payments consultants on a referral share. |
| Partner | Razorpay partner or app application in progress. |
| Metrics | Per-merchant dashboard of treatment vs holdout, incremental ₹ ÷ fee, channel share. |
| Exit | $1k MRR (~15 merchants), ≥75% month-3 retention |
Phase 3: Channel and moat (Months 7–12) → Gate at month 12
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Product | Heads-up before charges above ₹15,000. Win-back of halted subscriptions. 2 more languages. Real-time dashboard for Scale merchants. |
| Distribution | First quarterly Indian subscription failure report (month 9). Razorpay listing live. 1–2 founder-community talks. |
| Data | Anonymised failure data across 30+ merchants, with consent in the DPA. |
| Ops | Help centre, template library, channel-health monitoring with automatic fallback. |
| Exit | $3.5k MRR (~45 merchants), churn ≤3%/month, partner listing live |
Phase 4: Widen and scale (Months 13–24) → Gates at months 18 and 24
| Track | Work |
|---|
| Product | Second rail (month 13–15): Cashfree or PayU subscriptions, or Indian SaaS on Stripe with India-issued cards. Pick the one merchants ask for most. Retry orchestration only if API access allows it. Cancel flows only if 10+ merchants ask. |
| Distribution | Double down on the single best channel from months 1–12. Second quarterly report onwards. |
| Team | At $6k+ MRR full-time: a part-time onboarding and support contractor. At $10k+: a sales and onboarding hire, not another engineer. |
| Checkpoint | Month 18: $6.5k MRR (~85 merchants). If missed, drop the second rail if it hasn't sold 5 accounts, and focus on the best channel. |
| Decision at month 24 | $10k+ full-time (or $5k+ at ~15 hrs/week): target hit. Decide whether to hire for the $20k path. Between $2k and target: run it profitably. Below $1k: stop, or sell the code and customers. |
Revenue path (illustrative, not a forecast)
| Month | Merchants (full-time) | MRR (full-time) | Merchants (~15 hrs/week) | MRR (~15 hrs/week) |
|---|
| 3 | 10 (founding price) | ~$400 | 6 | ~$250 |
| 6 | 15 | ~$1k | 10 | ~$700 |
| 12 | 45 | ~$3.5k | 28 | ~$2.2k |
| 18 | 85 | ~$6.5k | 45 | ~$3.5k |
| 24 | 130 | ~$10k | 65 | ~$5k |
This assumes a blended ₹6,800 ($77) a merchant after founding discounts expire, monthly churn of about 3% after month 6, and at least 5 sales hours a week at ~15 hrs/week. If churn runs above 5%, or lift against holdout falls below 2× fee, this path doesn't work. Fix the proof before spending on growth.
The $20k stretch path
- ~270 merchants. That may be ~7–13% of the estimated Indian Razorpay market, so a second rail must contribute at least 30% of new merchants from month 15.
- A sales and onboarding hire by month 15, paid from MRR. At ~30 new merchants a month, one founder can't keep up.
- Month-18 checkpoint for this path: $10k MRR. If you're below it, drop the $20k plan and run the $10k business.
Budget guardrails (bootstrapped)
- Messaging (WhatsApp, SMS, email) plus hosting below 12% of revenue. Pass WhatsApp costs through above a fair-use cap per plan.
- Zero paid acquisition before the month-6 gate. After it, only channels that pay back within 3 months.
- No SOC 2 before $10k MRR, unless a Scale merchant pays for it.
- Keep 6 months of personal runway if full-time. If runway falls below 3 months, drop to ~15 hrs/week and to the $5k plan.