7. What's Missing: The Gap Between Built and Paid, Renewed, Referred

Assumption: nothing is built yet. So these are gaps between the plan and a business.

7.1 Gaps to pay

Gap	Why it blocks payment	Fix
No named trade	You can't price, message or sell to "small trades"	Portable fire-extinguisher inspection and service, US, 1–10 techs (02).
No pricing	Undefined. Pricing sets scope and the customer count.	Suggested (verify with 15 owners): Solo $69/mo (1 tech), Shop $179/mo (up to 5 techs), Crew $329/mo (up to 12). Flat per shop, not per seat. 2 months free on annual. 14-day trial, no free plan. Migration fee for large archives (e.g. $1 per unit above 1,000, to test).
Price against FireInspected ($49–249)	Solo techs compare list prices	Don't race to the bottom. Sell the migration done for them and the revenue found. A Solo plan at $69 is only $20 more than FireInspected, and one missed hydro test costs more.
No quantified value promise	"Modern records" doesn't justify a card on file	"We'll find the extinguishers you're not billing for, and cut your report time in half." Measure units due vs billed, and report time, from day one.
Switching cost	Years of history on paper or in another tool	Migration done for them, and going live with current-year units in 7 days.
No trust signals	A shop is handing over its whole customer base	A named person on the phone, a security page, daily backups, export anytime in CSV and PDF, and testimonials from named shops.

Gap	Fix
Annual work, so logins may be monthly or less for small shops	Anchor on a monthly job: the "due next month" list goes out on the 1st, by email and in the app.
Value is invisible once it works	A monthly "revenue found" email: units due, quoted, billed, and hours saved on reports.
Data loss fear	Offline-first sync with conflict handling, a visible "last synced" state, daily backups, and a monthly export to the owner's own storage.
Office admin leaves, and nobody knows the tool	Recorded training, a second admin seat on every plan, and an onboarding checklist that a new hire can follow.
Seasonal cash crunch	Annual plans at signup, and a pause option instead of cancellation for 1-tech shops.

Gap	Fix
Nothing visibly shareable	The customer portal and PDF reports carry a subtle "Powered by TradeLedger" footer. Building managers see them, and they work with several contractors.
No free hook	A free NFPA 10 due-date calculator (enter manufacture date and type, get the 6-year and hydro dates), plus SEO pages per city portal ("how to submit extinguisher reports in [city]").
No community	A monthly 30-minute owners' call on portal changes and pricing. Owners in small trades talk to each other.
No referral economics	One month free per referred paying shop. Distributors who refer service shops get a revenue share (test it).

Missing from the idea entirely. There's no mention of how the first 50 shops arrive.
Channels that work for this trade:
- The NAFED member directory.
- Contractor lists published by cities and on The Compliance Engine for each jurisdiction.
- Search for due-date and portal questions.
- Referrals between owners.
- Fire-equipment distributors that supply small shops.
- A trade advisor's own network.
Channels that burn cash: broad Google or Meta ads to "contractors", trade-show booths before $5k MRR, and paid lead lists of the wrong trades.

Current: "a system of record for one unglamorous trade". An investor thesis, not a pitch.
Better: "The system of record for extinguisher service shops: every unit, every due date, every report, off paper in a week." One buyer, one outcome.

Founder-led for the first 20 shops: a phone call, a 20-minute demo on the shop's own data (import 50 of their units first), and a migration done by you.
After 20: trial-led with a recorded demo, a self-serve import wizard, and one weekly group onboarding call.
At ~15 hrs/week, the sales motion is the plan. Automate onboarding before automating anything else.

Area	Requirement
Responsibility for compliance	Terms of service: the licensed contractor, not the software, decides and certifies compliance. TradeLedger supplies records and reminders. Never market "guaranteed compliance."
Standards	Due-date rules are editable, because NFPA 10 editions and local AHJ rules differ. Default rules cite the edition used. (Intervals weren't re-read from the standard in this research run; verify them before launch.)
Records retention	Keep inspection history for the life of the account plus an export period. Many jurisdictions expect years of records, so never auto-delete.
Audit trail	Every change is logged with user and time. It's your defence and theirs after an incident.
Data protection	Customer and site data belong to the shop. Follow US state privacy laws (e.g. CCPA/CPRA where they apply) and have a clear data-processing addendum. Sign in with passwords plus optional 2FA.
Insurance	Technology E&O and cyber insurance before the first paying shop. A missed due date in a fire is the tail risk.
Payments	Stripe payment links and QuickBooks sync. Never hold customer funds.
AI extraction	Human check before imported data goes live. Tell customers when AI was used. Don't train shared models on customer records.

Not provided. At minimum:
- one full-stack developer who can build an offline-first PWA and import tools;
- one person with trade access (founder, co-founder or paid advisor).
Without trade access, customer discovery and distribution stall. This is the main risk (05).

Minimum set, instrumented from the first pilot: