8. If I Were You: The Next 90 Days
The single most important thing
Get 25 tattoo or piercing studios paying at least $19 a month for state-correct consent before you build anything beyond v1.
- Segment: independent studios with 2–8 artists, in 3 launch states, that use Square, paper or a free app today. Piercing-heavy studios first.
- Job: "Make our consent paperwork legal for our state, handle minors correctly, and have records ready for an inspector."
- How: start by hand. Build each studio's forms on a no-code stack (an off-the-shelf form tool with e-signature), with the state rules applied by you. Charge from week 3. Automate only what you've done by hand at least 10 times.
- Time: the plan below fits ~15 hrs/week. Full-time, compress weeks 5–8 into 3 weeks and double the outreach.
Week-by-week
| Weeks | Goal | Exit criteria |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Rules and discovery. Build the rules sheet for the 3 launch states plus the 7 most populous: minimum age, consent override, notarization, presence, ID, retention, statute link. Sign the studio advisor. Talk to 20 studio owners or piercers: how do they handle minors, what did the last inspection ask for, what do they use now, what do they pay? | Rules sheet done with sources. 20 conversations logged. You can name the top 3 pains in studios' own words. |
| 3–4 | Hand-built pilot. Set up state-correct forms for 10–15 studios on no-code tools, with a QR code for the desk. Charge $19–39 a month, founding price locked for 12 months. Book the lawyer review of the 3 launch states' templates. | 10+ paying. If fewer than 5 will pay, the pain isn't strong enough in this segment. Switch to piercing-only studios once. |
| 5–8 | Build the thin v1 (web app, PWA on iPad): state rules engine (10 states), tattoo and piercing templates, minors and guardian flow with hard blocks, pre-sign links, kiosk mode, encrypted ID capture, search, retention by state, inspection export, Square Appointments integration. | Pilots move to v1. ≥50% of forms pre-signed before arrival. Lawyer review complete. |
| 9–10 | Free acquisition hook. Publish 20 state pages ("tattoo age laws in [state]", "piercing a minor in [state]"), each with a free printable state-correct form and a link to the free tier. Apply for the Square App Marketplace listing if eligible. | Pages live. 100+ free signups. |
| 11–12 | Measure and decide. | 25+ paying, ≥80% M1 retention, ≥50% of paying studios have used the minors flow or the inspection export. Hit it: continue to the gated roadmap. Miss it: go back to discovery; don't add features. |
Kill criteria (write these down now)
If at day 90 you have fewer than 12 paying studios, or paid M1 retention is below 70%, studios don't value the rules enough to pay over free tools. Don't respond by adding features. Respond by changing the segment (piercing-only, or a different state mix), once. A second miss means stop.
The one thing to stop doing
Stop considering trampoline parks, climbing gyms and med spas.
The first two already get waivers inside their venue software (ROLLER, CenterEdge, Rock Gym Pro with Smartwaiver). Med spas get forms inside their EMR and bring HIPAA, a BAA per customer, and clinical liability. Keeping them "as options" leads to generic templates, a generic builder and a generic pitch, which is exactly how you end up competing with FlatWaiver at $19 unlimited.
A close second: don't build a drag-and-drop form builder. The value is the rules, not the builder.
What stays on the long-term roadmap (only after proof)
- All 50 states + DC in the rules library (by month 9).
- Convention (offline) mode and guest-artist handling.
- ID barcode reading to flag minors automatically.
- A second booking integration, only when 10 paying studios ask for the same one.
- Permanent makeup and microblading templates (past $10k MRR).
- Canada, UK and Australia (past $10k MRR, and only where the rules create real work).