Revenue and profit scenarios
This page turns the rollout plan and the business model into sixteen months of numbers, September 2026 to December 2027, under four different growth paths. It is a plain, month-by-month model, built from the brief's rate card, phases and targets, with every gap filled by a stated assumption. It shows how much cash the company burns before it can stand on its own, and which levers matter most for closing that gap.
On this page
- 1. What this page is and how to read it
- 2. Assumptions
- 3. The four scenarios defined
- 4. Base scenario, month by month
- 5. Conservative scenario
- 6. Aggressive scenario
- 7. Slow fill scenario
- 8. Side by side
- 9. What it takes to break even
- 10. Funding need
- 11. What to watch each month
- 12. Limits of this model
1. What this page is and how to read it
The model runs for sixteen months, from September 2026 (the start of Phase 0) to December 2027 (the end of Phase 4). Each month has one row. "Profit" on this page always means monthly operating profit: revenue for that month minus every cost that month, before tax and before any interest, loan repayment or other financing. It is not net income, and it is not a cash balance in a bank account, though the running total (the "cumulative" figure) behaves like one if the company raises exactly what it needs when it needs it.
Every number in this model is an assumption unless the canonical brief fixes it. Where a number comes straight from the brief (the 20% of every deposit that is the platform's revenue, the league CPMs creators are paid at, the floor and cap on what a post can earn, see section 2, and the phase dates and targets), this page says so. Where the brief leaves a number open (salaries, other fixed costs, how many brands choose which plan), this page states a plain rule and marks it "(assumption)". Nothing here should be read as a forecast. It is a spreadsheet in words: a fixed set of rules applied consistently across sixteen months and four scenarios, so that the shape of the business (how fast losses shrink, what breaks even, what does not) is visible before a single real dollar has moved. As soon as real signed-up creators, real brand deposits and real costs exist, the founder should replace every assumption on this page with the real number.
The model is deliberately plain in one more way: it holds every rate, every share and every rule constant within a phase. It does not try to guess week-to-week noise. Section 12 lists what it leaves out entirely.
One more limit worth flagging here rather than only in section 12: this model's revenue starts in February 2027, the first month the Base scenario shows any completed gigs (section 4), because it was built around the original fourteen-week Phase 1 timeline. The founder's two-week MVP decision (brief section 28) dispatches a real, funded gig on 21 September 2026 instead, four months earlier, so in practice some small brand revenue could start as early as October 2026, when the first payout run happens, not February 2027. This page does not model that earlier revenue; section 12 explains why the effect on the numbers is small.
This version of the page also replaces an earlier one that included subscription revenue from a Growth plan and a Managed-plan monthly fee. The founder removed both on 4 September 2026 (brief section 33): brands only ever pay the all-in price per gig now, and every table on this page has been re-run with subscription and Managed-fee revenue at zero throughout. Section 2 explains what, if anything, replaces that revenue and why this model leaves both replacements out.
This version of the page also replaces two cut definitions that were both withdrawn on 4 September 2026, a 20% cut added on top of the creator fee and then a 20% cut of the retired "brand price" of every gig, neither of which is used anywhere on this page; the paragraph below describes the definition every table now reflects instead.
This version of the page also replaces the revenue definition a second time. The founder redefined revenue again on 4 September 2026 (brief section 39, binding, overriding section 37 where they differ): the platform's revenue is now 20% of every deposit a brand makes, taken at once, at the moment of deposit, fixed, never refunded and never dependent on views or milestones. The other 80% of the deposit is the creator pool for that brand, and how many views a post actually earns now only changes how much of that pool creators are actually paid; it does not move revenue or profit anywhere on this page. The term "brand price" is retired along with the cut definition it described (brief section 39.3): where this page needs a per-gig number for what a gig removes from a brand's fund, it says "what a gig takes from the fund" instead. Under the previous definition (section 37, revenue released at the 85% completion assumption), revenue per gig was $10.46. Under the deposit-based definition with the fixed creator fees this page used until 4 September 2026, revenue per gig was $12.30. Later that same day, the founder replaced those fixed creator fees with CPM-based pay, then, still on the same day, raised the eligibility bar and re-cut the leagues around it (brief sections 42 and 43, both binding, replacing fixed creator fees in sections 23, 37 and 39 item 2, and section 43 overriding section 23 items 1 and 2 and section 42 item 1 where they differ): a creator now needs a median of at least 5,000 views over the last 90 days to be eligible at all, and is paid per 1,000 real views their post gets, at a CPM set by their league. That change moved revenue per gig from $12.30 to $21.66, because the 5,000-view eligibility floor means every eligible creator, even in the lowest league, carries far more views than the old fixed-fee tiers assumed, so expected earnings, the amount a gig takes from the fund, and the revenue built on that amount are all larger than under either earlier pay model. Section 2 gives the full unit economics under this pay model, and every table on this page from section 4 onward has been re-run on it.
On 5 September 2026 the founder set the final creator-pay rules (brief section 45, binding, overriding sections 42, 43 and 44 where they differ). Creator CPM per 1,000 views is no longer one number per league. It is now a geography base, set by where the creator's audience sits, times a platform factor, times a category factor, times a league factor, spread across eight leagues from Bronze 1 to Diamond (see Rate cards for the full tables). The maximum a post can earn is capped at the creator's median itself, the expected earnings figure, not a multiple of it, unless the brand switches on a bonus. That change moved revenue per gig from $21.66, the single CPM-per-league figure this page used for one day, down to $11.58, because the scenarios model's blended audience mix (50% Tier 1, 20% Tier 2, 15% Tier 3, 15% Tier 4, brief section 45.9) pays far less per view for the Tier 3 and Tier 4 audiences than a model that ignored audience tier altogether. Also on 5 September 2026, the founder re-tuned the base CPMs and platform factors behind that mix to 2026 benchmarks (brief section 46, binding, overriding section 45 items 2, 6, 8 and 9 where they differ), which moved revenue per gig from $11.58 up to $13.20. Section 2 gives the full unit economics under this final retuning, and every table on this page from section 4 onward has been re-run on it.
The cost base on this page also changed on 4 September 2026 (brief section 35, binding). The founder works without salary through 2027: there is no payroll cost anywhere in this model. Other fixed costs are $2,500 a month, covering tools, paid APIs, accounting and app store fees, and there is no dogfood budget in the model at all: the dogfood programme described on the Dogfooding page is not funded here, and if the founder runs it, the spend comes out of profit rather than appearing as a line item already subtracted from it. The founder's own time reviewing submissions is not free just because no invoice gets sent for it: the review cost per gig described in section 2 ($1.00 a gig in every phase, the founder's decision on 4 September 2026, brief section 41.1, now folded into the flat running cost paid from the pool, brief section 47.1) counts that time at the same rate a paid reviewer would cost, so the founder's hours do not disappear from the arithmetic. Earlier versions of this page used a seven-person team costing $70,000 to $100,000 a month. That team was wrong for this company at this stage: this is a solo founder's business until real revenue says otherwise, and every table on this page has been re-run on that basis.
The per-gig cost assumptions on this page changed again on 4 September 2026 (brief section 41, binding). The founder decided to hold the review cost at $1.00 a gig in every phase, instead of letting it fall as auto-approval matures, and to price collection and payout on the actual processors named in the brief rather than a flat percentage rule: collection through Cashfree, blended to about 1.1% of the deposit, and payout through Cashfree Payouts for creators in India and Payoneer for creators abroad, blended to about $0.15 a gig. Section 2 gives the full unit economics under this decision, and every table on this page from section 4 onward has been re-run on it.
On 5 September 2026 the founder set one more rule for what a gig takes from the fund (brief section 47, binding, overriding brief section 45 item 5, section 45 item 7, section 46 items 5 and 6, and section 41 item 6 where they differ). What a gig takes from the brand's fund is now the creator's expected earnings plus a flat running cost of $2.00 a gig (covering review, payout, storage and the card fee's share), the whole sum divided by 0.8. Brands still see one all-in price per gig; the running cost sits inside it and is never itemised to the brand. Because the running cost comes out of the 80% creator pool before creators are paid, not out of the platform's 20%, the platform's 20% of every deposit is now net margin: there is no per-gig cost left to subtract from revenue at all. At the scenarios model mix used until then (section 2.1), that moved revenue per gig up from $13.20, and moved contribution per gig, revenue minus every per-gig cost, up from $11.18 (85% of revenue) to 100% of revenue. Section 2 gives the full unit economics under this rule, and the V1 scope decision below moved both figures further still.
Also on 5 September 2026, the founder set the V1 scope (brief section 50, binding, resolving the start-narrow proposal in brief section 49 item 8): V1 sells only to indie developers, indie hackers and small SaaS companies, in ten categories, all rated at the "Software, apps and SaaS" category factor of 1.6, and the scenarios model mix changes to match (brief section 50.11, assumption). Because V1's audience leans more heavily on Tier 1 (70% instead of the broader mix's 50%) and every V1 gig carries the 1.6 category factor instead of an average of 1.05 across many categories, the average amount taken from the brand's fund per gig rose sharply, and revenue per gig rose to $22.57. Contribution per gig stays 100% of revenue, since the running-cost rule above is unchanged; it is $22.57 a gig. Section 2 gives the full unit economics under the V1 mix, and every table on this page from section 4 onward has been re-run on it.
2. Assumptions
Two groups of numbers drive every month of every scenario: the economics of one completed gig, and the fixed costs the company carries regardless of volume.
Since the founder's decision on 4 September 2026 (brief section 33), brands never pay a subscription and there is no monthly Managed fee. All of the revenue in this model is the platform's 20% of every deposit, taken at the moment a brand funds a campaign, and nothing else. The founder fixed that definition on 4 September 2026 (brief section 39, binding, overriding section 37 where they differ): when a brand funds a campaign, 20% of the deposit is the platform's revenue at once, fixed, never refunded and never dependent on views or milestones; the other 80% is the creator pool for that brand, which gigs draw down at the creator's expected earnings for their league, format and typical view count. Later the same day, the founder replaced fixed creator fees with CPM-based pay (brief section 42, binding, replacing fixed creator fees in sections 23, 37 and 39 item 2), then raised the eligibility bar and re-cut the leagues around it (brief section 43), then, on 5 September 2026, set the final creator-pay rules (brief section 45, binding, overriding sections 42, 43 and 44 where they differ): a creator still needs a median of at least 5,000 views over the last 90 days to be eligible at all (at least 10 posts), now spread across eight leagues by median views (Bronze 1, Bronze 2, Silver 1, Silver 2, Gold 1, Gold 2, Ruby and Diamond, recalculated on the 1st of every month, per platform), and is paid per 1,000 real views their post gets in its 14-day window, at a CPM equal to a geography base, set by where the creator's audience sits (from $0.35 for a Tier 4 audience, mostly India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Nigeria or Egypt, up to $2.50 for a Tier 1 audience, mostly the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom or Australia, the Tier 1 figure raised from $2.00 by the 2026-benchmark retuning on 5 September 2026, brief section 46), times a platform factor (from 0.60 for X up to 1.25 for Instagram Reels), times a category factor (from 0.7 for gaming and entertainment up to 1.5 for finance and apps), times a league factor (1.00 through Silver 2, 1.05 for Gold, 1.10 for Ruby and Diamond, kept nearly flat on purpose so a brand gets about the same views per dollar in every league); see Rate cards for the full tables. A slideshow pays 60% of the CPM and a text post 30%. The maximum payout on a gig is the creator's median views times that CPM, the expected earnings figure itself: the cap is the median, unless the brand switches on a bonus, which lets views beyond the median earn up to 1.5 times expected earnings, with the extra 0.5 times reserved from the pool per gig and returned to the pool when the post stops earning, 14 days after it goes live (brief section 45.4). The floor stays 20% of expected earnings, released once the post is verified live. How many views a post actually earns changes only how much of that 80% creators actually get paid; it never changes the platform's 20%, so it never changes revenue on this page. The earlier definitions (brief section 37, revenue released at 85% of a gig's milestones; the fixed creator fee this page used until 4 September 2026; and the single CPM-per-league cut this page used between 4 and 5 September 2026) are all withdrawn: the five fixed milestones a gig used to pay out on are gone too (brief section 42.4), replaced by views refreshed once a day for the 14 days the post earns (founder decision, 13 September 2026). Two possible additions to revenue, both from the brief, are deliberately left out of the model. The first is volume pricing: brief section 39.6 now defines it as a brand that deposits $10,000 or more in a calendar month getting 5% of that month's deposits added to its creator pool (assumption), with the platform's 20% unchanged; because the rebate lands in the creator pool, not in the platform's revenue, it does not reduce revenue on this page at all, only the pool a brand's gigs draw from. The second is Managed campaigns in Phase 4: brief section 39.6 sets the platform's cut on a Managed campaign at 35% of the deposit (assumption), higher than the base 20%. Both are assumptions the founder can tune later. Modelling Managed campaigns separately, without knowing how many brands would choose one, would add noise rather than clarity, so every gig in this model stays at the base 20% of the deposit instead (assumption).
On 5 September 2026 the founder set the rule for what a gig takes from the fund (brief section 47, binding, overriding brief section 45 item 5, section 45 item 7, section 46 items 5 and 6, and section 41 item 6 where they differ): what a gig takes from the brand's fund is the creator's expected earnings plus a flat running cost of $2.00 a gig, the sum divided by 0.8; the running cost covers review, payout, storage and the card fee's share, and it comes out of the 80% creator pool before creators are paid, not out of the platform's 20%. Collection, review, payout and storage are therefore no longer separate costs against the platform's revenue: they sit inside the price a gig takes from the fund, and the platform's 20% of every deposit is net margin in full. Contribution per gig, revenue minus every per-gig cost, is 100% of revenue per gig from Phase 2 onward, up from the 85% this page charged against revenue under the review, collection, payout and storage costs used until 5 September 2026 (brief section 41, withdrawn where it differs from section 47).
2.1 Per-gig unit economics
The step-by-step averaging behind the per-gig figures in this section, with every share and every multiplication shown, is worked through on The math, explained, section 9.2. The scenarios model mix in the brief is now the V1 mix (brief section 50.11, founder decision 5 September 2026, replacing the broader mix in section 46.6 used earlier that day): 70% Tier 1, 15% Tier 2, 10% Tier 3 and 5% Tier 4 audiences (an average geography base of $2.06, reflecting V1's indie-developer customers, who mostly want a US or English-speaking audience), dispatched 25% each across Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts and X (an average platform factor of 0.925), at the fixed category factor of 1.6 (V1 accepts only ten categories, AI tools, SaaS and web apps, developer tools, productivity apps, fitness apps, health apps, lifestyle apps, education apps, kids apps and games, all rated at the "Software, apps and SaaS" factor, brief section 50.2), and the same 60% Bronze, 25% Silver and 15% Gold leagues by typical median views, 10,000 for Bronze, 28,750 for Silver and 100,000 for Gold, as before (assumption: this is the mix used for the model; a real campaign's mix depends on what a brand chooses and which creators it reaches). Multiplying the average geography base, platform factor and category factor together gives an average CPM of $3.05 at the Bronze and Silver league factor of 1.00; Gold's league factor of 1.05 lifts its CPM to $3.2025 and its expected pay further still. Expected pay per gig is then the league's typical median times its CPM: $30.50 for Bronze (10,000 views at $3.05), $87.69 for Silver (28,750 views at $3.05) and $320.25 for Gold (100,000 views at $3.2025). Weighting those by the 60/25/15 league mix gives an average expected creator earnings of $88.26 a gig, and that gig takes $112.83 from the brand's fund (the $88.26 of expected earnings plus the flat $2.00 running cost, brief section 47.1, the sum divided by 0.8, the creator's 80% share of the deposit), both computed from the brief's own V1 mix, medians and CPM matrix, not invented. This is well above the flat $60 average gig fee used for the single projection on Business model, section 5, and above the amount the broader, 21-category mix gave until 5 September 2026, because V1 leans much more heavily on Tier 1 audiences (70% instead of 50%) and fixes every gig's category factor at 1.6 instead of averaging 1.05 across many categories. This is a deliberate feature of starting narrow, not an error: V1 is a smaller, higher-value niche, and section 9.5 explains why gig volume, not gig value, is this niche's main uncertainty.
| Line | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Average amount taken from the fund per gig | $112.83 | Expected earnings plus the flat $2.00 running cost, the sum divided by 0.8 (brief section 47.1), applied to the V1 audience, platform, category and league mix (brief section 50.2, 50.11) |
| Average expected creator earnings | $88.26 | V1 audience, platform, category and league mix applied to typical medians and the CPM matrix (brief section 50.2, 50.11) |
| Platform revenue per gig (20% of the deposit, booked at deposit, fixed) | $22.57 | 20% of $112.83 (brief section 39.1: 20% of the deposit is the platform's revenue at once; brief section 47.1) |
| Collection (payment processing) | $0.00 (inside the running cost, paid from the pool) | Brief section 47.1: the card fee's share sits inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the creator's 80%, not against the platform's revenue |
| Review | $0.00 (inside the running cost, paid from the pool) | Brief section 47.1: review sits inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the creator's 80%, not against the platform's revenue |
| Payout transfer | $0.00 (inside the running cost, paid from the pool) | Brief section 47.1: the payout share sits inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the creator's 80%, not against the platform's revenue |
| Storage and processing | $0.00 (inside the running cost, paid from the pool) | Brief section 47.1: storage sits inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the creator's 80%, not against the platform's revenue |
| Running cost per gig (paid from the 80% creator pool, not from the platform's 20%) | $2.00 | Founder decision, 5 September 2026, flat in every phase (brief section 47.1) |
| Contribution per gig (revenue minus every per-gig cost) | $22.57 (100% of revenue per gig) | Arithmetic: $22.57 minus $0.00 minus $0.00 minus $0.00 minus $0.00, since every per-gig cost is now paid from the pool (brief section 47.2) |
These four costs, collection, review, payout and storage, no longer sit against the platform's revenue at all. Since 5 September 2026 (brief section 47.1, binding) they are folded into a single flat running cost of $2.00 a gig, taken from the creator's 80% share of the deposit before the creator is paid, not from the platform's 20%. The $2.00 is itself an assumption built from the same processor estimates this page used before 5 September 2026: about $0.73 a gig for collection, assuming Cashfree's published rate card (UPI at 0%, domestic cards and net banking at 1.9%, international cards at 3.5% plus a small fixed fee of about 7 Indian rupees, blended on an assumed mix of half of brand deposits by UPI, 40% by domestic card or net banking and 10% by international card); $1.00 a gig for review; and $0.15 a gig for payout, assuming Cashfree Payouts to creators in India, charging about 2 Indian rupees per UPI transfer, and Payoneer Mass Payouts to creators abroad, whose payer pricing is not published, so this page assumes $1.50 a payout, blended on an assumed mix of 80% of creators in India and one payout a month covering about two gigs. The remainder covers storage, and the total is rounded to a flat $2.00 so brands see one all-in price per gig and the running cost is never itemised (brief section 47.1). All of these component estimates are this page's assumptions and should be verified against current processor documentation before the flat $2.00 figure is retuned with real costs.
Review still does not change by phase, and it still costs something real: the founder's decision to hold review at $1.00 a gig in every phase (4 September 2026, brief section 41.1) still describes the time spent on the automated checklist check, the spot check and one revision on a third of gigs, at the same rate a paid reviewer would cost. What changed on 5 September 2026 (brief section 47, binding) is who that $1.00 is charged to: it now sits inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the creator's 80% share of the deposit, not against the platform's 20% revenue. The founder's hours still do not disappear from the arithmetic, but they no longer reduce contribution on this page. Because collection, review, payout and storage all sit inside the running cost now, contribution per gig is $22.57, 100% of revenue per gig, in every phase from Phase 2 onward; Phase 0 and Phase 1 have no gigs to review, so the figure only starts to apply once gigs are dispatched.
2.2 Monthly fixed costs by phase
The Scenarios page uses a solo-founder cost base (brief section 35, binding, founder decision on 4 September 2026): no salaries, because the founder works without pay through 2027, and no dogfood spend in this model, because the dogfood programme described on the Dogfooding page is not budgeted here (if the founder runs it, the cost comes out of profit rather than appearing in these tables). What remains is other fixed costs and referral rewards. Every dollar figure below is this model's assumption, stated plainly.
| Cost | Amount | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Other fixed costs (tools, paid APIs, legal, accounting, app store fees) | $2,500 a month (assumption) | Every month from Phase 0 |
| Referral rewards | $5 per referred creator whose first gig is verified live (brief section 14.6), applied to 30% of that month's new creator sign-ups (assumption, using the brief's Phase 2 target share of sign-ups from dogfood and referral) | From Phase 2 (beta) onward |
Salaries and dogfood spend are both zero throughout this model, by the founder's decision on 4 September 2026 (brief section 35, binding). This is a deliberate change of cost base, not a rounding of an earlier figure: earlier versions of this page carried a seven-person team at $70,000 to $100,000 a month plus a dogfood budget rising to $21,700 a month, and both are gone from every table on this page. The model is plain on purpose beyond that: it does not model price rises, hiring delays or seasonal swings in sign-ups. Every rate stays flat within a phase and steps only when the brief's own phase dates step. This keeps the arithmetic checkable by hand and keeps attention on the few numbers that actually move the outcome, which section 11 names directly.
3. The four scenarios defined
All four scenarios share the unit economics and fixed costs above. They differ only in how many gigs get dispatched and completed each month, how many brands sign up and pay, and, in two of the four, how fast auto-approval arrives. "Gigs" below means completed gigs in that month, the same measure the brief's Phase 3 and Phase 4 targets use.
| Scenario | Gigs a month, June 2027 | Gigs a month, December 2027 | Paying brands, December 2027 | What has to be true |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 1,000 | 5,000 | 200 | Half of the brief's Phase 3 and Phase 4 targets; auto-approval arrives one phase later than planned |
| Base | 2,000 | 10,000 | 400 | Exactly the brief's Phase 3 and Phase 4 targets (2,000 completed gigs a month by end of June 2027, 10,000 by end of December 2027, 100 and 400 paying brands) |
| Aggressive | 3,000 | 15,000 | 600 | 1.5 times the brief's targets, reaching 600 paying brands by December 2027 |
| Slow fill | 500 | 2,500 | 100 | A quarter of the brief's targets, because dispatch cannot fill enough slots (the density rule in brief section 23.7 is not met in enough categories); auto-approval also arrives one phase late |
Base is not an optimistic case: it is what the brief already commits to hitting. Conservative and Slow fill are two different ways of missing those targets, one by simple scale (half the volume, everything else on schedule) and one by a specific mechanism (not enough eligible creators in enough categories to fill slots, brief section 23.7, plus review automation slipping a phase). Aggressive is the brief's targets exceeded by half again, which is the scale at which the Phase 4 target of "at least 40 eligible creators per category and league" (brief section 23.7) is easiest to satisfy, because more categories clear the density bar.
In every scenario, "paying brands" counts the brands buying gigs that month. Since brands never pay a subscription or a Managed monthly fee (brief section 33), paying brands drive the model only through the referral cost on that month's new creator sign-ups (section 2.2), not through any revenue of their own beyond the gigs already counted in the gigs column.
4. Base scenario, month by month
Base uses exactly the brief's Phase 3 and Phase 4 targets: 100 paying brands and 2,000 completed gigs a month by the end of June 2027, 400 paying brands and 10,000 completed gigs a month by the end of December 2027.
| Month | Gigs | Revenue | Costs | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| October 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| November 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| December 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| January 2027 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| February 2027 | 100 | $2,257 | $4,750 | -$2,493 |
| March 2027 | 200 | $4,513 | $4,750 | -$237 |
| April 2027 | 800 | $18,054 | $5,250 | $12,804 |
| May 2027 | 1,400 | $31,594 | $5,750 | $25,843 |
| June 2027 | 2,000 | $45,134 | $6,250 | $38,884 |
| July 2027 | 3,333 | $75,216 | $7,375 | $67,841 |
| August 2027 | 4,667 | $105,320 | $8,500 | $96,820 |
| September 2027 | 6,000 | $135,402 | $9,625 | $125,777 |
| October 2027 | 7,333 | $165,484 | $10,750 | $154,734 |
| November 2027 | 8,667 | $195,588 | $11,875 | $183,713 |
| December 2027 | 10,000 | $225,670 | $13,000 | $212,670 |
December 2027's $225,670 of revenue is 20% of that month's deposits: 10,000 gigs times the $22.57 the platform takes as revenue the moment each gig's share of a brand's deposit lands, not when the gig later completes (the model works to the cent before rounding, so 10,000 gigs give exactly $225,670 rather than $225,700 at the rounded $22.57 figure). Brands never pay a subscription and there is no monthly Managed fee (founder decision, 4 September 2026, brief section 33), so the platform's 20% of deposits is the only revenue line in this model. Of the $13,000 of December costs, $2,500 is other fixed costs. There is no team cost, no dogfood spend and no per-gig cost against revenue either: collection, review, payout and storage all sit inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the creator's 80% share of the deposit, not from the platform's 20% (brief section 47, binding, founder decision 5 September 2026). The remaining $10,500 covers referral rewards on that month's 7,000 new creator sign-ups (30% of sign-ups at $5 each).
Base breaks even in April 2027, at $12,804 of profit that month, the first month in the model where revenue covers cost. Every month before that runs at a loss: the worst point is March 2027, when the cumulative position bottoms out at -$15,230, one month before break-even. From April 2027 the monthly profit grows every month, from $12,804 to $212,670 in December 2027. Base earns $913,857 of operating profit across the twelve months of calendar year 2027, and the cumulative position, starting from -$2,500 in September 2026, turns positive in May 2027 and reaches $903,857 by December 2027.
5. Conservative scenario
Conservative halves the Base scenario's gig and brand volume and pushes auto-approval one phase later than planned, matching the trait described in section 3, though the flat running cost per gig funded from the pool does not itself change with automation timing (brief section 47.1).
| Month | Gigs | Revenue | Costs | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| October 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| November 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| December 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| January 2027 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| February 2027 | 50 | $1,128 | $3,700 | -$2,572 |
| March 2027 | 100 | $2,257 | $4,300 | -$2,043 |
| April 2027 | 400 | $9,027 | $4,450 | $4,577 |
| May 2027 | 700 | $15,797 | $4,600 | $11,197 |
| June 2027 | 1,000 | $22,567 | $4,750 | $17,817 |
| July 2027 | 1,667 | $37,619 | $5,125 | $32,494 |
| August 2027 | 2,333 | $52,649 | $5,500 | $47,149 |
| September 2027 | 3,000 | $67,701 | $5,875 | $61,826 |
| October 2027 | 3,667 | $82,753 | $6,250 | $76,503 |
| November 2027 | 4,333 | $97,783 | $6,625 | $91,158 |
| December 2027 | 5,000 | $112,835 | $7,000 | $105,835 |
Half the Base scenario's gigs does not mean half the profit. December 2027's profit of $105,835 is just under half of Base's $212,670 (half would be $106,335), because the $2,500 of other fixed costs do not change between scenarios, so a smaller scenario carries relatively more fixed cost per gig. Of the $7,000 of December costs, $2,500 is other fixed costs, and the remaining $4,500 covers referral rewards on that month's 3,000 new creator sign-ups (30% of sign-ups at $5 each); there is no per-gig cost against revenue, since collection, review, payout and storage all sit inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the pool (brief section 47). Conservative breaks even in the same month as Base, April 2027, at $4,577 of profit that month, a thinner margin than Base's $12,804, because Conservative's fixed costs are the same size as Base's but its gig volume only reaches half of Base's. The worst point in the model is March 2027, the same month as Base's worst point, when the cumulative position reaches -$17,115, deeper than Base's -$15,230, because Conservative carries the same fixed costs on a smaller gig volume through the months before break-even. Conservative earns $441,441 of operating profit across 2027, well below Base's $913,857, and its cumulative position turns positive in June 2027, later than Base's May 2027, and reaches $431,441 by December 2027, again well below Base's $903,857.
6. Aggressive scenario
Aggressive runs at 1.5 times the Base scenario's gig and brand volume, reaching 600 paying brands by December 2027, on the same cost base as every other scenario: no salary, $2,500 of other fixed costs a month, and no dogfood spend.
| Month | Gigs | Revenue | Costs | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| October 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| November 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| December 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| January 2027 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| February 2027 | 150 | $3,385 | $5,500 | -$2,115 |
| March 2027 | 300 | $6,770 | $6,250 | $520 |
| April 2027 | 1,200 | $27,080 | $7,000 | $20,080 |
| May 2027 | 2,100 | $47,391 | $7,750 | $39,641 |
| June 2027 | 3,000 | $67,701 | $8,500 | $59,201 |
| July 2027 | 5,000 | $112,835 | $10,000 | $102,835 |
| August 2027 | 7,000 | $157,969 | $11,500 | $146,469 |
| September 2027 | 9,000 | $203,103 | $13,000 | $190,103 |
| October 2027 | 11,000 | $248,237 | $14,500 | $233,737 |
| November 2027 | 13,000 | $293,371 | $16,000 | $277,371 |
| December 2027 | 15,000 | $338,505 | $17,500 | $321,005 |
Aggressive breaks even earliest of the four scenarios, in March 2027, at $520 of profit that month, one month ahead of Base and Conservative, because Aggressive's larger gig volume clears fixed costs sooner. Its dip is the shallowest of the four: the cumulative position reaches -$14,615 in February 2027, the month before break-even, shallower than Base's -$15,230, Conservative's -$17,115 and Slow fill's -$17,719, because Aggressive's larger gig volume, valued at the V1 mix's higher take from the fund, outruns the referral bill from its faster-growing creator sign-ups. Its cumulative position turns positive in April 2027, at $5,986, only one month after break-even, the same one-month gap as Base's. From March 2027 the monthly profit grows every month, reaching $321,005 in December 2027, the highest of the four scenarios. Aggressive earns $1,386,347 of operating profit across 2027 and finishes the model with a cumulative position of $1,376,347 by December 2027, also the best of the four.
7. Slow fill scenario
Slow fill runs at a quarter of the Base scenario's volume, modelling a specific failure: dispatch cannot fill enough slots because too few categories clear the density rule in brief section 23.7 (at least 40 eligible creators per audience segment and league). Auto-approval also arrives one phase late, as in Conservative.
| Month | Gigs | Revenue | Costs | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| October 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| November 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| December 2026 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| January 2027 | 0 | $0 | $2,500 | -$2,500 |
| February 2027 | 30 | $677 | $3,400 | -$2,723 |
| March 2027 | 60 | $1,354 | $3,850 | -$2,496 |
| April 2027 | 207 | $4,671 | $4,000 | $671 |
| May 2027 | 353 | $7,966 | $4,150 | $3,816 |
| June 2027 | 500 | $11,284 | $4,300 | $6,984 |
| July 2027 | 600 | $13,540 | $4,500 | $9,041 |
| August 2027 | 700 | $15,797 | $4,700 | $11,096 |
| September 2027 | 800 | $18,054 | $4,900 | $13,154 |
| October 2027 | 1,367 | $30,849 | $5,100 | $25,750 |
| November 2027 | 1,933 | $43,622 | $5,300 | $38,322 |
| December 2027 | 2,500 | $56,418 | $5,500 | $50,918 |
Slow fill is the weakest of the four scenarios, and it earns the least across 2027, $152,031, far below the other three scenarios' profits. Its monthly profit turns positive in April 2027, at $671 that month, the same month as Base and Conservative, because even a quarter of Base's volume clears fixed costs under the V1 mix's higher take from the fund; it reaches $50,918 in December 2027, the smallest of the four scenarios' December profits. The worst point in the model is March 2027, when the cumulative position reaches -$17,719, the deepest dip of any scenario. The cumulative position spends most of the model's sixteen months underwater, but it recovers well before the last one: from -$6,248 in June 2027 it turns positive in July 2027, reaching $2,793, and grows further to $142,031 by December 2027, still the smallest year-end cumulative position of the four scenarios. If gig volume were actually running at a quarter of target by mid-2027, the founder's real choices would be to pause the referral programme, since it only costs money once creators sign up, so cutting the marketing that drives sign-ups saves money directly, and to narrow the categories the platform actively sells into to just two of V1's ten, so that the density rule (at least 40 eligible creators per audience segment and league, brief section 50.4) can actually be met in those categories rather than spread thin across all four.
8. Side by side
| Scenario | Revenue in 2027 | Operating profit in 2027 | Peak cumulative dip | Break-even month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $502,116 | $441,441 | $17,115 | April 2027 |
| Base | $1,004,232 | $913,857 | $15,230 | April 2027 |
| Aggressive | $1,506,347 | $1,386,347 | $14,615 | March 2027 |
| Slow fill | $204,231 | $152,031 | $17,719 | April 2027 |
"Revenue in 2027" and "Operating profit in 2027" cover the twelve months of the calendar year 2027 only (they exclude the four months of Phase 0 in 2026, which the model shows as pure cost, since revenue does not start until February 2027). "Peak cumulative dip" is the largest running loss the company reaches at any point across the full sixteen months, not necessarily in December: for Base, Conservative and Slow fill it happens in March 2027, and for Aggressive in February 2027, in each case the month just before the scenario's cumulative position starts to recover. "Break-even month" is the first month in the table where that month's own profit is zero or positive, not the month the cumulative position turns positive; the cumulative position for Base turns positive in May 2027, for Conservative in June 2027, for Aggressive in April 2027, and for Slow fill in July 2027, reaching $2,793, and grows further to $142,031 by December 2027, the end of the model. None of the four scenarios reaches a positive cumulative position in the same month its own monthly profit turns positive: the gap is one month for Base (April to May), one month for Aggressive (March to April), two months for Conservative (April to June) and three months for Slow fill (April to July).
9. What it takes to break even
At Phase 4 cost levels, other fixed costs of $2,500 a month plus referral rewards on 7,000 monthly sign-ups (30% of 7,000 at $5 each, $10,500) come to $13,000 a month of fixed cost to cover with gig contribution. There is no salary and no dogfood spend in this cost base (brief section 35, binding). At $22.57 of contribution per gig (the figure from section 2, 100% of revenue in every phase since the founder's running-cost rule of 5 September 2026, brief section 47, at the V1 mix set on 5 September 2026, brief section 50.11), break-even is $13,000 divided by $22.57, about 576 gigs a month, at the scenarios model mix. At Phase 3 cost levels, fixed cost is $6,250 (the same $2,500 of other fixed costs plus referral rewards on that phase's smaller sign-up volume) and contribution per gig is also $22.57, so break-even is about 277 gigs a month, lower than the Phase 4 figure only because Phase 3 carries a smaller referral bill, not because each gig contributes less: contribution per gig no longer varies by phase. The Base scenario's December 2027 volume, 10,000 gigs, is well above the Phase 4 break-even volume of about 576 gigs, which is exactly why Base is profitable by December 2027.
Three levers change the outcome, each tested against the Base scenario's December 2027 month (10,000 gigs, $225,670 of revenue, $212,670 of profit) with everything else held constant.
9.1 Views and unspent creator pool
How many views a post actually earns no longer changes revenue on this page: the platform's 20% is booked at deposit, before a single view is read, so a gig whose post reaches only its floor and a gig whose post reaches its full payout produce exactly the same $22.57 of revenue (brief section 39.1, brief section 47.1). Under the founder's final creator-pay rules (brief section 45, binding, overriding sections 42, 43 and 44 where they differ), the maximum payout on a gig is now the creator's median itself: expected earnings is the cap, unless the brand switches on a bonus, which lets views beyond the median earn up to 1.5 times expected earnings, with the extra 0.5 times reserved from the pool per gig and returned if unused when the post stops earning, 14 days after it goes live (brief section 45.4). The floor stays 20% of expected earnings, released once the post is verified live. The five fixed milestones a gig used to pay out on before 4 September 2026 are withdrawn (brief section 42.4); a post's earnings now release on a daily view refresh across its 14-day window instead (founder decision, 13 September 2026), and those refreshes change only how much of the 80% creator pool gets paid out to the creator rather than staying in the brand's fund for more gigs, a split that does not appear in this page's revenue or profit figures. Unspent creator pool does not affect revenue either: deposits are never refunded (founder decision, 19 September 2026), so what a brand does not spend stays as its fund balance for a later campaign, and this page assumes that balance is eventually spent on gigs (assumption).
9.2 The size of the cut (the platform's share of the deposit)
| Cut | Revenue | Profit |
|---|---|---|
| 15% of the deposit (smaller than the 20% used everywhere else on this page) | $169,240 | $143,830 |
| 20% of the deposit (the rate used everywhere else on this page) | $225,654 | $200,243 |
| 25% of the deposit (larger than the 20% used everywhere else on this page) | $282,068 | $256,657 |
9.3 Running cost per gig
The review-cost sensitivity this page used until 5 September 2026 is withdrawn: review is no longer a cost against the platform's revenue, so changing it no longer changes profit here. A running-cost sensitivity replaces it (brief section 47.7, assumption). The founder's running-cost rule (brief section 47.1, binding) sets what a gig takes from the fund as the creator's expected earnings plus a flat running cost, the sum divided by 0.8. At the scenarios model's average expected earnings of $88.26 a gig (the V1 mix, brief section 50.11), moving the running cost by $1.00 moves the take from the fund by $1.00 divided by 0.8, $1.25, and moves revenue per gig, 20% of the take, by 20% of $1.25, $0.25, in the same direction. The founder's decision holds the running cost at a flat $2.00 a gig (assumption, to be retuned with real costs); the table below shows what a lower or higher running cost would do to the take, to revenue and to the Base scenario's December 2027 profit, with gig volume and every other input held at 10,000 gigs.
| Running cost per gig | Take from fund per gig | Revenue per gig | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1.00 (half the founder's decision) | $111.58 | $22.32 | $210,150 |
| $2.00 (the founder's decision, 5 September 2026, brief section 47.1, used everywhere else on this page) | $112.83 | $22.57 | $212,670 |
| $3.00 (one and a half times the founder's decision) | $114.08 | $22.82 | $215,150 |
9.4 League mix
| Mix | Average amount taken from the fund per gig | Revenue | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bronze-heavy | $69 | $138,950 | $118,309 |
| Base mix (used everywhere else on this page) | $113 | $225,670 | $200,259 |
| Gold-heavy | $303 | $605,830 | $559,509 |
Under CPM-based pay, league mix and the actual views a post earns are the same lever seen two ways: more views per gig, whether from a richer league mix or from posts simply overshooting their medians, means larger expected pay, a larger amount taken from the fund, and more revenue per gig, since revenue is always 20% of whatever the fund pays out. With no payroll and no dogfood spend, all four scenarios turn a profit in 2027: Base ($913,857), Aggressive ($1,386,347) and Conservative ($441,441) comfortably, and Slow fill more narrowly, at $152,031, because its gig volume only reaches a quarter of Base's by December 2027. Every cell in the three tables above is a profit at the base league mix and the base cut: even the weakest of the three levers still leaves the Base scenario profitable in December 2027. League mix is the biggest of the three levers tested here: moving from Bronze-heavy to Gold-heavy, at the same 10,000 gigs, closes $441,200 of the gap between the two ($559,509 minus $118,309), more than the size of the cut (closes $112,827: $256,657 minus $143,830) or the running cost per gig (closes $5,000: $215,150 minus $210,150) close on their own. The audience mix is a major lever too, on top of league mix, and V1 already leans on it hard: a Tier 1 heavy creator base carries a geography base of $2.50 a gig instead of the V1 blended mix's $2.06 (section 2.1), which would push revenue per gig higher still, since Tier 1 already makes up 70% of the V1 mix and every gig already carries the fixed 1.6 category factor. Volume matters even more than either mix lever, even though it is not one of the three levers tested in this section: moving from the Slow fill scenario's 2,500 gigs a month in December 2027 to the Aggressive scenario's 15,000 gigs a month closes $270,087 of the gap ($321,005 minus $50,918), though reaching that volume needs the sales and dispatch capacity described on the rollout plan, not just a pricing or mix decision. With payroll removed from the cost base and running costs now paid from the pool rather than against revenue, the audience mix, the league mix sold, the views posts actually earn and the volume dispatched remain the levers that matter most; the size of the cut and the running cost per gig matter too, but less than any of those. Section 9.5 explains why volume, in particular, is V1's biggest open question.
9.5 Niche volume
V1 sells to indie developers, indie hackers and small SaaS companies only, in ten categories, out of the 21 the platform will eventually serve (brief section 50.2). That is a deliberately small niche, and the model above already shows gig value is not the risk: the V1 mix's take from the fund, $112.83 a gig, comfortably covers this page's fixed costs at every volume the four scenarios test. What the model cannot say is how many gigs a niche this size can actually produce a month, since the Base scenario's 10,000 gigs by December 2027 assumes a total addressable market wide enough to sustain it, and V1's narrower audience and category rules (brief section 50.2, 50.4) have not yet been tested against real demand. To size that risk directly, this page re-runs the Base scenario's December 2027 cost structure at 4,000 gigs a month instead of 10,000, a volume between Slow fill and Conservative: revenue of $90,268 and profit of $83,568, still solidly profitable, but well below the $225,670 of revenue and $212,670 of profit the Base scenario shows at 10,000 gigs. Because V1 is a niche, volume, not price, is the main uncertainty in this model: the founder should watch completed gigs a month against both the 10,000-gig Base target and this 4,000-gig niche-volume case, and treat a sustained shortfall against even the smaller figure as a signal to widen V1's categories or audiences sooner than planned, rather than a signal to change the rate card.
10. Funding need
The peak cumulative dip from section 8, restated together, is the range of cash the company needs to have on hand by the point each scenario is worst off, before its cumulative position turns back up.
| Scenario | Peak cumulative dip |
|---|---|
| Conservative | $17,115 |
| Base | $15,230 |
| Aggressive | $14,615 |
| Slow fill | $17,719 |
The four peaks range from $14,615 (Aggressive) to $17,719 (Slow fill). None of them come close to needing an outside raise: with no salary and no dogfood spend, the whole cost base is $2,500 a month of other fixed costs plus referral rewards, and running costs are paid from the creator pool rather than against the platform's own revenue (brief section 47), so the deepest hole any scenario digs is a few tens of thousands of dollars, not the low seven figures a funded team would need. The founder should plan for about $15,000 to $18,000 of working capital to carry the business through its worst month in any of the four scenarios modelled here (assumption), money that can plausibly come from savings, a small friends-and-family loan, or early revenue itself, rather than a priced funding round.
Hiring changes this arithmetic fast. Every $1,000 a month of salary the founder adds has to be paid for out of gig contribution, and at the contribution of $22.57 a gig (100% of revenue in every phase since the founder's running-cost rule of 5 September 2026, brief section 47, at the V1 mix set on 5 September 2026, brief section 50.11), $1,000 divided by $22.57 is about 44 more gigs a month needed just to cover that one hire, before it adds anything to profit. A single $22,570-a-month hire, for example, needs roughly 1,000 more gigs a month to cover its own cost, which is why this page holds the team at one person, the founder, throughout 2027, and treats any hiring decision as a separate calculation to run again once real gig volume is known.
11. What to watch each month
Five numbers move this model more than any others. Watching them against the Base scenario's December 2027 values shows whether the real business is tracking ahead of, in line with, or behind the numbers on this page.
| Number to watch | Base scenario target, December 2027 |
|---|---|
| Completed gigs per month | 10,000, the brief's own Phase 4 target |
| League mix of completed gigs | 60% Bronze, 25% Silver, 15% Gold, plus the V1 audience, platform and category mix (section 2.1), giving an average of $112.83 taken from the fund per gig; section 9.4 shows how much a shift toward Gold, or toward a Tier 1 heavy audience, changes profit |
| Share of expected earnings creators actually earn | Not fixed by the brief; it no longer changes revenue on this page (section 9.1), but it still changes how much of the creator pool is paid out to creators versus carried forward as fund balance. The five fixed milestones this page used to track before 4 September 2026 are withdrawn (brief section 42.4), replaced by views refreshed once a day across a post's 14-day window (13 September 2026) |
| Review effort per submission | The brief states about 6 minutes of ops time per submission at MVP; the founder's decision on 4 September 2026 (brief section 41.1) holds that time's dollar value at $1.00 a gig in every phase instead of letting it fall as auto-approval matures. Since 5 September 2026 (brief section 47) that $1.00 sits inside the flat $2.00 running cost taken from the creator pool, not against the platform's revenue, so review effort no longer changes profit on this page directly; it still changes how far the pool stretches, since a lighter review cost leaves more of the pool to fund gigs. Actual minutes per submission should still be tracked directly once auto-approval is live, since it is the input behind the running-cost assumption, and could justify revisiting the flat $2.00 figure later |
| Average amount taken from the fund per gig (audience, platform, category and league mix) | $112.83, from the V1 scenarios model mix in section 2.1; section 9.4 shows how much a shift in mix changes profit |
Of these five, league mix (and the average amount taken from the fund it produces) and review effort are the two the product and ops teams can influence most directly, through which categories and leagues get sold into and how far auto-approval is trusted, though since 5 September 2026 review effort changes how far the creator pool stretches rather than changing platform profit itself (brief section 47). Completed gigs are mostly a function of dispatch and sales, covered on Rollout plan and Dogfooding. How much of expected earnings a post actually earns depends on view counts and matching quality, covered on Business model; it now changes only what creators are paid from the pool, not revenue on this page. Paying brands are still worth watching too, even though they no longer carry subscription or Managed revenue (brief section 33): more paying brands mean more new creator sign-ups and, through section 2.2, more referral cost, so the count still moves the model, just through costs rather than revenue.
12. Limits of this model
This model leaves out several things a real forecast would need to account for, all left out on purpose to keep the arithmetic plain and checkable:
- No subscription or Managed-fee revenue. An earlier version of this page's model included a $299-a-month Growth-plan subscription and a Managed-plan monthly fee starting at $5,000. The founder removed both on 4 September 2026 (brief section 33), so every figure on this page now counts the platform's 20% of deposits only. Section 2 explains the two assumptions that could replace some of that revenue, volume pricing and Managed campaigns priced per campaign, and why this model does not attempt to include them.
- The revenue definition changed twice on 4 September 2026, then the creator-pay model changed twice more on 5 September 2026, and all earlier versions are withdrawn: revenue is now 20% of every deposit, taken at once when a brand funds a campaign, fixed and never dependent on milestone completion or how many views a post earns. Under the founder's final creator-pay rules (brief sections 45 and 46, binding), CPM per 1,000 views is a geography base times a platform factor times a category factor times a league factor (see Rate cards for the full tables), and revenue per gig at the scenarios model's blended audience, platform, category and league mix, re-tuned to 2026 benchmarks (brief section 46.6), is $13.20, up from $11.58 a gig under the audience-mix CPM bases this page used earlier on 5 September 2026, down from $21.66 a gig under the single CPM-per-league figure this page used on 4 September 2026, and up from $12.30 a gig under the fixed creator fees this page used earlier the same day. Revenue moved down on 5 September 2026 when the audience mix was first added to the CPM matrix, because it pays far less per view for the Tier 3 and Tier 4 audiences than a model that ignored audience tier altogether, then moved back up later the same day when the founder re-tuned the base CPMs and platform factors to 2026 benchmarks (brief section 46). No table on this page uses any of the withdrawn revenue or pay definitions or the retired term "brand price".
- On 5 September 2026 the founder also set the rule for what a gig takes from the fund (brief section 47, binding, overriding brief section 45 item 5, section 45 item 7, section 46 items 5 and 6, and section 41 item 6 where they differ): the take from the fund is the creator's expected earnings plus a flat $2.00 running cost, the sum divided by 0.8, with the running cost paid from the creator's 80% pool rather than against the platform's 20% revenue. That moved revenue per gig at the scenarios model mix up from $13.20 and moved contribution per gig, revenue minus every per-gig cost, up from $11.18 (85% of revenue) to 100% of revenue, since collection, review, payout and storage no longer sit against revenue at all. The V1 scope decision below moved both figures further still; every table on this page from section 4 onward has been re-run under the final rule.
- V1 scope narrows the market this page models. On 5 September 2026 the founder set the V1 scope (brief section 50, binding): the first customers are indie developers, indie hackers and small SaaS companies, buying in ten categories (AI tools; SaaS and web apps; developer tools; productivity apps; fitness apps; health apps; lifestyle apps; education apps; kids apps; games), all at the 1.6 category factor, with an audience mix weighted 70% Tier 1 (brief section 50.11). That raised the average amount taken from the fund to $112.83 a gig and revenue per gig to $22.57; every table on this page from section 4 onward uses the V1 mix. This page does not model V1 demand directly: it assumes indie software budgets are typically $500 to $5,000 a campaign (assumption), well above the $100 minimum deposit set on 13 September 2026, and that enough of these brands exist to reach each scenario's gig volume. Section 9.5 tests a lower-volume case built for exactly this uncertainty.
- No seasonality. Brand spend, creator sign-ups and view counts almost certainly move with the calendar (holidays, back-to-school, seasonal ad budgets); this model holds growth on a straight ramp within each phase instead.
- No churn. Once a brand or a creator appears in a month's numbers, the model does not remove them later. A real business will lose some brands and some creators every month.
- No currency effects. All figures are in US dollars as stated on the rate card (brief section 3.2); the model does not account for currency conversion costs on international payouts or brand deposits.
- No refunds exist (founder decision, 19 September 2026): unspent creator pool stays as the brand's fund balance for later campaigns. This page's revenue is unaffected, since it is booked at deposit; what it does not model is how much unspent balance sits idle rather than funding more gigs, which would change gig volume in a way this model does not test (assumption: the scenarios above assume the pool amounts implied by each month's gig count are spent).
- No fraud losses. The trust and safety costs described in brief section 12 are not separately modelled here beyond the flat running cost per gig.
- No interest. Any cost of financing the peak cumulative burn in section 10 (interest on debt, or the cost of equity) is outside this page's definition of operating profit.
- Acceptance and fill rates are assumed to hold steady as volume grows. The model does not test what happens if dispatch acceptance rates fall as the creator pool grows faster than demand, or if the density rule in brief section 23.7 becomes harder to satisfy at larger scale rather than easier (assumption: this page treats scale as making fill easier, per section 3's account of the Aggressive scenario).
- No two-week MVP. This model was built around the original fourteen-week Phase 1 timeline, so its revenue starts in February 2027, the month the Base scenario's gig count first ticks above zero, while the two-week MVP (brief section 28) dispatches a real, funded gig on 21 September 2026 and runs the first payout on 1 October 2026, both about four months earlier. Other fixed costs of $2,500 a month already start in September 2026 in every scenario here regardless, since tools and accounting run from day one either way; the revenue side is what is out of date. Re-running the model with revenue starting in October 2026 instead of February 2027 would move a small amount of pilot-brand revenue earlier and improve the peak dip figures in section 8 and section 10 slightly, but those early months would be a single pilot brand's gigs, not the scaled-up volume this model assumes from February 2027 onward, so the improvement is small next to the $17,889 to $19,680 of peak dip already in section 10. This page leaves the model as originally built rather than restating sixteen months of numbers for the two-week MVP.
- No salary and no dogfood spend. By the founder's decision on 4 September 2026 (brief section 35, binding), this model carries no payroll cost and no dogfood budget: if the founder pays themselves, or runs the dogfood programme described on the Dogfooding page, those costs come out of the profit shown on this page, not out of a line item already subtracted from it. The founder's own time is the real cost this page does not show directly: hours spent on ops, review, sales and dispatch are not free just because no cash changes hands, and the running cost per gig is the only place in this model where that time is priced at all.
- Review, collection, payout and storage costs are no longer modelled as separate costs against the platform's revenue at all. Since 5 September 2026 (brief section 47.1, binding) they sit inside a single flat running cost of $2.00 a gig, taken from the creator's 80% share of the deposit before the creator is paid. That $2.00 is still built from the founder's 4 September 2026 processor decisions (brief section 41): about $1.00 a gig for review, not the $3.33 to $1.33 range that fell by phase in an earlier version of this page; about $0.73 a gig for collection through Cashfree (UPI at 0%, domestic cards and net banking at 1.9%, international cards at 3.5% plus a small fixed fee, blended on an assumed mix of how brands pay); about $0.15 a gig for payout through Cashfree Payouts for creators in India and Payoneer for creators abroad (Payoneer's payer pricing is not published, so this page assumes $1.50 a payout); and the remainder for storage, rounded to a flat $2.00 so brands see one all-in price per gig. All of these component rates should be verified against current documentation before the flat $2.00 figure is relied on for real pricing or accounting decisions.
Every number on this page should be replaced with a real one as soon as it exists: real salaries once offers are signed, a real dogfood spend once campaigns run, a real league mix once campaigns actually run, and a real earnings rate once the first posts' views are actually read.