Early operations is the small set of written routines that let a young company deliver, collect and keep customers without everything living in the founder's head. We set up four of them: a pricing sheet with its logic, an onboarding sequence, a one-page metrics sheet updated every Monday, and a thirty-minute weekly review. None of them is complicated, and all of them are easier to set up at ten customers than at a hundred.
Who this is for
This service is for founders whose customers are arriving faster than their systems.
You'll recognise the signs. An invoice went unsent for a month. A new customer asked what happens next and you improvised. You quoted two customers different prices for the same thing and can't remember why. You can't say what it costs to win a customer or how many leave each month. You're a fit if:
- You have paying customers, or a launch date within the next month or two.
- You're doing most of the delivery or account handling yourself.
- You're thinking about a first hire or contractor and want them to start with something written.
What's included
We build the routines with you, using tools you already have where possible.
- Pricing sheet. Your prices, the cost to deliver, the margin, and the reasoning behind each number. It includes the rule for when you'll raise prices and the evidence that would trigger it.
- Onboarding sequence. The steps from "they paid" to "they got the result", with who does what, the messages a customer receives, and the point where you check they're happy.
- Monday metrics sheet. One page, updated weekly: new customers, revenue, cash in the bank, cost to win a customer, customers lost, and the one number that matters most for your venture right now.
- Weekly review. A thirty-minute agenda: the numbers, what broke, what to fix, and one decision for the week.
- Professional hand-offs. A short list of where you need a bookkeeper, CPA or lawyer, and the questions to bring them.
- First-hire brief. If you're close to hiring, a one-page description of the work, based on the routines above.
Timeline
Set-up typically takes four to six weeks, followed by a few weeks of reviews to make the habit stick.
- Weeks 1–2: pricing sheet and onboarding sequence.
- Weeks 3–4: metrics sheet built from your real data; first weekly reviews.
- Weeks 5–6: fixes from the first reviews; first-hire brief if needed.
How results are measured
We judge operations by fewer surprises and faster decisions, and we track them directly.
Here's a worked example of what the Monday sheet reveals. Suppose a venture has 40 customers paying $150 a month, so $6,000 in monthly revenue. If 4 customers leave each month, that's a 10% monthly loss. To grow at all, the founder must win more than 4 new customers a month just to stand still. Without the sheet, the founder sees "about 40 customers" and feels stuck. With it, the answer is obvious: fixing onboarding to cut losses to 2 a month is worth as much as doubling sales effort. Those numbers are illustrative; your sheet uses yours.
We also check three process markers: invoices sent on time, onboarding steps completed for every new customer, and whether the weekly review actually happened.
Mistakes to avoid
- Buying software before writing the routine. A tool automates a process; it doesn't design one.
- Pricing by gut and never revisiting. Early prices are often too low. Write the logic down so you can change it deliberately.
- Tracking twenty metrics. A young venture needs five or six, read every week, not a dashboard no one opens.
- Hiring to escape chaos. A new person inherits the chaos. Write the routine first, then hire someone to run it.
- Leaving tax and legal to the end. Ask your CPA early whether and when you must register for GST/HST, and have a lawyer review customer terms before you sign many customers.
What happens next
With the routines running, many founders keep a lighter retainer for monthly reviews while they grow. Others take the documents and run with them. See pricing for both options, go-to-market if sales are still the bottleneck, the results page for where this discipline comes from, or call, text or email to describe what's breaking.
Frequently asked questions
Isn't this too early for processes?
Not if they're small. We don't write manuals; we write one page for each routine that repeats every week. The test is whether someone else could follow it if you were sick for a fortnight.
Do you handle bookkeeping, sales tax or contracts?
No. We tell you when you need a bookkeeper, a CPA for GST/HST or provincial sales tax registration, or a lawyer for your customer terms, and what to ask them. They do that work; we build the operating routines around it.
What software do you recommend?
The simplest tool that does the job and that you own. For many ventures that's a shared spreadsheet and the invoicing tool their bookkeeper already uses. We'd rather you outgrow a spreadsheet than pay for a system you don't use.
How do you set prices for a new venture?
From three numbers: what it costs you to deliver, what buyers pay today for their current workaround, and what discovery and early sales showed about price resistance. The pricing sheet writes down that logic so you can change it on purpose.