User Guide

Get useful results quickly

1. 1
   Create your opportunity portfolio.

   Open Business Idea Lab. Enter your real skills, weekly hours, available startup money, monthly income goal, preferred market, and comfort with sales.

2. 2
   Read the conservative scenario first.

   Do not plan around the highest number. Check whether the conservative monthly profit and break-even still make sense.

3. 3
   Save one strong idea.

   Use “Save as editable business plan.” Do not try to launch six ideas at once.

4. 4
   Create one validation experiment.

   Example: “At least three of ten local contractors will pay $500 for a job-costing setup.”

5. 5
   Talk to real customers.

   Record what they say, what they currently do, what the problem costs them, and whether they will pay for a small pilot.

How to get better recommendations

Skills: List practical skills, not just course names. Good examples include Excel, cash-flow forecasting, financial-statement analysis, Power BI, Python, budgeting, cost accounting, credit analysis, statistics, or public speaking.

Weekly hours: Enter the time you can sustain for at least three months. Include evenings and weekends only when realistic.

Startup capital: Enter money you can responsibly use without missing rent, food, debt payments, taxes, or emergency needs.

Income goal: Use a near-term monthly target. The app compares the target with projected base profit.

Result score: The score compares skill fit, market urgency, capital, time, sales readiness, industry, business model, and scalability. A high score does not prove demand.

Understand billable and non-billable time

Not every working hour produces revenue. A solo business also requires marketing, proposals, administration, learning, customer support, and collections.

• Weekly hours: All business time.
• Hourly value: Revenue earned for one paid delivery hour.
• Billable utilization: The share of total time customers pay for.
• Fixed costs: Software, insurance, hosting, subscriptions, and similar monthly expenses.
• Startup investment: One-time setup costs.

The simulator shows conservative, base, and optimistic scenarios. Update it weekly with actual data once work begins.

Check whether the investment is worth testing

Enter monthly revenue, variable cost, fixed cost, startup investment, and the number of months. The app calculates monthly profit, cumulative profit, contribution margin, ROI, and estimated payback.

Before buying expensive equipment, advertising, or software, test whether real customers will pay for the offer.

Learn without changing the originals

Use the filters for region, category, difficulty, or search words. “View Only” opens the original educational case. “Save As” creates a personal plan that you can edit.

The 1,000 cases are realistic educational composites. They are not claims about named companies and their numbers are not market guarantees. Replace every assumption with information from your own location and customers.

Keep the plan short and actionable

A useful early plan should answer:

1. Who has the problem?
2. What does the problem cost them?
3. What small outcome will you deliver?
4. How will you charge?
5. How will customers find you?
6. How much time and money will delivery require?
7. What evidence would make you continue, revise, or stop?

Use the CSV export to create a backup or continue analysis in a spreadsheet.

Write hypotheses that can fail

A good hypothesis includes a customer, an action, a number, a price, and a deadline.

Use statuses honestly: Planned, In progress, Passed, Failed, or Inconclusive. A failed test saves money when it stops a bad assumption early.

Balance cash now with scale later

Services can produce earlier revenue. Retainers can improve predictability. Digital products and workshops may scale, but usually require audience-building and experimentation.

Track each stream separately. Stop or revise streams that consume time without producing enough profit or strategic learning.

Stay within your qualifications

• Do not guarantee income, funding, investment returns, tax savings, or business success.
• Do not provide personalized securities, legal, tax, insurance, actuarial, or accounting opinions unless properly qualified and authorized.
• Label demonstration portfolio work clearly.
• Protect customer financial data and collect only what is necessary.
• Use written scopes, limitations, assumptions, and engagement terms.
• Check local licenses, registrations, privacy laws, employment rules, and tax obligations.

Read the full application disclaimer before acting on any projection.