Launch Unbilled first. Ship The Ledger as the revenue engine and keep Yard Sign live in parallel. The Ledger's $2,500 pilot reaches the $1,500 per month contribution target with one to two customers, controllers are reachable by cold email, and its trust-first register (published false-positive rates, no exclamation marks, a "what we don't claim" section) is exactly the right posture for a company with no track record yet. Yard Sign runs beside it because self-serve costs no sales time.
Haulback scored higher (4.13 vs 4.02) but depends on hauler access. It is launch two if that access exists; if not, Cleared takes the slot as a fast cash test. Every Console variant is parked until two signed case studies exist. A sales-led motion aimed at PE buyers cannot close on demonstration data alone.
Scores from the 12-criteria weighted scorecard (pain/ROI, willingness to pay, reachability, MVP speed, automation, margin, retention, risk). Bars scaled from a 3.0 baseline so the gaps read. Green marks the recommended first launch.
| # | Business | When | Ship |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unbilled (missed billables) | Now | The Ledger + Yard Sign |
| 2 | Haulback (dump tickets) | Month 2, if hauler access | Gatehouse (owner-op) |
| 3 | Cleared (inspection packs) | Month 2 fallback | Owner-op register |
| 4 | Lapsed (recurring revenue) | Month 3-4 | Ledger register |
| 5 | Overpaid (vendor invoices) | Month 4+ | Statement (controller) |
| - | All Console variants | After 2 case studies | Parked |
| Vertical | Pick | Segment | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unbilled | The Ledger | Controller / CFO | Highest revenue per customer, cold-emailable buyer, honesty register fits a new company. Yard Sign stays live as zero-effort second channel. |
| Haulback | Gatehouse (Yard Sign register) | Owner-operator | Roll-off fleets of 1-10 trucks are owner-run. Calculator-first hero plus card checkout matches how they buy. The pain (eating overages) is felt personally by the owner. |
| Lapsed | Ledger register | Controller | Maintenance-agreement billing lives with the controller at multi-branch shops. Same outreach list as Unbilled, so the second product rides the first product's pipeline. |
| Overpaid | Statement (Ledger register) | Controller / CFO | AP is a finance function by definition. The buyer for vendor-invoice audits is the controller, full stop. |
| Cleared | Yard Sign register | Owner-operator | A failed inspection is urgent and personal. One-time self-serve purchase fits, and since retention is the weak point anyway, treat it as a cash product, not a subscription. |
Pattern: controllers buy the recurring engagements, owner-operators buy the one-time passes. Console is a later expansion motion on top of proof, not a launch motion.
Technicians write down work that never reaches the invoice. Unbilled matches work orders to invoices and returns the missed charges with evidence attached.
Cold email to controllers at regional multi-branch HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies. Planning assumption: roughly 200 targeted emails per pilot signed.
Risk: getting work orders out of prospects is the friction point. Make the pilot intake dead simple: a shared folder and a scanned-paper option.
Roll-off haulers pay disposal by the ton at the scale, bill customers flat rates, and eat the overages. Haulback matches scale tickets to customer invoices and returns every unpassed charge.
Gatehouse (owner-operator register): $750 First Pass with refund guarantee, $499 per month ongoing.
Direct outreach to local roll-off operators, waste industry groups (SWANA chapters, hauler Facebook groups), and Google Ads on overage-related terms.
Only launch if you have hauler access for a first proof run. Highest score on the board, but access decides the timing. No access by end of month 1 means Cleared takes this slot.
A failed inspection becomes a reinspection-ready pack in 48 hours: fix specs, code citations, evidence checklist. Fastest to test, weakest retention.
One-time pack purchase, owner-operator self-serve. Position as urgent turnaround, not a subscription.
Google Ads on failure-moment searches (people search the exact code violation the day they fail). Small budget, high intent. Also GC and trade forums.
Cash-flow product and audience builder. Buyers who clear reinspection are warm leads for Unbilled.
Maintenance agreements quietly stop billing: visits go uninvoiced, renewals lapse, escalators never get applied. Lapsed finds and returns the leakage.
Same buyer, same list, same pitch structure as Unbilled. It becomes the natural second product for every Unbilled Pro account: one more audit run on data you already hold. Launching it standalone now would split outreach effort against the same inboxes.
Controllers at multi-branch service companies carrying a large maintenance-agreement book: fire protection, elevator, commercial HVAC service contracts. Standalone candidates are shops with heavy agreement volume but little paper work-order volume, which makes Unbilled a weaker fit for them.
No new price. Sold two ways. As a second audit stream inside an existing Unbilled Pro engagement at the same $1,200 per month, since the data is already in hand. Or standalone at the $2,500 pilot, invoiced net 15 by ACH after delivery, for a controller whose agreement book is the bigger leak.
No independent outreach. It rides the Unbilled pipeline: every Pro account is a warm cross-sell, and every controller who declined Unbilled for lack of paper volume is a Lapsed lead worth re-touching. The only new list work is filtering the existing controller list for agreement-heavy trades. Copy piece 10 is the cross-sell email.
Retention anchor. It scores highest of the five on recurring use, because the work repeats by nature and churning means changing how the customer bills.
Direction flipped to the AP side: vendor invoices drift above quoted prices; Overpaid returns overcharges as credit-request packets per vendor.
Lowest urgency of the controller trio and it needs vendor-quote data, which is harder to collect than a shop's own work orders. Strong cross-sell once trust exists: "we found what you failed to bill, now let us find what you overpaid."
The same controller and CFO, wearing the AP hat rather than the AR hat. Best fit is a company with a concentrated vendor base and negotiated pricing, where drift against a quote is measurable: mechanical and electrical contractors buying from two or three distributors.
Cross-sell only at launch. Added to an existing engagement at the Pro tier rather than priced separately, because the trust and the data access already exist. Standalone pricing waits until a partner channel is proved.
No cold outbound. This is the option the scorecard marks weakest on reachability, at 3 of 5, which is why it is framed for partner distribution rather than direct outreach. Two routes, in order. First, cross-sell into accounts already running Unbilled or Lapsed, using copy piece 11. Second, a referral arrangement with a bookkeeping or outsourced-accounting firm that already holds AP data for many small contractors: one relationship reaches dozens of buyers, which is the only way the economics work at this reachability score.
Margin extension on an existing account, not a new acquisition motion. Do not spend outreach budget here until a partner is signed.
| Monday | List building and research, 50 new controller contacts |
| Tue-Thu | Outreach (25 emails per day), pilot delivery work, follow-ups |
| Friday | Metrics review, LinkedIn post, next week's plan |
All copy follows the hard rules: no em or en dashes, no AI-slop phrasing, no exclamation marks in controller-facing material, nothing claimed that is not true. Edit names and links before sending.
Its channel is live from month 2 and had no copy. Run one ad group per common violation family, keyed to the code the operator just failed.
Send after the second delivered report, not before. The trust is the asset.
The reachability score on Overpaid is 3 of 5. One partner relationship reaches dozens of buyers, which is the only route where the economics work.
| Product | Price | Mechanics |
|---|---|---|
| Yard Sign First Pass | $750 one-time | Card checkout, refund guarantee if findings are under the fee |
| Yard Sign Standard | $499 / month | Card, self-serve, ongoing matching |
| Ledger Pilot | $2,500 one-time | Invoiced net 15, ACH, after delivery |
| Ledger Pro | $1,200 / month | ACH, converts from pilot |
| Console | from $3,500 / month | Annual, ACH, sales-led. Parked for now. |
| Path | What it takes | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Standard subscriptions | 3 subscribers | $1,497 |
| Pro retainers | 2 accounts | $2,400 |
| Pilot cadence | 1 pilot every 6 weeks | ~$1,667 equivalent |
| Mixed (realistic) | 1 Pro + 1 First Pass per month | $1,950 |
Planning assumption on costs: hosting near zero (static sites), Supabase ~$25, email and outreach tooling ~$150, extraction compute $100 to $300. Under $500 per month total while solo, so ~$2,000 revenue clears the $1,500 contribution line.
| Month | Activity | One-time | MRR exiting |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unbilled live, 500 emails sent, 2 pilots signed | $5,000 | $0 |
| 2 | 2 more pilots, 1 converts to Pro, 2 First Passes | $6,500 | $1,200 |
| 3 | 2 pilots, 2 Pro total, 3 Standard subs, vertical 2 live | $5,000 | $3,897 |
Base case 90-day cash: about $16,500 one-time plus ramping MRR, exiting month 3 near $3,900 per month recurring. These are targets, not forecasts; the gate logic in the timeline says what to do if they miss.
Checked items persist between sessions. The header bar tracks overall progress.