@monoes/monomindcli 2.15.3 → 2.15.4

package/org-skills/marketing-plan/references/funding-stage-unlocks.md

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+# Funding-Stage Capability Unlocks
+
+Every marketing plan must include explicit "what changes when funding closes / when budget unlocks" reasoning. This makes the plan investor-friendly and operationally honest.
+
+This doc defines the standard tiers. Use them as anchors, adjust for client category and unit economics.
+
+**Related docs:**
+- `budget-planning.md` — two scientific methods for setting the actual budget number (Revenue-Based 5–40%, or Goal-Based reverse-engineered from the revenue target), CAC calculation, experimental buffer
+- `growth-patterns.md` — the real shape of SaaS growth by phase ($0–10K / $10K–100K / $100K–1M+), linear vs step-function, S-curve layering
+- `team-and-agency-model.md` — what each tier means for team composition, the first marketing hire, and the in-house vs outsource ratio
+
+## Why funding stage matters in a marketing plan
+
+Most marketing plans are written as if budget is unconstrained. That's a failure mode for early-stage clients — it produces aspirational lists rather than executable roadmaps.
+
+The fix: tie every recommendation to a budget tier. The plan stays honest about what's executable today, and the team / investors see explicitly what each round of capital unlocks.
+
+This also helps the founder mid-raise: showing what the round buys is investor-narrative material.
+
+## Standard tiers
+
+### Tier 1 — Pre-seed / bootstrapped
+
+**Budget profile:**
+- Paid acquisition: $0
+- Tooling stack: ~$500–2,000/mo (Customer.io / similar, GA4 free, Stripe fees, Notion, GitHub, basic SaaS)
+- Retainers / fCMO: variable (fractional only)
+- Headcount: founders + maybe 1–2 multipurpose hires
+
+**Marketing capability:**
+- Organic only — SEO, content, App Store organic, founder-led social, events, WOM, ambassador (if inbound exists)
+- Limited PR (founder-led pitches, HARO responses)
+- No paid layer
+
+**Channels live:** Organic SEO, content, App Store, LinkedIn / X / founder-led social, events, WOM, ambassador
+
+**What a fCMO does:** Strategy + lifecycle + content + SEO + onboarding + community + ambassador. Hands-on with skill library + MCPs doing the operational lift.
+
+**Hires unlocked:** None. The plan must execute with current team + agentic stack.
+
+### Tier 2 — Seed close
+
+**Budget profile:**
+- Paid acquisition: $5–15K/mo test budget
+- Tooling stack: $1,000–3,000/mo (paid ad accounts, Mixpanel / Amplitude if needed, additional SaaS)
+- Retainers / fCMO: continued
+- Headcount: + first dedicated marketing hire
+
+**Marketing capability:**
+- Above + paid acquisition pilot (Apple Search Ads, Meta, LinkedIn)
+- Begin PR push with the funding announcement
+- First Product Hunt / GA-style launch
+
+**Channels live:** All Tier 1 + paid acquisition (small) + active PR
+
+**Hires unlocked:**
+- Lifecycle + content marketing manager (one person doing both, or split)
+- OR dedicated growth / performance marketing manager (if heavy paid focus)
+
+**fCMO shifts:** From hands-on to strategy + ops oversight. Hires the dedicated marketer. Sets up the channel playbooks before paid scales.
+
+### Tier 3 — Seed deployment
+
+**Budget profile:**
+- Paid acquisition: $20–50K/mo
+- Tooling stack: $2,000–5,000/mo
+- Retainers / fCMO: continued
+- Headcount: + designer (potentially fractional)
+
+**Marketing capability:**
+- Paid scaling across 2–3 channels
+- Brand-aligned creative production (designer enables velocity)
+- Lifecycle programs fully live across all flows
+- First true content production cadence (weekly cadence sustainable)
+
+**Channels live:** All previous + paid scaling + structured launch motion
+
+**Hires unlocked:**
+- Designer (brand, creative, web)
+- Second marketing manager (if first was lifecycle, second is content; or vice versa)
+- Potentially fractional PR if budget allows
+
+**fCMO shifts:** Hands off lifecycle to dedicated owner. Moves to GTM strategy + channel mix optimization + growth analytics.
+
+### Tier 4 — Series A
+
+**Budget profile:**
+- Paid acquisition: $50–150K/mo
+- Tooling stack: $5,000–10,000/mo
+- Retainers / fCMO: may transition to permanent CMO
+- Headcount: full marketing team forming
+
+**Marketing capability:**
+- Paid scales aggressively across all proven channels
+- Brand campaigns become possible
+- International consideration begins
+- B2B vertical expansion (if applicable)
+- Sophisticated CAC/LTV math + attribution
+
+**Channels live:** Full marketing surface area
+
+**Hires unlocked:**
+- Performance marketing lead
+- Content lead
+- Designer (permanent)
+- Potentially: PR firm, paid agency, international growth manager
+- Series A often the moment the fCMO transitions out or transitions to advisor
+
+**fCMO shifts:** Often the moment of transition — to permanent CMO hire, fCMO becomes advisor.
+
+### Tier 5 — Series B+
+
+**Budget profile:**
+- Paid acquisition: $150K+/mo
+- Tooling stack: $10,000–25,000/mo
+- Headcount: 10+ marketing org
+
+**Marketing capability:**
+- Brand campaigns at industry scale
+- PR firm partnerships
+- Acquisitions as marketing (acquiring newsletters / podcasts in space)
+- Conference sponsorship at category level
+- Sponsorships at brand level
+
+**Channels live:** Everything available
+
+**Hires unlocked:**
+- VP Marketing or CMO
+- Brand director
+- Growth / performance team (3–5 people)
+- Content team (3–5 people)
+- Designers (2–3)
+- PR director or agency partnership
+- International marketing leads (region-specific)
+
+**fCMO involvement:** Typically out of the company by this point — the original fCMO might still be an advisor.
+
+## How to apply tier logic in a plan
+
+### Section 3 (Current state)
+- State the client's current tier explicitly: "Current tier: pre-seed / bootstrapped per Tier 1."
+
+### Section 4–8 (AARRR sections)
+- Note tier-dependent moves: "Paid layer (Tier 2 unlock — held until seed close)"
+- For Tier 1 plans: every move must be executable at current budget tier OR explicitly flagged as future
+- For Tier 2+ plans: moves can assume the tier's capability
+
+### Section 10 (12-month outlook)
+- Each quarter names the tier that's active: "Q2 — Months 4–6 (post seed close). Funding state: Tier 2."
+- Tier transitions trigger plan recalibration moments
+
+### Section 11 (Marketing operations stack)
+- Use the table in `references/ops-stack-mapping.md` capability-unlocks section
+- Make it client-specific: "Today (Tier 1): {client's current capability}. After seed close (Tier 2): + {what changes}."
+
+## Adjustments by client category
+
+The standard tiers assume a typical software / SaaS / consumer app. Adjust for category:
+
+### Consumer apps (D2C)
+- Higher paid acquisition floor — apps need to test CAC against download cost benchmarks (~$2-10 install + 5-15% trial conversion benchmark)
+- Tier 2 starts effectively at $10–20K/mo paid (otherwise can't get statistically meaningful reads at app-install CPMs)
+
+### B2B SaaS
+- Lower paid acquisition floor — LinkedIn / Google Ads can produce signal at $3–5K/mo
+- More weight on content + sales enablement budget
+- Often add a sales hire before a content hire
+
+### Hybrid hardware + software
+- Hardware revenue can self-fund some marketing (the eye-mask wedge pattern)
+- Paid budget should track blended CAC across hardware sales + app subs
+- Shopify-side optimization is a Tier 1 priority (cheap leverage)
+
+### Deep-tech / scientific / clinical
+- PR + investor marketing carries more weight than paid
+- Conference speaking + academic publishing > Meta ads
+- Tier 1 can produce significant traction without paid
+
+### Marketplace / two-sided
+- Each side has its own AARRR funnel — budget splits accordingly
+- Supply-side acquisition often dominates early; demand-side dominates after liquidity
+
+### Open source / developer tools
+- DevRel + community + content > paid
+- GitHub stars / npm installs are the activation event
+- Paid layer often delayed until Series A
+
+## Tier 1 budget detail (most common starting point)
+
+For Tier 1 clients, the marketing budget breakdown typically looks like:
+
+| Line | Typical monthly |
+|---|---|
+| Customer.io / lifecycle ESP | $100–500 |
+| App Store Connect / Google Play | $25 + 30% rev share (Apple/Google take) |
+| Stripe | 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction |
+| GA4 | Free |
+| Notion | $0–100 |
+| GitHub | $0–50 |
+| Shopify (if hardware) | $39–100 |
+| Ahrefs (or similar SEO tool) | $129–399 |
+| Typefully (if social cadence) | $13–39 |
+| Dub.co (if ambassador tracking) | $0–39 |
+| Misc SaaS | $200–500 |
+| **Tooling total** | **~$500–1,700/mo** |
+| Paid acquisition | $0 |
+| fCMO retainer | Variable |
+
+For the plan, this becomes: "Current monthly marketing budget: $X (tooling only, no paid)."
+
+## When to surface tier limits to the founder
+
+If a founder asks for moves that require a future tier:
+- Name the requirement: "This is a Tier 2 move (requires $10K+/mo paid budget). Will unlock after seed close per the 12-month outlook in §10."
+- Don't refuse — frame the timing
+
+If a founder underestimates what's needed:
+- Be honest: "To scale paid acquisition meaningfully, expect Tier 2 budget. Tier 1 can validate organic; Tier 2 validates paid."
+
+If a founder is over-funded for their stage:
+- Don't pad budget to match. Recommend the right work for the funnel state, return excess capacity, suggest investment in compounding rather than scaling.
+
+## Tier-skip cases (worth flagging)
+
+Some companies skip tiers:
+- **Notable founder** raising larger-than-typical rounds — can jump from Tier 1 to Tier 3 directly
+- **Hardware company** with PR moment — can deploy at Tier 3 levels with the right product moment (e.g., a high-profile longevity-influencer endorsement)
+- **B2B SaaS post-LOI** with named enterprise contracts — can fund pilot deployment from contract value
+
+If the client is in a tier-skip situation, name it explicitly in the plan rather than forcing them into the standard ladder.

package/org-skills/marketing-plan/references/growth-patterns.md

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+# Growth Patterns — The Real Shape of SaaS Growth
+
+The 12-month outlook in every plan (Section 10) describes a trajectory. This doc names the shape of that trajectory honestly — what real SaaS growth looks like, when to expect plateaus, and how to plan for the next leg of growth before the current one stalls.
+
+Excerpted and adapted from *Founding Marketing* by Corey Haines.
+
+## The long, slow SaaS ramp of death
+
+Pitch decks show hockey sticks. Real growth shows a series of S-curves — each representing a distinct phase followed by a plateau that tests resolve and creativity.
+
+### Phase 1 — $0 → $10K ARR (the grueling phase)
+
+The hardest milestone. Every customer is a hard-won victory. Typical time: **6–12 months.** Most companies pivot the product multiple times during this phase.
+
+What it requires:
+- Runway long enough to keep experimenting until something clicks
+- A financial cushion or additional income sources (often the difference between success and shutdown)
+- Tolerance for ambiguity — the product positioning, the pricing, and the channel can all still be wrong at this stage
+
+### Phase 2 — $10K → $100K ARR (the treacherous middle)
+
+The middle ground that kills most promising startups. The average company reaches ~$40K ARR in year one. The danger: enough revenue to prove the concept, not enough to support a team.
+
+The threshold to watch for: **$8–10K MRR.** That's when founders can typically go full-time on the business without other income sources. Until then, careful cash management or side income carries the company through.
+
+Companies that flame out in Phase 2 usually run out of runway just as things start working.
+
+### Phase 3 — $100K → $1M ARR (the acceleration phase)
+
+Where things get interesting. Typical time: nearly 2 years total to reach $1M. But there's an acceleration pattern: **once across $100K, companies often double from $100K → $200K in one-third the time it took to reach the first $100K.**
+
+Why: critical mass kicks in. Word-of-mouth starts working. Early customers become your best salespeople. The product has proven itself, and growth becomes more about execution than experimentation.
+
+This is the phase where the marketing plan's 90-day roadmap (Section 9) starts compounding instead of just covering ground.
+
+## Two real growth patterns (and the exponential myth)
+
+The myth: successful SaaS companies grow exponentially, doubling revenue month over month like clockwork.
+
+The reality: two distinct patterns, often combining at scale to *look* exponential when zoomed out.
+
+### Pattern 1 — Linear growth
+
+Build a predictable revenue machine. Find a channel that works (content, partnerships, paid, outbound) and steadily scale it. Some companies reliably add **$10K MRR per month** through a well-oiled marketing engine.
+
+Less sexy than exponential. Far more sustainable. Crucially, **plannable**: when you know what you can count on adding each month, hiring decisions, product roadmap, and expansion planning all become tractable.
+
+### Pattern 2 — Step-function growth
+
+Periods of plateau followed by sudden jumps. Jumps aren't random — they're triggered by specific events:
+- Breaking into a new market segment (e.g., enterprise after starting SMB)
+- Launching a major product expansion (new feature line, new tier)
+- Cracking a new marketing channel that compounds
+
+Example: one founder saw revenue triple in two months after launching enterprise features — following six months of flat growth.
+
+Key insight for the plan: **each step requires deliberate action and investment.** Steps don't happen by waiting. While standing on the current step, you have to be actively building the next one.
+
+### How they combine
+
+Zoom out far enough and a series of linear phases + step functions can look exponential. That's where the myth comes from. Understanding it's actually a series of plannable shapes changes how you build the plan:
+
+- Don't chase the myth of doubling every month
+- Build sustainable linear systems (Sections 4–8 AARRR moves)
+- Plan deliberate step functions (Section 10 12-month milestones)
+
+## Layering growth curves — Channel × Product × Market
+
+The secret to sustained growth isn't one perfect channel. It's orchestrating multiple S-curves that work together. Three S-curves to track:
+
+### Channel S-curves
+
+Every marketing channel has its own lifecycle:
+- **SEO** — 6–12 months to mature; once it does, steady leads for years. Marathon runner.
+- **Paid ads** — quick wins; diminishing returns as you scale.
+- **Content marketing** — slow to start, compounds beautifully over time.
+- **Partnerships / co-marketing** — episodic; high yield when the right partner aligns.
+- **Outbound** — predictable when calibrated; CAC-heavy and plateaus at team capacity.
+- **PR** — spike-driven; sustains awareness rather than direct conversion.
+
+**The rule:** start the next channel before the current one plateaus. Riding one channel to its ceiling before investing in the next produces a multi-month growth plateau that takes more effort to break out of than it would have taken to start the next channel earlier.
+
+In the plan: Section 4 (Acquisition) names current channels, planned channels, and skipped channels. The 12-month roadmap (Section 10) sequences when the next channel investment begins.
+
+### Product S-curves
+
+Your core product naturally hits a growth ceiling as you saturate the initial market. Pushing harder on the same features doesn't break through. What does:
+
+- Adding features that target new use cases
+- Extending the product line to serve adjacent needs
+- Expanding into new market segments (e.g., team collaboration added to a single-user tool — opens a new market)
+
+In the plan: Sections 5 (Activation) and 8 (Revenue) name where the product needs to grow to unlock the next growth tier.
+
+### Market S-curves
+
+Every market segment has its own growth ceiling. Time the expansion into the next segment while the current segment is still showing strong growth. Common patterns:
+
+- SMB → mid-market → enterprise
+- Single vertical → adjacent verticals
+- Domestic → international
+
+Waiting until a segment is saturated makes the transition harder.
+
+In the plan: Section 2 (Strategic frame) names current segment + future segments. Section 10 (12-month outlook) sequences when expansion moves begin.
+
+### The orchestration
+
+The real magic: while SEO is maturing, you're using paid for quick wins. As those channels mature, you're developing product features that unlock enterprise. Meanwhile, the groundwork for international expansion is being laid for when domestic saturates.
+
+This is the operational thesis behind the AARRR mapping (Sections 4–8) and the 12-month outlook (Section 10): each section is a curve, and the plan sequences them so the next curve is ramping while the current one is still growing.
+
+## The 70/20/10 resource-allocation rule
+
+Layering S-curves only works if the next curve is funded *before* the current one plateaus. The 70/20/10 rule is the budgeting discipline that guarantees it. Split marketing effort and spend across three buckets:
+
+| Bucket | Share | What it covers |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Current** | **70%** | The initiatives already working — the channels, content, and campaigns driving today's growth. Protect and optimize. |
+| **Next** | **20%** | The S-curve you're deliberately building — the channel/product/market bet that becomes the *current* 70% in 2–4 quarters. |
+| **Experimental** | **10%** | Unproven bets and small tests. Most fail; the ones that work graduate into the 20%, then the 70%. |
+
+Why it matters for the plan:
+
+- It operationalizes "start the next S-curve before the current one plateaus" — the 20% + 10% *is* the next curve, funded on purpose rather than scrambled for after a plateau hits.
+- It maps cleanly onto the **10–20% experimental budget buffer** in `budget-planning.md` — the experimental layer is the 10% here.
+- It gives Section 11 (Ops stack) and Section 10 (12-month outlook) a defensible allocation logic instead of dumping the whole budget into what's currently working.
+
+**In the plan:** Section 10 (12-month outlook) names what sits in each bucket now, and what's expected to graduate. Section 11 (Ops stack) shows the 70/20/10 split across the AARRR stages. Adjust the ratio by phase — Phase 1 companies (still hunting for any channel that works) may run closer to 40/30/30; Phase 3 companies with a proven engine can run 80/15/5.
+
+## Weekly tracking cadence and plateau alerts
+
+S-curve plateaus are the single most important thing to catch early — the whole point of layering curves is to shift weight to the next one *before* the current plateau bites. That requires a review rhythm, not an annual look-back.
+
+### The cadence
+
+- **Weekly** — review the leading indicators for each active S-curve (new signups per channel, content velocity, activation rate, MRR added). Weekly is frequent enough to spot a curve flattening while there's still time to act.
+- **Monthly** — roll the weeklies up; confirm which bucket (70/20/10) each initiative belongs in and whether anything should graduate or be cut.
+- **Quarterly** — the plan itself adjusts (re-sequence Section 10, reallocate the budget).
+
+### Plateau-indicator alerts
+
+Watch for these signals that a curve is topping out — each is a trigger to shift weight toward the next curve, not to push harder on the current one:
+
+- **Week-over-week additions flattening** — the channel is adding the same absolute numbers it did last month despite equal or greater effort (declining marginal return).
+- **Rising CAC on a formerly cheap channel** — paying more for the same result is the classic plateau tell.
+- **Engagement/activation softening at the top of the funnel** — the audience for this channel/message is saturating.
+- **Effort up, output flat** — the team is working harder to hold the line rather than to grow it.
+
+When two or more fire on the same curve, that's the trigger to accelerate the **20% "next" bucket** — the plateau is the moment between two S-curves, and it should already have a successor ramping.
+
+**In the plan:** Section 13 (Measurement) names the weekly leading indicators per S-curve and the specific plateau thresholds that trigger the next move. This turns "watch for plateaus" from a platitude into an operational alert.
+
+## The 3-3-2-2-2 VC growth path
+
+For companies that have crossed $1M ARR and raised institutional capital, the VC benchmark is:
+
+| Year | Multiple | Cumulative ARR (from $1M) |
+|---|---|---|
+| Year 0 | — | $1M |
+| Year +1 | 3× | $3M |
+| Year +2 | 3× | $9M |
+| Year +3 | 2× | $18M |
+| Year +4 | 2× | $36M |
+| Year +5 | 2× | $72M |
+| Year +6 | 2× | $144M |
+| Year +7 | 2× | $288M |
+
+Most companies don't hit this. Useful regardless — anchoring the 12-month outlook against this benchmark forces the plan to either (a) match it and show how, or (b) explicitly defend choosing a slower trajectory.
+
+For non-VC-backed (bootstrapped, founder-funded, profit-focused) companies, this curve doesn't apply. Use linear or step-function targeting instead.
+
+## How this informs the plan
+
+| Section | What to include |
+|---|---|
+| **3 (Current state)** | Where the company is on each S-curve (channel maturity, product maturity, market saturation). Name the current phase ($0–10K / $10K–100K / $100K–1M / $1M+). |
+| **4 (Acquisition)** | Current channels + their position on the S-curve (early / mature / plateauing). Next channel investment with rationale. |
+| **5–8 (AARRR)** | Each section names the binding constraint at the current phase. For Phase 2 companies, Activation is usually the leverage point. For Phase 3, Retention + Referral compound the existing growth. |
+| **9 (90-day roadmap)** | Linear-pattern moves dominate (predictable additions). Step-function setups (the build-up to a launch, an enterprise tier, a new market segment) live here. |
+| **10 (12-month outlook)** | Sequence channel S-curves, product S-curves, market S-curves. Apply the 70/20/10 split (current / next / experimental) so the next curve is funded before the current one plateaus. If VC-backed Series A+, anchor against 3-3-2-2-2. If not, name the linear or step-function targets. |
+| **11 (Ops stack)** | Show the 70/20/10 allocation across the AARRR stages — what share protects what's working vs. builds the next curve vs. experiments. |
+| **13 (Measurement)** | The north-star metric reflects the current phase (Phase 1 is usually pure new-signup; Phase 3 is usually expansion ARR or NRR). Name the weekly leading indicators per S-curve and the plateau thresholds that trigger the next move. |
+
+## Operational guidance for the planner
+
+- **Don't promise exponential.** If the plan implies doubling every month, the founder will use it against you in 90 days. Linear + step-function is honest.
+- **Name the binding constraint.** Phase 1 binding constraint is finding any channel that works. Phase 2 is funding the team. Phase 3 is breaking the ceiling on whichever channel got you here.
+- **Plateaus aren't failures.** They're the moment between two S-curves. The plan should anticipate them and stage the next move.
+- **Don't conflate "growth" with "growth rate."** A company adding $20K MRR each month for 24 months has built a remarkable machine. The fact that the *percentage* growth rate declines as the base grows is arithmetic, not failure.