opencode-skills-collection 3.1.11 → 3.1.13

package/bundled-skills/marketing-plan/evals/evals.json

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+{
+  "skill_name": "marketing-plan",
+  "evals": [
+    {
+      "id": 1,
+      "prompt": "I'm starting a fractional CMO engagement with a Series A B2B SaaS doing $2M ARR, 12-person team with 1 marketer, $20K/month marketing budget. They want a marketing plan we can share with the team and the board. Build it.",
+      "expected_output": "Should check for product-marketing.md first. Should ask for client name or use a slug. Should walk through three-phase workflow (INIT → REVIEW → FINALIZE), starting with intake covering funding state, team, budget, channels, what's done, in-flight, tooling stack. Should produce a 13-section AARRR-structured plan: executive summary, strategic frame, current state (scored against the embedded 17-section rubric), Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue, 90-day roadmap with owner-assigned moves, 12-month outlook with funding-stage capability unlocks, marketing operations stack mapping skills + MCPs to AARRR stages, tactical idea bank cross-referencing all 139 marketing-ideas to AARRR + client-specific status, measurement framework with north-star + leading indicators + RACI + open decisions. Should be ~8–12K words, Notion-paste-ready. Should be specific to the client (their budget, team, channels), not generic.",
+      "assertions": [
+        "Checks for product-marketing.md",
+        "Asks for client name or uses a slug",
+        "Walks through INIT phase with structured intake",
+        "Produces 13-section plan structured by AARRR",
+        "Section 3 scores against the embedded 17-section rubric",
+        "Section 9 (90-day roadmap) has owner-assigned moves, not just actions",
+        "Section 10 names funding-stage capability unlocks explicitly",
+        "Section 11 maps marketing skills + MCPs to each AARRR stage",
+        "Section 12 cross-references all 139 marketing-ideas with client-specific status",
+        "Output is Notion-paste-ready markdown",
+        "Plan is specific to the client (their budget, team, current channels), not generic"
+      ],
+      "files": []
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 2,
+      "prompt": "We're pre-seed bootstrapped, $0 paid marketing budget, 4-person team building a D2C consumer app. Founder wants a 90-day plan + 12-month roadmap they can show investors during the upcoming raise. The product is in beta.",
+      "expected_output": "Should recognize Tier 1 funding profile (pre-seed) and skip paid acquisition recommendations until budget unlocks. Should lean Acquisition heavy on organic + lifecycle + ambassador moves. Should explicitly map what unlocks when seed closes (paid test budget $5–15K/mo, first marketing hire, etc.). Should respect that the product is in beta and account for activation/throttling gates. Should include the AARRR diagnostic — likely binding constraint at this stage is Activation (onboarding) and Referral. Plan must be investor-friendly: exec summary can be lifted into an update.",
+      "assertions": [
+        "Recognizes pre-seed tier and uses Tier 1 budget profile",
+        "Skips paid acquisition recommendations until budget unlocks",
+        "Leans Acquisition on organic + lifecycle + ambassador",
+        "Names what unlocks when seed closes",
+        "Accounts for product being in beta",
+        "Identifies binding-constraint AARRR stage (likely Activation or Referral)",
+        "Executive summary can be lifted into an investor update",
+        "Plan is operationally honest — doesn't pretend paid budget exists"
+      ],
+      "files": []
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 3,
+      "prompt": "we have an audit already done — can you take that and turn it into a real plan",
+      "expected_output": "Should ask for the audit output (file path or paste). Should recognize that current-state scoring already exists and ingest it directly into Section 3 — don't re-score. Should note scoring date in case material has shifted since. Should proceed with full 13-section plan generation using audit findings to inform 90-day roadmap and AARRR sections (gaps from audit become moves in the plan).",
+      "assertions": [
+        "Asks for the audit output",
+        "Ingests prior audit scoring directly into Section 3",
+        "Does not re-score what's already been scored",
+        "Notes the scoring date and flags any shifted material",
+        "Uses audit gaps to inform 90-day roadmap and AARRR section moves",
+        "Still produces a full 13-section plan, not just Section 3"
+      ],
+      "files": []
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 4,
+      "prompt": "/marketing-plan acme-saas — pick up where we left off",
+      "expected_output": "Should read ~/marketing-plans/acme-saas/progress.md to determine state machine phase. Should resume from the next unfinished section in REVIEW phase, or transition to FINALIZE if all sections approved. Should NOT silently restart from scratch. If progress.md is missing or shows 'finalized', should ask: revise as v{N+1}, start fresh, or re-open a section.",
+      "assertions": [
+        "Reads ~/marketing-plans/acme-saas/progress.md",
+        "Resumes from next unfinished section based on state machine",
+        "Does not silently restart from scratch",
+        "Handles finalized state by asking user how to proceed (revise / fresh / re-open)",
+        "Saves each newly confirmed section to the progress file"
+      ],
+      "files": []
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 5,
+      "prompt": "I need a plan for a hybrid hardware+software wellness company. They sell a physical product and a subscription app. Series A, $100K/month marketing budget, 8-person team including a marketing lead.",
+      "expected_output": "Should recognize hybrid hardware+software archetype and consult references/client-types.md for archetype-specific emphases. Acquisition leans PR + retail + Amazon + Shopify SEO + paid. Activation = unboxing + setup + first session + paywall. Retention = lifecycle + community. Referral = gifting + reviews. Revenue = blended LTV (hardware + subscription + accessories). Should recognize Series A tier and recommend appropriate paid spend. Should include cross-cutting brand + customer-research moves. Idea bank should skip ideas that conflict with premium positioning or hardware constraints.",
+      "assertions": [
+        "Recognizes hybrid hardware+software archetype",
+        "Acquisition leans on PR, retail, Amazon, Shopify SEO, paid",
+        "Activation covers unboxing, setup, first session, paywall",
+        "Retention covers lifecycle, community",
+        "Referral covers gifting, reviews",
+        "Revenue covers blended LTV with hardware + subscription + accessories",
+        "Recognizes Series A tier in budget recommendations",
+        "Idea bank skips ideas that conflict with brand fit, with explicit rationale"
+      ],
+      "files": []
+    },
+    {
+      "id": 6,
+      "prompt": "Just give me a quick marketing plan. Don't make it long.",
+      "expected_output": "Should resist defaulting to a short plan. Should explain that a marketing-plan is the comprehensive fCMO-deliverable artifact (~10K words) and that for a single-channel quick plan, the channel-specific skill is the right tool (emails, ads, seo-audit, etc.). Should offer alternatives: (a) full marketing-plan as designed, or (b) point to a specific skill for the user's actual need. Should NOT silently produce a stripped-down 3K-word plan that misses the ops stack or the idea bank.",
+      "assertions": [
+        "Resists short-plan request and explains why",
+        "Names marketing-plan as the comprehensive fCMO artifact",
+        "Recommends channel-specific skills for single-channel quick plans",
+        "Offers alternatives clearly",
+        "Does not silently produce a stripped-down plan"
+      ],
+      "files": []
+    }
+  ]
+}

package/bundled-skills/marketing-plan/references/aarrr-framework.md

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+# AARRR Framework — Primer for Plan Sequencing
+
+AARRR (Dave McClure's "pirate metrics") is the spine of every plan produced by this skill. This doc is the primer + the decision rules for when each stage gets prioritized.
+
+## The five stages
+
+| Stage | Question | Common metrics |
+|---|---|---|
+| **A**cquisition | How do strangers become aware of us? | Visits, MQLs, signup-page sessions, app-store visits, CAC by channel |
+| **A**ctivation | Once they try us, do they have an experience that converts? | Signup completion rate, time-to-value, % completing first key action, trial → paid rate |
+| **R**etention | Do they stay and deepen? | DAU/WAU/MAU, week-1/4/12 retention, churn |
+| **R**eferral | Do retained users bring more users? | Viral coefficient, NPS, ambassador attribution |
+| **R**evenue | What do they pay, who pays, how does it compound? | ARPU, LTV, expansion revenue, ARR / MRR |
+
+> **Signup boundary rule.** Signup *intent* (a stranger landing on the signup page) is Acquisition. Signup *completion* and everything after (first key action, trial-to-paid) is Activation. Apply this rule consistently across all docs and the plan template.
+
+## Why AARRR for plan sequencing
+
+Three reasons.
+
+**1. Funnel-stage tagging forces prioritization.** Without AARRR, marketing plans become channel-organized ("here's the SEO plan, here's the social plan, here's the paid plan"). Channels can address multiple stages; tagging by stage instead asks the more useful question: *what stage of the funnel is the binding constraint right now?*
+
+**2. Fix the leak before pouring water in.** The Activation/Retention question ("does the funnel convert at acceptable rates given exposure?") is usually higher leverage than the Acquisition question ("how do we get more exposure?"). AARRR sequencing surfaces this naturally.
+
+**3. The Revenue / Referral conversation is honest.** Most marketing plans bury monetization under "growth" and treat referral as wishful thinking. AARRR forces explicit treatment of both.
+
+## Brand and content — not a stage, cross-cutting
+
+A common mistake: making "Brand" or "Content" the sixth bucket. They're not — they serve every stage.
+
+- **Brand voice** governs every piece of copy across every stage
+- **Content** feeds Acquisition (SEO, social), Activation (onboarding copy), Retention (email lifecycle), Referral (ambassador talking points), Revenue (pricing pages, sales material)
+
+In the plan, brand/content shows up as the strategic frame (Section 2) and cross-cutting in Section 11's ops stack — never as its own AARRR section.
+
+## Diagnosing the binding constraint — which AARRR stage is highest leverage?
+
+For every client, one or two AARRR stages will be the binding constraint. The plan sequences moves there first.
+
+**Decision rules:**
+
+### If you don't have any users → start with Acquisition
+- Pre-launch / day-0 / waitlist stage
+- No funnel data exists
+- Leverage = building the first 100 users
+
+### If you have users but they bounce → start with Activation
+- Signups happen but activation rate is low
+- App Store conversion is poor
+- Onboarding completion is broken
+- Day 1 → paid rate is much lower than Day 30 → paid (means product converts given time but onboarding doesn't bridge to it)
+- Leverage = bridging signup to first felt value
+
+### If activation works but users churn → start with Retention
+- Month 1 retention is below category norms
+- Activated users stop using within 7–14 days
+- LTV is short
+- Leverage = lifecycle, deepening engagement, churn prevention
+
+### If retention is strong but growth is slow → start with Referral / Revenue
+- Retained users love the product but don't share
+- Inbound referrals come in unstructured
+- Pricing hasn't been pressure-tested
+- ARPU is low for the value delivered
+- Leverage = WOM mechanics + pricing optimization (these often cluster)
+
+### If everything works at small scale → start with Acquisition (scaling)
+- Funnel is healthy
+- Question is just "more"
+- This is the "post-fit" scaling problem
+
+## Stage-by-stage strategic patterns
+
+### Acquisition
+
+**The diagnostic question:** Where is the gap between TAM-level awareness and current funnel volume? What channels are saturated by competitors vs. open?
+
+**Common Acquisition moves:**
+- SEO content strategy (organic compounding)
+- Founder-led channels (LinkedIn, X, Substack for B2B; Instagram/TikTok for D2C)
+- Paid acquisition (when budget unlocks)
+- App Store / Play Store / marketplace listing optimization
+- PR and credibility-anchor amplification
+- Events (live, webinar, conference speaking)
+- Partnerships (newsletter swaps, integration co-marketing, reseller / agency partners)
+- Hardware / commerce surface (Shopify SEO + Amazon for hybrid businesses)
+- B2B sales support (case studies, partner pages, vertical content)
+
+**Sequencing principle:** Build the organic compound first (SEO + founder-led + content + PR amplification + ambassadors). Only layer paid on top of a working organic baseline. Premature paid amplifies what's broken.
+
+### Activation
+
+**The diagnostic question:** Where in the user's first session do they decide "this works for me" or "this doesn't"? What stops them from reaching that moment?
+
+**Common Activation moves:**
+- Bedrock fixes (broken gates, broken signup steps, broken paywall)
+- Onboarding tests / rebuild (often the most leveraged single move)
+- App Store listing rewrite (the threshold to the trial)
+- Lifecycle Flow ship order (when to ship onboarding emails)
+- Paywall structure + trial length
+- Free → paid bridge (in-app upsells, soft paywalls)
+
+**Sequencing principle:** Get to first felt value as fast as possible. Everything that adds friction between "user opens app" and "user has the experience that converts them" is a candidate to cut.
+
+### Retention
+
+**The diagnostic question:** Why do users churn? What would have made them stay? What's the "second moment of value" after the first one?
+
+**Common Retention moves:**
+- Lifecycle email flows: onboarding, lapsed user re-engagement, post-purchase, win-back
+- Subscription / preference centers
+- Churn reconciliation (often metric definitions don't match across surfaces)
+- Hardware → software activation paths (for hybrid businesses)
+- Annual plan defaults / pricing structure (cross-cuts Revenue)
+- Support as marketing (high-touch moments that drive stories)
+- Community + practitioner networks
+
+**Sequencing principle:** Ship lifecycle flows in the order their content is most stable. Hardware post-purchase flows ship first (they don't reference in-app screens that might change). Onboarding emails ship last (they reference UI that might change). Win-back is a quarterly campaign, not a one-time flow.
+
+### Referral
+
+**The diagnostic question:** Is there inbound referral interest that isn't being captured? What's the share-after-value moment that's natural to the product?
+
+**Common Referral moves:**
+- Ambassador / affiliate program (start with inbound interest, not cold recruitment)
+- Share-after-value moments built into the product (reflection prompts, milestone celebrations)
+- Founder amplification (founder as referrer-zero)
+- Long-game expert / Guides / certified-host networks (for category-creating businesses)
+- Gifting flows (consumer / hardware)
+- Two-sided referrals (reward both referrer and referred)
+
+**Sequencing principle:** Lead with whoever is already raising their hand. If there are 5 inbound ambassadors, launch with those 5 — don't wait for a "complete program." Iterate based on what they tell you.
+
+### Revenue
+
+**The diagnostic question:** Is the company underpricing? Underpackaging? Missing an upsell? What's the "right" price discipline given LTV and brand voice?
+
+**Common Revenue moves:**
+- Pricing audit (what's actually charged today vs. listed?)
+- Annual plan defaults
+- Hardware → software bundling formalization
+- Storefront / commerce page optimization
+- B2B case studies + sales material
+- Long-term value pool flags (data, expansion, enterprise) — flagged not executed
+
+**Sequencing principle:** Run the pricing audit before testing changes. Surprisingly often, the "implied" pricing on the dashboard doesn't match the listed price — discounts, trials, or plan mix distorts the read. Surface the ground truth first.
+
+## How to assign a move to a stage
+
+Some moves clearly belong to one stage. Others span. The rule:
+
+**Assign to the stage where the move's primary measurable impact lands.**
+
+Examples:
+- "Rewrite App Store listing in voice" — spans Acquisition (organic discovery) and Activation (threshold to trial). Primary impact = Activation (trial conversion rate). Assign to Activation, mention crossover.
+- "Eye mask Shopify page rewrite" — spans Acquisition (organic search for sleep mask) and Revenue (sale conversion). Primary impact = Revenue (transaction). Assign to Revenue, mention crossover.
+- "Alex's LinkedIn cadence" — Acquisition (top of funnel for D2C subscribers).
+- "Customer.io Flow 6 (eye mask post-purchase)" — Retention (deepens hardware buyer engagement) with crossover to Activation (hardware → app premium activation path).
+
+When in doubt: where would removing this move hurt the most? Assign there.
+
+## When the AARRR breakdown isn't equal
+
+For most clients, the plan won't have equal volume across stages. That's fine — and worth surfacing as a diagnostic.
+
+- **Heavy Acquisition section** = client has product-market fit but top-of-funnel is the bottleneck. Common for early-stage with strong retention metrics.
+- **Heavy Activation section** = client has traffic but conversion is broken. Often beta-stage products.
+- **Heavy Retention section** = client has churn problem. Often mid-stage products that scaled past PMF without lifecycle infrastructure.
+- **Heavy Referral section** = client has loyalty but no WOM mechanics. Often consumer products with passionate users.
+- **Heavy Revenue section** = client is underpricing or missing monetization layers. Common for tools transitioning from free to paid.
+
+If a plan ends up evenly distributed across all five stages, the diagnostic was probably weak — re-examine the funnel state intake to find where the binding constraint is.
+
+## A note on the order of presentation
+
+Always present AARRR in order (Acquisition → Activation → Retention → Referral → Revenue) regardless of priority order.
+
+This is for the reader's mental model. Founders expect the funnel to flow top-to-bottom. If Retention is the most-leveraged stage but you lead with Retention, the reader has to context-switch.
+
+To signal priority, use the executive summary (Section 1) — name the biggest bets there. The AARRR breakdown then walks the funnel in order, with the most leverage-positive section being the longest and most-detailed.

package/bundled-skills/marketing-plan/references/budget-planning.md

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+# Budget Planning — Scientific Methods for Setting the Marketing Budget
+
+The problem with most SaaS marketing budgets is that they're pulled out of thin air — a number that hopefully doesn't constrain growth too much, but doesn't anchor in customer-acquisition economics either. The result: when someone asks "why this number?" there's no answer.
+
+Two scientific methods solve this. Use one (not both) in Section 8 (Revenue) and Section 10 (12-month outlook) of every plan.
+
+Excerpted and adapted from *Founding Marketing* by Corey Haines.
+
+## Method 1 — Revenue-Based (5–40% of annual revenue)
+
+**Direction:** budget → revenue goal.
+
+You start with what the company can comfortably spend on marketing, then forecast what revenue that spend can plausibly generate.
+
+### The ranges
+
+| Posture | % of ARR | When to use |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Conservative (profit-preserving)** | 5% | Established business focused on profit distribution; bootstrapped; founder-paid customer base |
+| **Standard growth** | 15–25% | Most healthy SaaS in the seed-to-Series-A range |
+| **Aggressive growth (deploying raised capital)** | up to 40% | Recently funded round, mandate to deploy fast, board accepts burn |
+
+For reference: public SaaS companies routinely report sales-and-marketing spend between 20% and 55% of revenue (Zoom historically ran between 20% and 55% across years).
+
+### The math (Conservative example)
+
+Business at $1M ARR, 5% allocation:
+
+- Annual marketing budget: **$50,000**
+- Blended CAC: $100 → can acquire **500 new customers**
+- ARPC: $50/mo → adds **$300K** to ARR
+- Account for 15% annual churn → 85% × $300K = **+$255K net new ARR**
+- End-of-year goal: **$1.255M ARR**
+
+### The math (Aggressive example)
+
+Business at $1M ARR, 40% allocation:
+
+- Annual marketing budget: **$400,000**
+- Blended CAC: $100 → can acquire **4,000 new customers**
+- ARPC: $50/mo → adds **$2.4M** to ARR
+- End-of-year goal: **$3.4M ARR**
+
+### Two keys to making this method work
+
+1. **Know your blended CAC** (see "Calculating CAC" below)
+2. **Match the allocation percentage to your actual ambition.** A founder running 5% allocation while telling the board they expect to triple revenue is showing two incompatible signals.
+
+## Method 2 — Goal-Based (reverse-engineered from the revenue target)
+
+**Direction:** revenue goal → budget.
+
+You start with the revenue goal and work backward through the unit economics to derive the budget required to hit it. Best for:
+
+- Companies just starting up (no historical CAC baseline yet, working from first principles)
+- Companies anticipating outside capital (need to defend the ask)
+- Companies using revenue-based financing (Pipe, Capchase, Founderpath)
+
+### The formula
+
+```
+Marketing budget = [(New ARR / (ARPC × 12)) × CAC] / annual retention rate
+```
+
+### Worked example: $1M ARR → $2M ARR
+
+Step 1 — How much new ARR per customer?
+ARPC × 12 = $50 × 12 = **$600 ARR per new customer**
+
+Step 2 — How many new customers do we need?
+$1,000,000 / $600 = **1,667 new customers**
+
+Step 3 — What's the raw acquisition cost?
+1,667 × $100 CAC = **$166,700**
+
+Step 4 — Account for churn (15% annual = 85% retention)
+$166,700 / 0.85 = **$196,118** (round to **$200K**)
+
+When someone asks how you got to the budget, walk them through the four steps. It's defensible.
+
+### Why this formula and not something simpler
+
+The four steps each correspond to a real economic reality:
+- Step 1 converts MRR-language into the ARR-language a board talks in
+- Step 2 names the customer count, which is what the funnel actually has to deliver
+- Step 3 anchors the budget in the cost of acquisition
+- Step 4 acknowledges that churned customers don't count toward net new ARR, so the budget needs to cover the gap
+
+### Required buffer
+
+**Always add 10–20% as "experimental budget"** on top of the formula output. CAC is the main dependency; if CAC comes in 50% higher than estimated, the cascading effect is missing the revenue goal. It is much cheaper to overestimate CAC than to underestimate it.
+
+The experimental budget also funds the experiments that find your next channel before your current one plateaus (see `growth-patterns.md` — channel S-curves).
+
+## The VC growth path (3-3-2-2-2 rule)
+
+Once a company has crossed $1M ARR and taken a Series A, the implicit benchmark VCs expect is:
+
+| Year | ARR multiple | Cumulative ARR (from $1M start) |
+|---|---|---|
+| 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 |
+
+That's the 3-3-2-2-2 rule. Useful when:
+
+- The plan needs to map 12-month and 36-month milestones to VC expectations
+- The founder is mid-raise and the board needs to see a plausible path to the next round
+- Section 10 (12-month outlook) needs anchoring against an industry benchmark, not just internal ambition
+
+Most companies miss it. That's fine. Knowing the benchmark gives the team a defensible reason to either match it or explicitly choose not to.
+
+## Calculating CAC (blended, not paid-only)
+
+If there's no historical CAC, use a baseline: **one year of revenue from the smallest paid plan.** Deploy the budget, capture actual CAC data, replace the baseline with the measured number for the next planning cycle.
+
+For an established CAC calculation, **CAC must be blended.** Include:
+
+- Marketing salaries (full loaded cost, not just base)
+- Advertising spend
+- Marketing tech stack costs
+- Content production costs (writers, designers, video editors)
+- Agency / contractor retainers
+- SDR / BDR salaries if doing outbound
+- Tools (CRM, marketing automation, analytics)
+
+Then divide by the number of new customers acquired in the period. That blended number is the one to use in either budgeting method.
+
+The mistake to avoid: calculating CAC from paid ad spend alone. A company that "doesn't run ads" still has a CAC — it's just hidden in the content team, the founder's time, the SEO contractor, the conference booth.
+
+## The reality check on forecasting
+
+This whole framework derives a budget and a revenue goal — not a 12-month month-by-month forecast accurate to the dollar.
+
+**Unless the company is publicly traded, all forecasts are educated guesses.** No startup under $100M ARR reliably hits forecasts to the month. The honest framing for the plan:
+
+- The annual goal is a defensible direction-of-travel
+- The budget is the resource commitment that makes the goal plausible
+- The 90-day roadmap (Section 9) is what's actionable now
+- Month-to-month variance is expected; quarterly review is when the plan adjusts
+
+What's actionable: how to deploy the budget, what concrete moves to execute, what to adjust when real data comes in.
+
+What's not actionable: trying to forecast traffic, pipeline, retention curves, conversion rates, and channel mix all down to the decimal point and expecting that forecast to hold. Founders who over-engineer the forecast tend to spend the plan period explaining variance instead of executing.
+
+**Rule for the plan:** the budget number is honest. The annual goal is honest. The month-by-month projection is illustrative.
+
+## How this flows into the plan
+
+| Section | What to include |
+|---|---|
+| **3 (Current state)** | Current monthly marketing spend broken down by line (paid, tools, content, headcount, retainers). Compute current %-of-ARR allocation. |
+| **8 (Revenue)** | The unit-economics table (CAC, ARPC, churn) that feeds whichever budget method you're using. |
+| **10 (12-month outlook)** | Apply Method 1 or Method 2 to derive the 12-month budget and the resulting revenue goal. Anchor against the 3-3-2-2-2 rule if Series A+ and VC-backed. |
+| **11 (Ops stack)** | Show the budget allocation across the AARRR stages — what % to Acquisition, Activation, etc. The ops-stack mapping informs which line items grow when the next funding tier unlocks. |
+| **13 (Open decisions)** | If CAC is unknown or contested, flag it as the highest-impact open decision — every other number depends on it. |
+
+## When to choose which method
+
+- **Method 1 (Revenue-Based)** when the company has historical CAC data, a profit/burn posture, and the question is "given our posture, what's a plausible goal."
+- **Method 2 (Goal-Based)** when the company has a specific goal (board mandate, VC milestone, fundraise target) and the question is "what budget do we need to hit it."
+
+For most plans in the seed-to-Series-A range, Method 2 is more useful — it forces the conversation about whether the goal is funded.