A decent small business. Not the one the criteria describe.
The founding team set two targets: $500k–1M a year of profit on $100–200k invested without a full-time job, or $10M of value in 3–5 years. On the revised model, neither is met in the base case. What it plausibly is: a $1–1.5M ARR business producing $150–400k a year of owner cash, with one founder working full time as CTO and GM.
No traction exists. There are no customers, LOIs, pilots or partners. Nothing on this page is a result; it is a model, and the model was cut sharply after three red-team reviews.
Headline numbers, base case A
Rests on: churn 1.75%/month (judgment; no cited base rate found), realized ARPA $640→$700, $1,000 realized onboarding, a construction downturn in year 3, go-lives weighted to December–March, and a 6-month build with no revenue. Multiple: just under the Aventis under-$5M median of 3.3× E Aventis Advisors. A financial buyer paying on earnings would pay well under $1M.
Bear, base, bull
Show as table
Multiple basis: . “Distributable” is our own conservative rule: profit can be paid out only up to the cash the business holds at year end, starting from a $150k raise. Founder salaries are $0 in both modes. Bull includes a payments take-rate that is pure assumption.
How likely is each target?
5–10%
$500k+/yr profit, hands-off, by year 5, if the validation tests pass.
10–20%
$500k+/yr profit by year 5 with a founder working full time, if the tests pass.
under 5%
$10M of value within 5 years in these niches.
Basis: reasoning, not a base rate. No cited base rate exists for this kind of venture. The hands-off target needs bull-case volume and bull-case price at the same time, in a small market partly held by a funded consolidator and a pumping incumbent. $10M needs about $3M+ ARR (roughly 300–400 fleets) because small SaaS deals price at about 3× revenue E Aventis; even the bull case lands just under. These ranges are not actuarial figures.
Change the year-5 inputs yourself
Defaults are the base case, hands-off. The formula is the model’s own: revenue from average fleets, explicit COGS (hosting, processing, support staffing, on-call and accounting API), engineering and founder/GM cost as separate lines.
Year-5 profit
Value at the chosen multiple
What has to be true in year 5 A
| Goal | At $700 ARPA | At $875 ARPA |
|---|---|---|
| $500k/yr profit, hands-off | ~246 fleets (~350 wins), ARR ~$2.1M | ~186 fleets (~264 wins), ARR ~$1.9M |
| $500k/yr profit, founder-CTO unpaid | ~191 fleets (~272 wins) | ~144 fleets (~205 wins) |
| $1M/yr profit, hands-off | ~342 fleets (~487 wins) | ~261 fleets (~372 wins) |
| $10M value | $2.9–3.3M ARR at 3.0–3.5× (~275–395 fleets), or ~$2M EBITDA at 5× | |
Against an open pool estimated at only 830–1,250 fleets U (itself unverified; hydrovac and boom-truck firm counts were not found), 260–350 wins means 21–42% share.
What the money buys A
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Validation: market list, advisor retainer, travel for ride-alongs and 3 on-site audits | $10–15k |
| Build to first invoice: contract dev/QA, devices, Intuit security review | $35–45k |
| Year-1 go-to-market, legal and insurance setup (MSA/DPA, E&O, cyber) | $35–50k |
| Year 2–3 operating losses: support hire, on-call, SOC 2 prep | $120–140k |
| Total to cash-flow positive, base, founder-CTO | ~$200–250k |
That is above the $150k originally planned. It fits in $200k only if the sales hire slips a year or the first winter window converts above plan. The hands-off path is not fundable from cash flow before year 5 in the base case.
Stop points, dated to the selling season
All three tests pass: ≥1,000 open fleets with a median of 7+ units; 2 of 3 on-site audits find true loss ≥0.5% of billings that the owner agrees was a miss; ≥3 refundable $500 deposits from ~20 calls. And a founder commits to being the full-time engineer for 3+ years.
≥8 paying fleets live, invoices syncing, zero billing-accuracy incidents, ≥80% of tickets submitted in-app.
≥25 paying fleets, monthly logo churn under 2%, a support hire configuring rate sheets without founder help. The bear case fails here, at about 17 fleets. If it does: don’t raise; sell the code and customer list, or wind down.
Cash-flow positive. Decide between hiring the GM (hands-off) and opening acquirer talks.
The two things that decide this
A full-time founder is not optional
Hands-off loses money at base-case scale in years 4 and 5. If nobody on the founding team will be the full-time engineer for at least three years, the plan says stop before building. That is a kill criterion, not a preference.
The market may already be taken
CreteSuite claims 20%+ of US pumping revenue E vendor claim; RapidWorks, backed by growth equity, has rolled up Visual Dispatch and others E source. There is no product moat. The count of open fleets decides the venture, and it hasn’t been made.
The case for spending anything: the three tests cost about $10–15k and founder time, and they answer the fatal questions before any code is written. Read the full plan.
Talk to the founding team
For questions on the model, an introduction to a fleet owner, or an offer to help run the validation.