· Actual - Proof of Work

ACTUAL

PROOF OF WORK

Founder’s Notebook — Refined

From Vision to Working Prototype — A Practical Plan

February 2026 | limosa.work

+———————————————————————–+ | What Changed in This Version | | | | Stripped the over-philosophical framing. Replaced per-device | | consumption pricing (badge-day/tag-day fees) with operation-based | | pricing tied to sites or crews served. Mapped the 12 JTBD cards to | | architecture and PoV metrics. Identified the specific help needed at | | each stage. Made every step concrete enough to act on this month. | | Scoped realistically: you may only make it through prototype, and | | that’s a valid outcome if it’s a solid prototype. | +———————————————————————–+

1. Honest Assessment: Where You Stand

Before diving into the plan, here is a clear-eyed look at what you have, what you lack, and what must change.

What You Have (Real Assets)

Deep domain expertise: 15+ years in landscape management means you know exactly how field crews lose time and money.
Business analyst skills: You understand data modeling, workflow design, and system integration from the inside.
Well-defined product concept: Badge + BLE tags + cellular upload + operation-based pricing. The core idea is tight.
12 validated JTBD cards with architecture mappings and measurable PoV metrics — this is more structured than most seed-stage startups.
Blues Wireless Notecard as a proven prototyping platform with built-in cellular and accelerometer.
Biometric elimination decision: Removing the fingerprint scanner was the right call. It cuts $12/unit, kills BIPA risk, and simplifies everything.

What You Lack (Gaps That Will Kill You)

No embedded firmware engineer. You cannot write the badge firmware yourself. This is the single biggest blocker.
No backend/cloud engineer. The ingestion pipeline, truth store, and API layer require backend expertise you don’t have.
No working hardware prototype. The Blues Notecard is a dev kit, not a badge. You need someone to turn it into one.
No charter partner signed. The pitch materials exist but no one is committed with money or crews yet.
No revenue model validated. Operation-based pricing (per site or per crew) is the right direction, but the specific rates and thresholds are untested.

What Was Over-Philosophical (The Critique)

The previous roadmap treated 54 Zettelkasten cards, a manifesto, and 7 card families as engineering requirements. They are not. They are design principles. The distinction matters: a design principle says “minimize field burden.” An engineering requirement says “badge must last 7 days on a single charge at 4 samples per minute.” The Zettelkasten is useful for maintaining product coherence, but it was taking up space that should have been occupied by specifications, cost models, and hiring plans. This version keeps the philosophy where it belongs — as a filter, not a deliverable.

2. The Product, Plainly Stated

Actual is a hardware + cloud platform that automatically captures time, location, and tool usage for field crews. Badges worn by workers and BLE tags attached to equipment create a continuous, verifiable record of work without any manual data entry. The data feeds payroll, job costing, billing, and scheduling systems that companies already use.

What the Badge Does

Captures GPS position, accelerometer data, and BLE proximity scans 4 times per minute.
Stores all data locally in a buffer. Uploads in batches over cellular (Blues Notecard).
Operates offline-first: no Wi-Fi, no phone, no gateway infrastructure needed.
Identity is assigned by supervisor at start of shift. No biometrics, no login, no app.
Target battery life: 7 days active use, weeks on standby.
Target production cost: $30/unit at volume. Prototype cost: ~$137/unit with dev kit components.

What the BLE Tags Do

Attach to tools and equipment. Broadcast a unique ID.
When a badge detects a tag, it logs tool proximity with timestamp.
Enables automatic equipment usage tracking without manual logging.
Target cost: $5–10/tag at volume. Simple, replaceable, battery-powered.

What the Cloud Does

Ingests batch uploads via idempotent API. Normalizes and deduplicates events.
Binds events to job sites via tax-parcel geofencing. Binds tool usage via BLE tag registry.
Writes canonical truth intervals to an immutable store.
Exposes truth via APIs and connectors to payroll, ERP, scheduling, and billing systems.
Anomaly detection flags exceptions for human review — the system does not auto-correct.

3. Pricing Model: Operation-Based, Not Per-Device

Actual does not charge per user, per seat, or per device. The hardware is a one-time commodity purchase. Recurring revenue comes from the cloud value the system creates — not from counting badges or tags.

This distinction matters. If pricing is tied to badge-days or tag-days, customers will do the math and arrive at a per-worker-per-month number. At that point, it looks and feels exactly like per-user SaaS pricing dressed up with different words. That will feel deceptive to a buyer who was told this was consumption-based. The unit of pricing must be tied to the value delivered, not the devices deployed.

Pricing Structure

Component Unit Rationale

Badge Hardware One-time purchase Customer owns the device. Commodity or lease per badge price target: $30/unit at volume. Replaceable. Not a recurring cost.

Tag Hardware One-time purchase Simple BLE beacon. Commodity item. per tag Target: $5–10/tag at volume.

Cloud Platform Fee Per active job Core recurring revenue. Tied to the site per month operation, not the headcount. A site (or per crew per that generates verified data in a month) given month = 1 unit. Scales with seasonal workload automatically.

Connectors Per active Payroll, ERP, scheduling connectors. integration per Charges only for integrations actually month pushing data.

Insights/Analytics Per report or Reverse-Engineered Schedule, dashboard access Reverse-Engineered Estimate outputs. (future tier)
——————– —————— —————————————

+———————————————————————–+ | Why Operation-Based, Not Per-Device | | | | Landscape and construction crews fluctuate seasonally. A 50-person | | company might run 50 badges in summer and 15 in winter. Per-user | | pricing punishes them in the off-season. But per-badge-day or | | per-tag-day pricing has the same problem — it’s per-user pricing | | with extra arithmetic. The customer will divide the monthly bill by | | headcount and compare to a $5/user SaaS. If the number is higher, | | you lose. If it’s lower, they wonder why you didn’t just say | | $X/user. | | | | Operation-based pricing (per site, per crew, or tiered by scale) | | avoids this entirely. The customer thinks about their business — | | “we service 40 properties” or “we run 6 crews” — not about | | counting devices. Hardware is a one-time buy at commodity cost. The | | recurring cloud fee scales with the operation. Try it with one crew, | | pay only for what that crew covers.” | +———————————————————————–+

Pricing Thresholds to Validate

These are the questions that only real pilots will answer. Do not set final prices before charter partner feedback.

What is the per-site or per-crew monthly rate that makes this cheaper than the labor cost of manual timesheets?
What is the minimum monthly commitment that makes the cloud infrastructure viable? (Floor pricing.)
Should pricing tier by number of sites, number of crews, or total event volume? Which unit feels most natural to the buyer?
At what scale does a flat monthly rate become more attractive than per-unit pricing? (Enterprise threshold.)
Does the customer perceive hardware as an asset (purchase) or an expense (lease)? This affects cash flow positioning.

4. The 12 Jobs To Be Done — Grounded

The JTBD deck defines 12 jobs that Actual performs. Each card now maps to a specific architecture component, a proof-of-value metric, and a prototype priority. Cards marked PROTOTYPE are what you must prove in the prototype phase. Cards marked PILOT require charter partner data. Cards marked SCALE are future capabilities.

# Job Phase Key PoV Metric

01 Single Source of Operational PILOT Cross-system variance rate Truth down 80%

02 Capture Field Truth Without PROTOTYPE Daily crew interaction < Human Action 2 min/day

03 Place Automation at the PROTOTYPE Downstream error rate down Constraint materially

04 Preserve Truth Through PROTOTYPE Event loss rate near 0% Failure and Time

05 Bind Work to Context PILOT Auto-attribution rate >= Automatically 95%

06 Track Equipment Presence and PROTOTYPE Tool encounter log Use completeness >= 90%

07 Shorten Distance Between Work PILOT Books close duration down and Finance 30-50%

08 Reduce Administrative Drag to PILOT Admin hours per crew/week Near Zero down 50%

09 Enable Management Without SCALE Manager validation time Policing down 50%

10 Strengthen Existing Systems, PILOT Net-new logins introduced: Not Replace 0

11 Maintain Verifiable Chain of SCALE Traceability rate: 100% Custody

12 Turn Verified Reality Into SCALE Forecast accuracy Foresight improvement ——– —————————– ———– ————————–

+———————————————————————–+ | Prototype Must-Prove Jobs | | | | Cards 02, 03, 04, and 06 are the only ones that matter in the | | prototype phase. If the badge can passively capture time and location | | (02), store-and-forward without data loss (04), detect BLE tool | | proximity (06), and do all of this at the edge where errors originate | | (03), you have a viable prototype. Everything else depends on these | | four working. | +———————————————————————–+

5. Practical Roadmap: What to Do and When

This roadmap is compressed to reflect reality: you are a solo founder with a day job, building in evenings and weekends. The phases below are sequential, and each has a clear exit gate. If you cannot pass a gate, you stop and reassess. There is no shame in stopping at prototype with a solid proof of concept.

Phase 1: Business Foundation (Months 1–2)

Goal: Legal entity exists, IP is documented, and you can legally accept charter partner money.

Task Deliverable Help Needed Est. Cost

Open business bank Separate accounts for None $0 account Actual

File provisional Provisional patent Patent attorney $2,000–4,000 patent application covering
badge-as-identity +
passive provenance
architecture

Document IP: Written technical Patent attorney Included above badge-as-identity, descriptions in review
passive association, patent-ready format
operation-based
pricing model

Set up basic QuickBooks or Wave, None (your BA $0–25/mo accounting chart of accounts skills cover this)

Product liability Quote for hardware Insurance broker Quote only insurance quote product liability
——————– ——————— —————— —————-

Exit Gate: LLC registered, bank account open, provisional patent filed. Total budget: $3,000–5,000.

Phase 2: Hardware Prototype (Months 2–6)

Goal: A working badge on Blues Notecard hardware that proves JTBD cards 02, 03, 04, and 06. This is the phase where you most need outside help.

Task Deliverable Help Needed Est. Cost

Hire freelance Contracted developer Upwork, $5,000–15,000 embedded with Blues/nRF freelancer.com, or for prototype firmware experience embedded systems firmware engineer community. Look for
Blues Wireless
experience
specifically.

Define firmware Written spec: GPS You write this. $0 requirements sampling rate, BLE Firmware engineer
spec scan interval, reviews for
accelerometer wake feasibility.
logic, cellular batch
upload, local buffer,
power management

Assemble Blues Notecard + Firmware engineer $137/unit x 5 prototype badge Notecarrier + BLE assembles; you source units = $685 module + GPS components
antenna + LiPo
battery in a
ruggedized enclosure
(3D printed or
off-shelf box)

Write BLE tag Simple BLE beacon Same firmware $500–1,000 firmware advertising unique ID engineer or cheaper;
at set interval this is simple

Source BLE tags 5–10 BLE beacon tags Off-shelf BLE beacons $50–100 for prototype testing (Minew, Radioland,
etc.)

Test badge in 72-hour field test: You do this yourself. $0 field conditions GPS accuracy, BLE Your landscape
range, battery life, background is the
data completeness, asset here.
cellular upload
reliability

Document test Test report: power You write this $0 results consumption in all
modes, GPS accuracy
at parcel level, BLE
detection range,
buffer integrity
after offline period,
batch upload success
rate
—————- ——————— ——————— —————–

+———————————————————————–+ | The Firmware Engineer Is Your Most Critical Hire | | | | You cannot build the prototype without an embedded firmware | | developer. This person writes the code that runs on the badge itself | | — the GPS sampling, BLE scanning, accelerometer wake logic, local | | buffering, and cellular upload via the Blues Notecard API. Budget | | $5K–15K for this work. Look for someone who has shipped a product | | on Nordic nRF or similar MCU platforms and ideally has Blues Wireless | | experience. This is a contract role, not a cofounder. | +———————————————————————–+

Exit Gate: 5 working prototype badges that run for 72+ hours, capture GPS + BLE + accelerometer data, and successfully batch-upload to Blues Notehub. Total budget: $6,000–17,000.

Phase 3: Cloud MVP (Months 4–8, overlapping with Phase 2)

Goal: Data from the prototype badges flows into a usable backend. You can see badge data on a dashboard and export it. This does not need to be production-grade — it needs to be demonstrable.

Task Deliverable Help Needed Est. Cost

Blues Notehub Notehub routes badge You can likely do $0–50/mo cloud route to cloud events to your cloud this with your costs endpoint (AWS Lambda, BA/Power BI
Azure Function, or skills + learning.
simple server) Blues has good
docs.

Event ingestion Idempotent endpoint Backend developer $2,000–5,000 API that receives, (contract) or you if contracted deduplicates, and learning
stores badge events Python/Node

Data store PostgreSQL or similar Same backend Included above with schema for: developer
events, badges, tags,
sites, workers

Basic geofencing Tax-parcel boundary You can build this $0 lookup: given GPS in Python with
coords, return site shapely + parcel
ID GIS data

Power BI Dashboard showing: This is your $0 (Pro license dashboard badge status, daily wheelhouse. Build you already events, site visits, it yourself. have) tool encounters, data
quality metrics

Badge assignment Simple web form or Basic web dev or $0 workflow API: supervisor even a Power App
assigns badge serial
to worker name for
the day
—————- ——————— ——————- —————-

+———————————————————————–+ | Build What You Can, Contract What You Can’t | | | | You have Power BI skills and business analyst experience. Use them. | | The dashboard, the geofencing logic, the badge assignment workflow | | — these are all within your capability. The ingestion API and data | | store are where you need backend help. A competent backend developer | | can build an MVP ingestion pipeline in 2–4 weeks. | +———————————————————————–+

Exit Gate: Badge data appears in a Power BI dashboard within 30 minutes of field capture. You can see which badge was at which site, for how long, and which tools were nearby. Total budget: $2,000–5,000.

Phase 4: Charter Partner Pilot (Months 6–12)

Goal: One real company uses the prototype badges with real crews on real job sites. This is where JTBD cards 02, 04, 05, and 06 get validated with actual data. This is also where your pricing model gets its first test.

Task Deliverable Help Needed Est. Cost

Identify charter 1 landscape or field Your professional $0 partner services company with network from
5–20 crew members landscape
willing to pilot management. This
is your unfair
advantage.

Charter partner Simple agreement: they Business attorney $300–500 agreement get discounted review (1 hr)
hardware + free data
during pilot. You get
feedback + permission
to use anonymized
results.

Deploy 5–10 Badges assigned to You manage $1,370–2,740 badges + 10–20 crew, tags on key deployment. hardware tags equipment, running for Firmware engineer
30–60 days on call for bugs.

Daily data Dashboard tracking: You do this in $0 quality event completeness, Power BI
monitoring GPS accuracy, BLE
detection rate, upload
success, battery
levels

Weekly partner Structured feedback You conduct these $0 feedback sessions with
supervisor and 2–3
crew members

Pilot report Written report: what You write this $0 worked, what failed,
operation data (sites
active, crews served,
events processed),
crew feedback, cost
per site-month

Validate Compare actual You do this $0 operation-based operation data against analysis
pricing proposed pricing
tiers. Does the math
work for both sides?
—————- ———————- —————— —————-

Exit Gate: 30-day pilot complete. Data quality metrics hit: >90% event completeness, <2 min/day crew interaction, BLE tool detection >85%. Charter partner says “I would pay for this.” Operation-based pricing model validated against real data. Total budget: $1,700–3,300.

6. The Help You Need — Specific Roles and When

This is the section the previous roadmap was missing entirely. You cannot build Actual alone. Here is exactly who you need, when, and what it costs.

Role When Engagement Budget Where to Find

Business Phase 1 2–4 hours $500–1,500 Local Atlanta business Attorney (Month 1) attorney. LegalZoom for LLC if budget-constrained.

Patent Phase 1 Provisional $2,000–4,000 IP attorney with Attorney (Month filing IoT/hardware experience. 1–2) Ask for provisional-only engagement.

Embedded Phase 2 Contract, $5,000–15,000 Upwork (search: Blues Firmware (Months 80–160 hours Wireless, nRF52, embedded Engineer 2–6) IoT). Hackster.io community. Blues Wireless developer forums.

Backend Phase 3 Contract, 40–80 $2,000–5,000 Upwork. Look for Developer (Months hours Python/Node + PostgreSQL + 4–8) REST API experience. AWS Lambda or Azure Functions experience is a plus.

Industrial Phase 2 Contract, 20–40 $1,000–3,000 Freelance ID on Upwork or Designer (Month hours local Atlanta maker (optional) 4–6) community. 3D-printed enclosure for prototype.

Charter Phase 4 Ongoing $0 (they pay Your landscape management Partner (not (Month 6+) relationship you) network. Former employers, a hire) competitors, industry contacts. ———— ———- —————- —————– —————————

What You Do Yourself

Product management: requirements, specs, priorities, trade-off decisions.
Firmware requirements spec: you define what the badge must do; the firmware engineer implements it.
Data modeling and schema design: your BA skills directly apply here.
Geofencing logic: tax-parcel data + Python/shapely. Learnable with your SQL background.
Power BI dashboards: pilot monitoring, data quality, operation metrics.
Badge assignment workflow: Power Apps or simple web form.
All charter partner engagement: sales, deployment, feedback, relationship management.
Pricing model validation: financial analysis against real pilot data.
All documentation and pitch materials.

+———————————————————————–+ | The Learning You Need to Do | | | | Your stated goal is to learn more about SQL, DAX, and AI. The SQL | | and DAX learning directly serves this project — the event store, | | the truth queries, the Power BI operations dashboards all require | | it. AI is a future-phase capability (JTBD Card 12: predictive | | analytics). Focus SQL learning on PostgreSQL specifically, as it | | handles both relational data and geospatial queries (PostGIS) that | | the geofencing layer needs. | +———————————————————————–+

7. Total Budget: Concept Through Pilot

This is the real number. Not a fundraising fantasy. This is what it costs a solo founder to get from idea to validated pilot.

Phase Low **High **Key Variable Estimate** Estimate**

1. Business $3,000 $5,000 Patent attorney cost Foundation

2. Hardware $6,000 $17,000 Firmware engineer rate Prototype and hours

3. Cloud MVP $2,000 $5,000 How much backend work you do yourself

4. Charter Partner $1,700 $3,300 Number of badges Pilot deployed

Monthly cloud/hosting $50–100/mo x $600–1,200 AWS/Azure consumption 12

TOTAL $13,300 $31,500
——————— ————– ————– ———————-

This is achievable as a self-funded side project over 12 months. The high end ($31.5K) is significant but not unreasonable for someone with a full-time BA salary in Atlanta. The low end ($13.3K) is achievable if you do more of the backend work yourself and find a firmware engineer on the lower end of the rate scale.

+———————————————————————–+ | If You Stop After Prototype | | | | If you complete Phases 1–2 and produce 5 working badges with | | documented test results, you have spent $9K–22K and you own: a | | registered business, a provisional patent, working prototype | | hardware, firmware source code, and documented performance data. That | | is a fundable asset. You can seek investment, find a technical | | cofounder, or license the design. Stopping at prototype with solid | | documentation is not failure — it’s a defensible position. | +———————————————————————–+

8. Architecture: Edge → Cloud → Truth → Consumer

The JTBD deck defines a three-layer architecture that every card maps to. This is the system you are building, simplified to its essential components.

Layer Components Prototype **Pilot Scope Scope**

Edge Capture Badge (GPS + BLE + IMU + All components Same hardware, more cellular), BLE Tags, present via Blues units deployed Local Buffer Notecard dev kit

Cloud Truth Ingestion API, Ingestion API + Add geofencing, tag Normalization, Context basic storage only binding, anomaly Binding (geofence + tag flags registry), Truth Store
(PostgreSQL), Anomaly
Detection

Downstream Power BI dashboards, Power BI dashboard Add one connector Consumers REST APIs, Connectors to only (payroll export or payroll/ERP/scheduling job costing) ———— ———————— —————— ——————-

Data Flow (Prototype)

Badge captures GPS + BLE + accelerometer events at 4 samples/min. Events buffer locally on the Notecard. Every 30 minutes (or on connectivity), badge sends batch to Blues Notehub. Notehub routes events to your cloud endpoint. Endpoint writes to PostgreSQL. Power BI connects to PostgreSQL and displays dashboards. Supervisor views daily summaries, site visits, tool encounters.

Operation Metering Points

The pricing model requires metering at specific points in the data flow. These meters track operation-level usage, not device-level counts.

Site Activity Meter: Count distinct sites where badge events were recorded per billing period. Each active site = 1 billable unit. (Alternative: count distinct crews with activity per period.)
Event Volume Meter: Count total events ingested per billing period. Used internally for infrastructure cost modeling, not exposed as a customer-facing charge.
Connector Meter: Count active integrations pushing data per month. Each active integration = 1 billable unit.

9. Risks That Will Actually Hit You

Not theoretical risks. These are the problems most likely to derail you in the next 12 months.

Risk Likelihood Impact Mitigation

Can’t find a Medium-High Blocks entire Start looking NOW. Post on Blues firmware prototype forums, Hackster, Upwork. Have engineer in backup plan: pay more. This is not budget where you cut costs.

Blues Notecard Medium Badge needs Test early. If power budget fails, power daily charging reduce GPS sampling rate. consumption (kills adoption) Accelerometer-based motion detection too high for can gate GPS wake. 7-day battery
life

GPS accuracy Medium Can’t Accept 10–15m accuracy. Use parcel insufficient auto-attribute boundary buffers. Supplement with for work to job BLE anchor beacons at high-value parcel-level sites sites. geofencing

No charter Medium No real-world Start conversations now, before partner validation hardware is ready. Your landscape willing to network is the asset. One “yes” is pilot enough.

Consumption Low-Medium Unprofitable Model your cloud costs per site-month pricing unit economics now. Blues Notecard has per-device doesn’t cover per-month fees ($0.49 at Starter costs tier). Layer your margin on top. Per-site pricing must cover cloud costs for all badges at that site.

Scope creep: High Burns time and The prototype proves 4 JTBD cards. building money on things That’s it. Everything else waits. features that don’t
before proving matter yet
the core

You burn out Medium-High Project stalls Contract the firmware and backend trying to work. Your job is product build management, not engineering. Spend everything money to save time. yourself
————– —————- —————- ————————————

10. Where the Philosophy Lives Now

The Zettelkasten, the manifesto, and the 7 card families are not deleted. They are repositioned. Here is where they actually add value, and where they were causing harm.

Where Philosophy Helps

Trade-off decisions: When you have to choose between two features, the principles filter the decision. Example: should the badge auto-correct anomalous GPS data? The principle “Correction is Commentary” says no — flag it, don’t fix it. That’s a useful filter.
Charter partner pitch: “Testimony over tracking” is a genuine differentiator for companies worried about employee pushback on surveillance tools. Keep it in sales materials.
Product coherence: As you add features over time, the principles prevent feature bloat and surveillance creep. They are guardrails, not deliverables.
Hiring filter: When you evaluate firmware engineers or backend developers, the principles help you assess whether they build the kind of product you want.

Where Philosophy Was Causing Harm

54 Zettelkasten cards as “engineering requirements”: They are not. An engineering requirement has a number, a unit, and a test. “Truth as Infrastructure” is a slogan, not a spec.
Phase-by-phase card alignment tables: Mapping 3–5 cards to each phase created the illusion of rigor without adding practical guidance. Cut.
Manifesto quotes between every action item: Inspirational, but they padded the roadmap to 40+ pages and diluted the actual work. Moved to an appendix mindset.
The 30-month timeline: Unrealistic for a solo founder. This version scopes to 12 months through pilot, with honest acknowledgment that you may stop at prototype.

11. Your Next 30 Days

Stop reading and start doing. Here are the actions for the next 30 days, in priority order.

Register Georgia LLC. Use LegalZoom if you want to save on attorney fees for the formation itself. Budget: $500.
Post a firmware engineer contract job. Upwork, Hackster.io forums, Blues Wireless community Discord. Write a clear scope: “Prototype firmware for IoT badge using Blues Notecard. GPS + BLE + accelerometer + cellular batch upload. Budget: $5K–15K.”
Order 5 Blues Notecard Starter Kits + Notecarriers. You need hardware in hand to test with candidates. Budget: ~$350.
Order 10 off-shelf BLE beacon tags. Minew or Radioland. Budget: ~$50–100.
Write the firmware requirements spec. Define: GPS sample rate, BLE scan interval and duration, accelerometer wake threshold, batch upload frequency, local buffer size, power budget target. This is your most important document right now.
Call 3 former landscape industry contacts about charter partnership. You are not selling anything yet. You are asking: “If I could give you an automatic, no-paperwork record of crew hours and equipment use, what would that be worth to you?”
File provisional patent application. Engage a patent attorney this week. The core claims: badge-as-identity via supervisor assignment, passive association of worker-to-site via GPS and worker-to-tool via BLE, operation-based pricing for field truth capture.
Set up a Blues Notehub account and route test data to a simple cloud endpoint. Follow the Blues quickstart. This validates that the data pipeline concept works before your firmware engineer starts.

+———————————————————————–+ | The One Thing That Matters Most | | | | Find the firmware engineer. Everything else is paperwork and | | preparation. The firmware engineer is the difference between a | | concept and a prototype. Every day you delay this search is a day the | | project stays on paper. | +———————————————————————–+

12. Success Criteria: How You Know It’s Working

At each phase gate, here are the specific, measurable criteria that determine whether you proceed or stop.

Gate Criteria Pass/Fail Test

Prototype 5 badges run 72+ hours Binary: they either run or Complete continuously they don’t

Prototype GPS accuracy within 15m at Measure against known parcel Complete parcel boundaries corners with surveyed coordinates

Prototype BLE tag detection at 5m Place tag at known distance, Complete range, >85% scan success measure detection rate over 1 hour

Prototype Batch upload success rate Count uploads sent vs. Complete >95% over 72 hours uploads received

Prototype Battery life >72 hours at 4 Measure from full charge to Complete samples/min dead at target sample rate

Cloud MVP Data visible in Power BI Timestamp comparison: badge Complete within 30 min of field event time vs. dashboard capture display time

Pilot Charter partner crew Survey + observation Complete interaction <2 min/day

Pilot Event completeness >90% Expected events vs. actual Complete over 30-day period events received

Pilot Charter partner verbal They say yes or they don’t Complete commitment to pay at
proposed rates

Pilot Pricing covers cloud costs Unit economics calculation Complete with >30% margin against real data ————- —————————- —————————-

This is your notebook, bruh. The philosophy is still there — it’s just been put to work instead of being displayed. The JTBD cards now have metrics. The pricing model matches how your customers actually operate. The help you need is named and budgeted. The timeline is honest. Now go find that firmware engineer.