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First money — how the notes and the platform start paying

Status: proposal — awaiting decision, 2026-09-15. Written after Angel asked how to start Framework: value-forms (the twelve forms of value; which ones this proposal covers). monetising the posts and the shop. Builds on recurring-revenue (what to sell twice) and terms-and-warranty; this note is about the first dollars, ranked by time-to-cash and by how little new building each needs. Not accounting or legal advice.

The one prerequisite

Public checkout needs a verified payment route; existing client work can use established invoicing. Task 23 covers the proposed Stripe card/ACH setup and new deposit/net-terms decisions. The MRP note records an existing invoice remit-to block for check or ACH/wire; actual bank settlement and Stripe readiness were not verified in this pass. Do not treat Stripe setup as proof that the business cannot already collect money, or publish unapproved prices/payment links.

Ranked: what to do in the next 30 days

1. Turn each note into a fixed-price offer (services, not "services")

People buy a thing with a price and a deadline, not a capability list. Every note already published maps to one:

Note Offer Proposed price Turnaround
Microcontroller end-of-life EOL replacement assessment: we read your BOM and firmware, name the drop-in or nearest part, list the firmware changes, give a fixed quote for the redesign $750 5 business days
Cyber Resilience Act firmware CRA readiness review: gap list against the Act's firmware requirements, with a prioritised fix plan $1,200 10 business days
USB-C Power Delivery USB-C PD input design review of a schematic, or a reference block delivered in KiCad $500 review · $1,500 block 5 business days

Each offer gets one page on the site, a Stripe payment link for the deposit, the intake form that already exists, and becomes the closing call-to-action of its note and of every post Postiz sends. The assessments are deliberately priced so a company can approve them without a purchase order; the redesign that follows is the real job.

PCBWay (10% of referred orders), Seeed (3–20%), JLCPCB (coupons). Sign up, put the links in the fab-related notes and the site's resources page. Small money, but it starts the week it is done and costs nothing.

3. Sell the tester to the client who already trusts us

Recurring-revenue #2: test as a service for the robot client — fixture plus a per-unit fee — and #3, a repeat build agreement (quarterly quantity, price locked, parts bought ahead). One conversation, with the existing relationship; likely the largest number in this list.

4. Obsolescence watch as a subscription — recurring-revenue #1

We already run part-status checks for our own library. Offer it per BOM: $79/month per product (alerts on EOL/NRND, a quarterly report, first refusal on the redesign). Sell it as the follow-on to every EOL assessment. Needs: a form, Stripe subscription link, and a small change to the lifecycle tool (task 101) to run on a customer BOM.

5. Digital products, near-zero fulfilment

The KiCad block library and the Project_Template are worth money to other small shops. A $49 "EmbeddedEra KiCad starter" (template, rules, the vetted blocks, a short guide) as a Stripe payment link with a download. Also the fixture and label know-how as a paid guide. Low numbers each, but they sell while we sleep and they feed the notes.

What not to do first

  • Reselling parts or modules. LCSC and DigiKey set the price; a two-person shop cannot win on margin and ties up cash in stock. The only resale that works is kitted with our design (a reference block with its parts bag), and that is item 5 grown up.
  • A storefront now. It is on the plan, but a store with no products is a cost. Items 1, 4 and 5 are sold with payment links until there are five things to list.
  • Paid ads. Not until an offer has converted organically at least twice, so we know the page works before paying to send people to it.

The 30-day sequence

  1. Stripe account (task 23) — Angel, one afternoon.
  2. Three offer pages with prices and deposit links — Claude drafts, Angel approves, live in a week; every note and post ends with its offer.
  3. Affiliate sign-ups (task 31) — Angel, one hour; links in by Claude.
  4. The two client conversations (tester service, repeat builds) — Angel; a one-page proposal for each drafted by Claude from the ERP's numbers.
  5. Obsolescence watch page + subscription link — after the first assessment is sold.

What Angel decides

  • The three prices above (or say "propose again lower/higher").
  • Whether the deposit for an assessment is 100% up front (recommended for fixed-price work under $2k) or 50%.
  • Which client gets the first conversation.

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