Custom scorecards and what-if calculators built for the specific business. The instruments that turn a 90-day plan into the weekly executive cadence the owner actually runs — and lets them stress-test decisions before they make them.
The difference matters. A dashboard reports yesterday. An operating instrument tells the owner what to do today, what to escalate this week, and what to stop doing this month.
Weekly. One screen. The 8–12 metrics that actually move the business. Color-coded against the target. Drillable enough to answer "why," compact enough to read in 60 seconds. The owner uses it Monday morning before the leadership meeting. The leadership team uses it during the meeting. The team leads use a derivative version through the week.
The same business in calculator form. Pull a lever — pricing, headcount, service mix, marketing spend, capacity utilization — and see what falls out on the bottom line. Owners ask what-if questions constantly. Right now they answer them with gut feeling. We give them an answer in 30 seconds.
Wherever the operator actually works. Usually Google Sheets or Excel — sometimes Notion, sometimes Airtable, occasionally a lightweight Streamlit or Retool app for businesses with internal technical capacity. We don't sell software. We build the instrument and hand it to the team to own.
Every business gets a different scorecard. These are the patterns we see most often in the verticals we serve.
One screen. 8–12 metrics. The Monday-morning instrument. Used by the owner before any leadership meeting starts.
Built around the operating metrics your industry actually uses. Examples: dealers track PVR, F&I penetration, fixed-ops hours per RO; home services track call-to-book and technician productivity; restaurants track prime cost, COGS, and table turn; multi-property operators track tour-to-application and unit-ready cycle. We build to whatever your industry actually runs on.
"If we raise prices 3% on these services, here's what falls through to EBITDA — and here's where we lose volume if we're wrong about elasticity."
"If we add a senior tech, here's the throughput needed to pay for the seat — and here's when we break even if utilization ramps as expected."
Source-to-revenue with assumptions challengeable. Includes the AI-search channel that most attribution stacks still ignore entirely.
"At current capacity utilization, our theoretical max revenue is X. Here's the constraint that has to break for us to clear that."
13-week cash forecast tied to operating reality. Surfaces the AR/AP cycle problems that quietly kill otherwise-healthy businesses.
For owners thinking about a sale in 2–5 years. The metrics buyers will diligence. Built to be improved against, year over year.
Native pair to the diagnostic. Every opportunity from the register, with owner, target, status, and weekly checkpoint. The instrument that holds the plan accountable.
Each instrument is its own scoped build. We don't try to build the entire operating system at once.
Two working sessions with the leadership team. What decision is this instrument supporting? Who uses it? What lives or dies on its accuracy? We leave with a spec.
Built against the last 12 months of actual data. Back-tested for accuracy. Edge cases stressed. We don't ship something that breaks when the numbers get weird.
Walkthrough with the team. Written usage guide. 30-day check-in to refine. The instrument is the client's — we don't host it, we don't license it back, we hand over the source file.
30-minute call. Tell us what decision you're trying to make better. We'll scope an instrument that supports it — fixed fee, two-to-three weeks.