The launch plan
Ninety days from today, 5 September 2026, to a paying founding cohort. Weeks 1 to 4 decide and pre-sell. Weeks 5 to 8 build the minimum. Weeks 9 to 13 launch to the founding thirty. Then the outward-facing channels, which are what makes month six look different from month two.
The shape of the ninety days
- Weeks 1 to 2 (8 to 19 September): the three questions to Sam, then ten emails to the ten clients asking for two names each. Nothing is built until twenty conversations have happened.
- Weeks 3 to 4 (22 September to 3 October): twenty conversations. If fewer than six say "when can I pay", stop and reshape the offer. That is a real outcome, not a failure.
- Weeks 5 to 8 (6 October to 31 October): build the media list, modules 1 to 4, the sales page, Circle and Stripe. Nothing else.
- Weeks 9 to 13 (2 November to 4 December): founding cohort opens at £199, capped at 30. First clinic on the third Tuesday of November. Month 1 of the model is November 2026.
- Months 4 to 6 (February to April 2027): the column, the first conservatoire workshop, the first Classical:NEXT or IAMA approach. This is what turns a network sale into a business.
Week by week
| Week | Dates | The one thing | Done means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 to 12 Sep | The three questions. Does Sam want to teach this? How many hours a week for twelve months? What would a member have to get for £299 to feel fair? Chapter 1. | Three written answers. If question one is no, the project ends here and that is fine. |
| 2 | 15 to 19 Sep | Ten emails. One to each retained client. Not a pitch: a request for two names of artists or ensembles who are struggling to get press. The wording is in Chapter 13. | Twenty names. If ten clients produce fewer than twelve names between them, the network is thinner than assumed and the plan is the low case. |
| 3 to 4 | 22 Sep to 3 Oct | Twenty conversations, 20 minutes each. Not selling. Asking: what did you last try, what did it cost, what happened, what would you have paid for. Take notes verbatim. | Twenty sets of notes and a count of how many asked, unprompted, when they could pay. Six or more is a green light. Two or fewer means reshape, probably to a £149 tier with no individual review. |
| 5 to 6 | 6 to 17 Oct | The media list, version one. UK, France, Germany, US. Outlet, desk, beat, lead time, how to approach. Two full days of Sam's time, and the most valuable two days in the plan. | A living page inside Circle, not a downloadable file. |
| 7 | 20 to 24 Oct | Modules 1 to 4, written then recorded. Plus every template. Chapter 6. | Four modules live. Modules 5 to 12 are built during the founding cohort, from their questions. |
| 8 | 27 to 31 Oct | Circle, Stripe, the sales page, the calendar. Chapter 7 has the order. | A real card charged and refunded. Twelve months of recurring calendar entries. |
| 9 | 2 to 6 Nov | The founding email to everyone from weeks 2 to 4, plus the ten clients again. £199, first 30, locked twelve months. Chapter 13. | First payments. The model's month 1 starts here. |
| 10 to 11 | 9 to 21 Nov | The first clinic, third Tuesday. Then the first reviews back, on time, all of them. | A recording that can be clipped for marketing, and a rubric that survived contact with reality. |
| 12 to 13 | 24 Nov to 4 Dec | The first column pitch and the first conservatoire email. Both go out in the same week, to Gramophone, The Strad and Classical Music magazine, and to Conservatoires UK. Chapter 13. | Sent. Replies take six to ten weeks in this sector, which is why they go now rather than in February. |
Then the channels, in order
1
Months 1 to 2: the ten clients' networks, exhausted
It works once and it works best when Sam asks personally. Do not spread it out.
2
Months 2 to 4: a column, or a podcast, or both
The Strad has the most career-minded readership; Classical Music magazine is a trade title read by the buyer; Gramophone carries the most authority; Slipped Disc carries the most traffic and the least prestige. Pitch a named recurring column, not a feature.
3
Months 3 to 6: conservatoires
Start with Conservatoires UK, which reaches eleven institutions in one conversationS30, then RCM's Creative Careers Centre, whose resources are open to alumni for five years after graduationS31. The offer is a free 60-minute session in exchange for the alumni newsletter.
4
Months 4 to 8: schemes and competitions
YCAT, BBC New Generation Artists, Leeds, Wigmore, Ferrier, Royal Over-Seas League, City Music Foundation, Britten Pears. Each has a cohort whose institutional support is about to stop.
5
Months 6 to 12: France
Diapason, Classica, ResMusica, the Paris and Lyon conservatoires, Aix. Nobody else can do this, and it should not wait until year two.
6
Month 9 onward: the trade
IAMA's conference for managers, Classical:NEXT for the whole sector, the ABO conference. These sell Campaign Partner places and institutional licences, not £299 memberships.
Revenue scenarios
Total revenue per month, including the modelled conversion to full-service clients. Every figure is an output of model/revenue.py, computed from a stated pace of sign-ups, a stated churn rate and a stated conversion rateS27, S35. These are targets computed from assumptions, not a forecast.
£51kLow · month 6: 15 course, 10 membership, 1 partner, £4,515/month at about 8.5 hrs/week · month 12: 29 course, 12 membership, £7,109/month at about 10.5 hrs/week · £50,960 of cash across twelve months
£125kBase · month 6: 37 course, 20 membership, 1.8 partner, £9,947/month at about 12 hrs/week · month 12: 68 course, 28 membership, 3.3 partner, £18,469/month at about 18 hrs/week · £125,225 of cash across twelve months
£247kHigh · month 6: 70 course, 33 membership, 3.7 partner, £20,858/month at about 20 hrs/week · month 12: 121 course, 45 membership, £34,635/month at about 31 hrs/week · £246,740 of cash. Not a good outcome. See below.
The assumptions, stated
- Prices: £49, £299 (£199 founding for the first 30, locked twelve months), £1,500.
- Caps: 60 membership places, 4 concurrent Campaign Partner places.
- Monthly churn on the start-of-month base: course 8%, membership 6%, partner 4%S35. Six per cent a month means roughly half a cohort is gone within a year, which is normal for this category and is why the annual plan matters.
- Sign-up pace, membership: low 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, then 1 a month; base 6, 5, 4, then 3 a month; high 10, 8, 7, 6, then 5 a month.
- Conversion to full-service: 0.4%, 0.8% and 1.4% per member-month. A converted client is modelled at £2,500 a month and stays about eighteen months. £2,500 is a placeholder because this guide does not know Sam's real rateS34.
- Time: 6 hours a week fixed, plus 12 minutes per member per month, plus 1.5 hours a week per Campaign Partner place, plus 4 hours a week per converted clientS28.
What the model actually says
- The base case is a real second business, and it costs eighteen hours a week by month twelve. That is the finding. It is not a rounding error and it cannot be worked around by trying harder. Either Campaign Partner drops to two places and the membership caps at 40, or something in the agency has to give.
- The high case is the bad outcome. Thirty-one hours a week at month twelve means the membership has eaten the agency and the ten clients are being underserved. If sign-ups run at that pace, the correct response is to raise the price to £399 and let demand fall, not to accept everyone.
- The low case is still worth doing. £51,000 of cash for around nine hours a week, from knowledge Sam already has, and at the end of it an email list and a public profile that do not exist today.
- Conversion to full-service is a rounding error in year one. Under one client in the base case. Do not sell this plan to Sam as a client-acquisition engine. It is a product business that occasionally produces a client, and the conversion mechanic matters in year two.
- The founding cohort is most of the first six months. Thirty people at £199 is £5,970 a month. Get them in the first quarter or the base case does not happen.
What to do this week
- Send Sam this site and book an hour. Do not send a summary; the whole point is that she can disagree with a specific number on a specific page.
- Ask the three questions and write down the answers.
- If the answers are yes, at least ten hours, and a clear description of what a member should get, draft the ten emails together in that same hour. They go out the following Monday.
- Book the two days in October for the media list now, while the diary is still empty. It will not happen otherwise.