Mark's Reports

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Legacy Soil & Stone — v3 Financials (DRAFT rev 2)

Companion to the v3 master proposal. Volume model rebuilt against Mark's grounded numbers — Year 1 = 10 Stream A orders/month + 3 Stream B orders/month. Operating expenses now itemized.

Revision 3: Stream B restructured per April-11 research — 3 tiers (Tiny / Small-Medium / Large) with standardized 1.5 cu ft return + standardized cedar planter, $475 / $675 / $895. Surplus from larger pets to Unconditional Forest. All Y1-Y3 totals + net income recomputed against new Stream B blend (~$634 blended price, ~87.6% blended margin).

1. Stream A unit economics (Memorial Pearls)

COGS includes binder, pigments, cremains-slurry materials, sealant, polishing supplies, packaging, shipping carton, and apportioned aggregator consumables. Excludes Mark's labor (treated as operator draw, not COGS — see §5).

TierCremainsPearlsPriceCOGS (est.)Gross profitMargin
XS< 0.5 lb1-3$250$22$22891.2%
S0.5-1 lb~25$475$42$43391.2%
M1-2 lb~45$695$68$62790.2%
L2-4 lb~70$995$98$89790.2%
XL4-9 lb~85$1,295$135$1,16089.6%
Blended (mix-weighted)~$735~$73~$662~90.0%

Margin floor exceeds the ≥88% target across all five tiers. v3 lifts to ~90% blended on the simpler product mix (no concrete casting, no Marble Method finishing).

2. Stream B unit economics (Private NOR + Cedar Vessel)

Stream B restructured per April-11 research: 3 tiers, standardized 1.5 cu ft return + standardized hand-built cedar planter for every tier. Pricing scales with vessel cycle complexity (JK270 dual-chamber for Tiny vs JK400 for Small-Medium and Large), not output volume. COGS includes cedar planter materials + finish, NOR vessel consumables, soil packaging, shipping, certificate. v2's Bloom-tier baseline ($475 → $70 COGS at 85.3%) carried forward as the consistent cedar-piece cost.

TierPet weightVessel cycleReturnPriceCOGS (est.)Gross profitMargin
Tiny< 10 lbJK270 dual1.5 cu ft + cedar$475$70$40585.3%
Small-Medium10-30 lbJK400 dual1.5 cu ft + cedar$675$80$59588.1%
Large30-40 lbJK400 full1.5 cu ft + cedar$895$95$80089.4%
Blended (mix-weighted)~$634~$78~$556~87.6%

Mix weighting per Pet_Weight_Vessel_Sizing research: Tiny 35%, Small-Medium 52%, Large 13%. Stream B blended ~87.6%, just under the 88% all-line target. The Tiny tier (85.3%) is the floor — Tiny gets the same standardized hand-built cedar planter as the Large tier, so the planter cost is a fixed share of a smaller revenue base. Bumping Tiny to $525 lifts the floor to ~87% and the blended to ~88.4%; doable but raises the entry price. Mark to call.

Surplus from Large tier (where pet yields 2.5-3 cu ft vs 1.5 cu ft delivered) goes to the Unconditional Forest mother pile at the workshop. Operationally: shipping costs are contained (standardized box, predictable freight), surplus has a permanent home, brand gains a photographable on-site element.

3. Line 3 — Community Composting (pass-through to shelters)

Not a revenue line for Legacy. Community-participation pet composting is operated as a charitable program inside the for-profit. Pet owners pay $175 to join a communal NOR batch with rural-shelter animals; they receive a labeled bag of finished soil; all net proceeds donate directly to participating shelter partners.
ItemAmountNotes
Customer fee$175Single price, no weight tier — communal vessel
Direct cost per participant$30Intake handling, batch labeling, soil bag, packaging, shipping
Net proceeds donated to shelter partner$145Year-end donation receipt totaled across program
Legacy retained margin$0Operating costs absorbed; not booked as Legacy revenue

4. Year 1-3 revenue projections (rebuilt against research-grounded volumes)

Volume baseline (Mark's call): Year 1 = 10 Stream A orders/month + 3 Stream B orders/month = 120 + 36 annually. Ramp: 2.5× into Year 2, ~2× into Year 3 (deceleration as the regional market saturates). The earlier 35 Stream A / 20 Stream B was undercutting the research; rebuilt here.

YearStream A ordersStream A revenueStream B ordersStream B revenueTotal revenueGross profit (~88%)
Year 1 (Validation)120$88,20036$22,824$111,024~$99,400
Year 2 (Ramp, 2.5×)300$220,50090$57,060$277,560~$248,400
Year 3 (Maturity, ~2×)600$441,000180$114,120$555,120~$496,900

Stream A blended price ($735) × volume; Stream B blended price ($680) × volume. Mix assumption: Stream A weighted toward S/M/L, Stream B weighted toward Tiny/Small (pets in the 5-20 lb range = most of pet-cremation volume per the Pet_Weight_Vessel_Sizing research).

5. Operating expenses

Line itemYear 1Year 2Year 3
Operator draw (Mark's salary)$54,000$54,000$54,000
Marketing budget$5,000$8,000$12,000
Insurance (general liability + memorial-services)$1,500$1,800$2,200
Misc operating (utilities, supplies, software, freight overhead)$5,000$8,000$11,000
Total operating expenses$65,500$71,800$79,200

6. Net income projection

YearRevenueGross profit (~88%)Operating expensesNet income (pre-tax)
Year 1$111,024~$99,400$65,500~$33,900
Year 2$277,560~$248,400$71,800~$176,600
Year 3$555,120~$496,900$79,200~$417,700

Year 1 net is positive after Mark's $54K draw — the business covers his salary and produces ~$33K of additional retained earnings in the validation year. Year 2 is the inflection point: the business clears almost twice the operator draw in surplus. Year 3 maturity assumes regional saturation and a stable customer-acquisition rhythm.

7. Line 3 community-program flow (donations to shelters)

YearCommunity participantsPass-through to shelters (donation total)
Year 1~30~$4,350
Year 2~80~$11,600
Year 3~160~$23,200

Line 3 numbers don't appear on Legacy's revenue ledger. These are donation-receipt totals to shelter partners — useful for the brand story, the academic-outreach narrative (Line 4), and the year-end shelter-partnership reports.

8. Capital — two paths

Solid path: $33,000 - $40,000. Self-funded launch. Aggregator pan + painting station + cedar workshop tools + initial inventory + Year 1 marketing budget. Equipment is rented or owned, the workshop runs out of existing space, and Year 2 ramp is funded entirely by the Year 1 net income (~$33K) plus the operator's continued draw. No external capital needed.

Dream path: $120,000 - $130,000 — the founder-funded scenario

The Dream path is the pitch when someone asks "what's your dream version of this?" A backer who believes in the work — a person who lost a dog, who has the means to fund the kind of business they wish had existed for them — underwrites the proper start.

The dream is not bigger margin or faster ramp. The dream is the land. Twenty to forty acres in the North Georgia foothills — pasture for the soil program, forest the soil itself feeds back into, a creek the workshop sits beside, a pond. A purpose-built workshop with the aggregator pan, the painting bench, the curing room, the cedar build station. Soil from the Community Composting line goes into the field. Cremains-fed pearls cure in a room that smells like cedar and wood polish.

Customers visit if they want to. Most never need to — the land does its work whether anyone watches or not.

What the Dream path buys: a permanent home for the workshop, the land asset itself as long-horizon collateral, and the time and quiet to build at the artisan pace this work asks for. What it doesn't buy: faster volume, higher margin, or any change in the business model. Same product, same pricing, same lines — just on the right ground.

9. Breakeven and capital recovery

On the Solid path, Year 1 net income (~$33,700) covers the lower bound of startup capital ($33K) within Year 1 if volumes hold. Year 2 net income (~$176K) recovers the full upper bound ($40K) several times over. The Solid path is operationally self-funding from Year 1 forward.

On the Dream path, the operating economics are unchanged from the Solid path — Year 1 still produces ~$33K net. The land asset is the additional collateral on the Dream path; it's not amortized through operating cash flow. If the backer's funding is structured as a long-horizon collateralized loan against the land, debt service comes out of Year 2-3 net income and is comfortably covered.

10. Open numbers — Mark to confirm