OUTSIDER ADVANTAGE · A Partnership Conversation
APRIL 2026 · OUTSIDER ADVANTAGE · BILT.STUDIO
A Conversation Between Operators

Outsider
Advantage.

The practice, the pipeline, and two ways in for Rally.

Prepared for
Justin / Rally
Chad Hancock
Chase Bowers
001
THE RECEIPT · 01
Customers already running

Four logos.
Three phases deep.
One shipped yesterday.

Live dashboards. Running agents. Founders who'll take your call. You can touch every one of them.

01 / SHIPPED

Slingshot

INDUSTRIAL SAAS

Calibration day done. System deployed. The internal quote: "holy shit this is awesome."

02 / PHASE 3

ETS Performance

MULTI-LOCATION OPERATOR

57 locations today. 80 by Q4. In the middle of a twelve-month build.

03 / MAY 1

SGA

FRANCHISE — 260 LOCATIONS

Intensive done. Automation turns on after May 1. The largest footprint in the book.

04 / ACTIVE

Aeir

IN CONVERSION

Active engagement. Converts to the automation tier in May.

4 ACTIVE ENGAGEMENTS · 397+ LOCATIONS UNDER CALIBRATED POSITIONING · 0 CHURN
Also in book: Demi · Phronex · Haberman lane queued
002
THE NUMBER · 02
Recurring revenue, already in motion

$1.04M
of recurring,
already in motion.

Engagements signed. Subscriptions attached. Haberman lane queued behind them. The number clears a million in annualized recurring — with no second seller and no paid ads.

That puts us past the risk a seed round is normally meant to cover. So the Rally conversation isn't about survival capital. It's about acceleration — or no capital at all, and a different kind of partnership.

Customer ARR (Mid) Status
SGA
260 LOCATIONS
$468K CONTRACTED
ETS Performance
57 → 80 LOCATIONS
$130K PHASE 3
Slingshot
BRAND-LEVEL
$18K BILLING
Aeir
CONVERTIBLE
$18K IN PLAY
Demi
LEGACY
$12K BILLING
Current book ~$646K
Haberman lane
50 INTROS · 10–20% ADOPTION
+$135K ADJACENT
Total in motion $781K–$1.05M

ASSUMPTION: $150/loc/mo midpoint for multi-location agent-team subscriptions. Bracketed $100 low / $200 high. Comparable benchmark — HubSpot, Yext, Birdeye per-location.

003
WHY NOW · 03
The window

The operators building
this in 2026
own the decade.

Brand positioning is becoming agentic. Calibrated once, then running as a system.

McKinsey can't ship it. The holding companies can't ship it. The AI-native agencies are selling output, not infrastructure.

The window is 18 to 24 months before someone large notices. We're eight months ahead on the method, with paying customers proving it works.

2024
Everyone starts saying the same thing about positioning.
2025
108 competitors in the space. The methods start to blur.
2026
The window opens. Agentic infrastructure ships at engagement scale. First movers define the category.
2027
Holding companies scramble. Late movers fight for the middle.
2028
Window closes. The category has its reference practice.
004
THE REFUSAL · 04
The rules the practice runs on

One day in person.
Founder in the room.
No exceptions.

Four rules. Each one is a hard line. They are what make the practice work.

Calibration needs the person who will live with the decision in the room. The deployment needs a one-day intensive to anchor it. Break either one and the downstream falls apart.

This is the part a holding company can't copy without rebuilding how it makes money.

01
No Zoom workshops.
In person or not at all.
02
No associate rotation.
Chad runs every workshop. No handoff.
03
No PDFs, no decks.
The dashboard is the deliverable. The agents are the proof.
04
No follow-on phase.
The day is the product. When it ends, the engagement ends.

The day is the product. The rest runs after.

005
THE PRACTICE · 05
What the practice produces

The Intensive.
The Deployment.
The Intelligence.

01 / ONE DAY

The Intensive.

In person. Founder in the room. Operating team in the room. Eight hours. You leave with the calibrated positioning, the audience architecture, and the rules the rest of the system runs on.

$25K · $35K
FLAT. PUBLIC.
02 / 12 MONTHS

The Deployment.

A live dashboard with 12 sections. 8 agentic GTM teams, 40 specialists. A signed methodology book. Narrated audio. Running on Cloudflare the Monday after.

INCLUDED
NO IMPLEMENTATION UPSELL
03 / ONGOING

The Intelligence.

A monthly strategic refresh. Competitor moves flagged. Risks surfaced early. A quarterly audit of execution against strategy. This is what keeps the calibration alive.

$1,500 / MO
75% ATTACH TARGET

Every engagement passes through all three. Each has a price, a runtime, and an owner.

006
THE MATH · 06
Subscription compounding at founder-capped capacity

Year 3: $1.46M
in subscription alone.

The math doesn't need heroics. It needs us to keep doing what's already working.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Engagements delivered 10 12 13
Engagement revenue $300K $384K $455K
Subscription ARR (cumulative) $385K $859K $1.46M
Total annual revenue $685K $1.24M $1.92M
Mix — engagement / recurring 44 / 56 31 / 69 24 / 76
The inversion

Year 1, this looks like a consultancy. By Year 3, subscription dominates and the engagement becomes the way new customers enter. That's the shift that separates this from a services firm.

20:1 LTV:CAC

24-month LTV per engagement: $41,550. Blended inbound CAC: ~$2,000. That's not normal. It's what happens when the work is worth referring.

007
THE HABERMAN LANE · 07
A channel we didn't have to buy
50

Warm intros. One operator's trust. No cold outbound. Six or eight conversions puts us on Year Two plan.

Haberman runs a tech-partners program. We are worth the introduction.

About fifty companies under that umbrella. The deal on the table: we harden the practice, Haberman introduces us to the partners, a handful adopt at public price.

No paid acquisition. No cold outbound. Just a warm handoff from an operator the partners already trust.

10–20%
ADOPTION RANGE
$335K+
YR 1 IMPACT, BASE UPSIDE
$0
EQUITY TO HABERMAN

No paid acquisition. No cold outbound. Warm handoff only.

008
WHY IT SCALES · 08
How we add capacity without breaking the moat

Facilitators trained
through the method,
not around it.

We don't scale by hiring sellers. We scale by training facilitators. Operators who've sat through the Intensive inside a customer engagement, then learn to run it themselves.

Each facilitator adds capacity without a manager layer. Chad stays in the rooms that still need him. The rest runs on its own.

That's why 30 implementations by Year Three is conservative, not a stretch. It's also how a services business carries software margins — the software is the deployment, the services are the calibration, and they don't fight each other.

ORG MODEL
Calibrator × 1

CHAD · IN EVERY ROOM

Facilitators × N

TRAINED IN-ROOM · ADD CAPACITY · KEEP THE METHOD INTACT

Deployment × ∞

AGENTIC · RUNS EVERY DAY AFTER

009
WHAT RALLY IS BEING OFFERED · 09
Two ways in for Rally

Two doors.
Both open.
Pick the one that fits.

You're not being asked to bet on a pre-revenue idea. You're being asked what kind of involvement you want in a business that's already compounding.

DOOR A

Strategic Customer
+ Co-Investor.

Rally takes a calibration day at public price. Writes a minority check. Opens the Haberman lane with us. Clean, fast, no co-founder conversation.

CHECK RANGE
$250K – $750K · single-digit %
DOOR B

Co-Founder.

Rally comes in as capital plus leverage. Chad and Chase stop splitting attention between the practice and the raise. We build toward a mix: services, AI enablement, demand-gen infrastructure. $1M to $10M while the window is open.

CHECK RANGE
$1.5M – $3M · 15–25% co-founder

Either door works for us. Door B is Chad's preference. But the right answer is the one that fits Rally's fund, horizon, and appetite — not ours.

010
DOOR A · IN DETAIL · 10
Strategic customer + co-investor

A calibration day on
Rally's calendar. The Monday after,
the system runs.

What Rally puts in

Pay public price for one calibration day — $35K flat — against Rally's portfolio posture or Rally Investments directly. Write a minority check of $250K to $750K for a single-digit percentage. Commit quarterly calendar time. Open the Haberman lane with us.

What Rally gets

A calibration day on Rally's own positioning. Minority economics with information rights, ROFR on the next round, a quarterly review. Founder access to Chad on strategic calls, not transactional ones. A live reference dashboard that becomes proof for the next wave of buyers.

THE 12-MONTH PATH
DAY 0–30
Minority term sheet signed. Workshop on the calendar.
DAY 31–90
Rally's calibration day. Dashboard live. Book signed. Subscription starts.
DAY 91–180
First two portfolio intros converted. Haberman pilot designed together.
DAY 181+
3–5 conversions closed. Rally dashboard added to the reference gallery.
THE CALIBRATION GUARANTEE

If the Monday after the workshop the dashboard hasn't refreshed with Rally-specific work, the agents haven't produced a first cycle, and the signed book isn't on the desk — full refund. No hedging, no proration.

011
DOOR B · IN DETAIL · 11
CHAD'S PREFERENCE · CO-FOUNDER PATH

Capital for focus.
Leverage for speed.
Equity for the decade.

CAPITAL.

Buys Chad and Chase their attention back. No more running a raise and a practice at the same time. The money goes to facilitator training, Haberman, the Intelligence product, and one ops hire. That's the full list.

LEVERAGE.

Rally's network, portfolio, and relationships. Companies that would take us 18 months to reach cold. Haberman becomes a Rally-owned initiative, not a side lane.

EQUITY.

Priced against what's running today, not what we're promising. 15–25% co-founder, vested on strategic deliverables rather than time served.

How $1M becomes $10M

The engagement ceiling stays. 12 days × $30K = $360K/yr. The ceiling is a feature.

Subscription is where it bends. Year 1: $620K. Year 2: $1.5M. Year 3: $3.1M in the accelerated model.

Haberman accelerates it. 50 partners, a handful convert over 18 months. Adds $400K–$900K in subscription.

Franchise architecture compounds it. A per-location subscription layer, without breaking the single-facilitator rule.

Scenario delta with Rally
Base w/ Rally
Total Rev Yr 1 $685K $1.15M
Total Rev Yr 3 $1.92M $4.2M
Sub ARR Yr 3 $1.46M $3.1M
$1M sub milestone Mid Yr 2 End of Yr 1

12–18 MONTHS OF ACCELERATION ON EVERY MILESTONE.

012
DISCIPLINE · 12
What capital won't buy

No paid acquisition.
No VP of sales.
No pivot to software.

The easy move with capital is to hire a sales leader, buy ads, and try to turn the practice into a SaaS company. We've seen how that ends.

Diluted method. Churning subscriptions. Founder out of the room. We won't do it.

Growth comes from the practice being worth referring, not from us buying attention. If that's a problem for Rally, Door A is the right door.

CAPITAL DEPLOYS INTO
01
Facilitator training — already in motion. Adds capacity without a manager layer.
02
Haberman lane hardening — reference gallery built out, Monday-after test shippable.
03
Intelligence product depth — Marketing Hub Dashboard ships in Year 1 instead of Year 2.
04
One operations hire — runs the back of the practice. That's it.
013
RISK, NAMED · 13
Three ways this breaks

Three ways this can break.
We know each one.
Here's how we handle them.

01
Calibration capacity.

If Chad is the only one who can run the room, the practice tops out at about 12 engagements a year.

THE ANSWER

Facilitator training is already underway. Trained through the method, not around it. By Year 2, subscription revenue decouples growth from Chad's calendar.

02
Channel concentration.

If Haberman becomes half the pipeline, we're exposed.

THE ANSWER

The reference set is already spread: Slingshot, ETS, SGA, Aeir, Phronex, PURIS. Each opens its own lane. Haberman is an accelerator, not a dependency. Direct inbound already drives most of the book.

03
Category compression.

If a holding company moves hard into agentic positioning, the window closes faster.

THE ANSWER

Speed of deployment, plus the four rules on the refusal page. A holding company can't copy founder-in-the-room without blowing up its economics. They'll copy the middle, which was never the thing that made this work.

None of these are disqualifying. They're the reasons we're talking in 2026 and not 2028.

014
THE ASK · 14
The next step

A calibration day
on the calendar.
Or a term sheet
conversation. You tell us which.

We're not asking for a check today. We're asking for a direction.

DOOR A · STRATEGIC CUSTOMER
Scope the Intensive this week. Pick a date in the next 60 days.

Engagement letter follows.

Minority term sheet runs alongside.

DOOR B · CO-FOUNDER
Get Rally, Chad, and Chase in a room. Walk the operating model, the cap table, the 24-month plan.

Move toward a term sheet.

The four rules go in the operating agreement.

Which door, and when.

015
CLOSE · 15
bilt.studio

The practice is running. The window is open. Pick a door.

Slingshot is live. ETS is deep in Phase 3. SGA automates in May. Haberman is queued. The math clears a million in recurring before any capital enters the picture.

We'd like Rally in this. Let us know which door.

CHAD HANCOCK
chad@bilt.studio
CHASE BOWERS
chase@bilt.studio
LIVE REFERENCES
bilt.studio/work

APRIL 2026 · PREPARED FOR JUSTIN · RALLY INVESTMENTS

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