StartMargin / Guide 01

Before You Spend a Euro

The pre-flight check for any business — and what a database of 105 of them says about the one you are considering. Ten pages, four worksheets, €29.

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The guide is written and finished. The checkout is being connected — it will be €29, paid once, downloaded instantly.

Three findings you will not read elsewhere

Not opinions. Each one falls out of the 105 businesses in the database, and you can recompute all three from the free pages on this site.

The hours trap is worth 74%

Businesses capped by your own hours average a €3,228 monthly ceiling. Businesses capped by people or units average €5,628 — while working only about 20% more hours. Which side yours falls on matters more than the industry, the margin or the idea.

Twelve times the capital buys 32% more ceiling

Businesses starting under €2,000 average a €3,629 ceiling at 81% net margin. Those needing €25,000 or more average €4,793 — at 36%. More capital mostly buys fixed costs. It is worth paying only when it buys a barrier you can name.

Low competition is not free

The least crowded businesses have the highest ceiling (€6,382) and the worst margin (50%). The most crowded have the best margin and the lowest ceiling. Low saturation is a barrier doing its job — and barriers cost margin.

What is inside

  1. The three costs nobody counts — including the one that usually exceeds the equipment
  2. The hours trap, and the one question that tells you which side you are on
  3. What capital actually buys, and when it is worth paying
  4. Time to first income: the number that kills more businesses than margin
  5. The saturation paradox, and what to look for instead of an original idea
  6. The regulatory pre-check — four questions, one afternoon
  7. When the answer is no: the four honest moves
  8. Four worksheets: true cost to begin, the hours, the ceiling test, permissions

What this guide will not do

It will not tell you which business to start, and it will not tell you that you can do it. It does the arithmetic and hands it back. For a good number of readers the honest output is "not this one, and not yet" — there is a chapter for that outcome, because it is the common one and nobody writes it down.

Who it is for

Someone with savings they are about to commit, who has read enough encouraging content and wants the other half. If you have already worked out your true cost to begin, your real available hours and your ceiling at full tilt, you do not need this — you have done it.

On sale shortly.

The free tool runs the same test across all 105 businesses in about a minute. Start there — the guide is for after it.