Grit Lit — numbers deep dive

§1Numbers (validated)

Derived unit economics (using retreat figures)

A $33 quarterly book box (book + small swag/extras + flat-rate shipping) is plausible against US benchmarks (book-of-the-month–style retail at $20–$45). The 20–30% margin is the post-shipping contribution, not the all-in P&L margin. This is the central distortion in the retreat framing.

Quarterly net adds, LTV, geographic, sub source, cancel reasons

Not validated. None of these are derivable without the subscriber roster. Items requested in §7.

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§2Growth curve since launch

Not validated with primary data. Synthesizing from secondary signals:

• Program is ~8 years old (Alison & Sarah ran the Cairn Project as volunteers 2016–2024, per ED Update).
• "Stable, not growing" at 60 subs (ED Update).
• That implies a roughly flat-to-modest curve: if launched at ≤10 subs and currently sits at 60, the long-run organic acquisition rate is on the order of 6–8 net adds / year. After churn (assume even a generous 20% annual at small-box subscription benchmarks), gross acquisition is closer to 18–20 / year.
• See Her Outside podcast has ~200 avg listeners, 0.5–2% per-episode conversion to "any action" — at the high end that's ~4 nudges/episode toward Grit Lit, of which the conversion rate to a paid quarterly box is meaningfully lower. The podcast is the largest owned channel and it cannot, alone, account for double-digit annual gross adds.

Inference. Grit Lit's organic acquisition is bound by the size of the Cairn Project's owned media surfaces (newsletter, podcast, Trailblazer alumni). Until those surfaces grow ≥1 order of magnitude, Grit Lit will not grow above its current ceiling under the existing model.

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§3Retreat-claim validation

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§4Hidden inflection — the labor-cost truth

This is the part the retreat decision missed. The 20–30% margin is a shipping margin, not a P&L margin. Once labor is loaded in at honest rates, the picture flips:

All-in P&L estimate (annual, current scale)

Even halving the labor allocations (Roxy 15%, Sunny 2 hrs/quarter) lands at ≈ −$1,300/yr — break-even at best. There is no labor allocation that produces a net positive under the current revenue scale.

This is the inflection that the retreat decision did not surface. It is not a hidden cohort signal — it is a hidden cost-allocation truth.

Secondary inflection — the bottleneck is human, not channel

If Grit Lit were to grow, the constraint is Roxy + Alison + Sunny capacity (pack, ship, source). The retreat thesis that AI marketing would "passively lift" Grit Lit assumes growth in demand without growth in fulfillment cost. At quarterly cadence the per-box fulfillment cost is largely linear in subs, so a 5x subscriber base implies a 5x fulfillment burden — exactly the burden the retreat surfaced as Alison's stretched capacity. Demand-side AI lift, if it works, immediately recreates the supply-side problem.

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§5Hidden inflection — what could exist in the data (untestable here)

These are the questions a v2 with Roxy's spreadsheet would answer. I list them so the gap is concrete.

• Renewal cohort skew. Is there a quarter of subscribers (e.g. holiday-gift–acquired) that renews at meaningfully higher rate than the rest? If so, the program's true value lives in that cohort, not the marketing surface.
• Lifetime value distribution. Long-tail LTV from year-3+ subs may be 2–3x mean LTV — this would be the only argument for keeping a paid sub model.
• Geographic concentration. Any international subs make the post-shipping margin claim materially worse (intl shipping ≥ $20/box for a small parcel). If even 5–10 subs are intl, the 20–30% "after shipping" margin is overstated for the whole.
• Channel breakdown. Direct vs gift vs holiday vs partner-referral. The retreat assumes a uniform "subscriber" but gift subs are 1-cycle, materially different LTV.
• Cancel reasons. Roxy will know these informally even if not logged. Useful to confirm whether the ceiling is price, content fit, or shipping friction.

None of these is derivable from secondary sources. All require the spreadsheet.

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§6Implications for "Keep vs Grow" — and for the sales-targets deep-dive

The binary choice

Recommendation (mine, for CEO review): The retreat's "Keep as-is" rests on an incomplete cost view. The honest options are A or B. Default to B (shrink-to-gift) unless there's an explicit growth thesis with a named channel and committed acquisition spend (e.g. LOWA or Title Nine bundling Grit Lit subs into their employee benefit or loyalty programs). If a growth thesis exists, go to A and commit to a 12-month subscriber target tied to a specific channel — not to passive AI lift.

Coordination with the sales-targets deep-dive

For the sales-targets deep-dive (the sibling analysis), please do not model Grit Lit as a revenue growth engine.

• At realistic 5x scale ($40K rev, ~$10K contribution), Grit Lit is <2% of the $170K → $900K gap. It cannot move the revenue target meaningfully.
• The reverse is true on the cost side: the Roxy capacity that supports Grit Lit competes directly with newsletter cadence and First 50K / Rim-to-Rim operations — both Grow programs. Releasing Roxy from Grit Lit logistics is a cost-side lever for the Grow programs.

The sales-targets analysis should reflect Grit Lit as a fixed-or-shrinking line, with the Roxy-capacity question priced into the Grow program assumptions.

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§7What I need to finish this with primary data

I could not validate cohort / geographic / channel cuts because the underlying data lives in Roxy's spreadsheet (and possibly an Alison-maintained ledger), which is not reachable from sunny@dreamlandtours.net surfaces.

Specific asks (CEO to relay to Roxy / Alison):

1. Subscriber roster (Roxy). Active subs as of latest quarter, with date joined, date cancelled (if applicable), plan type, gift vs direct, and country/state. CSV or Sheet is fine.
2. Quarterly revenue history (Roxy or Alison). Total revenue by quarter, going back as far as records exist. Even 8 quarters would let me build the growth curve and quarterly net-add chart.
3. Shipping cost per box (Alison). Average and intl-vs-domestic split.
4. Content and swag cost per box (Sunny or Roxy). Whatever the recent quarters have averaged.
5. 30-min informal call with Roxy on cancel reasons. No formal data needed; her gut is worth more than a survey for n=60.
6. Billing platform name (Squarespace? Shopify? Stripe direct? Cratejoy?). If any of these, I can pull churn and geographic distribution directly with the right credentials.

With #1–#3 alone I can produce v2 with cohort retention, the real growth curve, and a defensible shrink-vs-grow recommendation.

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SourcesSources cited

• ED Update meeting notes, 2026-06-19 — retreat headline numbers (60 subs / $8K / 20-30% margin), Roxy + Alison + Sunny role split, "stable not growing"
• Where we're going, 2026-06-19 — "Keep as-is" decision, $50K surplus / $170K cash / $900K 4-year revenue goal
• Sunny x Alison, 2026-06-08 — "no proper books or financial records," Roxy compensation context, tax extension filed
• MASTER CONTEXT ACROSS PROJECTS — Roxy $1,500/mo with newsletter + box scope; Alison reduced bandwidth in 2026; founded 2016
• Dreamland QBO (Intuit MCP, 2026-06-19): zero product/service sales recorded — confirms Grit Lit is not on this ledger
• Drive search across Cairn / Karen Project / Grit Lit titles and full-text: no Cairn Project shared folder accessible from sunny@dreamlandtours.net