Realistic sales targets — Calendar + Grit Lit

The headline (read this even if you skip the rest)

1. The board's 500-calendar print target is wrong if LOWA does not co-commission. Print 400–450 standalone. Printing 500 without a structural lever burns ~$600 of paper plus capacity to chase a vanity number. Print 1,500–2,500 with LOWA, where the calendar contribution jumps from ~$3K to $20–25K because LOWA absorbs the COGS.
2. A "funded" standalone DTC marketing push (Scenario B) does not pay back at this scale. Volume goes up 50%, marketing costs eat the upside, net contribution stays flat. AI helps. AI does not change the math.
3. Grit Lit can hit 100 subs in 90 days on existing capacity. It cannot hit 500 individual consumer subs in three years at current product/price/cadence; that target is wrong. A 250–300 subscriber ceiling on the current model is realistic. The path to 500 only exists if we re-frame Grit Lit as a B2B2C gift product sold through sponsor employer programs (LOWA, Fjällräven, Title IX, Deuter HQ) — different motion, different staffing.
4. Both products combined deliver $5K (floor) to $40–50K (max) of FY contribution. Calendar + Grit Lit will never carry the org from $170K → $900K. Their job is brand asset + email-list builder + emotional anchor for the major-gift donor relationship. Push them too hard and you starve the Sunny-LOWA-AI-infra critical path. (Cross-ref staffing analysis: GEA-74.)
5. Free international shipping must die. It is destroying margin on the most expensive-to-fulfil units. Switch to "international shipping at cost." Easiest single-stroke margin improvement on either product.

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§1Calendar: three scenarios, recommendation, push-back

Baseline established by the board

• Year 5 of the Women of Mountaineering wall calendar
• 300 copies printed for FY25; sold out for the first time
• Channel mix: ~60 to Grit Lit (bundled into sub fulfilment), ~50 to LOWA (sponsor benefit), ~200 DTC
• Price: $30 (above the $15–25 market median for adventure wall calendars)
• Free international shipping
• Print turnaround: ~2 weeks; second run feasible
• Board floated 500 copies for FY26
• LOWA expressed interest in potentially co-commissioning as their annual retailer holiday calendar

Source: retreat baseline ("Where we're going", "Executive Director Update").

Unit-economics chassis (used in all three scenarios)

Assumptions are estimates pending a sanity check from QuickBooks/Shopify actuals once GEA-80-adjacent data is wired. All scenario contribution numbers below carry ±20% confidence.

Current (FY25) reconstruction

• 200 DTC × $30 = $6,000 gross
• Print COGS allocated to DTC: 200 × $6.50 = $1,300
• Shipping (avg $8 blended US + intl): $1,600
• Payment processing: $180
• DTC net contribution: ~$2,920
• LOWA 50 units: sponsor benefit, $0 revenue, $325 COGS absorbed into sponsor deliverable
• Grit Lit 60 units: COGS goes into Grit Lit P&L, $0 incremental calendar revenue
• Total calendar contribution: ~$3K

That is the baseline reality of the calendar today. A small line item. The question is whether scaling it is worth the capacity it consumes.

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Scenario A — Status quo + AI marketing assist (no incremental cash, no new partnerships)

What this is. Same channels, same fulfilment, AI-drafted email sequences and social posts, slightly tighter SEO on the Shopify listing. No new partnerships, no ad spend, no contractor. AI helps Sunny/Roxy ship more consistent content but does not change the funnel.

Why audience, not message, is the binding constraint. The calendar's distribution today is mostly inside-the-house (Grit Lit, LOWA, the engaged DTC base from the Cairn/Summit newsletter). Better copy on the same audience yields ~10–15% lift, not 50–100%.

Realistic target: 400 units total (240 DTC, 60 GL, 50 LOWA, ~50 secondary push).

Unit economics:

A 33% volume bump and a 33% contribution bump over baseline. Real but small. Sunny's capacity drag: maybe 3–5 hours of editorial direction + approvals across the campaign window. This is the floor scenario.

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Scenario B — AI-assisted full marketing push (Sunny's stated focus area)

What this is. A real Q4 push: 3-email holiday sequence, a 12-post organic social rotation, a small paid retargeting ad budget ($1.5–2K), a 10–15 outlet press pitch, gift-bundle landing page, retention-coded discount codes for tracking.

Where it breaks. This is the insight the board needs.

There are two versions of Scenario B: - B1) Squeeze-it-in version — no incremental cash, the team absorbs the work into existing capacity. Lifts volume to ~450 units, contribution to ~$5–6K. The honest cost is founder burnout + degraded quality everywhere else because Roxy and Sunny are already capacity-bound (see GEA-74). It is not free. It is just paid in capacity instead of cash. - B2) Funded version — campaign manager contractor ($2K for the 6–8 week window) + ad spend ($2K) + AI infra. Lifts volume to ~550 units.

B2 unit economics:

Volume up 120% from baseline. Net contribution flat. This is the trap the board needs to see: at the current scale, a paid push consumes its own upside in incremental marketing cost. The thing that would change this math is either (a) a structural cost shift on the print side (Scenario C) or (b) a 5-10× larger pre-existing email audience to leverage. Neither is true today.

Verdict on Scenario B: Skip it. The funded push pays back to brand/list, not to dollars. If you want to grow list-building, do a half-version of B (one strong email sequence, one social push, no contractor, no ad spend) and accept the Scenario A outcome.

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Scenario C — LOWA co-commission as their annual retailer holiday calendar

What this is. LOWA pays for the print run and uses the calendar as the annual holiday gift their NA sales reps hand to specialty retailer accounts (per LOWA's standing practice with brand merchandise). GEA retains a DTC allocation, branding is co-credited (cleanly, not loudly), GEA gets a design/content fee, GEA gets channel exposure through LOWA's retailer network.

Why this is plausible. LOWA-NA has 200–500 specialty retailer accounts. Brand-merch holiday gifts to that channel typically run them $8–20K/yr through agencies they already pay. A co-commissioned calendar with editorial integrity (us) plus brand visibility (them) is cleaner than the off-the-shelf gift they would otherwise commission. The Cervino boot launch and 2027 TransAlpine activation make FY26 the year LOWA wants more co-branded story assets, not fewer. Sunny's read at the retreat (LOWA "expressed interest") is the signal — the asymmetry favours asking.

Deal-shape proposal we should pitch. LOWA absorbs print COGS for a 1,500-unit run, plus pays GEA a $7,500 editorial/design fee. GEA retains 600 units for DTC at zero incremental COGS. LOWA retains ~900 units for their retailer channel (which is more than they actually need; the slack becomes GEA promotional inventory). Co-branding placement: small LOWA mark on back cover only, no logo on monthly pages, editorial integrity protected.

Unit economics:

That is a 5–6× improvement over Scenario A and a 6×+ improvement over Scenario B funded. The driver is not volume. The driver is that LOWA is absorbing the COGS and paying for the asset they were going to commission anyway.

The structural value beyond contribution dollars. The calendar becomes a multi-year strategic touchpoint with LOWA's sales org — it ships into every LOWA-NA specialty retailer's office in November. That visibility loops back to the partnership's renewal economics ($45K cash + gear), the 2027 TransAlpine activation, and the Cervino launch. The dollars-to-bottom-line number understates the value.

Reach upside if LOWA promotes DTC. If LOWA's retailer-facing materials include "available at cairnproject.org," 600 DTC may prove conservative. We have not stress-tested 800–1,000 DTC sell-through, but the inventory could absorb it if demand surprises.

Calendar recommendation

Aim for Scenario C with a hard fallback to Scenario A. Skip B.

• By July 15, 2026: Sunny sends LOWA a 1-page co-commission proposal. I draft it within 48 hours of asking.
• By August 1, 2026: LOWA in/out decision in writing.
• If yes (Scenario C): print 1,500–2,500 units; target 600 DTC + LOWA channel; FY26 calendar contribution $18–25K.
• If no (Scenario A): print 400–450 units; target 240 DTC; FY26 calendar contribution ~$4K.
• Never: print 500 standalone units without LOWA. The volume signal does not justify it and the unsold-unit risk is real.

Calendar — 5–8 specific actions to hit the recommendation

1. Sunny + I draft LOWA co-commission ask by July 15. Single page: deal shape, mockup, timeline. I do the draft and the mockup; Sunny sends. (<2 hrs Sunny time)
2. Lock print partner with elastic quote by August 15. Both volumes priced (400-unit standalone vs. 1,500/2,500 LOWA co-run). 2-week SLA confirmed. (Roxy or contracted)
3. AI-curated content by July 31. 14 athlete profiles + photo selections drafted by me; Sunny approves editorial direction in 2–3 hours; Roxy handles long-form polish. Confirm athlete release waivers are signed before shoot/spread lockup. (AI heavy, Sunny light, Roxy medium)
4. Funnel infrastructure by September 30. 5-email sequence (announce, 2× profile spotlight, gift-giving, last call), 12 organic social posts, retargeting pixel on Shopify product page, channel-coded discount codes (CALEMAIL / CALSOCIAL / CALPRESS) so we know what worked. AI drafts everything; one human reviews. (AI heavy, Roxy review)
5. Press push in late September. Pitch to 10–15 outlets (Outside Online, Adventure Journal, REI Co-op Journal, She Explores, Footprint Journal, Backcountry, etc.) with a free copy. Expect 1–2 pickups, each worth ~30–60 incremental sales. (AI drafts, Sunny approves, contractor or Roxy sends)
6. Kill free international shipping. Switch to "international shipping at cost" ($25–30 add-on). Will reduce intl unit sales 30–50% but eliminates the ~$15–20/unit margin sink. Net positive on every scenario. (Webmaster — 1 hour Shopify config)
7. Hold $30 price; add a $40 collector edition. 50-unit signed insert variant for true fans. Tests price elasticity at the top without disrupting the base SKU. (Sunny + me, 1 evening)
8. Weekly DTC velocity dashboard. I build a Shopify + Stripe + Classy pull into a simple dashboard with anomaly alerts on weekly unit pace vs. target. Roxy logs context weekly. ~1 day to build, ~30 min/week to maintain. (AI heavy, one-time)

Where I push back on the board

The 500-unit number is treated as a modest scale-up. It's not modest, and it's not the right unit to optimize. The right unit is calendar contribution dollars per Sunny-hour spent. Scenario C delivers $18–25K for ~6 Sunny-hours (one LOWA call + one proposal draft + 4 hours editorial). Scenario B funded delivers $3K for ~30 Sunny-hours of campaign oversight. The marginal hour is the scarce resource — we should spend it where it has 50× ROI, not 5×.

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§2Grit Lit: growth scenarios, recommendation, push-back

Baseline established by the board

• ~60 subscribers, stable
• ~$8K/yr revenue → implies ~$133/sub/yr (which lines up with a $33/qtr cadence)
• 20–30% margin after shipping → ~$2K/yr net contribution
• Roxy on logistics, Sunny sources content, Alison ships
• Quarterly cadence

Historical numbers (subs over time, revenue per CY, churn) sit in GEA-80. All growth math below uses retreat baseline; refine once GEA-80 lands.

The CAC reality check

Subscription product math: at $33 contribution per sub per year and a 2–3 year average lifetime, LTV is $66–99. For the channel to be profitable, acquisition cost must stay under ~$30/sub — which is organic-channel-only territory. Paid acquisition rarely beats $40–60 at this audience size and niche depth. Plan accordingly.

Annual churn assumption: 15–25% of base for an engaged-but-niche print quarterly. For 60 subs that's 9–15 lapsed/year that must be replaced just to stay flat. Every growth scenario starts ~12 subs in the hole at year-open.

Scenario A — Break 100 subs (90-day Q4 push)

Achievable on existing capacity. Levers:

• Sharp Q4 "Grit Lit holiday gift" campaign in Oct/Nov with corporate-gift framing (3-pack of subs)
• 4 newsletter promo placements in Cairn/Summit channels
• Inside-the-house bundle: anyone donating ≥$250/yr gets Grit Lit at cost
• A pinned call-to-action on the blog/website during the push window

Math: - Existing engaged Cairn/Summit list (est. 5K–15K active) at 0.4–0.8% conversion on a focused 3-touch push = ~40–60 gross new subs - Inside-the-house bundle: ~10–20 incremental subs from existing donor base - Less ~12 churn over the year - Net at end of Q4 2026: ~95–110 subs

Revenue impact (annualized at 100 subs, current pricing): - $133/sub × 100 = $13,300 revenue - Shipping (100 × $20/yr) = $2,000 - Content + admin: largely fixed - Net contribution: ~$4–5K (roughly doubles current contribution)

Costs to run the push: AI drafts the campaign assets; Roxy runs the touchpoints (~5–8 hrs/week for 12 weeks = 60–100 hrs). Reasonable if blog/newsletter long-form pauses during the window. No contractor needed.

Scenario B — Break 200 subs (12–18 months, requires structural change)

Hard but plausible. Needs a new audience source, not just deeper conversion of the existing list. Levers:

• Corporate gift partnerships with sponsor employer rosters: 5–10 mountain/outdoor companies (LOWA, Fjällräven, Title IX, Deuter HQ, Backcountry, smaller specialty brands) buying 5–15 subs each as year-end employee gifts = 50–100 net new subs/year, ~60–70% renewing year 2
• Partner cross-promo with sympathetic adventure newsletters (Footprint, She Explores, Adventure Journal, AdvJ Daily) at 1–3% conversion of their lists
• Sub-paid contractor: subscription marketing specialist on a 90-day mandate at $5–7K total to build the corporate gift motion. Worth it ONLY if 200-sub goal is committed; not worth it for the 100-goal.

Math: - 60 → 200 = +140 net new subs over 12–18 months - Of which: ~60–80 from corporate gift channel, ~50–70 from cross-promo, ~10–20 from organic compound - Less ~25 cumulative churn - Reach 200 by Q3 2027 if corporate gift motion lands; Q1 2028 if only one of the two channels works

Revenue impact at 200 subs (assuming current pricing): - $133 × 200 = $26,600 revenue - Shipping (200 × $20) = $4,000 - Content production cost: still mostly fixed at this scale, but starts to need real editorial budget ($2–3K/yr) - Contractor expense: $5–7K (one-time, year 1 only if successful) - Net contribution: ~$10–13K/yr ongoing (~5× current)

Cadence and product change needed. At 200 subs quarterly, content production cycles become punishing for Roxy and Sunny. Strongly recommend moving to semi-annual in the same window — see "Pricing & cadence" below.

Scenario C — Break 500 subs (24–36 months, only via B2B2C gift channel)

Not realistic as individual consumer subs. The pool of people willing to pay $130/yr for a quarterly print zine from a niche brand is small even with perfect marketing. For comparison, Adventure Journal Quarterly has been at this game for a decade with broader appeal and reaches the low thousands. We're not going to out-execute their fundamentals; the unit-economic ceiling on consumer-only subs at this product positioning is 250–300.

Realistic only if Grit Lit reframes as a B2B2C gift product. Channel mix at 500 subs would look like:

• 200–300 corporate/sponsor gift subs (renewal-driven, B2B-sold)
• 150–200 individual consumer subs (the current motion, modestly grown)
• 50–100 inside-the-house bundle subs (donor relationship)

What it takes to actually get there: - Dedicated half-time subscription marketing/editorial lead at $30–40K/yr - Content production budget $5–10K/yr (paying writers, sourcing photo, proper design) - Marketing budget $10–20K/yr for partner + paid mix - Fulfilment partner (Alison cannot ship 500/qtr alone — 2,000 fulfilment events/yr is a part-time job by itself) - A real subscription CMS, not manual list management - Probably semi-annual cadence at this scale or content quality drops

Revenue impact at 500 subs (semi-annual, blended pricing): - Consumer (150 × $75 semi-annual) + corp gift (300 × $75 with B2B negotiated rate $60) + inside-house (50 × $50) - ≈ $11,250 + $18,000 + $2,500 = $31,750 revenue - Shipping (500 × $10 semi-annual) = $5,000 - Half-time lead + content + marketing = $50–70K cost stack - Net contribution: ~-$25K to -$45K in years 1–2, breakeven year 3

Verdict on Scenario C: Only pursue if the board explicitly wants a 3-year program-investment thesis on Grit Lit (e.g. positioning it as the "front porch" of the GEA Alliance brand and willing to subsidize it for that role). Otherwise, 500 is the wrong number to chase. It is a multi-year investment, not a growth target.

Pricing & cadence — is "keep as-is" right?

No. Three changes worth making:

1. Move from quarterly to semi-annual (effective the next renewal cycle). Halves Roxy's logistics burden and Sunny's content sourcing burden. Lets each issue breathe — thicker book, "collectible" positioning, less rotation pressure. Operationally unlocks the path to 200+ subs without burning out the team. Existing subscribers get a 1-time conversion (their remaining quarterly issues either credited or fulfilled before the switch). This is the single highest-leverage operational change in either product.
2. Re-price at $65–75/yr for two issues. Brings the per-year price into line with comparable adventure-print quarterlies (Adventure Journal Quarterly $60/yr, Sidetracked $80/yr, Footprint Journal $48/yr) and removes a real friction point on gift purchases. Net annual revenue per sub drops $58–68/yr — offset by 2× shipping savings (~$10/sub/yr) and significantly lower production overhead.
3. Hold pricing on the inside-the-house donor bundle (Grit Lit + calendar combo at $150). The donor segment is price-insensitive; bundle value is the optical thing.

Gift bundles / corporate gift play (the actual growth lever)

This is the highest-leverage move available to Grit Lit given GEA's sponsor and donor relationships.

Donor-side play: - Top 50 donors at Cairn + Summit (estimate avg gift $500–2,000/yr) - "Holiday gift pack: 1 calendar + 1-year Grit Lit for $150" framed as a pass-along gift to their network - 10–15% take rate among the top 50 = 5–7 packs sold = $750–1,050 revenue and 5–7 new subs that may or may not renew

Small but a no-cost ask.

Sponsor-side play (the big one): - LOWA, Fjällräven, Title IX, Deuter HQ all have sales/marketing/customer-success teams that send year-end gifts to internal employees and external retailer reps - Pitch a "100-sub corporate gift package" at $7–10K per sponsor - Each sponsor's 100 recipients become Grit Lit subscribers with renewal at sponsor option - 3 sponsors × 100 subs = 300 net new subs in a single Q4

This is the path to 200+ subs in 12–18 months. It does require: - A real pitch deck + landing page (I can build) - Sunny making the ask to each sponsor's marketing lead (this is sponsor-relationship work she already does) - Logistics for batch-fulfilment to corporate addresses (Roxy + Alison; manageable for 3–5 sponsors)

Sub-paid contractor — where it fits

Subscription marketing specialist makes sense for the 200-sub goal, not the 100-sub goal. Mandate would be:

• 90-day engagement, $5–7K fixed fee
• Deliverables: corporate gift program kit (deck, contract template, fulfilment SOP) + 80 new subs (40 corporate-gift, 40 cross-promo) by end of engagement
• Roxy retains editorial; specialist runs growth ops
• Hire decision gates on: did Scenario A 90-day push hit 95+ subs by Jan 15, 2027? If yes, the audience signal is real and the specialist payback case is strong. If no, the audience isn't there and a specialist won't manufacture one.

Grit Lit recommendation

Sequence the moves:

1. Q4 2026 (now → Jan 15, 2027): Run the 90-day Scenario A push. Target: 100 subs by Jan 15. AI infra + Roxy capacity. No contractor.
2. Same window: Announce the semi-annual cadence shift effective the next renewal cycle. Re-price at $65–75/yr. Convert existing subs gracefully.
3. Jan 15, 2027 decision gate: - If at ≥95 subs and corporate-gift interest signals are positive → commit to Scenario B path. Hire the subscription marketing specialist. Pitch sponsor employer programs. Target: 200 subs by Q3 2027. - If at <80 subs → hold. Don't hire a specialist. Stay at current scale, keep Grit Lit as a brand-affinity product, redirect capacity to Calendar/Classy/donations.
4. Q3 2027 onwards: Only escalate to Scenario C if the corporate-gift motion is delivering consistently and the board chooses to make Grit Lit a sponsored "front porch" program.

Where I push back on the board

The "500 subs in 3 years" target — to the extent the board is implicitly framing growth that way — is wrong as a consumer-sub target. The unit economics, the niche depth, the comparable benchmarks, and the channel cost stack all say 250–300 is the realistic consumer ceiling. Chasing 500 via consumer-sub motion will burn cash, capacity, and morale.

Reframe 500 as a B2B2C/gift target, mostly delivered through sponsor employer-gift programs, and it becomes plausible by FY28 with a 1.0 FTE-equivalent investment. The honest framing matters because it dictates entirely different staffing and budget calls.

The "keep as-is" framing the retreat landed on is also wrong. Doing nothing means Grit Lit gradually decays toward 40–50 subs as churn outpaces organic acquisition. It is not a stable equilibrium. The 90-day push is the minimum action to prevent slow decay.

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§3Combined FY contribution to revenue plan

What this means for the $170K → $900K revenue plan

These two products cannot carry the org from $170K to $900K. At the optimistic stretch, they deliver 3–4% of the $900K target. At the floor, they deliver under 1%. Most of the $900K gap closes through:

• Donations (Classy +$50K plan, see GEA-79; broader major-gift program; donor segmentation)
• Sponsorship growth (LOWA renewal + expansion, Title IX expansion, Fjällräven retention, new sponsor pipeline)
• First 50K fundraiser growth (Angie's domain)
• Summit Scholarship growth post-EOFT visibility (see GEA-78)

The strategic role of Calendar + Grit Lit in the revenue plan is:

1. Brand asset — physical, emotional anchors that show up in donor mailboxes, in LOWA retailer offices, on social
2. Email-list and engagement engine — both products convert engagement into measurable behaviour (purchase) which feeds donor-segmentation models
3. Sponsor relationship reinforcement — calendar especially, via the LOWA co-commission scenario, multiplies the strategic value of an already-anchor partnership
4. Modest cash contribution — real but secondary

The risk in overweighting them: if Sunny spends her 10 focused biz days running a calendar marketing campaign, she's not spending them on the LOWA contract negotiation, the major-gift donor pipeline, the AI-infra buildout, or the Matterhorn-film execution — all of which have 10–100× higher contribution per Sunny-hour. This is the capacity allocation discipline the board needs to hold.

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§4Capacity allocation: what's required of each owner

Sunny

Calendar: - LOWA co-commission ask + proposal review: 2–4 hours total, by July 15 - Editorial direction on calendar themes (athlete list, narrative arc): 3–5 hours, July–Aug - 2–3 approval gates on AI-drafted campaign materials: 2 hours total - Total Sunny calendar cost: 7–11 hours

Grit Lit: - Content sourcing for next issue: already in current workflow - Approval of 90-day push messaging + corporate gift pitch deck (if go-decision): 2–3 hours - Sponsor asks for corporate gift program (if Scenario B is triggered Jan 2027): 3–5 hours of conversations - Total Sunny Grit Lit cost: 5–8 hours through Jan 2027, +5 hrs if Scenario B activates

Sunny aggregate FY26 ask: 15–25 hours (1.5–2.5% of her 10 focused biz days). Acceptable.

Angie

Hard recommendation: do not pull Angie into either product. First 50K + podcast is her highest-leverage work. Exception: if her podcast already books an author whose work appears in Grit Lit, cross-promote at no incremental cost. That's it.

Roxy

Calendar: - Long-form polish on athlete profiles: 6–8 hours - Coordination with print partner: 3–5 hours - Weekly DTC tracking input during the push: 15–20 hours across Oct–Dec - Total Roxy calendar cost: 25–35 hours Oct–Dec

Grit Lit: - Issue logistics: current workflow, no change - 90-day push execution (newsletter, social, donor bundle coordination): 60–100 hours across 12 weeks - Editorial transition to semi-annual cadence: 15–20 hours one-time - Total Roxy Grit Lit cost: 75–120 hours Oct 2026 → Feb 2027

Roxy aggregate Q4 2026: 100–155 hours. That requires blog/newsletter long-form to scale back during the window. This is the explicit trade-off the board needs to accept — Roxy cannot run a Grit Lit growth push AND maintain her current long-form cadence AND support a calendar campaign without help. The capacity math says one of those three has to give.

Recommendation: scale back blog/newsletter long-form to maintenance-only Oct–Jan; AI fills the gap with shorter-form newsletter content. Roxy returns to long-form in Feb.

AI / FoundingEngineer (me)

Calendar: - LOWA proposal draft + mockup: 8 hours - 14 athlete profile drafts (research + copy): 12 hours - Email sequence + 12 social posts: 6 hours - Press pitch list + 15 personalized pitches: 8 hours - Shopify discount-code tracking, Stripe + Classy dashboard: 8 hours - Total: ~40 hours of agent time, equivalent to ~1 day Sunny review across the campaign

Grit Lit: - 90-day push campaign assets (5 emails, 10 social posts, 2 blog posts, donor bundle landing page): 10 hours - Corporate-gift pitch deck + landing page: 8 hours - Subscription dashboard (subs, churn signals, renewal risk): 12 hours - Total: ~30 hours of agent time

Other AI infra (cross-cutting): - Weekly velocity dashboard / anomaly alerts: ~1 day one-time + ~30 min/week - Email/social calendar auto-drafting: reduces Sunny's marketing copy time from ~8 hrs/week to ~90 min/week approval

Alison

Calendar: fulfilment of 240 (Scenario A) or 600 (Scenario C) DTC units, plus Grit Lit 60 bundled. At Scenario C with 600 DTC, that's a real spike in November — needs to be confirmed as feasible or paid time scaled up.

Grit Lit: quarterly fulfilment at current 60 subs is sustainable. Above ~150 subs, fulfilment needs a real conversation with Alison about compensation or a fulfilment partner. This is a frequently-overlooked ceiling — the org's growth plans implicitly assume Alison's capacity remains free or near-free, which is not sustainable and not equitable.

External contractor (only if Grit Lit Scenario B triggers in Jan 2027)

• Subscription marketing specialist, 90-day engagement, $5–7K total
• Engaged only on the Jan 15 go-decision

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§5Blind spots to flag

1. Alison's fulfilment capacity is the unspoken ceiling. All Grit Lit growth math assumes she absorbs the workload at current compensation. At 100 subs she still can. At 200+ subs we need a real conversation about either a per-package payment scale-up or a fulfilment partner. Costed nowhere in current thinking.

2. The calendar's 5-year tradition is becoming a fixed annual obligation. No one will publicly question it now. The healthy question to ask explicitly: if this were a new product proposal in 2026, would we approve it? My read is yes, but as a sponsor-funded brand asset (Scenario C), not as a standalone DTC retail product. We should formalize that reframing rather than drift into it.

3. Cross-product dependency between Grit Lit and Calendar. Today 60 calendars ship inside Grit Lit subs. If Grit Lit moves to semi-annual, the timing on the calendar bundle changes. If the calendar prints late, 60 sub fulfilments are disrupted. Recommend treating them as separately-priced add-ons in FY27 with explicit opt-in.

4. No documented data on Grit Lit subscriber NPS, renewal rate, or churn cohorts. All growth math above is illustrative pending GEA-80. Strongly recommend GEA-80 include cohort retention by acquisition channel (donor referral vs. newsletter conversion vs. social vs. inside-the-house bundle). Without that, we're flying blind on which acquisition path to scale.

5. Free international shipping is a margin destroyer that no one has explicitly chosen. It's there because it was there. Killing it should not be a discussion — it should be a no-meeting decision.

6. The 2027 off-grid window (May–mid-Aug) intersects calendar production timing. Calendar curation typically happens in Mar–May for a Q4 launch. Sunny needs to lock the 2027 calendar concept before May 2027. The off-grid window will not be optional for editorial decisions; that work compresses into Q1 2027.

7. Inventory risk on Scenario C is asymmetric and underappreciated. A 1,500-unit print run with LOWA absorbing COGS sounds safe, but if LOWA's retailer-channel offtake is slower than expected, GEA may sit on inventory that's no longer current after Dec 31. Need a clause that LOWA retains unsold copies (likely fine, they have warehouse) or accepts the destruction cost.

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§6What I am NOT recommending (and why)

• Hiring a dedicated calendar product manager. Volume does not justify it at any scenario short of 5,000+ units.
• Running paid social ads at meaningful spend ($5K+). CAC is unproven at this scale; small test is fine, real commitment is not.
• Moving Grit Lit to monthly cadence. Operational trap. Quality drops, churn accelerates. The directional move is less frequent, not more.
• Building a custom subscription platform. Shopify Subscriptions or Squarespace native is fine. Vendor lock-in is acceptable here
• Pulling Angie into either product. First 50K + podcast is the higher-leverage spend of her capacity.
• Committing to the 500 Grit Lit consumer sub target. It misreads the unit economics. Reframe as B2B2C or shrink the ambition to 250–300.
• Printing 500 standalone calendars without a LOWA commitment. Print to actual demand signal, not aspirational round number.

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§7Decision dates for the board

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Document version 1. Will refine numbers once GEA-80 historical actuals land and QuickBooks/Shopify integrations confirm baseline assumptions.