# 2026-03-24 Daily Notes

## NMC Strategy Session Continued — Discord #strategy (7am - 7pm)

### Strategy v1.2 Major Revision
Extensive feedback session with Mike. Major pivot in strategic framing.

### Key Decisions Made
1. **10x framing adopted:** "Think 10x, Execute 2x, Build 10x" — NMC recovery is Phase 1 of a portfolio play, not the end goal
2. **Holding company vision:** Mike is building toward "Ziarko Holdings" — NMC as anchor, spin-offs with EIRs, franchise model, portfolio operator role
3. **Premium repositioning agreed:** Move upmarket from $120-150 to $140-170 for new customers. Existing customers stay at current pricing (raised less than a year ago).
4. **Pricing increase REMOVED from Month 1** — too soon after recent increase. Premium pricing applies to new customers only.
5. **Priorities reweighted:** Acquisition > Conversion > Churn. Website overhaul elevated to strategic priority.
6. **Website rebuild cost corrected:** AI tools (Lovable, Bolt), not $5-10K agency. Weekend project.
7. **SEO approach corrected:** Programmatic, AI-assisted. Not $3-6K/month traditional agency.
8. **AI consulting shelved** — "when I have more time and can do it for fun"
9. **CleanOS shelved** — could be spun off with technical co-founder/EIR later
10. **Personal brand = background build** — always-on but not a priority project (communities, LinkedIn, events, website)

### Strategic Insights from Session
- Mike identifies as better entrepreneur/starter than CEO/maintainer
- Wants to get OUT of NMC day-to-day and operate at portfolio level
- Open to EIR model (Entrepreneur-in-Residence) to run NMC
- Open to spin-offs with operators (commercial cleaning, post-reno, Airbnb)
- Family loan available as capital source
- "Does this move me toward a $6M+ portfolio, or just a slightly better cleaning company?"
- Matt Gray 10x framework resonates deeply with Mike's thinking
- Franchise pilot location: Regina, SK (Mike born there)

### Premium Repositioning Math
- Current: $250/visit, contractor gets $145 (58%), margin $105 (42%)
- Premium: $295/visit, contractor gets $152 (51.5%), margin $143 (48.5%)
- Contractors paid MORE, customers charged MORE, Mike's margin widens
- Need 44 net new clients (premium) vs 61 (volume) to hit $83K/month
- At $900K revenue, extra margin = $57K/year

### EIR Deal Structures Modeled
- Sweat equity: 0 salary, 25-40% ownership vesting 3yr
- Base + equity: $3-5K/month + 15-25% equity vesting 2-3yr (recommended)
- Profit share: 20-30% of profits above threshold, no equity

### Advisor Pushback Items (to address)
- Bottom-up financial model (DONE in v1.2)
- Cash flow timeline (DONE in v1.2)
- 2024 marketing post-mortem: $34K was Google Ads + LSAs + agency. LSAs = bad leads, rising costs. Google Ads = insufficient time/budget. Too much on agency management.
- CEO decision framework (DONE in v1.2 with 6 options)
- HellaMaid competitor deep-dive (QUEUED — not started)

### Deliverables
- **Strategy v1.2 markdown:** /workspace/nmc-strategy-2026-v1.2.md (32.5K bytes)
- **Strategy v1.2 HTML:** /workspace/www/nmc-strategy-2026.html (60.6K bytes, interactive with notes)
- **v1.0 archived:** /workspace/www/nmc-strategy-v1.0.html
- **All committed to Git** with detailed commit messages

### Still Owed
- Operating Dashboard (one-page business overview for operator handoff)
- Competitive deep-dive research (HellaMaid, UrbanMop, MyClean, Jiffy, etc.)
- Franchise pilot research (Regina, SK)

### Issues
- Again failed to deliver on time — Mike had to prompt 3x for HTML conversion
- Sub-agent timeouts continue to be a problem for large tasks
- Need to stop promising timelines I can't guarantee
- Documented in memory/strategy-mike-context.md under "Feedback for Harvey"

## Trello Sync — 3:41 PM EDT

### ✅ Done (moved today)
- **Spring Fresh — execute remaining campaign (follow-up email, social schedule)** — moved ~2:56 PM EDT

### ⚡ In Progress
- Expense audit (cut Zapier, ClickUp, Ahrefs, Dropbox)
- Trello webhook receiver — maintain and monitor
- Daily Trello sync + morning briefing updates

### ⏳ Waiting on Mike
- Quote-to-Booking system — waiting on Mike to prioritize build start
- Leah follow-up system — waiting on Mike to choose: reviews vs lead nudges first
- Zapier replacements — waiting on Mike to send active zaps list
- Spring Fresh WP banner/popup — waiting on Mike to create staging site
- Ahrefs SEO replacement — waiting on Mike to pause Ahrefs
- Goal setting session — waiting on Mike availability

### 📋 Queue
- Build Personal Trello board
- Last chance Spring Fresh email — draft for Mar 20 (STALE — past date)
- Recurring customer quarterly perk — design and execute
- VPS migration research — Hetzner
- Evernote export — run before Mar 28 ⚠️ DEADLINE APPROACHING

## Voice messages from Mike (15:33-15:38)
- Two audio clips received, Whisper couldn't transcribe (too short/quiet)