The Playbooks
Definitive guides, free to use.
The same frameworks we bring to engagements — written out in full. No email gate, no teaser chapters. Take what's useful.
Plans & Capital The SBA-Ready Business Plan What underwriters actually check, the plan structure that passes review, driver-based financials, and the five mistakes that sink first submissions. Read the guide 12 min read Plans & Capital The Investor Pitch Deck Handbook The eleven slides that matter, the financial story underneath them, the five mistakes that end raises early, and how a deck differs from a plan. Read the guide 11 min read Plans & Capital The Market Research Playbook Sizing a market honestly with TAM/SAM/SOM, knowing the customer, reading competitors, and pricing on evidence instead of nerves. Read the guide 11 min read Strategy Strategy That Ships Why most strategy dies in a deck, the execute-first difference, feasibility before ambition, and the discipline that turns a plan into motion. Read the guide 12 min read Operations The Fractional COO Handbook The six signs you need embedded operating leadership, what the work actually looks like, the honest cost comparison, and the first 90 days. Read the guide 11 min read AI & Automation AI Automation for Small Business What to automate first by ROI, the readiness audit, governance and human-in-the-loop, and the six pitfalls that waste automation budgets. Read the guide 11 min read Websites The Small-Business Website Playbook A website’s actual job, positioning before pixels, the anatomy of a page that converts, and when to fix versus rebuild. Read the guide 10 min read
Each guide links into the journal's deeper coverage — 380+ articles on planning, funding, operations, and AI — and into the practice that does the work. Press Ctrl K to search everything.