💼 BI as a Service (BIaaS)¶

The Core Idea

Don't sell hours — sell outcomes: trustworthy data, automated reports, and decision-ready dashboards, delivered as a subscription.

Year-1 potential ≈ $142k

$120k project revenue + $22k MRR run-rate, compounding yearly.
70–85% gross margin

On recurring revenue — because frameworks are reusable assets.
60% head start

Templates, ETL patterns and docs = our moat on every new client.

1. The Model in One Picture¶

graph LR
    A[" Free Data Audit<br/>(lead magnet)"] --> B["💵 Paid Assessment<br/>1-2 weeks"]
    B --> C["🏗️ Build Project<br/>warehouse + dashboards"]
    C --> D["🔁 Managed Subscription<br/>MRR"]
    D --> E["📈 Expand<br/>more sources, BUs, KPIs"]
    E --> D

Land with an audit, build with a fixed-fee project, keep with MRR, grow with expansion.

2. Who Buys — Ideal Customer Profile¶

Size

50–500 employees, multi-branch / multi-BU.
Industries

Logistics, retail, FMCG, distribution, F&B — our exact domain experience.
Data Reality

Has ERP/POS data but no BI team; lives in Excel chaos.
Pain

No single source of truth, month-end blind spots, manual Monday reports.
Trigger Event

New CFO · investor reporting · ERP go-live · expansion.

3.1 One-Time Build Revenue (Projects)¶

P-1 · BI Readiness Assessment

Schema audit · data-quality score · anti-pattern report · 90-day roadmap

$1,500–3,000 · 1–2 weeks
P-2 · Warehouse Design & Build

Star schema + MDM for one business unit

$6,000–18,000 · 4–8 weeks
P-3 · ETL Connector (per source)

ERP / POS / Sheets / API → warehouse

$1,500–5,000 · 1–2 weeks
P-4 · Dashboard (per board)

Executive / ops / finance board

$800–2,500 · 1–2 weeks
P-5 · Master Data Cleanup

Golden records · unified SKUs · UOM mapping

$2,000–8,000 · 2–4 weeks
P-6 · KPI / OKR Workshop

KPI tree · SLA definitions · department targets

$1,000–2,500 · 1 week
P-7 · Governance & Docs Pack

Policies · runbooks · documentation library

$1,500–4,000 · 1–2 weeks

3.2 Recurring Revenue (MRR)¶

:material-email-send:{ .lg .middle } R-1 · Managed Report Distribution

Automated weekly/monthly reports, schedules, recipient groups

$150–300 / report / month
R-2 · Managed ETL & Refresh

Daily sync · monitoring · failure alerts · fixes

$500–2,000 / month
R-3 · Dashboard Care Plan

Bug fixes · small changes · version updates

$300–1,000 / month
R-4 · Data Quality & Governance

Match-rate monitoring · weekly DQ review · stewardship

$500–1,500 / month
R-5 · Fractional BI Lead

Strategy · roadmap · monthly executive review

$2,000–6,000 / month
R-6 · Support Retainer

Block of hours (10 / 25 / 50)

$400–1,800 / month

3.3 Usage & Ad-Hoc¶

Ad-hoc analysis — $60–120 / hour
Training (half-day) — $300–600
Hosted seat — $15–40 / user / month

3.4 Value-Based (High-Margin)¶

Savings Share

10–20% of first-year documented savings (stock reduction, margin fixes), capped.
Revenue Uplift Share

% of measurable uplift attributed to pricing / assortment analytics.

4. Packaging — Three Subscription Tiers¶

Starter — $990/mo

Setup $2,500 · 2 sources · 3 dashboards Weekly refresh · 3 managed reports Email support · 48 h
Growth — $2,490/mo ⭐ most popular

Setup $6,000 · 5 sources · 8 dashboards Daily refresh · 10 managed reports Priority support · 24 h · monthly strategy call
Enterprise — $5,900+/mo

Custom setup · unlimited sources · near real-time SLA-backed support · 4 h · bi-weekly calls Fractional BI lead included

Commercial rules

Annual prepay = 10–15% discount · minimum term 6 months · changes outside scope = change order (billable).

5. Unit Economics — How the Money Works¶

70–85% — gross margin, recurring
45–60% — gross margin, projects
≥ 60% — revenue mix as MRR by month 18
< 6 mo — CAC payback
$50–200 — cloud + tools cost per client / month
< 10% — logo churn / year (daily reports = sticky)

Why margins are high

Our frameworks are reusable assets — build once, deploy many.

6. Sales Motion — Land & Expand¶

graph LR
    L["🧲 Lead magnet<br/>free audit"] --> A["💵 Assessment<br/>credited to build"]
    A --> B["🏗️ Build<br/>fixed scope"]
    B --> C["🔁 Convert<br/>subscription"]
    C --> E["📈 Expand<br/>QBR-driven"]

Lead magnet: free 30-min data audit or a sample dashboard built from their data.
Paid assessment (P-1): fee credited against the build — filters serious buyers.
Build (P-2…P-7): fixed price, fixed scope, our templates do 60% of the work.
Convert: at go-live, every client moves onto a subscription tier.
Expand: quarterly business review → new sources, BUs, KPIs, seats.

7. Productize What We Already Own¶

:material-email-send:{ .lg .middle } GAS report-automation framework → R-1 Managed Report Distribution
Chunked SQL ETL library → P-2/P-3 "Warehouse-in-a-Box"
KPI / OKR / SLA framework → P-6 Workshop + R-4 monitoring
MkDocs documentation library → P-7 Governance Pack
Zammad SLA setup → Support-Ops Setup offering
Pricelist / master-data SQL → P-5 MDM Cleanup

This reuse is our moat: competitors start from zero on every client; we start from 60%.

8. Contracts, SLAs & Guardrails¶

Data ownership

Client owns all data & credentials; we operate under NDA + DPA — see Glossary.

Scope control

"Maintenance" vs "change" is defined in contract; changes = change orders.

SLA per tier

Response/resolution times mirror our SLA Guidelines format.

Exit clause = selling point

Full handover pack (docs + code). "You own everything" wins trust, not risk.

9. 12-Month Revenue Example (Solo → Small Team)¶

xychart-beta
    title "Year-1 Trajectory (USD k) — bars: total revenue · line: MRR"
    x-axis ["Q1", "Q2", "Q3", "Q4"]
    y-axis "USD k" 0 --> 60
    bar [34.5, 35, 51, 52]
    line [4.5, 10, 16, 22]

Year 1 ≈ $120k projects + $22k MRR run-rate — compounding as MRR overtakes projects.

10. Risks & Mitigations¶

Scope creep

Fixed scope + change orders + assessment phase.
Poor client data quality

Assessment sets expectations; DQ exclusions in contract.
Key-person dependency

Templates + documentation library (our moat).
Churn

Embed into daily operations — reports people rely on.
Payment risk (SMEs)

Annual prepay discount; monthly billing with card-on-file.

Library Index · Glossary · Skills Matrix · What We Do