☐ Entity filed, EIN in hand, business bank account open.
☐ General liability policy active, certificate saved as PDF.
☐ One jurisdiction phone call made (state/city requirements for your trade).
☐ EPA Type I passed, if refrigerators are on the menu (open-book online test).
☐ Business number active and able to send and receive texts.
Nothing customer-facing yet. Starting from zero hands-on skill: run weeks one and two alongside training and slide the calendar.
Week 2: gear and surface
☐ Core kit bought, mid-grade, complete; organized in the vehicle.
☐ Starter truck stock list loaded (fuses, common lid switches, igniters, drain pumps for local machine families).
☐ One-page website live; booking form collects appliance type, brand, model number, symptom; tested from your own phone.
☐ Google Business Profile visible in search (service area, hours, photos of clean work).
☐ Regional parts house visited in person; account or rapport established; hours and return policy learned.
☐ One practice machine repaired end to end, diagnosis to verified fix, documented on the run sheet.
Week 3: first paid calls
☐ Network announcement sent with the launch message.
☐ Three to five paid jobs completed and invoiced (dryers and washers first; jobs you are genuinely ready for).
☐ Credited-diagnostic pricing said out loud at booking, exactly as scripted.
☐ Every job documented with model photo, findings, and parts; full diagnostic method run (test-before-order, verify-after-fix).
☐ Invoice and payment collected on the spot.
☐ Review link texted before leaving the driveway; at least three review requests sent.
☐ One honest "don't fix this" verdict delivered.
Week 4: the loop
☐ Calendar filled harder; announcement kept warm.
☐ Four numbers reviewed: completed calls, average ticket, effective hourly rate, callback count.
☐ One thing adjusted (the fee, the routing, or the truck stock), not five things.
☐ Jobs booked into week five; best customers asked for referrals by name.
The month-one bar
☐ Roughly ten completed jobs
☐ Five reviews on the profile
☐ An effective hourly rate you have actually computed
☐ Zero unexplained callbacks
Hit that and you have a business. Miss a marker and you have a diagnosis, which is better than a feeling.
If the fork appears
Phone silent: the problem is findability or market density; push the profile and the network message, consider the platform on-ramp for volume while you build. Phone rings but the skill trembles: slow the calendar, raise practice hours, confine the menu to the two starter families until diagnostic confidence is load-bearing. Both forks are normal; neither is fatal.