Roughly two hours a day: evenings if employed, full days if not. Every week ends with a checkpoint; the checkpoints are the part most people skip, which is why most launches quietly dissolve in week three. Start:
Week One: Build the Offer
☐ Lane picked using the two-axis score: language fluency plus three people you could message this week without it being weird
☐ One-paragraph offer written in the client's words: who you serve, the three or four recurring pains you take over, the monthly shape
☐ Floor-rate math run: target income plus benefits replacement divided by eighty to a hundred and ten billable hours
☐ Three prices written: hourly, hour block, package
☐ Minimum stack set up (business email on your own domain, scheduler, password manager, invoice tool, time tracker), two-day cap enforced
☐ Business bank account and the tax sweep account opened
☐ Outreach list drafted: sixty names, forty usable, each with their one specific sentence; outreach message and follow-ups drafted (do not send yet)
Checkpoint One (by Friday)
You can say your offer out loud in one breath, your three prices without checking a note, and you have a list of forty real names. If the offer keeps rewriting itself, the lane is still vague; fix the lane, not the sentence.
Week Two: Open the Channel
☐ First ten outreach messages sent
☐ Platform profiles live: one narrow lane, three portfolio pieces from corporate work, anonymized, real delivery dates
☐ A handful of focused proposals out, each diagnosing the buyer's problem in its first line
☐ Pilot machinery prepared: agreement template filled in, pilot scope format, success-signal sentence, onboarding checklist
☐ Discovery-call questions and close script practiced out loud, once, alone
Checkpoint Two
Ten messages out, at least two replies or platform responses. Silence across all ten means the message, not the market: reread it for specificity (is there one concrete sentence about their world in it) and send ten better ones.
Week Three: Convert
☐ Ten more messages plus follow-ups to week two, within the two-touch rhythm
☐ Every discovery call that materializes run: twenty minutes, diagnosis first, pilot offer to every workable buyer
☐ Two or three rooms your niche gathers in joined; answering questions in public
☐ First pilot landed at your floor rate: prepaid, written scope, named success signal (hold the floor; discounting the pilot tells the buyer the floor was decorative)
Checkpoint Three (the hard one)
At least two real discovery conversations. Zero conversations from twenty-plus messages means the niche or the message needs surgery, not more volume: wrong lane, wrong pain, or an offer that reads as a task list. Go back, choose the runner-up lane, rerun two weeks. Weeks are cheap; a misdirected quarter is not.
Week Four: Deliver and Compound
☐ Pilot (if landed) given the day-one working session, the daily two-line note, and the visible early win
☐ Second-wave outreach: ten more messages, follow-ups, first referral asks to anyone who engaged warmly even without buying
☐ If no pilot yet: diagnosis week. Replies but no calls: the ask is mushy. Calls but no pilots: the diagnosis or the offer needs sharpening. Pilots offered but declined: price, scope, or trust, in that order. Fix the specific link and continue
The Thirty-Day Scoreboard
☐ Lane chosen, offer written, floor rate computed, three prices set
☐ Business email, scheduler, password manager, invoicing, tracker, two accounts: live
☐ Forty names listed; twenty-plus outreach messages sent with follow-ups
☐ Platform profile narrowed to one lane; focused proposals out
☐ Two or more discovery calls run
☐ One paid pilot started, or a specific broken link diagnosed with a fix in motion
Runway check, in writing: count the months your savings carry at true burn, including insurance and tax realities. Time-to-revenue is weeks for a first check and months for a replace-my-salary practice; plan for both numbers at once.