Masa Madre Business Plan

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The Lived Business Plan

Masa Madre, as it's actually being built

Most business plans are written to raise money, so they show only conclusions. This one shows what's actually been proven and what hasn't — each section built from a decision you can go back and read.

1 · The concept and what it is not

Captures what the bakery actually is, the flagship product it's built around, and what it deliberately isn't.

One dough family, a flagship worth three supermarket loaves, and a first month that sold out before the range was even complete.

Reached through The Rent Runs Anyway — all free to read.

2 · Who buys, and who does not

Captures who the fermented, sour-forward baking actually reaches — and who it doesn't, named as honestly as the first.

Empty because Masa Madre doesn't have real customers yet to say who they are. Nothing to say about who buys — or doesn't — until they do.

3 · The product and its constraints

Captures the process floors, the prior-day commitment, and the durability limits a real trading day runs into.

Four and a half hours written into the method, a little under four in a room that runs four degrees wide — and no machine anywhere between mixed dough and the shelf.

Reached through One Day a Week — all free to read.

4 · Location and catchment

Captures where the bakery sits, who actually walks past it, and whether footfall and catchment turn out to be the same thing.

Empty because choosing a street isn't yet evidence about a street. Nothing to say about location until real trade tests it.

5 · Unit economics

Captures the waste rate, the café's contribution, and what a five-day week costs and buys.

Empty because there's no trade yet to draw economics from. Nothing to say about the numbers until there's a real week to measure.

6 · The operating day

Captures the shelf deadline, the chain of work that runs backwards from it, and what that makes of a working week.

Thirteen hours a day in the building against nine of trading — and the two founders drawing less than the staff they employ.

Reached through The Rent Runs Anyway — all free to read.

7 · People, and how craft moves between them

Captures whether the business can exist without one person's hands, and how — or whether — the craft actually transfers.

One production day a week worked alone, a method followed exactly by a trained baker and bread that came out wrong anyway — and the only instrument the trade has runs in years.

Reached through One Day a Week — all free to read.

8 · Capital structure and who carries the risk

Captures the founders' capital, family money on informal terms, and — once it exists — whose signature stands behind the debt.

One informal family loan, no bank debt, and four-fifths of the founders' own money belongs to one of them — never discussed, never adjusted.

Reached through The Rent Runs Anyway — all free to read.

9 · Competition

Captures what's observable, from outside, about who else in the market already works.

Empty because there's nothing to observe yet from outside a market Masa Madre hasn't entered. Nothing to say about competition until it has.

10 · Replication — what travels and what doesn't

Captures what a second location's own case for itself claims — and, separately, what a second location actually turns out to prove.

Empty because there's only one location, so nothing has been asked to replicate yet. Nothing to say about what travels until something has tried to.

11 · What we would do differently

Captures the honest hindsight — the spoke not taken, the question never asked, the timing that ran late.

Empty because hindsight needs a first real stretch of road behind it. Nothing to say about what would be done differently until there's something to look back on.

That's the whole plan, as it stands today. Subscribe to see it fill in.