BALLS SOLD
The Model
1The answer
REVENUE
OPERATING INCOME
CASH AT YEAR END
EACH MARKETING DOLLAR BACK
Launch-stage brands live between and back per marketing dollar; the band’s floor is where funded brands stop being fundable.32
2The levers
Everything that can be changed, in one place. The plan’s own settings return with RESET TO PLAN.
BUDGET
$50,000$250,000
| Line | Stage | Share | Spend | What it buys | Buyers |
|---|
| Rate | Set to | What it counts | Year one |
|---|
| Line | Set to | What it counts | Field ball, all in |
|---|
The mix of five prices
The blend the income statement uses; move a share and every revenue figure follows.
3The machine
COST PER BALL
EARNED BACK
FOLLOWERS AT YEAR END from today
How it is spent
The following is what we keep. The account grows from to about followers, each reached again for free.40
Ad money follows proof. A post gets ad dollars only once its sales return for every $1 it cost: the price over the left after the ball is paid for.
4The financials
Figures are rounded to be spoken; columns may not foot to the dollar. The exact view foots exactly.
| Downside | Base | Upside |
|---|
The average price runs higher in the downside because the Makers and Heritage releases are made in fixed numbers, so they weigh more when fewer everyday balls sell.
In the downside, years two and three spend only what cash allows: marketing is cut to hold at least of cash, with a floor for the ads and content that keep the company visible. In year three even the floor dips below the cash line, and the case ends the third year at without drawing the second .
| Downside | Base | Upside |
|---|
Balls sold are not typed in. They come from the funnel and the split above: the budget buys impressions, the impressions bring visitors, the visitors buy. Change the budget or its split there, and the mix here on Average revenue per ball. Everything on this page follows.
* Revenue per ball is a blend of five prices, direct, Heritage, Makers, at a tournament, wholesale, and moves with the mix. A ball costs all in: $25 made in Monguí, $6 freight to Austin by air, $5 box, $10 shipping, and of tariff, carried as if the ball is caught by the 2026 surcharge on Colombian goods. Once there is enough stock to ship by sea, freight falls by $3 to $4 a ball. Founder salary is excluded. Year one runs November 2026 to October 2027.
Sources and uses
| Downside | Base | Upside |
|---|
| Balls | Revenue | Cash | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Downside | Base | Upside | Downside | Base | Upside | Downside | Base | Upside |
Growth: how fast momentum builds
The three cases start from the same demand in November and differ in how fast the marketing compounds. What is assessed at the end of year one is the slope, not the sum.48
| Case | Nov to Jan | Feb to Apr | May to Jul | Aug to Oct | Year | Revenue | Why |
|---|
5What has to be true
Most plans forecast forward and hope. This page starts from what success requires and works back to what we have to prove.
The target
The first horizon is won when Hayworth pays for its workshop and its marketing from what it sells. At the plan’s own mix of prices and costs, tariff included, that takes about balls a year, a month. Year one’s case sells .
The target leaves out founder salary, which this plan does not pay. The tariff is inside the ball’s cost.
Every rate the model rests on is graded by how we know it: MEASURED from our own sales, BENCHMARKED against published data, or ASSUMED until a reading replaces it. Most are measured or benchmarked. Three are assumptions, and the plan says so: how often an owner brings someone into the game, what the doors sell through, and what the larger voices will cost until quotes replace the rate cards. Each has a month on the calendar below when it stops being an assumption.
Two conservatisms are taken without credit: the purchase rate is an annual average although the spend is weighted into the gift season, when stores convert above their average; and the funnel prices every buyer as a stranger although a following converts warmer than that.
The assumptions, ranked
Every rate above, graded by how we know it and ranked by how many balls year one loses if it comes in 20 percent worse. Change any control and the ranking follows.
Benchmarked. Visitors arriving from social media buy at about 0.91 percent; ad traffic runs 0.5 to 1.5.41 Benchmarked. Reminder ads are the most documented tactic in online selling: about 26 percent of online buyers return through one, and reminded visitors buy at more than twice the rate of strangers. Our rate counts everyone who visited, not only those who clicked.42 Benchmarked. The 2026 e-commerce median, and it has risen about 20 percent a year, so the plan carries $18 in year two and $21 in year three.43 Assumed. From 2026 rate cards, until quotes replace it. Benchmarked. Small creators, under 10,000 followers, post about a gifted product at 40 to 70 percent when it genuinely fits them. The seeding list is built only from them, with a personal note in every box.44 Measured, then discounted. Our own followers visit at 1.45 percent; strangers are set at about half that. Measured. 6 of our first 60 owners bought twice within six months. Durable goods across online retail run 7 to 18 percent a year, and our first owners are our most devoted; the plan does not assume colder buyers do better.45 Assumed. The least grounded rate in the plan. The handmade research says a hand-stitched ball is chosen as a gift for someone close; no one has measured how often, so this is the first assumption the readings must replace. Measured, then discounted. Today about followers produce balls a year on no budget, about balls per 100 followers; new followers are counted at half that. Assumed. Power Sales reordered 24 balls in one order; the plan assumes less than one ball a door a month, read from reorders. Assumed. Moves with what sells. Measured, plus the tariff. The making, freight, box and shipping are measured; the tariff is carried as if the ball is caught, with a broker check pending.| What we assume | In the plan | How we know | Balls at risk | First reading |
|---|
The calendar
What we will know, and what we aim to have done, month by month.
| Nov 2026 | The Ellis releases. The first seeded balls ship. Ad and larger-voice costs are read from real invoices. Goal: 12 stores stocking for the gift season by mid-November. |
| Dec 2026 | The Heritage Series launches. The first creator posts land: how many post, and how many of their viewers visit. The gift season shows the first-visit purchase rate. |
| Jan 2027 | The first reading on reminders. |
| Feb 2027 | The second Makers release. The Heritage ball has sold for two months, so the price mix reads. Goal: a creator post that has paid for itself. |
| Apr 2027 | The first quarter is reviewed and the split moves to the lines that sold. Repeat and gifting get their first read, the least grounded rates in the plan. |
| Aug 2027 | The third Makers release. Repeat and gifting read over a full half-year. |
| Oct 2027 | Year one closes. Goals: 25 stores, 10 of them reordering, and about followers. The is assessed against the three cases and the real numbers. |
| Year two | Goal: the workshop and administration paid from sales. |
Each reading replaces an assumption with a number, and the model is rebuilt with it.
Austin, Texas · 2026