Book I · Studio Ordo — Founding Thesis
17. Unit Economics
| Metric | Target / Design Assumption |
|---|---|
| Infrastructure cost per customer | Approximately $5/month |
| Estimated average AI production credit revenue | $25–35/month |
| Target gross margin | Approximately 60–70% |
| Staffing model | Founder-led and automation-heavy in the early stage |
| Customer acquisition | Founder-led distribution, referrals, affiliates, open-source adoption, and niche communities |
| Monthly pre-revenue burn | Approximately $200 in personal API and development infrastructure costs |
| Break-even target | Approximately 15–20 managed hosting customers |
The architecture is designed so that even early managed customers can contribute positive gross margin.
The system avoids the usual SaaS requirement of large scale before basic unit economics begin to work.
These are not promises.
They are design targets.
The business depends on proving them with real users.