Seed Eco-Home 4 Training and Management

Scaling from Solo Operator to Team

• 4 full time people, 750 total build time. Per person 170 hours per month = 680 hours + Management Hours. Do final hours tally to get a realistic estimate, build in 50% overtime.
• $16k/month labor budget at $4k/month. Top 25% make $48k. [1]
• Sale cycle - land acquisition 1 month, build 1 month, sale 1 month, closing 30-45 days [2]. 22 days for new houses to be sold. [3]
• 3 month cycle means rolling basis of 1 house build per month, and net minimum of $50k after labor. This allows for up to 3 months to complete one house.
• If revenue is $175k expected - conservative estimate - then we have money for 1 house at $100k, slight shortage for 2 houses. If 4 month cycle from start, we need to start with materials and labor for 4 houses. Simple math is 4 as the magic number - the time it takes for a house sale. Thus, this enterprise costs $400k for startup.
• With 8 people, say we do 2 houses per month - need $800k startup cash. The $400k is more manageable.
• If we get paid immediately upon completion, then we have no cash flow issues.
• 24 people and 6 houses per month mean $2.4M startup baseline. No easy way out of capitalization. Free materials would go a long way, which can come from a forestry, CEB, and steel operation on 1000 acres. Solar concrete, PV, lumber, and plastic. With $4M capitalization including R&D and $2M capitalization with open source equipment. And $1M with club membership (access to equipment pool) and $50k for education + hire.