This is the framework that turns the engagement into a delivery system. Four parallel workstreams. Four stage gates. One weekly operating rhythm. Every deliverable named. Every accountability owned. Every risk listed before it bites. No surprises, no theatre, no expanding-scope drift — a working PMO from day one, built to the same discipline applied to ASX-listed transformation programs, scaled to the rhythm of a founder-led fintech.
Every dollar of CoSai fee and every Genspark credit lands in one of these four streams. Each has a single accountable owner, a defined CoSai PMO role, named deliverables, and an exit criterion that decides whether we’ve actually finished it — not whether we’ve just talked about it.
Harden the commission ERP from prototype to production. Stripe Connect live, D1 schema frozen, chain-of-custody anchored, idempotent settlement proven, observability in place.
100 test payouts settle successfully under simulated load (10x peak). Zero double-charges in chaos test (1000 duplicate webhooks). Disaster recovery tested.
Validate willingness-to-pay with paying members in a controlled cohort. Prove the funnel converts at the assumed rates before we ask an investor for capital.
30 paying members, 100 real referrals in chain, $10K real commissions settled, NPS ≥ +30. Funnel CAC measured and within assumption range.
Lock down every regulatory question before an investor or AUSTRAC asks it. Standard checklist of an ASX-listed-grade compliance posture, applied to a privately-held members’ platform.
External counsel sign-off on member contract stack. PI/Cyber/PL insurance bound. AUSTRAC self-assessment complete with low-risk determination on file.
Produce a pitch deck and data room that a serious early-stage investor would expect from a fintech with $1M ARR ambition. Make the ask defensible on numbers, not vibes.
Pitch deck reviewed by 2 independent fintech operators. Data room walkable in 20 minutes. KPI dashboard live with real numbers, not mocks. Founder ready to take warm intros.
No ambiguity. For every recurring activity, exactly one person is Accountable (A). The activities a Founder owns are founder activities; the activities a PMO owns are PMO activities; the two columns don’t blur.
| Activity | Mathew (Founder) | Carla / CoSai (PMO) | Partners* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Product roadmap & technical direction | A/R | C | I |
| Sprint planning, ceremonies, ceremonies | C | A/R | I |
| Founding-member acquisition (funnel & pitch) | R | A | C |
| Member vetting & onboarding | C | A/R | I |
| Commercial terms (Rate Card, fees, pricing) | A | R | I |
| Compliance posture (Privacy, AML/CTF, ATO) | I | A/R | I |
| External counsel engagement & contract review | A | R | I |
| Insurance procurement | A | R | I |
| Investor pitch deck & narrative | A | R | C |
| Data room curation | C | A/R | I |
| Stripe Connect production setup & KYC | A/R | C | I |
| D1 schema & migration discipline | A/R | I | I |
| Chain-of-custody / notary anchoring | A/R | C | I |
| KPI dashboard build (admin + investor view) | R | A | I |
| Stage-gate review chair & sign-off | A | R | C |
A stage gate is not a status check. It’s a pass/fail decision — the engagement either advances or it doesn’t. Gates exist to make "we’re behind" visible early, not after the money’s spent. If a gate fails, we don’t push through with theatre — we stop, fix, and re-gate.
Engagement formally kicked off. Workstreams stood up. Risk register live. Governance cadence running.
If any of the above isn’t in place, gate fails — we don’t spend the next two weeks pretending to be a project.
Schema frozen. Stripe Connect live in production. Compliance posture documented. Member contracts at external counsel.
Schema not frozen → every dollar built after this gate sits on shifting ground. Hard stop. Founder + Carla unblock the schema issue before any further build.
100 real referrals in the chain. 20 founding members live. Funnel CAC measured. Compliance posture externally signed off.
If real referrals aren’t flowing by gate 3, the product-market-fit hypothesis fails. We pivot or stop — we don’t escalate spend.
30 paying members. $10K real commissions settled. Pitch deck reviewed by 2 fintech operators. Data room walkable. Investor KPI dashboard live.
Gate 4 is the off-ramp to the investor conversation. If gate 4 doesn’t pass cleanly, we don’t take warm intros — we extend, fix, and re-gate. Reputation in the investor market is non-recoverable.
The rhythm. Light enough to not be a tax. Heavy enough that nothing falls through. Every meeting on this list has a defined output — a decision, a re-baseline, a sign-off. Meetings without output get removed.
| Frequency | When | Meeting | Attendees | Purpose & output |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily | Async | Stand-up note | M + C | Two lines each: what I did yesterday, what I’m doing today, anything I’m blocked on. Posted in the shared channel by 09:30. |
| Weekly | Tue 11:00 (30m) | Working session | M + C | Live work session on the week’s highest-leverage item. Not a status meeting — a doing meeting. |
| Weekly | Fri 14:00 (60m) | Steerco | M + C | Workstream traffic-lights, RAID review, gate progress, the one decision needed before next week. Minuted into the ERP. |
| Fortnightly | Wed 10:00 (45m) | Stage-gate review | M + C + advisors invited at gates 3, 4 | Formal sign-off or fail of the gate. Either we’re past the gate, or we know exactly what’s blocking and who owns the unblock. |
| Monthly | Last Fri (90m) | Benefits review | M + C | Re-baseline the benefits register against actuals. Decide whether we’re still on the assumption curve. If not — what changes? |
| On demand | As required | Founder-only working session | M | Mathew owns the product. CoSai gets out of the way when deep founder work needs uninterrupted time. |
One row per phase. Each column is a workstream. Read across to see what’s landing in parallel. Read down to see what each workstream looks like over time. This is the wall chart on the back of CoSai’s door for 90 days.
| Weeks | Phase | WS1 Platform | WS2 Members | WS3 Compliance | WS4 Investor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1-2 | Foundation | Stripe Connect test mode live | Founding-member target list (100 names) | External counsel engaged, Privacy register started | Pitch-deck outline + KPI dashboard scope |
| Wk 3-5 | Platform Lockdown | Schema freeze, Stripe live, first payouts | First 5 founding members signed | AML self-assessment, member terms drafted | Pitch deck v0, data room skeleton |
| Wk 6-9 | Real Transactions | Idempotency hardening, observability | 20 members live, 100 referrals in chain | External counsel review complete, insurance bound | KPI dashboard live, scenarios stress-tested |
| Wk 10-13 | Investor-Ready | Performance / security / DR proven | 30 members, $10K settled, NPS measured | Compliance evidence pack assembled | Pitch deck reviewed, reference list, founder ready |
Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies — named before kick-off, not discovered at gate 3. Severity is honest: a Critical assumption is one that, if it breaks, the engagement re-baselines or stops. Mitigations are concrete, not aspirational. The log is live in the ERP from day 1 and updated weekly at Steerco.
| Type | Title | Severity | Owner | Mitigation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Risk | Founding-member acquisition slower than assumed | High | CoSai | Three-community parallel approach (SC, BNE, GC). Pre-launch waitlist target 200 names. Founder-rate price anchor for first 30. |
| Risk | Stripe Connect KYC delays for some members (rural, no ID) | Medium | Mathew | Pre-screen ABN + Medicare in onboarding form. Stripe Identity as fallback. Manual escalation channel agreed with Stripe AU. |
| Risk | D1 schema needs late-stage breaking migration | Medium | Mathew | Gate 2 schema freeze with explicit sign-off. Any change after gate 2 requires Steerco approval and migration runbook. |
| Risk | Regulator (AUSTRAC) reclassifies platform as DCE / reporting entity | Low | CoSai | Designated business self-assessment in workstream 3. External counsel confirms low-risk. No fiat-to-crypto rail, no custody of member funds beyond settlement window. |
| Assumption | Members will pay $1,200 annual fee in founding cohort | Critical | Both | Validated by gate 3 (first 20 paying members) or hypothesis fails. |
| Assumption | Stripe Connect AU supports application_fee_amount on AUD | Critical | Mathew | Confirmed in Stripe docs and verified in test mode pre-engagement. Re-confirmed in gate 2 with live test payouts. |
| Assumption | Member NPS at week 4 ≥ +30 | High | CoSai | NPS survey instrumented at week 4 and week 12. Below +30 triggers funnel-and-product review. |
| Issue | Two compliance frameworks (Privacy + AML) to stand up in parallel | Medium | CoSai | External counsel briefed for parallel review, not sequential. Compress 6-week serial path to 3-week parallel path. |
| Dependency | External counsel engagement letter signed by week 1 | High | CoSai | Counsel shortlist in CoSai network. Engagement letter pre-drafted before kick-off. |
| Dependency | Mathew available for 12 hrs/week minimum | High | Mathew | Calendar block agreed at gate 1. If actual <8 hrs/week sustained, engagement re-baselines. |
The "so what". For each benefit, the target outcome and the measurable that proves it. We re-baseline this register every month at the Benefits Review meeting. If the actuals diverge from the target, we don’t spin — we decide what changes.
| Benefit | Target outcome | Measurable proof |
|---|---|---|
| Production-grade ERP in 90 days | Live, settling real commissions, no hand-coded patches | ≥ 100 real referrals in chain, ≥ $10K settled |
| Compliance posture defensible to a regulator | External counsel sign-off, AUSTRAC low-risk on file | All four documents signed off by gate 3 |
| Paying founding cohort | 30 paying members across 3 communities | ARR run-rate ≥ $36K by gate 4 |
| Investor-ready raise package | Deck + data room + KPI dashboard | Reviewed by 2 fintech operators, walked in <20 minutes |
| Founder freed to do founder work | Compliance + investor admin off founder’s plate | Founder hours on non-product work ≤ 20% by gate 3 |
| Membership stack at full IP ownership | 100% IP assigned to Flip 360 on full fee payment | IP assignment deed executed at gate 4 |
If a workstream needs adjusting, a gate criterion needs tightening, or a risk you see isn’t listed — say so. The blueprint is the working document for the 90 days, not a deliverable to be signed off and shelved.
