After Live
How a Live Startup holds, graduates, sells, goes dormant, resumes, or pivots, and what each move keeps for its Customers.
A Live Startup leaves Live through one of five Processes or a pivot, never through deletion. Each move is a Decision backed by Evidence, and each keeps every promise made to Customers.
Hold review picks the move
Hold review runs every quarter on every Live Startup. The Founder is accountable, the Strategist and Finance Lead prepare it, and every other Team lead is consulted. It reads three numbers: Default alive, Weeks flat, and Outside revenue.
| The record shows | The move | Process |
|---|---|---|
| Growth above the weekly line and margins that hold | Keep investing | none: the Startup stays Live |
| Default alive, growth flat | Hold | Hold review records it |
| Outside revenue that supports a Company of its own, a cofounder, or a raise | Graduate | Graduate |
| A signed offer from a buyer | Sell | Sell |
| Neither growing nor default alive | Go dormant | Go dormant |
| Evidence that breaks the founding Hypothesis | Pivot | pivot |
Every move is a proposal first. A one-way move waits its delay window, and any watcher can stop it before it runs.
Hold keeps the option open
Hold keeps a Startup operating with no new investment. Customers keep their service, Agents keep answering, and the books keep closing. The Startup's own revenue funds it.
The Decision records the reason and a review date. On that date, hold review reads the numbers again. A held Startup can return to growth, graduate, sell, or go dormant.
Graduate moves it to its own Company
Graduate moves a Startup from the Studio's holding Company to a Company of its own. It forms the entity, assigns each Agreement, moves the Domain, payment accounts and records, and moves its Audience off the Studio's shared accounts. Customers keep the same address, Offers and terms throughout.
The Legal Lead, Finance Lead and Marketing Lead do the work; officers sign, because the move transfers equity. A capability the Studio supplied keeps serving the new Company under its own Agreement. The Studio keeps its seed stake in the graduate.
Sell transfers it whole
Sell opens with diligence. The buyer reads the Startup through a scoped read grant, so every answer comes from records, never from a narrative.
The purchase Agreement names everything that moves: Brand, Domains, Customers, Products, Agreements, financial history, and a list of every dependency. Officers sign it. Then one transfer moves it all, and every Customer keeps its terms.
Dormant winds down, and resume brings it back
Go dormant winds a Startup down in a fixed order:
- Stop taking new Orders.
- Deliver or refund every accepted Order.
- Serve each Subscription to its term end, or refund the rest pro rata.
- Send every Customer an export of their records.
- Stop every scheduled Workflow.
The Site, the Domain and every record stay. A dormant Startup costs no more than its Domain and storage.
Resume reverses it. It re-runs the Live entry checks, reopens Offers, and restarts the Workflows, usually after a new Hypothesis Version gives the Startup a sharper Customer.
A pivot returns it to Building
A pivot changes the founding Hypothesis at the root: its Customer, its Problem, or its approach. The Founder records it as a Decision that cites the Evidence, and the Startup moves from Live back to Building.
The pivot bumps the Hypothesis Version, and the diff between the two Versions is the pivot. Site copy, Offers, Prices and Plays recompile from the new Version. Existing Customers keep their service until each Offer they hold ends on its own terms.
A Startup never ends; a Company can
No move deletes a Startup. Hold, dormant and resume keep it where it is, and graduate and sell change only who holds it.
A Company ends differently. Company dissolution winds up a Company that no longer holds a business, after its Live Startups move to another Company.
It then files final returns and its certificate, and every record stays.
Next
- Scale, hold, and transfer: what each move looks like from the Lifecycle.
- Pivots: what counts as a pivot and when to review one.
- Holding tree: which Company holds each Startup.