Spend $1k to find your first customers
Fund a $1,000 Demand Budget with a target and a stop rule, let the Marketing Lead compose the Play mix, and read the result each week.
A Demand Budget puts your money behind demand Plays for a fixed window, with a target and a stop rule. You fund $1,000; the Marketing Lead composes the mix, and the stop rule closes it without asking.
Prerequisites
- A Live Startup with a published Offer and the Founder Role.
- The $0 Plays already running. They keep running under every budget.
- The CLI,
npx startup-builder.
The examples fund shiftnote.app, which sells shift scheduling to independent cafes for $19 a month.
Steps
To see what free demand already brings, read the marketing view:
npx startup-builder show "view:shiftnote.app? role= marketing" Week 2026Q4W4 · $0 budgetAnswer engines 41 visits 2 trialsDirectory listings 18 visits 1 trialShared social posts 63 visits 0 trialsFirst paid months 1To set a target you can afford, read what one Customer is worth:
npx startup-builder show '/metrics?where= name in (contribution-margin, ltv)' --fields 'name, value' With $17 of margin a month and 9 months of expected life,
shiftnote.appcan pay $50 for a first paid month. It earns that back within 3 months.To fund the budget, create it with the amount, the target, the stop rule and an end date:
npx startup-builder do DemandBudget.create --json '{"amount":{ "amount": 1000, "currency": "USD" },"tier": "$1k", "target": "cost per first paid month under $50", "stopRule": "cost per first paid month above $90 for two straight weeks", "until": "2026-12-20"}' The budget is recorded as an investment Decision. It overrides the day-one payback default for this window and target only.
To read the mix before any money moves, show the budget's Plays:
npx startup-builder show /demand-budgets/demand-budget_1 pending ad-spend window closes 2026-10-23 17:00Paid search $850 Google Search, 7 exact terms minimum $600Data $50 rank tracking, enrichmentCreative $100 2 landing Pages One paid Play fits above its minimum effective budget, so the mix holds one. To stop the launch, pause the Action before the window closes.
To follow the money, read the same view at each weekly close:
npx startup-builder show "view:shiftnote.app? role= marketing& w= 2026Q4W6" Demand Budget $1k · day 14 of 60Spent $412First paid months 6 at $69 target $50 stop line $90Office hours reads the same view. Between the target and the stop line, the Analyst cuts the weakest terms and the budget runs on.
To close early, change the stop rule, or renew, record a new Decision on the budget. A budget the stop rule closes keeps its Evidence, so the next one starts from what this one learned.
Result
The budget ends Closed at its date or Stopped by its rule, with every dollar traced to a Play and a Customer. The $0 Plays ran throughout.
The same steps run at every tier. Each tier adds Plays to the ones below it.
| Tier | Startup | Mix | Target | Stop rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | A Dataset API of liquor license filings for beverage distributors | 500 signal-led cold emails to sales managers at distributors that hired this month | 5 demos | Under 1 percent positive replies after 500 sends |
| $1k | shiftnote.app, above | Paid search on Google Search, data, two landing Pages | First paid month under $50 | Above $90 for two weeks |
| $10k | A SaaS for physical therapy clinics at $149 a month | Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn Ads, a Capterra placement, two webinars | First paid month under $300 | One placement above 1.5 times target for two weeks |
| $100k | A b2c language tutor agent at $15 a month | YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram at scale, brand-search defense, a 10 percent geo holdout | Incremental cost per subscriber under $40 | Lift against the holdout below 20 percent |
Next steps
- Demand budgets: minimum effective budgets, cost curves, and each tier in full.
- Demand plays: every Play with its tier and minimum budget.
- Office hours: the weekly read of the budget's numbers.