Twenty-four printable tools

Tool 07 · Protection & Emergency Readiness Sheet

Use this to keep a shock from becoming confusion. It maps people, cash, cover, documents, access, and the first safe actions.

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Purpose and when to use

Complete quarterly and after a change in dependants, health, work, debt, housing, travel, or ownership. The sheet is an index and response plan, not a store of passwords or a recommendation to buy a product. Share the relevant location and instructions with a trusted person who has agreed to the role.

People and immediate continuity

Essential obligations and available resources

Policy and protection inventory—record, do not assume

Documents, access, and single points of failure

First-hour emergency card

1. Protect life and stop immediate harm: ______________________________________ 2. Call the appropriate emergency service / trusted contact: ___________________ 3. Do not sign, pay, publish, or admit liability under pressure unless necessary and authorized. 4. Preserve records and note time, facts, people, and actions: __________________ 5. Professional or authority to contact next: __________________________________

Formulas and cautions

• • Essential-expense runway = accessible unrestricted cash ÷ representative monthly essential obligations.
• • Illustrative dependency gap = support obligations and transition needs − accessible assets allocated to the need − valid, collectible cover. Every term needs professional validation.

Coverage is not the headline sum alone: definitions, exclusions, waiting periods, deductibles, disclosures, renewal, claim procedure, and insurer status matter. Nominations, beneficiary designations, ownership, and succession do not have interchangeable legal effects. Never place passwords, recovery codes, identity scans, or medical details in an unsecured printed copy.

Decision output and cadence

Choose one of: ready; ready with named gap; not ready—urgent action; professional verification pending. Fix the most consequential single point of failure first. Review quarterly, test document access annually, and update immediately after any life, policy, ownership, address, or contact change. Shared footer

Professional review flag: Required for insurance suitability and policy interpretation, succession and estate documents, tax effects, medical planning, and business authority. Use current insurer documents and the current official regulator or government source; record the lawyer, CA, qualified insurance professional, clinician, or other reviewer as applicable.

· ASC pp. 116–118 · ASC p. 138 · MM pp. 36–45. Emergency decision and risk-readiness mechanics retained; product-specific prescriptions and cover amounts omitted.

Tool 08 · Investment Policy & Capital-Allocation Memo

capitUse this before buying, selling, concentrating, changing long-horizon al, or committing operating-company surplus. Policy is written in calm conditions so excitement cannot rewrite it.

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Purpose and when to use

Use personal mode annually and before any material new product, concentrated position, illiquid commitment, or change in asset allocation. Use business mode before a material reinvestment, debt reduction, distribution, acquisition, or capacity commitment. Personal mode separates objective, time horizon, liquidity, risk capacity, risk willingness, constraints, and decision rules. Business mode begins only after cash, obligations, and statement figures have been reconciled through Tools 14 and 15. This memo is not a recommendation and contains no universal allocation or return assumption.

Policy foundation

Capital-allocation queue

Define your sequence. Do not advance an item merely because a product is available.

Business capital-allocation mode

Complete this section for operating-company cash. Do not call cash “available” until purpose-bound balances, due obligations, maintenance, downside liquidity, contracts, solvency constraints, and professional review have been addressed.

Forecast incremental ROIC = forecast incremental NOPAT ÷ incremental invested capital. State the normalised tax assumption, include added working capital, test a downside case, and compare the result with the capital’s risk and reversibility—not with a universal hurdle. A control or resilience spend may be mandatory even when a clean financial return cannot be isolated.

One-investment decision memo

Formulas and cautions

• number of periods • Future value = present value × (1 + periodic return) . This is scenario arithmetic, not a promised outcome.
• • Real return = (1 + nominal return) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1.
• • Portfolio weight = current position value ÷ current portfolio value.

• • A conventional fixed-coupon bond’s value is the present value of each coupon plus the present value of principal, discounted at a rate consistent with timing and risk. Do not use a one-line inverse-rate shortcut.

Expected returns, inflation, correlation, default, liquidity, and tax treatment are assumptions unless sourced and dated. Past performance does not establish the future. “Guaranteed,” “safe,” and “tax- free” require exact scope and current legal documents. Risk capacity and emotional willingness are different; use the more constraining condition until reviewed.

Decision output and cadence

In personal mode, choose permitted within policy; reduce size; gather evidence; obtain advice; rebalance; or decline. In business mode, choose fund obligation; maintain; hold liquidity; pilot; release next tranche; reduce a claim; distribute lawfully; or decline. Record the reason before acting. Review personal policy annually and allocation quarterly at most unless your written trigger occurs. Review a business allocation at its pre-written evidence gate and each product immediately when its terms, regulation, objective, or circumstances change.

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Professional review flag: Personalized recommendations, asset allocation, product suitability, and securities decisions should be reviewed by an appropriately registered investment adviser; tax and accounting by a CA; corporate approvals and records by a practising CS; contracts, distributions, solvency duties, ownership, and succession by a lawyer as applicable. Use current SEBI, RBI, IRDAI, MCA, issuer, exchange, and tax documents on the action date.

· ASC p. 136 · EF pp. 75–82, 100–109 · FS pp. 20–27, 52–55 · TABLE pp. 26–29, 48–50 · RM pp. 168–170 · MM pp. 106–117. Personal-policy, business-allocation, and compounding mechanisms paraphrased; corpus return and allocation prescriptions are excluded.

Tool 09 · Macro & Economic Exposure Map

Use this to trace how external change reaches your prices, demand, costs, debt, and cash. Observe the weather; do not pretend to command it.

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Purpose and when to use

Complete quarterly and before a pricing, currency, debt, sourcing, hiring, or capital decision that is exposed to the economy. The tool does not ask you to predict GDP or markets. It asks which variable reaches your decision, through what channel, after what lag, and what reversible response is available.

Current official-data log

Copy the exact release, table, observation date, retrieval date, unit, and revision status—not a media summary. Old releases remain historical evidence, not current inputs.

Exposure and transmission map

Examples of a transmission chain are prompts, not conclusions: rate change → customer financing cost → approval delay → collections; exchange-rate move → imported input → contribution margin → price decision. Write the actual chain and one observation that could disprove it.

Three operating scenarios

Exposure with no practical response—and why it is accepted:

Formulas and cautions

• • Real change = (1 + nominal change) ÷ (1 + relevant inflation) − 1.
• • FX cost in rupees = foreign-currency amount × rupees per unit of that currency, plus fees and hedging costs.
• • For a discrete price test, midpoint elasticity = [(Q₂ − Q₁) ÷ ((Q₁ + Q₂) / 2)] ÷ [(P₂ − P₁) ÷ ((P₁ + P₂) / 2)].

Do not use the simple starting-value percentage shortcut for a large price change; it gives a direction- dependent answer. Correlation does not prove the transmission chain. National averages may not describe a Bengaluru niche, and revised data may change the past. Keep a factor only if it changes a decision; otherwise this becomes decorative macro commentary.

Decision output and cadence

Choose no action; change price or terms; shorten commitment; build buffer; diversify supplier, customer, or currency; obtain a lawful hedge; or run a small test. Name the trigger rather than acting on every headline. Review quarterly and immediately after a material official release, contract exposure, or policy change relevant to the chosen trigger.

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Professional review flag: Current official data is mandatory. Use the relevant authority—such as RBI for monetary and regulated-finance information—and record the exact release. Treasury, derivatives, foreign-exchange, tax, and policy responses require the appropriate CA, lawyer, authorized dealer, or regulated adviser.

· EF pp. 9–19 · EF pp. 111–113 · RM pp. 112–124. Opportunity cost, midpoint elasticity, causal-chain, and operating-exposure mechanics paraphrased.

Tool 10 · Business Engine & Moat One-Pager

Use this to define how the business creates, delivers, and captures value— and whether any claimed advantage survives a copy test.

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Purpose and when to use

Complete before building a large product, entering a segment, changing the model, or calling a growth advantage a moat. This page states the business in a form that customers, operators, and capital providers can challenge. Customer discovery belongs in Tool 11; experiment design in Tool 12; detailed economics in Tool 13.

The engine in one sentence

For __________________ [specific customer], when __________________ [trigger], we deliver __________________ [measurable result] through __________________ [mechanism]. We are paid __________________ [who, amount basis, and timing], while the principal delivery and acquisition costs are __________________.

Customer truth and business definition

Engine stages

Distribution ownership

Moat, copy, and cannibalization test

What would we launch to replace our own offer before someone else does?

Formulas and cautions

Value-capture bridge = collected revenue − refunds and discounts − direct cost to deliver − acquisition cost attributable to the unit. Tool 13 supplies the definitions and cohort calculation.

Engine yield at a stage = units completing the stage ÷ eligible units entering it for the same cohort and period.

A feature is not a moat. First-mover status, a large market, founder passion, and rented-platform reach are not defensibility without a mechanism that compounds or raises a lawful switching barrier. A moat can also trap the company if technology or customer behavior changes. Record disconfirming evidence.

Decision output and cadence

Choose pursue this model; narrow the customer; change revenue or delivery; test the bottleneck; build an owned asset; design the cannibalizing offer; or stop. Review quarterly and whenever acquisition, retention, unit economics, platform access, regulation, or customer workflow changes materially.

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Professional review flag: Usually an operating decision. Obtain legal, privacy, intellectual-property, competition, sector, or contract review before claiming exclusive rights, using customer data, restricting switching, or depending on regulated access.

· TABLE pp. 14–18 · TABLE pp. 36–50 · EF pp. 84–91. Customer-truth, business-definition, distribution, copy, cannibalization, moat, and growth-gate mechanics consolidated.

Tool 11 · Customer & Sales Discovery Record

Use one record per conversation. Reconstruct the last real event; do not lead the witness toward the product you hope to sell.

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Purpose and when to use

Use during problem research, early sales discovery, renewal diagnosis, or a lost-deal review. Obtain permission for recording and artifacts. A discovery record captures behavior, workflow, consequence, current response, and buying process. It does not qualify the commercial opportunity; use Tool 16 after the problem has been understood.

Conversation context

Reconstruct the last real event

What triggered the event? When did it last happen?

Steps, people, systems, hand-offs, waiting, and workaround:

Where did it fail, slow, create rework, or raise risk?

Consequence and existing response

Buying and adoption map

Close the conversation

Summary in the customer’s language—without changing meaning:

Concrete next commitment: artifact, introduction, second meeting, observation, or paid test:

Follow-up promised / owner / due date:

Batch evidence, formula, and cautions

After a predeclared batch, synthesize without erasing exceptions.

Observed-behavior frequency = interviews containing a comparable observed event ÷ eligible interviews in the batch. It is a sample description, not a population estimate unless the research design supports that claim. Do not convert politeness, stated interest, or hypothetical willingness into demand. Separate verbatim notes from interpretation. Do not ask for confidential or personal information you do not need. One dramatic interview is neither proof nor noise; record why it is or is not comparable.

Decision output and cadence

Choose problem supported; problem not supported; segment should narrow or split; key question remains; or move to a bounded offer test. Complete after every conversation and synthesize after each predeclared batch. Reopen discovery when win, adoption, renewal, or loss evidence contradicts the original story.

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Professional review flag: Usually not required for ordinary research. Obtain consent and appropriate legal, privacy, sector, or ethics review for recordings, personal or sensitive data, protected populations, confidential artifacts, regulated claims, or research that can create harm.

· TABLE p. 14 · SALES pp. 20–21 · SALES pp. 9–13. Customer-truth, discovery-question, workflow, and buying-role mechanics merged; scripts remain reference material rather than a separate tool.

Tool 12 · Offer & Pricing Experiment Card

Use one card per risky offer or pricing assumption. Spend the smallest amount that can produce decision-quality behavior.

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Purpose and when to use

Complete before a pilot, packaging change, discount, new price, or large build intended to test willingness to pay. The card fixes the hypothesis, exposure limit, evidence, and decision rule before the result becomes emotionally interesting. Use actual commitments where lawful and ethical; stated enthusiasm is weak evidence.

Offer under test

Offer sentence:

We help __________________ achieve __________________ by __________________. This test covers __________________ for __________________, measured by __________________, at a total customer price of __________________ under the stated terms.

Experimental contract

Price test record

Change one material condition at a time where possible. Record who saw which offer and why the comparison is fair.

Formulas and cautions

• • Contribution per unit = collected unit revenue − refunds, discounts, and truly variable delivery cost.
• • Incremental break-even units = incremental fixed experiment cost ÷ contribution per additional unit. If contribution is zero or negative, break-even is undefined.
• • Midpoint price elasticity = [(Q₂ − Q₁) ÷ ((Q₁ + Q₂) / 2)] ÷ [(P₂ − P₁) ÷ ((P₁ + P₂) / 2)].

Elasticity is interpretable only when the observations are sufficiently comparable and other material changes are disclosed. A small sample can guide the next test but rarely supports certainty. Never fabricate scarcity, hide material terms, discriminate unlawfully, or expose a customer to undisclosed loss. A deposit or signed pilot is stronger evidence than an opinion only when cancellation and refund terms are honest.

Result, decision output, and cadence

Facts observed:

Interpretation, uncertainty, and alternative explanation:

Choose continue unchanged; modify one named variable; run one missing test; stop; or escalate for review. Close the card on its decision date. Run a new card for a changed assumption; never overwrite the original result. Review accumulated pricing evidence quarterly.

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Professional review flag: Review customer terms, claims, refunds, privacy, competition, sector restrictions, taxes, invoicing, and material risk with the appropriate lawyer and CA. Verify current GST, consumer, e-commerce, sector, and data requirements at official sources before launch.

· TABLE pp. 30–33 · SALES pp. 12–13 · EF pp. 17–19 · EF pp. 26–27. Offer, price-test, qualification, midpoint-elasticity, and break-even mechanics consolidated; numeric thresholds are user-defined.