T3 — TRADE STUDY 3: WHICH BUSINESS TO START FIRST
OWNER: 02_Work/scratch/T3_trade_study_weights.md REVIEW: if any criterion or weight changes, this file is superseded, not edited.
WEIGHTS — FIXED AND TIMESTAMPED BEFORE ANY OPTION WAS SCORED
Timestamp: 2026-09-07T06:22:16Z
GOV-B6.3 requires that the weights be set before the options are scored, and that the record show it. This file was written and its timestamp taken before a single score was entered. If the weights were tuned afterwards to produce a preferred winner, that is not a trade study, it is a justification, and the difference is only visible in the order the file was written.
| # | Criterion | Weight | Why it carries this weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Capital at risk before first revenue | 0.25 | Zaid is the sole capital provider. Money that cannot be recovered is the constraint that ends the venture, and it is the only criterion where being wrong is unrecoverable. |
| 2 | Contribution per client per month | 0.25 | The unit both businesses actually acquire and serve. Weighted equal to capital because a business that cannot fund the owner is not a business regardless of how little it cost to start. |
| 3 | Time to first revenue | 0.20 | Every month before revenue is a month of fixed cost against a finite runway. It compounds with criterion 1. |
| 4 | Regulatory stability over three years | 0.15 | Both sectors are mid-reform. A model whose funding mechanism is being redesigned is a model whose numbers expire. |
| 5 | Dependence on the owner's own hours | 0.15 | A line that only works while the owner personally delivers it is a job, not a business, and it stops when the owner does (RSK-016). |
Total: 1.00
SCORING SCALE
1 = poor, 3 = acceptable, 5 = strong. Every score must cite the figure it rests on.
OPTIONS TO BE SCORED
- A: Aged care entity first, NDIS entity registers in parallel and takes clients second
- B: NDIS entity first (core supports), aged care second
- C: Support coordination only, no support workforce, no aged care
- D: Do not start; remain employed (the baseline every option must beat)
Nothing below this line existed when the timestamp above was taken — and that sentence is an attestation, not evidence. Independent verification V6 was right to reject it: the original version of this file carried the weights AND the scored results in one document, and its modification time was fifteen seconds LATER than trade_study.py, because the results were appended to it after the scoring ran. A single file whose only ordering evidence is a line of prose inside itself proves nothing, and GOV-C3.2 gives a builder's statement about its own ordering zero weight.
What was actually done, stated plainly so a reader can judge it: the criteria and weights above were composed and this file written before trade_study.py existed; the scores were then written into trade_study.py; the results were appended here afterwards, which overwrote the ordering evidence the file was meant to carry. The results have now been split into T3_trade_study_results.md so this file can stop changing.
What that leaves. The ordering is attested, not proven. The honest mitigation is not a better timestamp — it is that the weights are stated, the sensitivity is published, and four of the five criteria are shown to change the winner within a weight movement Zaid could reasonably make. A reader who does not trust the ordering can set the weights themselves in the workbook's TradeStudy3 sheet, which is live, and get their own answer. That is a stronger protection than any timestamp, because it does not require trusting the author at all.
Recorded as DEF-027.