The operator’s manual for taking a consumer brand from idea to exit — every number worked, every chapter specific to your category. The book investors and acquirers wish every founder had read.
Most founders launch with a beautiful can, a slick deck, and a genuinely good product — and quietly die anyway. Not because the brand was weak, but because no one taught them the machine underneath it: unit economics that survive the middlemen, a product that gets repurchased, clean capital, a way to fund inventory before they’re paid.
These playbooks are that machine, written down — the unglamorous work that turns a label into a business worth buying.
Every chapter earns its place with proven method and real arithmetic — the same lens an investor or acquirer uses to decide whether you’re a business or a beautiful label.
The margin stack, the P&L, pricing, trade spend, CAC and payback — every number carried all the way through, for real.
Not generic advice. The regulations, distribution, and unit economics specific to your product — the details that kill brands.
34 chapters across eight parts — the insight, the raise, the cap table, scaling, and the sale to a strategic acquirer.
Grounded in the real research and canon — Sharp, Ries, Venture Deals, Fourt–Woodlock — not opinions and vibes.
The diligence self-assessment, the operator’s dashboard, and a concrete 90-day launch plan — frameworks you run, not just read.
See your company the way a check-writer does — the fastest way to build one worth a check, or a premium exit.
Each edition is a complete, standalone 98-page manual — rebuilt from the ground up for its category’s real economics, rules, and route to market. Instant digital delivery.
Supplements and functional beverage — formulation, DSHEA & FDA, the margin stack, distributors and velocity, the raise, and the exit.
Alcoholic RTD — the base decision, TTB & excise, the three-tier system, the distributor you can’t divorce, and the sale to big alcohol.
Energy — the labeling decision, caffeine & the FDA, the cold-vault velocity game, the strategic distribution partner, and the exit to Coke, Pepsi, or KDP.
New editions on the way. Need yours? A custom playbook can be built for your exact niche — get in touch.
The books
Before the playbooks, the method. Every book ships instantly as PDF — and Chapter One of The Page and The Exit Mindset, and Part I of First Batch™ and The Summit™, are free to read. Before the first batch? Begin with First Batch™; raising a seed, The Seed File™; raising the A, The Series A Founder’s Playbook — the same company, fourteen months apart. Past the raise and the company cannot run without you? The Build Line™; a letter on the desk, The Summit™. Want to see the work before you spend anything? Look inside — a finished one-page plan, a workbook worksheet, two pages of manuscript, and every page count.
Inside the books
Every book is built on the same five capitals — FORHI: Financial, Operating, Relational, Human, Intellectual. Neglect one and you weaken them all. Each one is illustrated throughout, chapter by chapter, so the method lands for people who think in pictures as well as paragraphs.
Second edition · day zero to the first check · $199
The first batch is where right is cheapest. Twelve pages a plant, a distributor, a bookkeeper and a first check each ask to see — built in the order a real first batch built them, with the four wrong turns shown and taught. 235 pages + the Workbook: 12 live Excel templates and the Honest Arithmetic card, every formula checked.
New edition · past the raise · $399
The multiple is not found — it is built. Five capitals a buyer prices in the first hour, five camps, four gates, and the twenty months from the company you run to the company you’re worth — with one company walked the whole way. 316 pages + the Workbook: 20 live Excel templates and the Gate card, every formula checked.
New · the letter, the re-rate, and the 180 days · $499
Nobody answers a letter. The fourteen pages a buyer’s team prices in the first hour — the strike, the first hour, the bridge, the earnings, the room, the calendar, the nine terms — built in the order a real hundred and eighty days built them, from the morning the letter arrives to the morning after the wire. 276 pages + the Workbook: 14 live Excel templates and the Nine Terms card, every formula checked.
New edition · the seed round · $399
The deck gets the meeting. The file gets the check. Twelve artifacts a stranger can verify, The Ask derived from them, and the round from the phone call to the wire in ten weeks — with one founder walked the whole way. 197 pages + the Workbook: 15 live Excel templates, every formula checked.
New · the next round · $399
A Series A is bought with evidence, not promises. The data room that proves the past, the one-page roadmap that prices the future, and the round from the deck to the wire — with one founder walked the whole way. 309 pages + the Workbook: 23 live Excel templates, every formula checked.
New · the alignment system · $39
“Getting everyone on the same page” is not a wish — it’s a build. The founder-sized version of Hoshin Kanri: seven components, one sheet, deployed until the company runs without you. 88 illustrated pages + workbook + templates + EPUB.
The flagship · $29
The founder’s guide to maximum enterprise value — the Scalability Quotient, the five capitals, and the road from the company you run to the company you’re worth. 156 illustrated pages + workbook + EPUB.
The family enterprise · $29
Scaling the family business without losing the family — roles vs. relatives, money rules, succession as a plan, and exits with the family intact. 216 illustrated pages + workbook + EPUB.
New · the exit · $19
You don’t build a business to sell it — you build it so well that someone insists on buying it. The five capitals a buyer actually pays for, the levers that move a multiple, and the leadership the last mile demands. 107 illustrated pages + EPUB.
En español · primera edición · $19
La primera edición de First Batch, completa en español — los primeros dieciocho meses de una marca de bebidas o suplementos: si construirla, lo que cuesta de verdad, quién la fabrica y cómo se gana un espacio en el estante. 316 páginas ilustradas + EPUB.
En español
Traducciones completas — no resúmenes. Cada una incluye el libro, el cuaderno de trabajo para imprimir y el EPUB.
Familia, S.A.
Escalar el negocio familiar sin perder a la familia. 237 páginas ilustradas + cuaderno + EPUB.
Comprar — $29 →Escalar con inteligencia
La guía del fundador para el máximo valor empresarial. 163 páginas + cuaderno + EPUB.
Comprar — $29 →La página
Siete componentes en una sola hoja, hasta que la empresa funcione sin ti. 96 páginas ilustradas + cuaderno + plantillas + EPUB.
Comprar — $39 → Capítulo uno, gratis →El primer lote
De la idea al primer lote, para fundadores de bebidas y alimentos. 316 páginas ilustradas + EPUB.
Comprar — $19 →¿Preguntas? jed@scalewrights.com
Start with the edition you need, or get every playbook and tool in one vault — and add the person who wrote them when you’re ready.
Cost of goods, gross-to-net, dilution, valuation — worked with numbers you can lift straight into your own model.
The rules and economics that actually govern your product — the excise tax, the three-tier system, the caffeine limits, the labeling fork.
Written from the acquirer’s point of view, so what you build today is what a strategic pays a premium for tomorrow.
A scored self-assessment, a live dashboard, a 90-day plan — tools that turn reading into doing.
Pick the one that matches what you sell — supplements or functional beverage (CPG), alcoholic ready-to-drink (RTD), or energy. Each is a complete, standalone manual. If you’re between categories or in a niche of your own, the Vault covers all of them, and a custom edition can be built for your exact product.
No. This is the operator-grade material most consultants keep behind a five-figure engagement — worked unit economics, the real regulatory detail, the cap-table and exit mechanics — organized into a manual you can act on. The free assessment is a taste; the playbook is the meal.
It’s the best time. The book is sequenced idea-to-exit precisely so you retire the risks that kill brands before you spend the money. Founders who read it early keep more of their company and waste far less cash.
Every category edition, the interactive diligence assessment, the operator’s dashboard, the 90-day launch plan, working financial-model templates, and every future edition free as it ships — at a founding-buyer price that’s locked for you.
Yes, on one ladder. Every stage has a free readiness check, a book, and a flat-fee Review — $1,750 for my red pen on your file, in writing inside five business days. Past that sit the builds and the engagements, starting with the Scale Audit. If you’d rather have the framework applied to your company than apply it yourself, see the whole ladder.
Yes — co-branded editions can be licensed for your founders, portfolio, or members. See partner licensing.
You already have the cool can. Get the manual for everything underneath it — and build a brand that’s fundable today and sellable tomorrow.
Get the Operator’s Vault →