Looking for an Innovator Founder visa business plan? You're in the right place.
An endorsing body reads the plan against three words: innovative, viable and scalable. That raises questions a founder has to answer on paper. What shows an idea is original and not a copy? Which numbers show the business can be delivered with the money on hand? What shows it can grow past one person and one market? A blank template doesn't show what a sensible answer looks like.
In this article we'll walk through a complete sample plan for a software company in Manchester, England, built so each of the three tests has its own evidence. We'll cover the executive summary, the SWOT analysis and, in particular, all of the financials.
Here's what you'll take away:
- The three-test table: see where each of innovative, viable and scalable is answered, so a reader can find the evidence without hunting
- The innovation section: learn how to set out a method, a prototype and the points where existing tools stop, without quoting a competitor
- The SWOT analysis: name the thin spots, such as no paid customer yet, without putting a reader off
- The funding plan: work out how much of the money carries two loss-making years and how to show where a founder's savings came from
- The hours table: check delivery work against staff before a reader does
- The jobs and revenue figures: see growth shown in numbers an endorsing body can test
- The five-year profit, cash flow and balance sheet: understand how a software company with no debt shows it can last
- The downside case: have an answer ready for "what if revenue runs 20% short?", with the steps you would take
We write business plans. We don't give immigration advice, and the endorsing body and the Home Office make the decisions. The business is fictional, so take what fits and change the rest.
In this plan
- Tarn Retrofit in Brief
- What Tarn Retrofit Is and Does
- What Is New Here, and Why a Copy Takes Time
- Landlords and Their Asset Teams
- From Data Extract to Costed Plan
- Reaching Landlords and Growing Past the Founder
- The People Behind Tarn Retrofit
- Cash Lows, Stress Cases and the Investor Ask
- Five-Year Figures
- Sources
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Tarn Retrofit in Brief
Tarn Retrofit Ltd is a pre-revenue software company in Manchester, England, that sells retrofit-planning software to social landlords: housing associations and local authority housing teams. The software reads a landlord's stock records and repair history, prices retrofit measures for each home and orders them against the repair calendar, so a landlord can see what to fit, where and in what order before it commits a budget. Imani Kariuki founded the company and is applying for the Innovator Founder route from outside the UK. She owns 65% after the seed round.
The launch needs £800,000: £150,000 of Imani's savings and £650,000 from three seed investors, with no debt. The company reaches four live customers by October 2027, 12 by December 2028 and 36 by December 2031.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | £150,000 | £488,000 | £873,500 |
| Net income after start-up costs | (£333,060) | (£177,055) | £41,735 |
| Closing cash | £437,947 | £222,721 | £220,428 |
Year 1 and Year 2 lose money because the team is paid before the licenses it supports have built up. Year 3 is the first profitable year, and its margin is thin. Revenue passes £1,000,000 in Year 4 and reaches £1,679,000 in Year 5. The downside case cuts every revenue line by 20% in every year. The company stays cash-positive at every year end, loses money through Year 3 and makes its first profit in Year 4.
How to read this plan. The business is fictional, and the plan is written to the test the Innovator Founder route sets: that the business is innovative, viable and scalable. The endorsing body decides whether the business meets its criteria, and the Home Office decides the visa. A plan changes neither decision. Rules and fees move, so every rule below is dated to its source at the end. Tarn Retrofit gives no immigration advice, and the founder's own application is outside the company's figures.
The three tests and where this plan answers them
The Rules give the business plan 30 points, and a further 20 points for a business that is innovative, viable and scalable. They do not define the three words separately. The endorsement test lists what the endorsing body looks for, and each body publishes its own assessment guidance, so this sample is built to the Rules' wording and not to one body's template.
| Test | What the plan offers as evidence | Where to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Innovative: original, and different from anything on the market | A named method, a working prototype, a pilot extract of 4,200 homes, and a table of the points where existing tools stop | What Is New Here |
| Viable: realistic and achievable on the resources available, with the skills and market awareness to run it | A five-year model with profit in Year 3, a raise sized to a downside case, delivery hours checked against staffing, a list of the founder's gaps | Hours and the financial plan, the people section, the stress cases |
| Scalable: potential for jobs and for growth into national and international markets | Licenses that add customers faster than hours, nine full-time roles by Year 5, revenue above £1,000,000 in Year 4, a funded second-country pilot | Reaching Landlords and Growing Past the Founder |
What Tarn Retrofit Is and Does
Legal name: Tarn Retrofit Ltd, a private limited company registered in England. Owners: Imani Kariuki 65%, three seed investors 35% in total. Premises: serviced offices in central Manchester, on rolling terms. Model start: 1 January 2027, a modeling date and not a forecast of when the founder can start work. Stage: a prototype built by the founder, and one landlord has supplied an anonymized extract of 4,200 homes under a pilot agreement. No paid contract is signed and the company has no trading history, which is what a new idea looks like at this point. The route describes a new business, and the GOV.UK route page says an applicant cannot join a business that is already trading.
Purpose
Give a social landlord a costed, sequenced retrofit plan for every home it owns, built from records it already holds.
Three ways the company earns
| Line | How it is priced | Year 1 share of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Platform licenses | An annual contract, billed monthly, priced by stock size; £36,000 a year on average | 48.0% |
| Onboarding | A one-time fee of £15,000 to load and clean the landlord's stock data | 40.0% |
| Program analyses | £9,000 to model one funding program or capital plan | 12.0% |
Targets to the end of Year 3
- Four live customers by October 2027, 12 by December 2028 and 20 by December 2029.
- Revenue of £488,000 in 2028 and £873,500 in 2029.
- The first profit in 2029, after two loss-making years.
- A second implementation consultant in April 2029, when delivery hours reach the capacity of one.
What the company will not do
Tarn Retrofit does not survey homes, certify energy ratings or supervise installers. A landlord keeps its own assessors and contractors. The software orders and prices the work, and the people who do the work stay the landlord's.
What Is New Here, and Why a Copy Takes Time
What does a landlord do today?
A landlord with several thousand homes plans retrofit from three sources: a stock-condition survey of a sample of homes, an asset-management system that records repairs, and a consultant's report for each funded program. Each source answers part of the question. The survey is a snapshot of a sample, the system holds the history and no costing, and the report is one program deep.
What is the method?
The method is to treat the repair calendar as the retrofit calendar. For every home, the software lists the measures that fit its construction and age, prices them, and moves each one to the year in which the home's roof, windows, heating or wall finish is already due for work. A measure fitted at the same time as scheduled repair avoids a second visit and a second scaffold. That sequencing is the founder's own work, and so is the prototype.
| Step | Common practice (by category) | Tarn Retrofit | What slows a copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Picking homes | A sample survey, with the result extended to the rest of the stock | Every home scored from the landlord's own records | The data model improves with each landlord's records, under data-processing terms that keep each dataset separate |
| Costing | A consultant's estimate for each program | A priced measure list for each home, updated from completed jobs | A library of completed jobs that starts empty for a new entrant |
| Timing | Retrofit planned apart from repairs | Measures moved to the year the repair is already due | The link to a landlord's repair system, which costs an integration for each system |
| Reporting | A report that is out of date when it is delivered | A live plan a finance director can re-run against a new budget | Customer habits: once a landlord's capital plan lives in the tool, switching costs months |
What evidence supports the claim?
The prototype produced a costed measure list for every home in the 4,200-home pilot extract. The pilot compares that output with the landlord's own survey sample. No accuracy figure is quoted in this plan until that comparison is finished, and the plan does not rely on one. No patent is planned. The budget carries a trademark filing, and the protection comes from the data, the integrations and the speed of customer adoption. The plan does not name any competitor's product or price.
What does the market look like?
No market size is quoted. No primary source for landlord or home counts is quoted, so demand is built from customers instead: 4 live licenses at the end of Year 1 and 36 by Year 5.
Where else could a landlord go?
| Alternative | What it offers | Why a landlord picks it | How Tarn Retrofit differs by design |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock-condition survey firms | A surveyed sample and a report | A trusted, familiar process | Every home is scored, and the plan refreshes when the budget changes |
| Asset-management systems | The system of record for repairs | Already installed and paid for | No retrofit costing or sequencing inside the record system |
| Energy-modeling consultancies | A deep report per program | Specialist depth on one program | A standing plan across the whole stock |
| Spreadsheets built in-house | Full control | No new license | Costs and sequencing that do not depend on one person |
The table describes categories, not named companies. Competitor prices change and are not quoted here.
SWOT
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| A method that links retrofit to the repair calendar, and a working prototype | No paid customer yet, and no UK sales record for the founder |
| A pilot dataset of 4,200 homes | One lead engineer holds most of the product knowledge |
| No debt and a reserve that carries two loss-making years | Year 3 profit of £41,735 is thin |
| Opportunities | Threats |
|---|---|
| Program analyses add revenue from the same data a license already holds | A larger asset-management vendor adds a similar module |
| Integrations with the main repair systems widen the customer base | Landlord budgets and procurement can delay contracts by months |
| A second country, where the founder has contacts | Public funding programs change or end |
Landlords and Their Asset Teams
The asset manager at a housing association
Owns the stock plan and the repair budget, and answers to a board that wants a retrofit plan it can defend. This buyer runs the pilot, uses the software every week and sets the shape of each program analysis.
The retrofit program lead at a council
Holds a funded program with a deadline and a set of homes that qualify. This buyer wants the analysis first and the license second, which is why program analyses are sold alongside licenses from the start.
The finance director who signs
Signs the contract, compares £36,000 a year with the cost of one survey round, and asks what happens to the data if the contract ends. Data-processing terms and a written exit route sit in the contract for this reader.
What every landlord asks
Where does our data go? Who else sees it? How does the plan change when funding changes? What does it cost to leave? Each answer is in the contract before the license starts.
Pricing and customers by year
Licenses are priced by stock size and average £36,000 a year in Year 1. That is a planning figure. The pilot landlord has not been asked to pay it, and the first conversations in 2027 will test it.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New customers | 4 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 |
| Customers lost | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Live customers at year end | 4 | 12 | 20 | 28 | 36 |
| Program analyses sold | 2 | 8 | 14 | 20 | 26 |
From Data Extract to Costed Plan
How a landlord goes live
A landlord signs the license and a data-processing agreement. Tarn loads its stock records, repair history and any survey samples, cleans them, and sets up the link to its repair system. About 90 hours of implementation time is allowed for each new customer. The first costed plan is delivered within the set-up, and a landlord asks for a program analysis as a funded program comes up.
What the set-up involves
An implementation consultant maps the landlord's fields to Tarn's data model, flags records that are missing or contradictory, and agrees with the asset team which homes to treat as one group. The data engineer builds any new import the landlord's system needs. A short test run on 200 homes goes to the asset team before the whole stock is loaded.
Program analyses
A program analysis models one funding program or capital plan against the landlord's stock: which homes qualify, what the measures cost and what a set of budgets buys. It takes about 50 hours and is priced at £9,000.
Delivery hours against staffing
An implementation consultant has 1,500 productive hours a year. Demand is 90 hours for each set-up plus 50 hours for each program analysis.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Set-ups | 4 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 |
| Program analyses | 2 | 8 | 14 | 20 | 26 |
| Hours of delivery work | 460 | 1,120 | 1,510 | 1,900 | 2,200 |
| Consultant hours available | 1,250 | 1,500 | 2,625 | 3,000 | 3,000 |
| Share of available hours used | 37% | 75% | 58% | 63% | 73% |
Year 1 supply counts ten months, because the first consultant starts in March 2027. Year 3 runs at the limit in its first quarter, with about 378 hours of work against 375 hours of supply, until the second consultant starts in April 2029. The data engineer and the partnerships manager cover that gap. In the downside case volume is 20% lower and the second consultant starts in October 2029, so Year 3 needs 1,208 hours against 1,500 hours plus 375 from October.
Development and security
The lead engineer and the data engineer own the product. The budget carries security testing and accessibility audits of £6,000 in Year 1, rising to £14,000 in Year 5, because the customers are public bodies and will ask for both. Hosting and data licenses sit in the direct costs.
Insurance and data protection
- Professional indemnity for errors in the plans the software produces.
- Cyber cover for stock and tenant data.
- Employer's liability and public liability for the team and the office.
- Registration with the data-protection regulator, and a data-processing agreement with every customer.
Insurance costs £7,000 in Year 1 and £15,000 in Year 5. These are planning figures, and a broker's quote replaces them before the first contract is signed.
Immigration-related costs
Two contact-point meetings with the endorsing body are budgeted at £500 each, one in Year 1 and one in Year 2. The Rules require at least two meetings during permission, and the fee comes from the GOV.UK Innovator Founder page. The endorsement fee and the visa fee are personal costs of the founder, are not in the company's figures, and may have changed since the sources below were read.
Reaching Landlords and Growing Past the Founder
Year 1 spend
Year 1 marketing is £50,000: £20,000 of launch spending from the raise plus £30,000 of operating budget. Travel adds £12,000. Over four new customers that is £15,500 each. The cost per new customer then falls to £7,750 in Year 2 and rises to £11,000 in Year 5 as marketing and travel grow with the list of landlords to reach.
| Channel | Year 1 spend | What it is expected to do |
|---|---|---|
| Website and case-study pack (launch) | £13,000 | A page for each type of landlord and a worked example from the pilot data |
| Sector-event stand (launch) | £7,000 | Meetings with asset managers and program leads in one season |
| Sector events and speaking | £9,000 | Fees and materials for the events the founder attends |
| Explainers and short guides | £6,000 | One guide a month on a single retrofit decision |
| Referral partnerships with surveyors and consultants | £4,000 | Introductions in return for a share of the first-year set-up fee |
| Paid search and professional-network ads | £5,000 | Searches from asset teams looking for retrofit planning tools |
| Trade media and webinars | £6,000 | Two webinars and placed articles |
Milestones
- January 2027: model start, with Imani and the lead engineer in post.
- March 2027: the implementation consultant starts.
- April 2027: the first license and set-up.
- August 2027: the data engineer joins, with three licenses live.
- October 2027: the fourth license starts.
- February 2028: the partnerships manager starts.
How does the business grow past one founder?
The company grows by adding customers faster than hours. A license adds revenue each month without adding delivery work, and set-up hours per customer are planned to hold at 90. Revenue per full-time equivalent rises from £88,727 at the end of Year 2 to £176,737 at the end of Year 5, with the team growing from 5.5 to 9.5 full-time equivalents. Gross margin is 83% in every year.
How many jobs does it create?
Full-time roles at the end of each year, counting the founder, are 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9. A part-time bookkeeper works throughout. Hires follow revenue and delivery hours: the implementation consultant before the first set-up, the data engineer when the third license arrives, the second consultant when delivery hours reach capacity.
How does revenue compare with the Rules' settlement examples?
At settlement the endorsing body confirms what the business has achieved against its plan and checks that it has traded actively for 12 months. The Rules list seven achievements, and a business must meet at least two. The examples include £50,000 invested, £1 million of annual revenue and 10 full-time jobs. In this plan revenue first passes £1 million in Year 4, at £1,276,000, and full-time roles reach nine by Year 5. The company raises £800,000, of which £150,000 is the founder's. Which achievements apply, and how each is counted, is for the endorsing body, and this plan does not forecast the result.
What does the second country add?
A pilot outside the UK costs £35,000 in Year 4 and £45,000 in Year 5, to adapt the data model and for travel, in a market where the founder has existing contacts. The model forecasts no revenue from it. The pilot is the evidence for the international part of the test, and the profit figures do not depend on it.
The People Behind Tarn Retrofit
Imani Kariuki, founder and chief executive
Imani has nine years in building-energy modeling, the last five leading a four-person software team at an energy consultancy. The method and the prototype are her own work. She draws £70,000 a year, a little under what the company would pay a hired chief executive, and puts in £150,000 of savings.
Where the team is thin
Imani has not sold to UK public-sector landlords, run a UK payroll or held a UK company director's role before. The first contracts depend on her own meetings. A part-time bookkeeper and an outside accountant cover the books from January 2027, a lawyer covers the shareholder agreement and the customer contract, and the partnerships manager from February 2028 takes the sales workload off her. Finding an unpaid adviser with housing asset-management experience is a Year 1 task and carries no budget.
If Imani is out
The lead engineer can run the product for a month and the implementation consultant can run live customers. A written handover for the data model and the customer contracts sits with the company's solicitor. Every date in the plan depends on Imani's permission to work in the UK, and the dates move if that changes.
The hiring order
Imani and the lead engineer start in January 2027, with a part-time bookkeeper. The implementation consultant starts in March 2027, the data engineer in August 2027, a customer and partnerships manager in February 2028, a second implementation consultant in April 2029, an integrations engineer in February 2030, an account executive in May 2030 and a customer success manager in February 2031. The hours count above sets the consultant dates; the others follow the customer count.
Ownership and the investors
Imani owns 65% of the company and the three seed investors own 35% between them. The investors receive monthly management accounts and a seat for one of them on the board. No dividend is paid in the five years.
Cash Lows, Stress Cases and the Investor Ask
How low does the cash go?
Year 1 is modeled by month. The lowest point is about £425,000 at the end of December 2027: month-end cash of £456,440 less 45 days of December billing, £31,500. The balance sheet uses the annual receivable of £18,493 and shows £437,947 for the same date. Years 2 to 5 are annual, so the monthly path after Year 1 is not modeled and the year-end balance is the figure quoted. The base-case low is £220,428 at the end of Year 3. The downside case reaches £120,418 at the end of Year 3 and £120,786 at the end of Year 4. The month-end path is not modeled, and cash rises by only £368 across Year 4, so the true low probably falls in late Year 3 or Year 4 and below both figures.
The stress table
Every row is a fresh run of the model with one change and nothing else, read to the same five-year end. Direct costs follow revenue at 17% in every revenue row. In the license price row the cost is meant to stay at its base pounds, because a lower price does not make hosting cheaper. The engine re-blends the rate to 17.4% and applies it in every year, so direct costs sit £537 below base in Year 2 and £1,643 below in Year 3; the row is read as it comes from the model. Every other line stays at its base figure, including the bad debt allowance. The late-start row shifts all three revenue lines in Year 1 by two months. Payroll, rent and marketing keep their dates, and Years 2 to 5 are left at base, which flatters the row, since a ramp that ran late into 2028 is not modeled.
| Case | Year 1 net income | Year 3 net income | First profitable year | Lowest year-end cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base | (£333,060) | £41,735 | Year 3 | £220,428 (Year 3) |
| Revenue 10% lower in every year | (£345,510) | (£30,765) | Year 4 | £81,511 (Year 4) |
| License price 5% lower in every year | (£336,660) | £12,979 | Year 3 | £177,558 (Year 3) |
| New customers start two months later in Year 1 | (£360,450) | £41,735 | Year 3 | £193,038 (Year 3) |
| Direct costs 3 points higher on every line | (£337,560) | £15,530 | Year 3 | £175,083 (Year 3) |
| Wages 10% higher, pay raises included | (£361,436) | (£6,362) | Year 4 | £102,636 (Year 3) |
| Rent 10% higher | (£335,220) | £37,735 | Year 3 | £210,668 (Year 3) |
| Customers pay in 75 days, not 45 | (£333,060) | £41,735 | Year 3 | £148,634 (Year 3) |
| The 20% downside, with the management response | (£349,000) | (£41,942) | Year 4 | £120,418 (Year 3) |
| The 20% downside with 75-day payment | (£349,000) | (£41,942) | Year 4 | £36,885 (Year 4) |
| The 20% downside with the two-month late start | (£370,912) | (£41,942) | Year 4 | £98,506 (Year 3) |
The Year 3 profit does not survive a 10% revenue shortfall or a 10% rise in wages, and 5% off the license price takes it to £12,979. A reader should treat the base-case profit as fragile. Cash holds in every row above, with the lowest at £36,885. The last three rows are the downside case with the single changes added to it.
The ask to the seed investors
- £650,000 for 35% of the company, on terms for the investors' lawyers to settle.
- A cash floor of £60,000 at every month end, about one month of Year 3 costs. The base case and the downside case stay above it at every year end. The downside with 75-day payment drops to £36,885 in Year 4 and breaks the floor.
- A follow-on tranche of £150,000, agreed now and drawn only if month-end cash falls under the floor. It is unused in every case above except that one, and the downside with 75-day payment ends Year 4 above zero without it.
- Monthly management accounts, and no distributions in Years 1 to 5.
What an investor or an assessor would still ask
- Evidence for four contracts in 2027. None is signed, and the first rests on the pilot landlord.
- The accuracy of the prototype against the landlord's own survey sample, which the pilot has not yet finished.
- A test of the £36,000 average license against real budgets and procurement routes.
- The thin Year 3 profit, and why the plan cannot grow customers faster or cut costs further without hurting delivery.
- Customer concentration: four customers carry all of Year 1.
- Dependence on one lead engineer, and the cost of a replacement.
- Where the founder's £150,000 came from and how it reached the UK, with the statements to show it.
- What happens to the model if the founder's start date moves.
- What a larger vendor would need to copy the method, and how fast.
- The choice of the second country, and what the £80,000 of pilot spending buys.
Five-Year Figures
Five years of figures follow, in pounds sterling and before VAT. Year 1 runs month by month and Years 2 to 5 are annual. The funding and the revenue drivers come first, so each line can be traced to the planning figure behind it. A downside case closes the section. The model starts in January 2027 as a modeling date. It is not a forecast of when the founder can start work, and every date in the plan moves if that date moves.
Money in and where it goes
| Use of funds | Amount |
|---|---|
| Laptops, test devices and office fit-out | £14,000 |
| Company formation, trademark filing and data-protection registration | £4,000 |
| Legal set-up: shareholder agreement, customer contract and data-processing terms | £22,000 |
| Launch: website, sector-event stand and case-study pack | £20,000 |
| Cash reserve for two loss-making years and slow public-sector payment | £740,000 |
| Total uses | £800,000 |
| Source of funds | Amount |
|---|---|
| Imani Kariuki: savings and contributed software | £150,000 |
| Seed investors (three, equity) | £650,000 |
| Total sources | £800,000 |
Imani Kariuki puts in £150,000 of personal savings and contributes the prototype software. Three seed investors put in £650,000. The split after the round is 65% to Imani and 35% to the investors, which values the company at about £1.86 million after the investment. That split is a planning figure for lawyers and investors to settle, not a valuation opinion. There is no loan: a company that loses money for two years cannot service one, so there is no debt-cover test in this plan. The £740,000 reserve is 92.5% of the raise. It carries £464,115 of operating losses and £60,164 of unpaid invoices through Year 2, leaves £222,721 at the end of that year in the base case, and holds the downside case above its cash floor. The founder's £150,000 comes from savings, and bank statements show where it came from and how it reached the UK. The endorsement letter has to confirm that the endorsing body has no concerns about the source or transfer of funds (GOV.UK, Immigration Rules, Innovator Founder appendix, updated 29 October 2026). The investors have discussed terms and nothing is signed.
Planning figures behind the model
- Licenses. Each landlord signs an annual platform license, billed monthly, priced by the size of its housing stock. The average is £36,000 a year in Year 1, rising to £37,000, £38,000, £39,000 and £40,000 in Years 2 to 5 as contracts carry an annual uplift of under 3%. Four contracts start in Year 1, in April, June, August and October, so Year 1 holds 24 customer-months and £72,000 of license revenue. The price is a planning figure to test against each landlord's budget; no landlord has yet been asked to pay it.
- Customers. Live customers at year end are 4, 12, 20, 28 and 36. Gross additions are 8 in Year 2, 9 in Year 3 and 10 in each of Years 4 and 5. Losses are 1 customer in Year 3, 2 in Year 4 and 2 in Year 5, which is about one in twelve, one in ten and one in fourteen of the customers at the start of each year. Average live customers are 8, 16, 24 and 32 in Years 2 to 5.
- Onboarding. Each new customer pays a one-time set-up fee for loading and cleaning its stock data: £15,000 in Year 1 and Year 2, £15,500 in Year 3, £16,000 in Year 4 and £16,500 in Year 5. Set-up takes about 90 hours of implementation time.
- Program analyses. A program analysis models one funding program or capital plan for a customer and is priced at £9,000. Two are sold in Year 1 and then 8, 14, 20 and 26, which is about one per customer a year falling to 0.8. Each takes about 50 hours.
- Delivery hours. An implementation consultant has 1,500 productive hours a year, which is 75% of a 2,000-hour year. Demand is 460, 1,120, 1,510, 1,900 and 2,200 hours in Years 1 to 5. The tight stretch is the first quarter of Year 3.
- Direct costs. Hosting, data licenses, survey data and subcontracted data cleaning cost 17% of revenue in every year. The mix moves toward licenses, which cost less to serve than set-up work, so the rate is probably high in later years. No credit is taken for that.
- Payroll. Salaries are planning figures, not a published benchmark. Employer's National Insurance, pension and paid leave add 20% for full-time staff and 12% for the part-time bookkeeper, to be confirmed with a payroll adviser. Pay rises of 3% a year begin in Year 2 and are charged as their own line.
- Offices. Serviced offices in central Manchester at £21,600 in Year 1, £36,000 in Year 2, £40,000 in Year 3, £56,000 in Year 4 and £60,000 in Year 5, on rolling terms. These are planning rates, not quotes. Utilities are broadband and phones.
- Marketing and travel. Marketing is £30,000 in Year 1, plus £20,000 of launch spending paid from the raise, and rises to £72,000 by Year 5. Travel to landlord sites and sector events is £12,000 in Year 1 and £38,000 in Year 5.
- Recruiting. Agency fees are 15% of first-year salary: £18,000 in Year 1 for the implementation consultant and the data engineer, £8,100 in Year 2, £7,800 in Year 3, £18,300 in Year 4 and £6,900 in Year 5.
- Endorsing-body meetings. £500 for each contact-point meeting, two budgeted, one each in Years 1 and 2. The endorsement fee and the visa fee are the founder's personal costs and are outside the company's figures. Fees change, so the current amounts are to be confirmed on GOV.UK.
- Second country. A pilot outside the UK costs £35,000 in Year 4 and £45,000 in Year 5, for localizing the data model and travel. No revenue from it is forecast.
- Collections. Customers are public-sector or not-for-profit landlords and pay on receivables averaging 45 days. The bad debt allowance is about 0.7% of revenue in Year 1 and 0.8% in Year 5.
- Tax. The model applies a flat 25% corporation tax rate as a planning figure. The actual rate depends on the level of profit and may change, so it is to be confirmed with an accountant. Losses are carried forward and no reliefs are modeled. The model's tax base ignores the start-up costs of £46,000.
- Distributions and debt. None. Cash stays in the company through Year 5.
Revenue by line
| Revenue stream | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform licenses (annual contracts, billed monthly) | £72,000 | £296,000 | £608,000 | £936,000 | £1,280,000 |
| Onboarding (data load and set-up, one-time) | £60,000 | £120,000 | £139,500 | £160,000 | £165,000 |
| Program analyses (per funding program) | £18,000 | £72,000 | £126,000 | £180,000 | £234,000 |
| Total revenue | £150,000 | £488,000 | £873,500 | £1,276,000 | £1,679,000 |
| Growth on prior year | – | 225% | 79% | 46% | 32% |
Year 2 revenue is 3.25 times Year 1, a rise of 225%, because Year 1 holds only 24 customer-months of license revenue from four contracts that start between April and October. Year 2 has an average of 8 live customers and eight new set-ups. Licenses are 48% of revenue in Year 1 and 76% in Year 5, set-up fees fall from 40% to 10%, and program analyses are 12% in Year 1 and 14% in Year 5. Year 4 is the first year above £1,000,000.
Year 1, month by month
| Month | Platform licenses (annual contracts, billed monthly) | Onboarding (data load and set-up, one-time) | Program analyses (per funding program) | Total revenue | EBITDA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2027 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | (£34,005) |
| Feb 2027 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | (£34,005) |
| Mar 2027 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | (£34,005) |
| Apr 2027 | £3,000 | £15,000 | £0 | £18,000 | (£19,065) |
| May 2027 | £3,000 | £0 | £0 | £3,000 | (£31,515) |
| Jun 2027 | £6,000 | £15,000 | £0 | £21,000 | (£16,575) |
| Jul 2027 | £6,000 | £0 | £0 | £6,000 | (£29,025) |
| Aug 2027 | £9,000 | £15,000 | £0 | £24,000 | (£14,085) |
| Sep 2027 | £9,000 | £0 | £9,000 | £18,000 | (£19,065) |
| Oct 2027 | £12,000 | £15,000 | £0 | £27,000 | (£11,595) |
| Nov 2027 | £12,000 | £0 | £0 | £12,000 | (£24,045) |
| Dec 2027 | £12,000 | £0 | £9,000 | £21,000 | (£16,575) |
Revenue starts in April, with the first license and its set-up fee, and EBITDA is negative in every month of 2027. The loss narrows from £34,005 a month in January to March to £11,595 in October, the best month, then widens to £24,045 in November, when no set-up fee is billed. Costs are spread evenly across the year, so the monthly view is approximate. The lowest point of the year falls in December, at about £425,000, after receivables from December billing are allowed for.
Hiring against delivery hours
| Role | Annual wage | Starts | Year 1 end | Year 2 end | Year 3 end | Year 4 end | Year 5 end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founder and chief executive | £70,000 | Month 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Lead engineer | £78,000 | Month 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Bookkeeper | £18,000 | Month 1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Implementation consultant | £52,000 | Month 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Data engineer | £68,000 | Month 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Customer and partnerships manager | £54,000 | Month 14 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Second implementation consultant | £52,000 | Month 28 | – | – | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Integrations engineer | £70,000 | Month 38 | – | – | – | 1 | 1 |
| Account executive | £52,000 | Month 41 | – | – | – | 1 | 1 |
| Customer success manager | £46,000 | Month 50 | – | – | – | – | 1 |
| Total payroll incl. on-costs | £283,760 | £401,160 | £453,360 | £587,560 | £665,960 |
Imani and the lead engineer work from January, and the part-time bookkeeper, at about 20 hours a week, starts the same month. The implementation consultant starts in March, a month before the first set-up. The data engineer follows in August, as the third license starts. A customer and partnerships manager joins in February 2028, a second implementation consultant in April 2029, an integrations engineer in February 2030, an account executive in May 2030 and a customer success manager in February 2031. The table shows year-end headcount, and the bookkeeper counts as half a person. Payroll with on-costs is £283,760 in Year 1 and £665,960 in Year 5, before pay rises.
Profit and loss
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | £150,000 | £488,000 | £873,500 | £1,276,000 | £1,679,000 |
| Direct costs (hosting, data licenses, survey data and subcontracted data cleaning) | (£25,500) | (£82,960) | (£148,495) | (£216,920) | (£285,430) |
| Gross profit | £124,500 | £405,040 | £725,005 | £1,059,080 | £1,393,570 |
| Payroll incl. on-costs | (£283,760) | (£401,160) | (£453,360) | (£587,560) | (£665,960) |
| Rent | (£21,600) | (£36,000) | (£40,000) | (£56,000) | (£60,000) |
| Utilities | (£1,200) | (£1,800) | (£2,000) | (£2,400) | (£2,600) |
| Marketing | (£30,000) | (£42,000) | (£52,000) | (£62,000) | (£72,000) |
| Insurance | (£7,000) | (£9,000) | (£11,000) | (£13,000) | (£15,000) |
| Professional fees | (£18,000) | (£20,000) | (£22,000) | (£24,000) | (£26,000) |
| Software subscriptions | (£9,000) | (£13,000) | (£17,000) | (£21,000) | (£25,000) |
| Endorsing-body contact-point meetings | (£500) | (£500) | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Travel to landlord sites and sector events | (£12,000) | (£20,000) | (£26,000) | (£32,000) | (£38,000) |
| Recruiting fees | (£18,000) | (£8,100) | (£7,800) | (£18,300) | (£6,900) |
| Security testing and accessibility audits | (£6,000) | (£8,000) | (£10,000) | (£12,000) | (£14,000) |
| Second-country pilot (no revenue forecast) | £0 | £0 | £0 | (£35,000) | (£45,000) |
| Equipment replacement and new-hire kit | £0 | (£3,000) | (£4,000) | (£5,000) | (£6,000) |
| Bad debt allowance | (£1,000) | (£4,000) | (£7,000) | (£10,000) | (£13,000) |
| Annual pay raises (3% a year) | £0 | (£12,035) | (£27,610) | (£54,483) | (£83,584) |
| EBITDA | (£283,560) | (£173,555) | £45,235 | £126,337 | £320,526 |
| Depreciation | (£3,500) | (£3,500) | (£3,500) | (£3,500) | £0 |
| Interest | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Income tax | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | (£5,246) |
| Net income before start-up costs | (£287,060) | (£177,055) | £41,735 | £122,837 | £315,280 |
| Start-up costs expensed at opening (formation, legal set-up, launch marketing) | (£46,000) | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Net income after start-up costs | (£333,060) | (£177,055) | £41,735 | £122,837 | £315,280 |
Year 1 loses £287,060 before start-up costs and £333,060 after them. Year 2 loses £177,055. Year 3 is the first profitable year, at £41,735 on £873,500 of revenue, a net margin of 4.8% before start-up costs, and Year 4 and Year 5 earn £122,837 and £315,280. The Year 3 result is thin and the stress table shows two single changes that turn it into a loss. Income tax is nil through Year 4 because the first two years of losses are carried forward, and £5,246 in Year 5. Payroll with pay rises is 55% of revenue in Year 3 and 45% in Year 5.
Cash in and out
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash from operations | (£348,053) | (£215,226) | (£2,292) | £76,714 | £265,595 |
| Laptops, test devices and fit-out | (£14,000) | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Funding received | £800,000 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Loan principal repaid (no debt) | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Owner distributions | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Net change in cash | £437,947 | (£215,226) | (£2,292) | £76,714 | £265,595 |
| Closing cash | £437,947 | £222,721 | £220,428 | £297,142 | £562,737 |
Cash stays above zero at every year end. Closing cash falls from £437,947 in Year 1 to £222,721 in Year 2 and £220,428 in Year 3, which is the lowest year end in the base case and £2,293 below Year 2, then rises to £297,142 and £562,737. Year 3 cash falls slightly while the business earns a profit, because receivables rise by £47,528 as revenue grows. There is no debt and no owner payout, so the cash that builds in Years 4 and 5 stays in the company.
Year-end balance sheet
| At year end | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | £437,947 | £222,721 | £220,428 | £297,142 | £562,737 |
| Accounts receivable | £18,493 | £60,164 | £107,692 | £157,315 | £207,000 |
| Laptops, test devices and fit-out (net) | £10,500 | £7,000 | £3,500 | £0 | £0 |
| Total assets | £466,940 | £289,885 | £331,620 | £454,457 | £769,737 |
| Debt (none) | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Paid-in capital | £800,000 | £800,000 | £800,000 | £800,000 | £800,000 |
| Retained earnings | (£333,060) | (£510,115) | (£468,380) | (£345,543) | (£30,263) |
| Total liabilities and equity | £466,940 | £289,885 | £331,620 | £454,457 | £769,737 |
Break-even and margins
| Measure | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EBITDA margin | -189.0% | -35.6% | 5.2% | 9.9% | 19.1% |
| Net margin (before start-up costs) | -191.4% | -36.3% | 4.8% | 9.6% | 18.8% |
| Payroll incl. pay raises as share of revenue | 189% | 85% | 55% | 50% | 45% |
| Revenue per full-time equivalent at year end | £33,333 | £88,727 | £134,385 | £150,118 | £176,737 |
| Average monthly revenue | £12,500 | £40,667 | £72,792 | £106,333 | £139,917 |
| Monthly revenue needed to cover operating costs | £40,970 | £58,092 | £68,250 | £93,649 | £107,735 |
| Debt service cover (EBITDA / interest + principal) | – | – | – | – | – |
Operating costs are covered when average monthly revenue clears the figure in the last-but-one row. Year 1 averages £12,500 a month against £40,970 needed, and Year 2 £40,667 against £58,092. Year 3 averages £72,792 against £68,250 needed, which is the first year above the line. There is no debt, so there is no debt-cover figure for any year.
If revenue runs 20% short
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | £120,000 | £390,400 | £698,800 | £1,020,800 | £1,343,200 |
| Net income before start-up costs | (£303,000) | (£198,987) | (£41,942) | £36,567 | £123,749 |
| Net income after start-up costs | (£349,000) | (£198,987) | (£41,942) | £36,567 | £123,749 |
| Closing cash | £425,705 | £196,881 | £120,418 | £120,786 | £204,787 |
This case cuts every revenue line by 20% in every month of every year. The response, in order: the bookkeeper starts two months later, in March 2027; Imani's pay drops from £70,000 to £56,000 from September 2027; every hire from month 13 starts six months later, which puts the partnerships manager in August 2028, the second implementation consultant in October 2029, the integrations engineer in August 2030, the account executive in November 2030 and the customer success manager in August 2031; marketing is cut by 20% from Year 2; and the company stays in its Year 3 office, with rent of £41,200 in Year 4 and £42,436 in Year 5. Nothing else is cut: the second-country pilot goes ahead, and insurance, recruiting fees and the bad debt allowance stay at base figures. On those terms the lowest year-end cash is £120,418, in Year 3, and the Year 1 closing equity is £451,000. The case loses money through Year 3 and turns profitable in Year 4. Cash is below the base case at every year end.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Innovator Founder visa: the business must be innovative, viable and scalable; fees (an endorsement fee, a fee for each contact-point meeting, and the visa fee). The fees come from this one page and may have changed, so the current amounts are to be confirmed on the page itself.
- GOV.UK, Immigration Rules, Appendix Innovator Founder, updated 29 October 2026: the endorsement letter, the confirmation about source and transfer of funds, the points for the business plan and for an innovative, viable and scalable business, the endorsement test, the two contact-point meetings and the settlement achievements.
- GOV.UK, Innovator Founder and Scale-up visas: endorsing bodies, updated 7 August 2026: each endorsing body publishes its own guidance. The list of bodies changes, and the plan names none of them.
- Salaries, rents, insurance, tax rate, employer on-costs, license price and delivery hours are planning figures for this example, not sourced rates. No market size, competitor fact or approval statistic is quoted.
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