Looking for a wireless datacomm business plan? You're in the right place.
A wireless network integrator earns in two ways at once: one-time install projects and monthly fees for running what it built. A lender or investor will ask how the two fit together. How many sites must sign a monthly agreement before the recurring fees carry the payroll? What happens to cash while hardware is bought months before the customer pays? Can the engineers actually deliver the installs the revenue line promises? A generic template has no answers to these.
This article walks through a complete sample plan for a private Wi-Fi, private LTE and managed telemetry company in Cincinnati, Ohio, section by section. It covers the executive summary, the SWOT analysis and, above all, the five-year financials, ending with a downside case and the steps the owner takes in response.
Here's what you'll take away:
- The executive summary: see how to put a project business and a subscription business on one page, with the raise, the loss years and the year profit arrives
- The sales funnel: learn how site walk-throughs turn into proposals and work orders, so the project count in your forecast can be checked
- The managed-site roll-forward: find out how installs, contract signings and departures combine into recurring revenue, and why that line matters to a lender
- The capacity check: compare the hours the installs need against the hours your engineers and technicians can supply, year by year
- The marketing budget: see what an integrator might spend to win its first 10 projects, and which channels carry them
- The cash plan: understand how a reserve and a term loan carry the company through two loss-making years while hardware is paid for ahead of customers
- The downside case: have an answer ready for "what if work comes in a fifth short?", with the specific hires and costs the owner cuts
If you're planning a wireless integration business, read this before you write your own. The company is fictional, so take what fits and change the rest.
In this plan
- The Raise and the Payoff in One Page
- Surveys, Installs and Standing Contracts
- Cincinnati's Floors, Docks and Campuses
- Who Signs for a Site Network
- From Walk-Through to Work Order
- Getting in Front of Plant and Facility Managers
- Crews, Lab and the Network Operations Desk
- Priya Raman and the Seats Still Open
- Numbers: Projects, Fees and Cash
- Sources
If you need a wireless datacomm business plan template for your own plan, start it in the Toolkit.
The Raise and the Payoff in One Page
Eastdale Hub designs, installs and runs private wireless data networks for warehouses, plants and campuses in the Cincinnati area. Wi-Fi is the core product. Private LTE is added where a site needs coverage that Wi-Fi handles poorly, such as a large yard or a building full of metal racking. Customers also pay a monthly fee per site to have the network monitored and patched, and a monthly fee per device for connectivity to sensors, scanners and trackers. The company opens on January 1, 2027. Founder Priya Raman, the lead RF engineer, runs it and holds 60% of the shares.
Opening takes $1,500,000: $250,000 of Priya's savings, $750,000 from two angel investors and a $500,000 bank term loan. The $1,200,000 reserve is the largest use, because the company pays engineers and technicians from the first weeks and books its first install revenue in April. Test gear, staging equipment and van up-fit take $150,000. Opening spares stock, legal work, vendor programs and the launch campaign take the remaining $150,000.
| Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $967,252 | $3,993,020 | $7,271,120 |
| Net income after start-up costs | ($517,311) | $68,203 | $621,681 |
| Closing cash | $717,183 | $193,026 | $758,978 |
No customer has signed. The first completed install is scheduled for April 2027 and the first monthly agreement for June. Installs make up 90% of Year 1 revenue. By Year 5 monthly site fees and device plans make up 40%, which is the shift a lender looks for in an integrator. Years 1 and 2 lose money because the team is hired ahead of the work. The first annual profit comes in Year 3, and it is thin at 1.7% of revenue.
A second run of the model takes 20% off every line of work. With later hiring, three roles not filled, smaller marketing and van budgets, a pay cut for Priya, tighter collections and no move to a larger unit, year-end cash stays above zero in all five years. It falls below a $150,000 minimum-cash test at the end of Years 3 and 4, and the downside section covers what Priya does about that.
Surveys, Installs and Standing Contracts
Legal name: Eastdale Hub, LLC, an Ohio limited liability company that has elected corporate tax treatment. Founder: Priya Raman, 60%. Two angel investors hold 40% between them and take no operating role. Premises: a 7,500-square-foot flex unit in the Cincinnati area with an office, a staging lab and a stockroom. Start date: January 1, 2027. Stage: pre-launch. No customer contract is signed, and the lease and vendor reseller agreements are in draft.
Four ways the company earns
| Line of work | How it is priced | Year 1 share of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Site surveys, design and installation | Fixed price per site; $85,000 average for a Wi-Fi build, $110,000 for the Year 1 private LTE pilot | 90% |
| Managed network service | $1,900 a site a month on average, 36-month agreement | 5% |
| Device connectivity and telemetry plans | $12.50 a device a month | 1% |
| Field service and break-fix | $140 an hour | 3% |
What the company is for
Give operators of buildings full of scanners, forklifts and sensors a wireless network that is designed to the floor plan, installed once and kept working by the same people who built it.
Where it stands by the end of 2028
- 22 managed sites under contract by December 2028, up from 8 a year earlier.
- 1,300 devices on a telemetry plan.
- Ten people on payroll, including three engineers and three technicians.
- Revenue of $2,548,700 for 2028, with the loss at $248,584.
What this company is not
Eastdale Hub does not sell home or small-shop internet service, business phone systems or satellite links. Its customers already have an internet connection. The work starts at the wall of the building, with the wireless network that connects people, handhelds and machines to it.
Spectrum and the rules around it
Wi-Fi runs on unlicensed spectrum with certified equipment, and the company buys only certified gear. Private LTE builds are planned on the shared 3.5 GHz band the FCC calls the Citizens Broadband Radio Service. Operating there under the general authorized tier means registering radios with a spectrum access system and, for some equipment, having a certified professional installer sign off. Holders of priority licenses in a county can take precedence over general users, so a site's coverage cannot be promised as interference-free. These rules are in 47 CFR Part 96 and may change. Before it quotes any LTE site, Eastdale Hub has counsel and the spectrum administrator confirm the current requirements, and it does not sell a private LTE build to a customer who cannot accept the interference risk.
Cincinnati's Floors, Docks and Campuses
Cincinnati sits on a freight and manufacturing corridor, and many of its warehouses, plants, hospital annexes and school campuses run wireless handhelds and sensors. The plan's market is the buildings with enough floor area, ceiling height or equipment density that an office-grade network fails: distribution and cold storage buildings, light manufacturing, healthcare annexes, and university and school campuses. The plan sizes demand from its own pipeline and not from a count of buildings: 10 projects in 2027 and 21 in 2028.
How buildings get covered today
Many owners rely on one of three arrangements: a network that grew by adding a few access points whenever someone complained, a design by the equipment vendor that was never checked against the floor, or an in-house IT team that is also running everything else. These tend to produce the same symptoms: scanners that drop out in one aisle, a dead zone around the loading doors and no one with the time to fix it.
Who else a facility manager could call
| Alternative | What it offers | Why a buyer picks it | How Eastdale Hub differs by design |
|---|---|---|---|
| National IT and network integrators | Wide service catalogs and national support | One vendor across many sites | Local engineers who survey and install the site themselves |
| Structured cabling contractors adding Wi-Fi | Cabling plus radios | Already on site for other work | A wireless design built from measurements, with continuous monitoring afterward |
| Equipment vendors' own services | Design and managed plans for their brand | Brand preference | Works across two or three vendors and says which fits |
| Mobile carriers' enterprise teams | Private cellular offerings | Carrier relationship and spectrum | Wi-Fi first, with private LTE only where it is the better tool |
| In-house IT | Control and no outside fee | No new vendor to manage | Takes the monitoring and after-hours work off a small team |
Each row describes an offer and where Eastdale Hub sits against it. It is not a ranking. Providers revise their services often, so none are named or priced here.
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Founder who has designed and tuned warehouse networks for twelve years | No customers, no references and no track record under the Eastdale name |
| Recurring fees that keep paying after an install ends | A $1.2 million reserve is needed to carry two loss years |
| Local crews who can reach a site within hours | Dependence on a few equipment vendors |
| Opportunities | Threats |
|---|---|
| Sites adding sensors and handhelds that need dense coverage | Larger integrators cutting price to win a first site |
| Devices on a monthly plan beside the network | Rule changes in the shared 3.5 GHz band |
| Referrals from vendors' regional channel managers | Customer budget freezes late in the year |
Who Signs for a Site Network
The operations or facilities manager at a 50,000 to 300,000 square foot site
The person who feels the problem is a warehouse operations manager, a plant engineer or a campus facilities director. The person who signs is usually that manager's director, with the IT lead consulted. Both ask the same first question: will it work on the floor, not just in the design?
What starts a search
A failed scanner rollout, a new automation line, a safety audit that turns up dead zones, an acquisition that leaves two incompatible networks, or an in-house network engineer who left. Many of these arrive with a deadline, which is why a quick walk-through matters.
What the buyer wants
- A written survey of the floor that shows signal strength, not a vendor's estimate.
- A fixed price per site and a date.
- A named engineer who answers the phone when the network misbehaves at 2 a.m.
- Work scheduled around shifts and the peak season.
Who the plan does not target
Single-tenant offices, homes and retail shops are left to other firms. Their jobs are too small to justify a survey, and the pricing is built for sites that pay $30,000 and up.
From Walk-Through to Work Order
Each qualified site gets a free walk-through of an hour or two with a sales engineer. If the site fits, a paid survey follows, and its fee credits toward the build when the customer signs. Then comes a written proposal with a fixed price, a bill of materials and an install schedule, and then a work order with a deposit. Priya runs the first walk-throughs herself until the sales engineer starts in month 6.
The Year 1 funnel
The plan expects about 45 qualified walk-throughs in 2027. Of those, 29 become proposals, and 10 are won, which is a win rate of about 35% on proposals. The 10 projects come from 8 customer organizations, because two buy a second site. After a build is complete, about two in three customers sign a managed agreement.
| Source | Projects won in Year 1 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment vendors and distributors | 3 | 30% |
| Outbound to plant and warehouse managers | 2 | 20% |
| Trade events | 2 | 20% |
| Website and content | 1 | 10% |
| Priya's own contacts | 2 | 20% |
How prices are set
A Wi-Fi build is priced from the survey: access point count, mounting height, cabling runs, switches and commissioning. The average is $85,000 in Year 1, with a small plant floor near $30,000 and a large distribution building near $180,000. The private LTE pilot is priced at $110,000 and full builds from Year 2 at $160,000. Prices rise about 3% a year from Year 2.
Managed service: what the fee covers
Managed service is quoted per site, from about $700 a month for a small plant to about $5,000 for a campus, and averages $1,900 in Year 1. The fee covers monitoring, cloud controller licenses, firmware patching, a quarterly review of radio performance, ticket handling and up to four hours a month of labor on network faults. Work beyond that bills as field service at $140 an hour. Service credits for outages are capped at one month's fee per site, and no customer is meant to pass 15% of revenue.
Keeping sites after the install
Installed sites tend to stay with the builder, since the monitoring tools and the knowledge of the floor are already there. Agreements run 36 months. The plan expects about 7% of managed sites to leave each year through closures, sales of the building and early exits. The count of managed sites rises from 8 at the end of Year 1 to 22, 42, 64 and 88 over the next four years.
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Install projects completed | 10 | 21 | 28 | 34 | 39 |
| Managed sites at year end | 8 | 22 | 42 | 64 | 88 |
| Devices on plan at year end | 320 | 1,300 | 2,800 | 4,600 | 6,600 |
The seasonal rhythm
Warehouse customers freeze changes in November and December, and outdoor antenna work is slow in January and February. The plan books no install revenue in the first three months of 2027 and keeps crews light in the last two.
Getting in Front of Plant and Facility Managers
Year 1 marketing comes to $116,000. Launch work, charged against start-up capital, is $36,000; the other $80,000 is ordinary running cost. Against Year 1 revenue that is 12%, falling to 3% by Year 3 and 2% by Year 5 as referrals and repeat sites do more of the work. Each of the 8 customer organizations won in Year 1 costs about $14,500 to win, and each of the 10 projects about $11,600. Against an $85,000 average build, that is a modest price.
| Channel | Year 1 spend | What it is expected to do |
|---|---|---|
| Website and case-study pack (launch) | $14,000 | Pages by building type and a survey sample report |
| Regional trade-event debut (launch) | $22,000 | A booth and a speaking slot at one logistics and manufacturing event |
| Vendor and distributor partner program | $16,000 | Co-marketing and lead sharing; about 3 projects |
| Outbound to plant and warehouse managers | $20,000 | Contact data, sequenced messages and a free walk-through offer; about 2 projects |
| Events and association memberships | $18,000 | Regional supply-chain and manufacturing events; about 2 projects |
| Content and search | $12,000 | Floor-by-floor guides on scanner dropouts and dock coverage; about 1 project |
| Direct mail and webinars | $14,000 | Follow-up to walk-through leads and a quarterly webinar |
Markers for 2027
- April: first install complete, first case study drafted.
- June: three projects complete and the first managed agreement in service.
- September: private LTE pilot complete, eight projects done, 4 managed sites.
- December: 10 projects done, 8 managed sites and 320 devices on a plan.
Crews, Lab and the Network Operations Desk
The flex unit
The 7,500-square-foot unit holds an office, a staging lab where every radio is configured and tested before it ships to a site, and a stockroom for spares. Rent is $66,000 a year. In Year 4 the company moves to about 10,000 square feet, and rent rises to $99,000.
How an install runs
A site survey with measuring gear produces a heat map. The design follows, then equipment is staged in the lab and a licensed cabling subcontractor pulls the cable. Company technicians mount and aim the radios, an engineer tunes the network and tests it with the customer's own scanners, and the site is handed over with a floor plan and an as-built report. A Wi-Fi build takes about 260 in-house hours. A private LTE build takes about 450.
Hours against revenue
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In-house hours the work needs | 3,000 | 6,500 | 8,900 | 11,100 | 13,000 |
| In-house hours available | 3,600 | 7,000 | 9,200 | 12,200 | 14,600 |
| Share of available hours booked | 84% | 93% | 97% | 91% | 89% |
Available hours count each technician and engineer at 1,500 billable hours a year, and Priya at 600. Operations engineers, project managers and sales staff are not counted, since they spend their time on other work, and nor are pre-sale surveys and walk-throughs. Installs bunch into a few months, so Year 1 peaks in August and September, when two builds and then the LTE pilot complete in consecutive months and the crew falls short by several hundred hours. Subcontract installers cover those weeks, at $25,000 in Year 1 and $65,000 by Year 5. Year 3 runs tightest on annual hours, and the private LTE specialist who starts in month 34 lifts the ceiling.
The operations desk
Managed sites report to a monitoring platform that the operations engineers watch in business hours, and an outside partner takes alerts at night and on weekends. Priya and the senior engineer cover the first 8 sites in 2027. One operations engineer carries up to about 35 sites. The first starts in month 13, the second in month 26 and the third in month 50, so Year 4 is the stretch, at about 32 sites each.
Tools and software
Wireless survey and design software, a monitoring and ticketing platform, a customer portal for device plans, accounting and project software. Software spend starts at $26,000 in Year 1 and reaches $94,000 in Year 5.
Insurance and licenses
- General liability, professional liability for design work, cyber liability and commercial auto for the vans. Insurance costs $34,000 in Year 1. Workers' compensation sits in the payroll load.
- Roof and lift work follows a written fall-protection procedure. Tower climbing is subcontracted.
- Low-voltage work and permits vary by city, and the company confirms what each jurisdiction requires before it bids. Cabling subcontractors hold their own licenses.
- Certifications from the equipment vendors it resells.
Vendors
Two or three infrastructure vendors supply the radios and switches, a distributor supplies stock on 35-day terms, and a cellular data provider supplies the device plans. Vendor programs bring pricing and technical support, and the company watches that no single vendor passes 60% of purchases.
Priya Raman and the Seats Still Open
The founder
Priya Raman spent seven years at a regional systems integrator designing and commissioning warehouse and plant networks, then five years as network lead in a manufacturer's IT group. She holds vendor wireless certifications and a degree in electrical engineering. She is putting $250,000 of savings into the company.
What is missing
Priya has not run a sales team, has not carried a payroll and has not managed finance. The first sales engineer starts in month 6 and a billing coordinator in month 15. An outside accounting firm keeps the books and prepares the tax return throughout, and the cost sits in professional fees.
Priya's absence
Priya is the only RF engineer with design sign-off in the first year. Key-person insurance is bought for her, and the senior wireless engineer who joins in month 1 is trained to sign designs by the end of 2027.
Ownership and the bank
Priya holds 60%. The two angel investors hold the other 40% between them and have no operating role. The bank's loan rests on her personal guarantee, and the plan treats its covenant as a minimum cash balance of $150,000.
Advisers
An attorney with spectrum experience for LTE quotes and customer contracts, an outside accountant, and a retired integrator executive who meets Priya every quarter.
Numbers: Projects, Fees and Cash
The model covers 2027 to 2031: 2027 month by month, then one figure per year. Revenue is built from installs completed, sites under a managed contract, devices on a plan and billed field hours, and each of those counts is listed below with its price and cost.
What the $1.5 million buys
| Use of funds | Amount |
|---|---|
| Survey and test gear, staging lab, tools, van up-fit | $150,000 |
| Opening stock of spare radios, access points and gateways | $60,000 |
| Legal and set-up: entity, vendor agreements, contract templates | $30,000 |
| Vendor partner programs, certifications, contractor licenses | $24,000 |
| Launch: website, case-study pack, trade-show debut | $36,000 |
| Cash reserve for the first two years | $1,200,000 |
| Total uses | $1,500,000 |
| Source of funds | Amount |
|---|---|
| Priya Raman's savings | $250,000 |
| Two angel investors | $750,000 |
| Bank term loan | $500,000 |
| Total sources | $1,500,000 |
Equity supplies $1,000,000 of the $1,500,000 (67%): $250,000 of Priya Raman's savings and $750,000 from two angel investors, who hold 40% of the company between them. The other $500,000 is a bank term loan at 9.5%, interest only for the first twelve months and then repaid over six years. The rate is a planning figure and not a lender's quote. The loan is secured on the test gear and staging equipment and backed by Priya's personal guarantee. The $1,200,000 reserve is the largest use because the company loses money for two years and still has to fund receivables, which reach $459,471 by the end of Year 3. Engineers and technicians are on payroll from the first weeks, and the first install revenue arrives in April.
Inputs behind the forecast
- Install volume and price. The company completes 9 Wi-Fi site builds and one private LTE pilot in 2027, then 19 and 2 in Year 2, 25 and 3 in Year 3, 30 and 4 in Year 4, and 34 and 5 in Year 5. A Wi-Fi build averages $85,000 in Year 1 and rises 3% a year; builds range from about $30,000 for a small plant floor to $180,000 for a large distribution building. The Year 1 pilot is priced at $110,000 and full LTE builds at $160,000 from Year 2. Revenue is booked when a site is completed. Year 2 install revenue is 2.3 times Year 1 because 2027 has no completed install until April and only 10 projects, while 2028 has 21.
- Seasonality. Crews are scheduled lightly in November and December because warehouse customers freeze network changes in their peak shipping weeks. No install revenue is booked in January, February or March while the first designs are approved and equipment is ordered. The monthly table covers 2027 only; later years are spread evenly.
- Managed network service. The fee covers monitoring, cloud controller licenses, firmware patching, a quarterly review of radio performance, ticket handling and up to four hours a month of labor on network faults; hardware failures are replaced under the equipment vendor's warranty. It averages $1,900 a site a month in Year 1 and rises 3% a year, from about $700 for a small plant to about $5,000 for a campus, which is roughly a quarter of the average install price each year. About two in three completed sites sign an agreement, and a few come from networks that others built. Sites under contract reach 8 at the end of Year 1, then 22, 42, 64 and 88. Agreements run 36 months, and the 7% of sites that leave in a year represent closures, sales of the building and early exits. Direct costs of 30% cover controller licenses, vendor support contracts and the after-hours monitoring partner.
- Device connectivity. Devices on a telemetry plan (temperature sensors, asset tags, forklift and tote trackers, door and dock sensors) reach 320 at the end of Year 1 and 1,300, 2,800, 4,600 and 6,600 after that. The sensors themselves are sold inside install projects at a markup. The monthly plan is $12.50 a device in Years 1 and 2 and rises about 3% a year after that. Direct costs of 50% cover the cellular or low-power wide-area data plan, the platform license and replacement units. About 6% of devices leave each year.
- Field service. Break-fix and moves, adds and changes are billed at $140 an hour: 225 hours in Year 1 and about 1,900 by Year 5, with a 10% direct cost for parts.
- Direct costs. Installs carry a 50% direct cost: radios, switches and licenses at about 40% of price, and the cabling subcontractor at about 10%. The engine applies the Year 1 blend of 47.7% to every year. Priced line by line, the blend falls to 45.8% in Year 2, 44.6% in Year 3, 43.8% in Year 4 and 43.1% in Year 5 as managed fees and device plans grow. The model takes no credit for the difference, which would add about $48,000 of gross profit in Year 2, $124,000 in Year 3 and $332,000 in Year 5.
- Capacity. A Wi-Fi build takes about 260 in-house hours for survey, design, radio mounting, commissioning and handover, and a private LTE build about 450. A technician or engineer supplies 1,500 billable hours a year, and Priya supplies 600. Pre-sale walk-throughs are handled by the sales engineer and Priya and sit outside that count. Subcontract installers cover peak weeks, at $25,000 in Year 1 rising to $65,000 in Year 5.
- Operations desk. One network operations engineer carries up to about 35 managed sites. Priya and the senior engineer cover the first 8 sites in 2027 with an outside monitoring partner on nights and weekends. The first operations engineer starts in month 13, the second in month 26 and the third in month 50.
- Collections and stock. Customers pay in 42 days on average: installs bill in milestones with a deposit, managed service and device plans bill monthly in advance, and field work bills on completion. Distributor and carrier invoices are paid in about 35 days. Spare stock is the $60,000 opening buy plus 4% of annual direct costs, which gives $78,461 at the end of Year 1.
- Payroll. Salaries carry a 27% load for payroll taxes, health cover, workers' compensation and a retirement match, and 30% for field technicians because of ladder, lift and roof work. Sales engineers are shown at target pay of $105,000, base plus commission. Pay rises of 3% a year start in Year 2 and appear on their own line. Accounting is outsourced throughout and sits in professional fees.
- Premises and tax. A 7,500-square-foot flex unit with an office, a staging lab and a stockroom is set at $66,000 a year, or $8.80 a square foot, which a local broker would need to confirm. The move to about 10,000 square feet in Year 4 brings rent to $99,000, with the fit-out paid from operating cash. The company is an LLC that has elected corporate tax treatment, and the model taxes profit at 21% federal and 1.8% for state and local taxes after the loss carry-forward. Ohio relies on a gross-receipts tax and local net-profit taxes rather than a conventional state corporate income tax, so the 1.8% is a planning stand-in for them. The model offsets losses in full; under federal rules as the plan understands them, post-2017 losses can offset only 80% of taxable income, which would add roughly $3,000 of tax in Year 3 and $15,000 in Year 4 and lower the Year 5 tax by a similar total. Eastdale Hub's adviser confirms the actual rates and rules.
Revenue by line of work
| Revenue stream | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site surveys, design and network installation | $875,000 | $1,984,400 | $2,750,000 | $3,467,000 | $4,128,800 |
| Managed network service (per site) | $47,500 | $352,800 | $775,680 | $1,322,880 | $1,951,680 |
| Device connectivity and telemetry plans | $13,252 | $121,500 | $317,340 | $590,520 | $920,640 |
| Field service and break-fix | $31,500 | $90,000 | $150,000 | $210,000 | $270,000 |
| Total revenue | $967,252 | $2,548,700 | $3,993,020 | $5,590,400 | $7,271,120 |
| Growth on prior year | – | 164% | 57% | 40% | 30% |
Installs produce 90% of Year 1 revenue and 57% of Year 5 revenue. Managed service and device plans together grow from 6% of revenue to 40%. The mix matters to a lender: install revenue has to be won again each year, while a site under a 36-month agreement keeps paying. Year 2 grows 164% on Year 1 because the first year has no completed work before April.
Month by month in 2027
| Month | Site surveys, design and network installation | Managed network service (per site) | Device connectivity and telemetry plans | Field service and break-fix | Total revenue | EBITDA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2027 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | ($71,295) |
| Feb 2027 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | ($71,295) |
| Mar 2027 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | ($71,295) |
| Apr 2027 | $85,000 | $0 | $0 | $1,500 | $86,500 | ($26,068) |
| May 2027 | $85,000 | $0 | $0 | $2,000 | $87,000 | ($25,807) |
| Jun 2027 | $85,000 | $950 | $250 | $2,500 | $88,700 | ($24,918) |
| Jul 2027 | $85,000 | $2,850 | $750 | $3,000 | $91,600 | ($23,402) |
| Aug 2027 | $170,000 | $4,750 | $1,250 | $3,500 | $179,500 | $22,556 |
| Sep 2027 | $195,000 | $6,650 | $1,813 | $4,000 | $207,463 | $37,177 |
| Oct 2027 | $85,000 | $8,550 | $2,438 | $4,500 | $100,488 | ($18,755) |
| Nov 2027 | $85,000 | $10,450 | $3,063 | $5,000 | $103,513 | ($17,173) |
| Dec 2027 | $0 | $13,300 | $3,688 | $5,500 | $22,488 | ($59,537) |
Revenue builds from the first completed install in April. August and September are the largest months because two builds and then the private LTE pilot complete, and November and December are light by design. The EBITDA column spreads annual costs evenly across the months, so a profitable August or September reflects revenue timing and not the point at which the company reaches profit; that comes in Year 3. Month-end cash, adjusted for the 42-day collection lag, is lowest in Sep at about $620,000.
Engineers, technicians and the operations desk
| Role | Annual wage | Starts | Year 1 end | Year 2 end | Year 3 end | Year 4 end | Year 5 end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founder and chief executive (lead RF engineer) | $140,000 | Month 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Senior wireless engineer | $115,000 | Month 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Field technician 1 | $62,000 | Month 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Sales engineer 1 | $105,000 | Month 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Project manager 1 | $90,000 | Month 9 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Field technician 2 | $62,000 | Month 11 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Network operations engineer 1 | $88,000 | Month 13 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Operations and billing coordinator | $58,000 | Month 15 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Field technician 3 | $64,000 | Month 15 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Wireless engineer 2 | $98,000 | Month 20 | – | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Network operations engineer 2 | $88,000 | Month 26 | – | – | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Field technician 4 | $64,000 | Month 31 | – | – | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Private LTE specialist | $125,000 | Month 34 | – | – | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Project manager 2 | $90,000 | Month 38 | – | – | – | 1 | 1 |
| Field technician 5 | $66,000 | Month 43 | – | – | – | 1 | 1 |
| Second senior wireless engineer | $118,000 | Month 46 | – | – | – | 1 | 1 |
| Network operations engineer 3 | $90,000 | Month 50 | – | – | – | – | 1 |
| Field technician 6 | $68,000 | Month 57 | – | – | – | – | 1 |
| Total payroll incl. on-costs | $520,338 | $1,027,035 | $1,309,514 | $1,664,630 | $1,963,692 |
Priya and a senior wireless engineer open the company. The first field technician starts in month 3, a sales engineer in month 6, a project manager in month 9 and a second technician in month 11, which makes six people at the end of Year 1. Year 2 adds the first operations engineer in month 13, a billing coordinator and a third technician in month 15, and a second wireless engineer in month 20 (10 people). A second operations engineer, a fourth technician and the private LTE specialist follow in Year 3 (13), and a second project manager, a fifth technician and a second senior wireless engineer in Year 4 (16). Year 5 adds the third operations engineer and a sixth technician (18). Priya's $140,000 sits inside costs, so the profit lines are what remains after she has been paid.
Profit and loss
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $967,252 | $2,548,700 | $3,993,020 | $5,590,400 | $7,271,120 |
| Direct costs (radios and access points, cabling subcontractors, carrier data, platform licenses) | ($461,526) | ($1,216,117) | ($1,905,277) | ($2,667,469) | ($3,469,428) |
| Gross profit | $505,726 | $1,332,583 | $2,087,743 | $2,922,931 | $3,801,692 |
| Payroll incl. on-costs | ($520,337) | ($1,027,035) | ($1,309,514) | ($1,664,630) | ($1,963,692) |
| Rent | ($66,000) | ($68,000) | ($70,000) | ($99,000) | ($102,000) |
| Utilities | ($7,200) | ($7,600) | ($8,000) | ($11,000) | ($11,500) |
| Marketing | ($80,000) | ($95,000) | ($105,000) | ($115,000) | ($125,000) |
| Insurance | ($34,000) | ($46,000) | ($58,000) | ($70,000) | ($82,000) |
| Professional fees | ($24,000) | ($30,000) | ($36,000) | ($42,000) | ($48,000) |
| Software subscriptions | ($26,000) | ($40,000) | ($58,000) | ($76,000) | ($94,000) |
| Vans: leases, fuel, tolls and maintenance | ($42,000) | ($60,000) | ($80,000) | ($100,000) | ($120,000) |
| Training, certifications and vendor program fees | ($9,000) | ($14,000) | ($20,000) | ($25,000) | ($30,000) |
| Customer portal, ticketing integrations and platform hosting | ($4,000) | ($9,000) | ($15,000) | ($21,000) | ($27,000) |
| Equipment replacement and new-hire kit | $0 | ($12,000) | ($18,000) | ($24,000) | ($28,000) |
| Bad debt allowance | ($6,000) | ($14,000) | ($24,000) | ($34,000) | ($44,000) |
| Installation labor subcontractors (peak weeks) | ($25,000) | ($35,000) | ($45,000) | ($55,000) | ($65,000) |
| Travel, permits and sundries | ($12,000) | ($18,000) | ($25,000) | ($32,000) | ($38,000) |
| Annual pay raises (3% a year) | $0 | ($30,811) | ($79,749) | ($154,356) | ($246,461) |
| EBITDA | ($349,811) | ($173,863) | $136,480 | $399,945 | $777,040 |
| Depreciation | ($30,000) | ($30,000) | ($30,000) | ($30,000) | ($30,000) |
| Interest | ($47,500) | ($44,721) | ($38,277) | ($31,194) | ($23,408) |
| Income tax | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | ($101,951) |
| Net income before start-up costs | ($427,311) | ($248,584) | $68,203 | $338,751 | $621,681 |
| Start-up costs expensed at opening (legal, vendor programs, launch marketing) | ($90,000) | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Net income after start-up costs | ($517,311) | ($248,584) | $68,203 | $338,751 | $621,681 |
Year 1 loses $427,311 before start-up costs and $517,311 after them. Year 2 loses $248,584, and Year 3 is the first profit at $68,203, a 1.7% net margin. The margin reaches 6.1% in Year 4 and 8.6% in Year 5, when net income is $621,681. Payroll including pay raises falls from 54% of revenue in Year 1 to 30% in Year 5, and that is where most of the improvement comes from. Year 3 depends on managed fees: a fee 20% lower would turn Year 3 net income into a loss of about $13,000. Income tax is nil until Year 5, when it is $101,951.
Cash movements
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash from operations | ($632,817) | ($358,384) | ($29,475) | $227,542 | $503,105 |
| Survey gear, staging lab and tools | ($150,000) | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Funding received | $1,500,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Loan principal repaid | $0 | ($64,927) | ($71,371) | ($78,454) | ($86,240) |
| Owner distributions | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Net change in cash | $717,183 | ($423,311) | ($100,846) | $149,088 | $416,865 |
| Closing cash | $717,183 | $293,872 | $193,026 | $342,113 | $758,978 |
Closing cash stays above zero in every year. The lowest year-end balance, $193,026, comes at the end of Year 3, after two loss years and the receivables that growth ties up. A bank covenant on minimum cash of $150,000 would pass in the base case by about $43,000. The term loan falls to $199,008 by the end of Year 5. No owner distributions are paid in the five years, since the cash goes to the loan and to growth.
Balance sheet
| At year end | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | $717,183 | $293,872 | $193,026 | $342,113 | $758,978 |
| Accounts receivable | $111,300 | $293,275 | $459,471 | $643,279 | $836,677 |
| Spare radios, access points and gateways | $78,461 | $108,645 | $136,211 | $166,699 | $198,777 |
| Survey gear, staging lab and tools (net) | $120,000 | $90,000 | $60,000 | $30,000 | $0 |
| Total assets | $1,026,944 | $785,792 | $848,708 | $1,182,091 | $1,794,432 |
| Payables to distributors and carriers | $44,256 | $116,614 | $182,698 | $255,785 | $332,685 |
| Bank term loan | $500,000 | $435,073 | $363,702 | $285,248 | $199,008 |
| Paid-in capital | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 |
| Retained earnings | ($517,311) | ($765,895) | ($697,693) | ($358,942) | $262,739 |
| Total liabilities and equity | $1,026,944 | $785,792 | $848,708 | $1,182,091 | $1,794,432 |
Margins, cover and break-even
| Measure | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EBITDA margin | -36.2% | -6.8% | 3.4% | 7.1% | 10.7% |
| Net margin (before start-up costs) | -44.2% | -9.8% | 1.7% | 6.1% | 8.6% |
| Payroll incl. pay raises as share of revenue | 54% | 42% | 35% | 33% | 30% |
| Revenue per full-time equivalent at year end | $161,209 | $254,870 | $307,155 | $349,400 | $403,951 |
| Average monthly revenue | $80,604 | $212,392 | $332,752 | $465,867 | $605,927 |
| Monthly revenue needed to cover operating costs | $136,358 | $240,102 | $310,999 | $402,122 | $482,079 |
| Debt service cover (EBITDA / interest + principal) | -7.4x | -1.6x | 1.2x | 3.6x | 7.1x |
Year 3 is the first year in which average monthly revenue, $332,752, clears the level needed to cover operating costs, $310,999. Year 1 ($80,604 against $136,358) and Year 2 ($212,392 against $240,102) fall short. Debt service cover is negative in the first two years, 1.2x in Year 3 and 7.1x in Year 5. A cover covenant at 1.25x would not be met in Year 3, so the company asks the bank for a cash test and a Year 4 cover test instead.
A fifth less work in every line
| Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $773,802 | $2,038,960 | $3,194,416 | $4,472,320 | $5,816,896 |
| Net income before start-up costs | ($470,597) | ($258,720) | ($122,097) | $181,659 | $518,885 |
| Net income after start-up costs | ($560,597) | ($258,720) | ($122,097) | $181,659 | $518,885 |
| Closing cash | $703,719 | $319,029 | $72,412 | $113,656 | $479,543 |
This run takes 20% off every line of work in every year. Priya responds in eight steps. Every hire from month 13 starts six months late, the private LTE specialist and the sixth technician are never hired, and the second senior wireless engineer is dropped. Marketing falls 20%, her own salary falls 20%, van costs fall 15%, collections tighten from 42 days to 36 through bigger deposits, and the larger unit is not taken in Year 4. Net income is lower than in the base case in every year. The company loses money through Year 3, then earns $181,659 in Year 4 and $518,885 in Year 5. The lowest year-end cash is $72,412. Equity at the end of Year 1 is $439,403. A $150,000 minimum-cash test would be missed at the end of Years 3 and 4, and Priya would raise that with the bank ahead of the test date and ask the angel investors whether they would add a bridge. The run does not test the loss of a major customer, a vendor price rise or a change in CBRS rules.
Sources
- FCC, 3.5 GHz band overview: background on the shared band used for CBRS private LTE. No figure from it is quoted; current requirements are confirmed with counsel.
- eCFR, 47 CFR Part 96, Citizens Broadband Radio Service: the rules that govern shared-spectrum operation. No figure is quoted, and the rules can change.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Telecommunications equipment installers and repairers, Occupational Outlook Handbook: background on the trade; no wage is quoted. The salaries in the personnel table are the plan's own figures.
- Ohio Department of Taxation and the City of Cincinnati: business tax rules. No rate is quoted; the adviser confirms which taxes apply and at what rates.
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