Team Empathy · Internal strategy · 25 July 2026
Built for the decision on the team
A client-by-client audit and a full financial redesign: what Team Empathy looks like if it is Ben, Nico, Om and Claude, running the clients that genuinely pay, while the new Shopify platform gets built. Version 2 — rebuilt from actual payments received in Xero.
Version 1 of this document used the Financial Model spreadsheet for the client list and ClickUp task counts for delivery load. Both were wrong. The spreadsheet listed clients who have stopped paying (Modscape, Fulton Swim, Whisk), and 332 of the 374 "completed" ClickUp tasks were closed on a single day — 17 June — in a bulk board cleanup during Abi's handover. Those were historic onboarding tasks, not real work. Every hours figure derived from them was meaningless.
This version uses actual payments received in Xero as the source of truth for who is a client and what they pay. It tells a different and more urgent story.
Team Empathy is not a struggling business, but it has a shrinking base wearing an overhead built for a bigger one. March to May cleared $29,633, $35,005 and $24,603 of net cash profit — all of it carried by Nature Baby's upfront payment and two one-off projects.
Underneath that, the recurring base has fallen every single month: $40,564 → $37,664 → $31,435 → $29,472 → $22,812. This is not a revenue-timing problem. It is quiet churn that the good months hid — and it makes the restructure more urgent, not less.
| Client | March | July | Change | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moreton Bay Skip Bins | $6,000 | $0 | −$6,000 | Fixed term finished (Ben confirmed) |
| Prime Plumbing | $5,754 | $3,450 | −$2,304 | Reduced, still solid |
| KOOSHOO | $2,100 | $0 | −$2,100 | Project-based, sporadic. Ripe for a retainer |
| Modscape | $1,725 | $0 | −$1,725 | Stopped after May — Ben was right |
| Whisk Renovators | $1,725 | $0 | −$1,725 | Stopped after April |
| Brandkit | $1,460 | $0 | −$1,460 | Paid every month to June, then nothing. Check this one. |
| Eftpos Now (POSRite) | $3,742 | $2,304 | −$1,438 | Reduced |
| Drop Bear Adventures | $2,400 | $1,600 | −$800 | Reduced |
| The Haven on K'gari | $600 | $400 | −$200 | Reduced |
| Net change | −$17,752 | Per month, in five months |
1. Remarkable Auto & Marine has paid $1,725 every month including July. Ben believes they are no longer a client. Either the mental model is out of date, or they are paying for something they aren't receiving. That needs answering this week either way.
2. Brandkit paid $1,460 every month from March to June, then stopped in July. Silent churn or a payment issue — worth one email.
Even after the churn, the low-touch base is real. Nine of the thirteen paying clients generated fewer than one tracked task a month each, and their dedicated Slack channels carry three to six messages across two months. A&M Detailing, Pink Bins, DCIS, Frontline Security, Will & Wind, Sinclair, Remarkable, The Haven and Drop Bear pay $11,392 a month between them for very little.
Ben's instinct holds: this base can be run by him plus Om plus Claude. It does not need a Head of Delivery.
| Decision | Call | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Go lean | Yes | Cuts ~$10,398/mo ($124,776/yr). Pays Ben ~$43k even with zero new sales, and needs only $8,895/mo of new recurring to fund the full $150k. |
| Arrest the churn | Urgent | The base has fallen 44% in five months. Cost cuts alone don't fix a shrinking top line — this is now the first priority, ahead of new sales. |
| The Head of Delivery seat | Dissolve | The seat was designed for an agency being actively replaced by Claude skills and the Shopify platform. Nine of thirteen paying clients need almost nothing. |
| Timing on Bruna | By 10 Sep | Decide before Italy on the 12th. Check the trial clause, proper notice, be generous. Right call, clean process. |
| Pay Ben now | Immediately | ACC has been subsidising a structure the business can't carry. Being unpaid distorts every judgement. |
Revenue = actual payments received in Xero, month by month, GST-inclusive as banked (ex-GST shown alongside). This is the only reliable answer to "who is a client".
Load uses two weak-but-real proxies: tracked ClickUp completions excluding the 17 June bulk close, and messages in each client's dedicated Slack channel since late May. Neither captures everything — a lot of Maps, content and reporting work never becomes a ClickUp task — so treat load as a relative signal, not a timesheet.
Toggl is not connected to the AIOS (no API key), so Bruna's time data could not be pulled directly. If you want true hours per client, that is the one integration worth adding.
Straight from Xero. Sorted by what they paid in July — the live base.
| Client | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime Plumbing | $5,754 | $5,754 | $3,450 | $3,450 | $3,450 | Live Reduced but steady |
| Growth Maintenance | $3,450 | $3,450 | $3,450 | $3,450 | $3,450 | Live Rock steady, never missed |
| Eftpos Now (POSRite) | $3,742 | $3,742 | $3,742 | $2,304 | $2,304 | Live Reduced in June |
| Eftpos Now | $2,016 | $2,016 | $2,016 | $2,016 | $2,016 | Live Second Eftpos account |
| Sinclair Plumbing | $1,725 | $1,725 | $1,725 | $1,725 | $1,725 | Live Never missed |
| Remarkable Auto & Marine | $1,725 | $1,725 | $1,725 | $1,725 | $1,725 | Verify Ben thinks they've left — they're still paying |
| Drop Bear Adventures | $2,400 | $2,400 | $2,400 | $1,600 | $1,600 | Live AUD, reduced |
| Frontline Security | $1,384 | $1,384 | $1,384 | $1,384 | $1,384 | Live Genuinely low touch (2 tasks/120d) |
| Will & Wind | $1,300 | $1,300 | $1,300 | $1,300 | $1,300 | Live AUD, steady |
| A&M Detailing | $1,154 | $1,154 | $1,154 | $1,154 | $1,154 | Live Zero tracked tasks |
| DCIS (DC Installation Services) | $1,154 | $1,154 | $1,154 | $1,154 | $1,154 | Live Genuinely low touch — v1 was wrong |
| Pink Bins | $1,150 | $1,150 | $1,150 | $1,150 | $1,150 | Live Steady |
| The Haven on K'gari | $600 | $600 | $600 | $400 | $400 | Live AUD, reduced |
| LIVE BASE (13 clients) | $22,812 | $19,837 ex-GST — the real floor | ||||
| No longer paying | ||||||
| Moreton Bay Skip Bins | $6,000 | $3,000 | $3,000 | $3,000 | $0 | Ended Fixed term complete |
| Brandkit | $1,460 | $1,460 | $1,460 | $1,460 | $0 | Check Silent stop — chase it |
| Modscape | $1,725 | $1,725 | $1,725 | $0 | $0 | Gone Ben was right |
| Whisk Renovators | $1,725 | $1,725 | $0 | $0 | $0 | Gone |
| KOOSHOO | $2,100 | $2,200 | $0 | $2,200 | $0 | Convert Project-based. Ripe for a retainer |
| Fulton Swim School | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | Gone Ben was right — chatbot stopped |
| One-off projects (paid upfront) | ||||||
| Nature Baby | — | $33,062 | $33,062 | — | — | Delivering The hero case study. Convert to retainer at the end |
| Clearwater Wildlife | $11,500 | — | — | — | — | Finish Paid March, 6 tasks still stuck |
| HD Plumbing & Gas | $6,900 | — | — | — | — | Complete One-off project |
| Roman Blinds Direct | — | — | — | — | — | Convert 10 stuck tasks, no revenue. Finish and pitch a retainer |
ClickUp completions in 120 days with the 17 June bulk close removed, plus Slack channel volume since late May. Across the entire client book there were 39 genuinely completed tasks in four months — about 10 a month for everything.
| Client | Real tasks /mo | Slack msgs (2mo) | Active now | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nature Baby | 3.3 | 25 | 7 | Correctly the busiest thing in the business |
| POSrite | 1.8 | 6 | 5 | Active build |
| Clearwater | 1.0 | — | 6 | Stuck — needs closing out |
| KOOSHOO | 0.8 | 18 | 3 | High attention, no current revenue |
| Roman Blinds Direct | 0.0 | 3 | 10 | 10 stuck tasks going nowhere |
| Prime Plumbing | 0.0 | 4 | 4 | $3,450/mo for very little tracked work |
| The Haven / Frontline / Eftpos / Drop Bear / Will & Wind | 0.5 ea | 3–5 ea | 0–2 | Genuinely low touch |
| Growth Maintenance / DCIS / A&M / Pink Bins / Sinclair / Remarkable | 0.0 | 0–3 ea | 0 | $11,933/mo combined, almost no tracked activity |
Even allowing generously for untracked work, the paying base is not what is consuming the team. Six clients paying $11,933 a month between them show essentially zero tracked activity, and their Slack channels are near-silent.
The real time sinks are Nature Baby (correctly — it's the case study), and a set of stuck, unpaid, unfinished projects: Roman Blinds (10 stuck), Clearwater (6 stuck), POSrite, KOOSHOO. That is a closing-things-out problem, not a headcount problem.
For the low-touch base, a defensible and honest monthly minimum: automated rank, traffic and conversion reporting; a monthly Enzo / Google Business Profile pass; one content or technical action; and a short written update. Claude drafts it, Om executes the technical piece, Ben signs off. Given the activity levels above, that is already close to what these clients receive — the difference is it would be systematic, automated and provable rather than ad hoc.
Pulled live from Xero. Cash basis — money when it actually landed. Net profit is before any salary to Ben.
| Month | Income | Cost of sales | Expenses | Net profit | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March | $55,060 | $11,743 | $13,686 | +$29,633 | AirOps Transformation + Maps strong |
| April | $64,261 | $13,212 | $16,049 | +$35,005 | Best month. Nature Baby upfront ($34,552) |
| May | $57,123 | $14,388 | $18,136 | +$24,603 | Transformation continues + $5,750 commission paid |
| June | $27,998 | $9,955 | $26,960 | −$8,911 | Upfront money gone. Wages spike to $16,983 (Abi payout) + $3,891 ads |
| July (to 25th) | $20,940 | $14,754 | $11,060 | −$4,872 | No project revenue at all. Nico COGS $7,168 |
June's loss was largely one-off. Strip the Abi payout (roughly $9,000 above a normal wage month) and June was close to break-even. That is not a business falling over.
July is the real signal. $20,940 of income is the business running on retainers alone with nothing sold on top — and it still loses money before paying Ben. That is the structural problem, and no amount of good months hides it.
Income (−$3,396) and GoCardless (−$4,202) are currently negative and net off the total.
Revenue is the live July recurring base, ex-GST ($19,837). Costs as above.
| Scenario | Revenue /mo | Costs /mo | Ben paid | Net /mo | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Status quo, no new sales | $19,837 | $26,630 | $0 | −$6,793 | Burns ~$82k/yr and still doesn't pay Ben. Not survivable. |
| B. Status quo, Ben on $150k | $19,837 | $39,130 | $12,500 | −$19,293 | Needs $19,293/mo of new recurring just to break even. Very hard. |
| C. Lean, no new sales | $19,837 | $16,232 | ~$3,605 | +$3,605 | The floor. Even selling nothing, Ben draws ~$43k/yr. Today he draws $0. |
| D. Lean + $10k new recurring | $29,837 | $28,732 | $12,500 | +$1,105 | Full $150k salary and just profitable. Lou alone does this. |
| E. Lean + $20k new recurring | $39,837 | $28,732 | $12,500 | +$11,105 | The target. $150k salary plus ~$133k/yr retained to fund the platform build. |
To pay Ben a full $150,000 salary, the business needs new recurring revenue of:
$19,293/month at today's cost structure versus $8,895/month on the lean model.
Ben's pipeline forecast is $10,000–$20,000 of new recurring. That forecast clears the lean bar and misses the current one. The restructure doesn't just cut cost — it converts a plausible pipeline into a paid founder.
All five scenarios assume the recurring base holds at $19,837. It has fallen every month for five months. If churn continues at even half its recent rate, scenario C stops working by summer. Cutting cost buys time; it does not fix the top line. Arresting churn and converting the stalled projects (Roman Blinds, KOOSHOO, Nature Baby) is the first job, not the second.
Against the open deals already tracked, the $10–20k assumption is credible rather than optimistic:
| Deal | Expected /mo | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Lou — Ageless You | $5,000 | 6-month proposal, Ben rates it highly |
| Lou — restaurant brands | $5,000 | Second proposal, same relationship |
| Roman Blinds Direct | $3,000–$5,000 | Already active in delivery, 10 live tasks |
| Eden Orchards | ~$5,000 | Transformation with break-even guarantee |
| KOOSHOO | ~$2,000 | Conversion from project |
| Absolute Essential (Bo) | TBC | Pitch incoming |
| Realistic landing | $10k–$20k | Only $8,895 is needed to fund the full $150k salary on the lean model |
"You're trying to scale the old way while building the new way." — Steven
That is the whole diagnosis. The team was hired to run an agency that is actively being replaced by Claude skills and the Shopify platform. Training someone into a dissolving role, using systems that don't exist yet, was never going to work — and that is a role-design problem, not a character problem.
| Person | Seat | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Ben | Vision, relationships, sales, strategy, building in Claude | His actual genius. Selling, shaping offers, and building the systems — not managing a delivery team. |
| Nico | CTO / co-founder — the Shopify platform | A true co-builder with equity, not an employee needing direction. USD $2k/mo baseline plus 20–30% of the software. |
| Om | Technical delivery across all clients | An A-player technically, always wants more work, and per the Milda handover can absorb most of what Milda did. |
| Claude / the AIOS | Reporting, research, drafting, automation | Already replacing the task-level work of Om, Milda and Abi via skills. This is the leverage that makes lean possible. |
| Alex | Optional co-builder on the AIOS | Self-taught, ships without hand-holding. The profile of the only kind of person worth adding right now. |
Right now Team Empathy needs co-builders, not employees. Anyone who has to be trained into a system that hasn't been built yet will fail, and it will look like their fault when it is really a sequencing error. Hire again only when there is a working system to hire into.
| Area | Decision | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Enzo / Maps software | Keep | $1,388/mo and it directly earns the Maps retainers. Clear positive margin. |
| Ahrefs + SEMrush | Keep | Core to research, audits and the reporting that proves ROI. |
| AirOps | Exit | USD $3k/mo enterprise plan with a year lock-in, too complex for this market. Replaced by Nico's platform. |
| Meta ads | Keep, watch | $3,000/mo. It is producing the pipeline that makes the model work. Pausing saves $3k but starves the funnel. |
| Admin contractors | Trim | $1,715 → ~$600. Most of this is absorbed by the AIOS. |
| Reporting | Automate | The single highest-leverage build: automated monthly client reports remove the main reason a delivery manager existed. |
| # | Action | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Put Ben on the payroll, even partially | Every decision is currently distorted by not being paid. ACC is masking the real economics. |
| 2 | Walk Simon through this on Monday | Get his read on the sequence. His own model — Ben + Nico + GM + delivery owner — is the destination; this is the order to reach it. |
| 3 | Convert the stalled work: Roman Blinds, KOOSHOO, Clearwater | 21 stuck or active tasks earning $0 recurring. Converting these beats any cost cut — and arrests the churn. |
| 4 | Close Lou — both proposals | $10k/mo on its own clears the entire lean break-even including Ben's full salary. |
| 5 | Build automated low-touch reporting | Thirteen clients, $19,837/mo ex-GST, on autopilot. This is what makes the lean base genuinely hands-off — and it doubles as the ROI-attribution engine. |
| 6 | Reprice or release DCIS | $70/hour is the worst economics in the book. |
| 7 | Decide on the Head of Delivery seat by 10 Sep | Before Italy on the 12th. Check the trial clause, proper notice, be generous. The seat is gone; the decision should still be clean. |
Team Empathy has a genuinely good business hiding inside it: $11,933 a month from six clients showing almost no tracked activity at all. That base, plus Om, plus Claude, plus a founder who is finally paid, funds the build of the thing that actually matters — the Shopify platform and three ROI case studies.
The lean model doesn't shrink the ambition. It is the only version that can afford it.