The Founding 25
The bank’s document list always ends up on your desk.
Three years of returns. A current P&L. An add-back nobody can explain. It routes through you, in an email thread, and almost none of it gets billed. We’re looking for 25 firms to help us turn that into twenty minutes of review work, and a service line you can actually charge for.
No cost. No contract. No credit card.
You’re already in the lending business. You just aren’t getting paid for it.
The document scramble.
The banker’s list arrives, your client forwards it, and you become the file server.
Typical: 3 to 5 hours per client, per loan
Explaining your own client’s financials to their lender.
Add-backs, owner comp, a one-time expense that isn’t one-time.
Typical: 2+ hours, on a call you didn’t schedule
The client who applied without telling you.
Declined for something you’d have caught in ten minutes, and now you’re cleaning it up.
Typical: unbudgeted, and it lands in March
Advisory work you can see but can’t package.
You know which clients aren’t bankable. There’s no deliverable to sell them, so the insight stays in your head.
88% of growing firms say advisory is outpacing compliance
The Founding 25
What a founding seat includes
The Book Dashboard
Clears: I don’t know which clients even need this
Every client’s lendability at a glance. We tell you when one crosses into lender-ready, or when a coverage ratio slips before a renewal. Each alert is a reason to call a client, which is the thing that actually grows advisory revenue.
Unlimited Lendability Reviews
Clears: my clients won’t pay for advisory
A client-facing report with your firm’s name on it. Where they stand against what lenders look for, what’s blocking them, and what to fix first. Something you can hand over, and put on an invoice.
The Lender’s Eye Playbook
Clears: the staff skills gap
What lenders actually evaluate, in plain language, from someone who spent fifteen years making those decisions. The scoring criteria are published, so nothing is a black box.
The Ethics Kit
Clears: am I even allowed to do this?
Which engagements bar compensation outright, and model disclosure language meeting California’s signed-disclosure test and New York’s 12-point-font and seven-year retention rule.
The Client Pitch Kit
Clears: how do I sell it, and what do I charge?
Email scripts for introducing the review, a one-page client explainer, and pricing guidance for the service line.
A direct line to Eric
Clears: what if the client asks something I can’t answer?
Monthly office hours with a commercial lender who has sat on the other side of the file. Founding cohort only.
The founding-firm channel
Clears: Where the design input happens
Founding firms shape the product. Firms who join later use what you shaped.
What it costs, and what we’re asking for instead
Founding seats are free for the life of the firm’s account. That isn’t a promotion, and there’s no upgrade waiting at the end of it. Here’s the actual trade:
We’re asking for your input while we build, and a case study once it works.
And we only ask for the case study if it works. If it doesn’t, you owe us nothing: not a testimonial, not a referral, not a reason.
Why we don’t pay you
Most companies in this category lead with a referral commission. We deliberately don’t, and you should know why before you wonder what the catch is.
Your independence rules bar accepting compensation from a client your firm issues a compilation for, which is exactly the client for whom a loan matters most. California prohibits a fee paid solely for a referral outright. And your own liability guidance tells you to hand clients a list of options rather than an endorsement.
So a commission would ask you to do the one thing your risk counsel warns against, in exchange for a few hundred dollars. We’d rather build the tool and let the revenue come from where it should: your clients, for advisory work you can now actually deliver.
The honest version: if the founding cohort works, we hope some of you send us clients who need more help than the software gives them. That’s the business model, stated plainly. Nothing about your seat depends on it.
What the first month looks like
Stand up the firm workspace
No integration, no data migration, nothing for IT.
Day one, about 20 minutes
Load your client list and see the board
The Book Dashboard populates. For the first time you can see which clients are bankable, which are close, and which need groundwork.
Week one
Run three real clients and hand them the review
Your branding, your recommendation. This is what we’d ask of a founding firm.
First 90 days
A good fit
- Has business clients, not just 1040s
- Has watched a client’s loan go sideways and known why
- Wants an advisory line without building the method
- Will run three clients through in the first 90 days
Not a fit right now
- Wants a referral commission (we don’t pay one)
- Mid-busy-season and can’t touch this for months
- Wants us to work their client directly (we don’t contact their client without their say-so)
- Looking for a loan for their own firm
If the timing’s wrong, take a later cohort. We’d rather you join when you can use it than hold a seat you can’t.
The Founding 25
Apply for a founding seat
No cost. No contract. No credit card.
0 of 25 founding seats claimed
Zero2Ten LLC provides software and educational tools for small business owners preparing for financing. Zero2Ten is not a lender, does not broker loans, does not make credit decisions, and does not guarantee loan approval or terms. Lendability results are educational estimates based on information you provide and are not loan offers, credit decisions, or pre-approvals. Any lender introduction is at your request and lenders make independent decisions under their own criteria.