Land with the website. Expand into the whole business.
Instructors first, one studio at a time. Many of them have a website they can't easily change; Simma gives them one they can run, with the timetable and booking built in. Everything else follows on the same record.
The sharpest pain, and a product that fits today.
The whole tangle, at once
A timetable, bookings, payments, packs, a website and a mailing list, run by one person between classes.
A website they dread
Usually built once, by a friend or an old platform, and too awkward to keep up to date. That's the door in.
It fits today
One design partner is a dance school, the Cascade's instructor layer is live, and the first website templates are for dance schools.
They cluster
Teaching bodies, franchises and local networks, where one good studio tells the next.
Their customers see it
Every booking page and receipt can say "Made with Simma" to the parents and pupils who use it.
Next after instructors: other small service businesses (hair and beauty, trades, professional services), then franchise and multi-location groups. The market page has the counts: where we start.
Start with the thing they hate. Grow into the rest.
A website they can run
Built from what they already have: the old site, the timetable, the photos. Change a class once and the website knows.
- Their own domain
- Timetable and booking built in
- Found on Google and in AI answers
The whole business
With the website on Simma, the next tool is a switch away, not a migration.
- Bookings, packs and payments
- Customers, email and the inbox
- The AI team, from Maya to Molly
One record they keep
Every customer, booking and payment lives in one place. The longer a studio runs on Simma, the more there is to lose by leaving.
- History, reviews, the domain
- More revenue per customer as they grow
- A reason to tell the next studio
Launch dependency: published sites on simmasite.com are unreachable today because of a Cloudflare 530 error. It's fixed in code and goes live with the next release. See Status.
250 paying customers, won by hand first.
Paid selling starts in month three: about five new paying studios a week at first, rising to ten or twelve by month twelve.
The founder, full-time from first close. The first sales and customer-success hire at month two, a marketing agency from month three. The design partners and the first studios onboarded by hand.
Direct outreach to studios and instructors, the design partners' referrals, and Sparks content on the site. An engineer joins at month four; a second sales hire at month six.
Double down on the channel that brings studios in cheapest, and start the seed raise at month twelve with the numbers to show for it.
Four ways in, plus our own media.
Each one is tested before it's scaled, and each has a number that says whether it's working.
Direct & self-serve
From month 3The founder and the sales hires talk to studios one by one; the site, search, AI answers and the free plan let the rest sign themselves up.
- Cost to win
- £400–1,000 a customer
- Proof
- Cost per paying studio, free to paid
Product-led referral
From month 3"Made with Simma" on every website, booking page and receipt. Parents, pupils and other teachers see it every week.
- Cost to win
- Close to nothing
- Proof
- Share of sign-ups that came from a Simma site
Partners
Year 2Teaching associations, accountants and industry bodies that already advise instructors.
- Cost to win
- A share or an offer, per partner
- Proof
- Customers per partner, a year on
Franchise & multi-location
Years 2–3One group signs and its owner-operated locations follow. The first step into small and medium businesses.
- Cost to win
- £3,000 a small customer
- Proof
- Locations live per group signed
Simma Sparks
Content nowA pro-business media brand: how to succeed, case studies, changes in the law, tax advice from accountants. Articles and video now; a monthly printed magazine for UK businesses later, as a test. It reaches owners who aren't looking to switch.
- Run by
- ST, editor on one of the founder's magazines
- Proof
- Sign-ups from Sparks readers and viewers
Not yet
LaterPaid advertising at scale, and the US. Both wait until the UK shows which channels bring studios in, and at what cost.
- US
- Year 3
- Trigger
- A channel that repeats in the UK
Half product, half marketing. On purpose.
The unit economics turn on one number: what it costs to win a studio. So marketing isn't a department bolted on later; it's built like the product. One loop, run on Simma's own tools, measured by channel from month three.
- 01Get found
Simma Sparks articles and video, search and AI answers bring in owners who aren't shopping for software yet.
- 02Land them
A website they can run, from what they already have, on the free plan. The thing they dread, fixed first.
- 03Follow up, every time
Maya drafts the campaigns; Sam follows up every enquiry and trial. No lead goes quiet.
- 04Let them bring the next
"Made with Simma" on every site, booking page and receipt, seen by the parents and pupils who use them.
- 05Measure, then spend
Cost to win and retention by channel. More money goes where studios come in cheapest, and stay.
The pre-seed puts 43% of its spend into marketing: an agency from month three, then the cost to win each customer. See The ask. Maya and Sam run this as the agents ship; see Status.
From 250 to 50,000, by channel.
Paying customers at the end of each year. Direct selling carries year one; referral, partners and franchises carry the rest.
| Channel | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct & self-serveSite, search, AI answers, the free plan, Simma Sparks | 220 | 1,100 | 2,700 | 7,500 | 17,500 |
| Product-led referral"Made with Simma" on every site, booking and receipt | 30 | 400 | 1,100 | 4,500 | 12,500 |
| PartnersAssociations, accountants, industry bodies | – | 400 | 1,500 | 5,000 | 12,500 |
| Franchise & multi-locationOne group signs; its locations follow | – | 100 | 700 | 3,000 | 7,500 |
| Paying customers | 250 | 2,000 | 6,000 | 20,000 | 50,000 |
A plan, not a forecast. Years one and two were raised to 250 and 2,000 on 27 September 2026; the split by channel in those years is a draft; the financial model matches. Revenue per early customer assumes 85% solo instructors and 15% studios with staff, and we measure the real mix from month six. The US opens in year three. Churn assumed: 30% a year for the smallest businesses.
A small team, and the AI team it sells.
What's true today, and what we'll show next.
Today
- Two design partners: a UK dance school, whose website, timetable and bookings were built in Simma (it pays from launch), and a UK media business.
- Early talks with a multi-brand franchise operator, and unprompted interest from a small coaching business in New York.
- Two more businesses have said they'll start at launch (verbal, not yet written).
- The product runs a real studio's site, timetable and bookings in production.
By month six
- Written commitments with a price and a start date.
- A named launch list of studios waiting to join.
- Recorded conversations with instructors about what they pay for today and why.