Plain English
Business terms, translated.
Every term Alxoria uses in your dossier, explained the way a friend would, with the example that makes it click. Dotted-underlined words around the site link back here.
Money
Revenue
All the money customers pay you, before any costs come out. Selling 10 candles at $20 = $200 revenue, even if the wax cost you $80.
Gross margin
The share of each sale you keep after the direct cost of delivering it. Sell at $20, spend $8 on materials, and you keep $12: a 60% gross margin. It's the fuel that pays for everything else.
Fixed costs
Costs that arrive every month whether you sell anything or not: software subscriptions, insurance, rent. The first job of your revenue is covering these.
Variable costs
Costs that grow with each sale: materials, shipping, payment fees. More sales, more variable cost (but hopefully more profit too).
Break-even
The point where total money in finally equals total money out, including what you spent to start. Before it you're investing; after it the business pays for itself.
Unit economics
The profit math of ONE sale: what one customer pays you versus what that one sale costs to deliver and to win. If one unit loses money, more units lose more money.
Cash flow
The timing of money moving in and out. A profitable business can still die waiting on payments. Cash flow is why invoicing fast matters.
Bootstrapping
Funding the business from savings and its own revenue instead of loans or investors. Slower, but you keep full ownership and control.
Runway
How many months you can keep going before the money runs out at your current spending. Six months of costs in the bank = six months of runway.
Price anchor
A familiar price customers already pay that makes yours feel reasonable by comparison. "Less than one gym personal-training session" anchors a $49 plan.
Market & competition
TAM (total addressable market)
The total money spent per year on this kind of product by everyone, everywhere. It sizes the ocean. You won't capture it, but it shows the idea isn't a puddle.
SAM (serviceable addressable market)
The slice of the TAM you could actually reach with your model and channels: your country, your niche, your price range.
SOM (serviceable obtainable market)
The realistic slice you could win in your first year or two, given your time and budget. This is the number your revenue plan should respect.
Customer segment
A group of customers with the same situation and buying reasons. 'New dog owners in apartments' is a segment; 'people with dogs' is not.
Differentiation
The specific reason a customer picks you over the alternative they already use. If you can't finish 'unlike them, we…', you don't have it yet.
Wedge
Your unfair way in: the skill, audience, or access you already have that competitors can't copy on day one. Ideas without a wedge compete on luck.
Positioning
The one-sentence answer to 'what is this and who is it for?' For [who], [name] is the [category] that [benefit], unlike [alternative].
Customers & marketing
Persona
A concrete sketch of one typical buyer: their day, their pains, where they hang out, what makes them pay. You write copy for a persona, not for 'everyone'.
CAC (customer acquisition cost)
What you spend, on average, to win one customer, counting ads, tools, and your time. If CAC is $30 and a customer only ever pays you $20, growth makes it worse.
LTV (lifetime value)
Everything one customer pays you over your whole relationship. A $29/month subscriber who stays 10 months has an LTV of $290. That's why keeping customers beats constantly finding new ones.
Churn
The rate at which customers leave. 5% monthly churn means a twentieth of your subscribers cancel every month. It's the silent leak every subscription business fights.
Conversion rate
The percentage of people who take the step you wanted, like visitors who buy or readers who sign up. 100 visitors, 3 sales = 3% conversion.
Funnel
The path from stranger to customer: see it, click it, try it, buy it. Fewer people survive each step; fixing the leakiest step is usually the cheapest growth.
Warm audience
People who already know or trust you (or someone vouching for you), like a newsletter or a community you help in. Selling warm is 10× easier than cold.
Cold outreach
Contacting strangers who've never heard of you, with cold emails or cold DMs. Low hit rates are normal; specificity and a real offer are what make it work at all.
Watering hole
A specific place your customers already gather: a subreddit, a Facebook group, a trade newsletter, a conference. Fish where the fish are.
CTA (call to action)
The one thing you ask a reader to do next, like 'Start free' or 'Book a call'. Pages with three CTAs usually get none of them.
SEO (search engine optimization)
Making your pages the best answer to things your customers already search for, so Google sends them to you free. Slow at first, compounding later.
Affiliate revenue
A commission a company pays you for referring a customer to them, usually via a tracked link. No inventory, but you're paid for trust, so recommend only what's genuinely good.
Validation & launch
Hypothesis
Your riskiest assumption written as a testable sentence, like 'busy teachers will pay $29 for a movement plan.' You run cheap tests to prove or kill it before building.
Validation
Getting real evidence people want the thing BEFORE building it: interviews, pre-orders, signups. Compliments don't count; behavior does.
MVP (minimum viable product)
The smallest version that delivers the core value. Often embarrassingly simple, sometimes just you doing it manually. Its job is learning, not perfection.
Smoke test
A one-page 'coming soon' offer that measures whether strangers click, sign up, or pre-pay. Demand, measured before the product exists.
Mom Test
Interviewing so politeness can't fool you: ask about what people actually do today and what it costs them, and never ask 'would you buy this?' (Everyone says yes. Then nobody does.)
Kill criteria
The result you decide IN ADVANCE would mean stop or change course, like 'fewer than 5 signups in 2 weeks.' Deciding beforehand keeps hope from overruling evidence.
Pivot
Changing a core piece of the plan (the customer, the product, the channel) while keeping what you learned. A pivot backed by evidence is progress, not failure.
Legal & admin
Sole proprietorship
The default one-person business. No paperwork to start, taxes on your personal return, but no legal separation between you and the business's debts.
LLC (limited liability company)
A cheap legal wrapper that separates business debts and contracts from your personal assets. It does not shield you from claims about your own work; that is what insurance covers, and it changes nothing about your taxes. The usual first upgrade from sole proprietorship once there is real revenue or real risk.
EIN (employer identification number)
A free tax ID for your business from the IRS, like a Social Security number for the company. Banks ask for it when you open a business account.
General liability insurance
Covers you if your business accidentally injures someone or damages property. Cheap peace of mind for anything involving clients, venues, or physical products.
E&O (errors & omissions) insurance
Covers claims that your professional advice or service caused someone a loss. Relevant once you're consulting, coaching, or making promises about outcomes.
Quarterly estimated taxes
Self-employed people pay income tax four times a year instead of having an employer withhold it. Set aside a slice of every payment so the quarterly bill never surprises you.
Sales tax
A tax collected from the buyer on certain sales and passed to the state. Whether it applies depends on what you sell and where. Worth a check early; rules vary a lot.
Next step
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