Side B · for investors and partners
The living business plan.
Everything under the surface — the model, the core loop, the legal foundation, the revenue streams, the five-year projections, and the staged raise. Side A is the product; this is the argument behind it.
02 · Core & DNA
Timber™ is the exchange where real businesses get packaged into structured, transferable, launchable deals.
Mission
Timber™ exists because too many great businesses never reach their potential, while too many capable entrepreneurs struggle to find meaningful opportunities to build. We connect the two by putting real businesses and entrepreneurial opportunities back into the hands of the people capable of taking them further. Through our infrastructure, the value, work, and potential already created can continue to compound beyond any single founder.
Tagline
Option. Package. Built.
The package is the product. Option the opportunity, package and build the business, acquire what you've built.
The literal level.
Timber is the raw material you need before you can build anything. A screenplay needs actors and financing to become a movie. A house needs timber before it's a house. A business idea needs the same thing — real material added to it — before it's a business.
The deeper level.
Acacia wood built the Ark of the Covenant. Solomon imported cedar and cypress from Lebanon to build the Temple. Noah was given a material and a set of instructions, and the ark that resulted was what carried everything worth saving through the flood. In each case, timber isn't just wood. It's the thing that turns a plan into a structure that holds.
Our North Star
The problem Timber™ solves is the inefficient movement of entrepreneurial opportunity.
Remove the gatekeepers between great opportunities and the people capable of building them. Create a new path where startups and businesses can be optioned, packaged, acquired, built, scaled, bought, or transferred — giving every valuable venture the opportunity to reach its full potential.
2%
of startups secure funding
Leaving the vast majority without access to the capital needed to grow.
1–3%
get into accelerators
Most founders never reach the traditional pathways for support, capital, and opportunity.
95%
of VC-backed founders are White or Asian
Only 5% are Black, Latino, and other minority founders — a structural access gap.
Lost businesses
Viable businesses fail simply because nobody shows up to carry them forward. Many entrepreneurs build companies they can eventually no longer operate, leaving them without a clear path.
Unused potential
When a founder steps away, valuable work disappears with them — intellectual property, research, branding, technology, customer relationships, operational infrastructure.
Wasted capacity
Capable entrepreneurs have the skills to build but lack access to the right opportunity. Serial entrepreneurs spot viable businesses they can't personally operate.
Market inefficiency
There is no primary marketplace for discovering, evaluating, optioning, packaging, acquiring, and building entrepreneurial opportunities. Good businesses exist and capable people want to build — the two rarely connect.
How Timber™ exists to solve it
Puts opportunity back in the hands of entrepreneurs
Removes unnecessary gatekeepers between real businesses and the people capable of building them.
Creates a marketplace for real businesses
Founders, buyers, operators, investors, and talent in one ecosystem where opportunities get discovered, evaluated, developed, and transferred.
Introduces optioning
A new pathway between discovering an opportunity and acquiring it — time to pursue, validate, and develop before committing.
Enables entrepreneurs to package and build
The option period is where the opportunity becomes stronger, not a waiting room.
Preserves and compounds existing value
The work continues to compound on the business, not just the person.
Creates a new path forward for founders
Founders shouldn't have to choose between operating forever and shutting down.
Connects builders with opportunities
Opportunity + Builder = Potential.
Expands access to entrepreneurship
The question stops being “who will give me permission to build?” and becomes “what opportunity can I build?”
A founder stepping away should not mean a business has to die.
Timber™ gives businesses a path beyond their original founder.
04 · How Timber™ Exists to Solve These Problems
Fourteen problems. One operating system for entrepreneurship.
Each accordion below names a real market failure Timber™ is designed to address — and the mechanism that turns it into a path forward.
The Timber™ Model
Option the opportunity. Package and build the business. Acquire what you've built.
Timber™ applies the Hollywood model to business. In film, a project gets optioned, packaged with talent, then financed and released. On Timber, an opportunity gets optioned, packaged with real work, then acquired and scaled — by the people capable of taking it further, not by gatekeepers.
Option
An entrepreneur discovers a business or opportunity and obtains the right to pursue it through a defined option period. The option buys time to evaluate, validate, and decide whether the opportunity is worth acquiring.
- Defined exclusive window
- Founder monetizes without selling or shutting down
- Signed option agreement + escrow
The flywheel
Opportunity → Option → Package → Acquire → Scale. A business can have multiple chapters: one person starts it, another options it, another packages and builds it, another acquires it, another scales it. The value keeps moving forward.
4
Ways value moves
Option · package · license · resell
5
Steps in the core loop
List · gate · option · package · outcome
1
Hard gate
The Investor layer stays closed until securities counsel clears it
04 · The Core Transaction
One loop, five steps, all of it happening in the same place.
01
List
Founder brings a business — pre-revenue or already generating revenue. Public view shows only an executive summary. A timestamp and provenance certificate issues at upload.
Terms of Use · ownership + IP attestation
02
Gate
A prospective buyer requests access. An NDA executes electronically before any core document is released.
Single NDA template (Appendix C)
03
Option
Buyer pays a fee to lock an exclusive window — 6, 12, or 18 months — on Timber. Exclusive standing on-platform, not a claim on the underlying idea.
Single Option Agreement · escrow
04
Package
This is where the deal actually gets built. Buyer, founder, or packager attaches people (operator, advisor, soft-circled investor) and proof (audit, customer list, prototype, vendor contract) directly onto the listing.
Same Option Agreement · Deal Log entry per attachment
05
Outcome
Execute · resell the packaged deal · extend the window · or let it expire. The founder keeps the fee. The packaged deal, now stronger, stays ready to be optioned again.
Sale · license · reversion · extension · resale clauses
The mechanic worth repeating
The packaged deal stays on the platform. Whatever got attached to it doesn't disappear if a buyer walks. Value accumulates in the place itself — in the deal sitting there — not in any single buyer's follow-through.
03 · The Packaged Deal Is the Product
Timber doesn't sell ideas. It sells packaged deals.
An idea alone has one level of value, and it's low. The same idea, once it has a paid audit attached, an operator recruited, a soft-circled investor already interested, a customer list validated, and an enforceable option agreement sitting on top of it, is a different asset entirely. That assembled thing is what actually trades hands.
Paid audit
Third-party CPA verifies financials.
Recruited operator
Willing to run day-to-day at execution.
Soft-circled capital
Angel or family office indicating interest.
Working prototype
Live demo, MVP, or first product cut.
Validated customer list
Signed LOIs or double-opt-in waitlist.
Signed vendor contract
Fulfillment, lease, or supply agreement.
A dossier full of documents says this could work. A dossier with a named operator and a soft-circled investor attached says people are already lining up to make it work.
09 · Four Ways Value Moves
Option, package, license, resell — all live at launch.
Option
A buyer pays for a 6, 12, or 18-month exclusive window — priced around 10% of listed value. The founder is paid first, keeping roughly 80% of the fee immediately while still owning the business.
Package
The engine of the platform. Anyone — founder, packager, operator, investor — attaches something real. Talent and proof, logged permanently to the Deal Log.
License
Founder grants the buyer the right to run the business for an agreed term and territory. Founder keeps ownership and earns ongoing royalties. Operates outside securities regulation.
Resell
A buyer who can't or won't execute resells the packaged deal — attachments and all — to a better-positioned buyer, without the deal ever leaving the platform.
06 · The Hollywood Model
The Shark Tank inversion — the entrepreneur becomes their own shark.
In Hollywood, an agency's real business isn't negotiating a fee — it's packaging. Timber does the same job for a business, with one deliberate change: it removes the agency as gatekeeper. Anyone can package their own deal.
07 · Buyer Circumvention, Answered Directly
What stops a well-funded buyer from browsing then walking away?
Legally, ideas cannot be copyrighted or owned. There are four structural answers, not one clause.
Answer 01
Make the packaged deal worth more than the idea alone
Public listings show only an executive summary — not enough to build from. What has value is the assembled dossier.
Answer 02
Release information in stages, not all at once
The most copyable material (SOPs, vendor lists, granular models) unlocks only after real milestones are hit.
Answer 03
Make the NDA actually bite
Liquidated damages clause plus advance consent to expedited injunctive relief. Fast, financially painful.
Answer 04
Watch the pattern
Dormancy flags on options with zero Deal Log activity. Short terms with visible extensions instead of long silent windows.
Competitor analysis
Four adjacent platforms. None of them package a deal.
This analysis looks at four platforms operating in adjacent space to Timber™ — buying and selling businesses and digital assets. None of them do exactly what Timber does. Timber's core mechanic — option first, then package the deal with real operators, audits, capital, and vendors before anyone acquires anything — is not something any of these four offer. That difference shows up in every comparison below.
Acquire.com
Self-serve SaaS marketplaceAcquire.com (originally MicroAcquire) is a marketplace where founders list bootstrapped SaaS, ecommerce, agency, content, and mobile app businesses for buyers to browse and acquire directly. It positions itself as the anonymous, no-middleman way to get acquired, cutting out brokers and investment bankers.
Founded
2020 · Andrew Gazdecki (as MicroAcquire, rebranded 2022/23)
Revenue (rough estimate)
~$7M–$8M annually (third-party estimates), mostly from buyer subscriptions of roughly $390–$780/yr rather than seller commissions. Has raised close to $17M in venture funding.
Key advantages
- Large buyer pool, reportedly over 500,000 registered buyers
- Free for sellers — revenue comes from buyer subscriptions
- Fast, self-serve listing process with legal document builders and Escrow.com integration
- Strong brand recognition in the SaaS and indie-hacker world
Key disadvantages
- A straight listing marketplace — no built-in way to add value to a listing before it sells
- No mechanism for a third party to attach operators, audits, or capital to a deal
- Anonymous listings mean weak provenance; buyers redo diligence from scratch
- Skews heavily toward SaaS and digital businesses; local and offline businesses underserved
How Timber™ compares
Different, and better for the specific problem Timber solves.
Acquire.com is a matching engine: it connects a seller and a buyer and gets out of the way. Timber is a packaging engine — the option period exists specifically so operators, CPAs, and capital can attach real work to a deal before it closes, and that work is logged permanently to the listing. A founder on Acquire.com sells once and the story ends. A founder on Timber gets paid on the option, and the deal can keep compounding value through multiple hands. Timber is not trying to out-list Acquire.com's buyer pool size right now; it is offering a fundamentally different structure Acquire.com has no equivalent for.
11 · Revenue Model
Three streams, all tied to activity happening on the platform itself.
20%
Option fees
Of every option fee and extension paid to lock a window
6%
Transaction fees
Of every finalized purchase transaction on the platform
3%
Licensing origination fee
Origination fee on every license deal
Every stream is a fee on a service Timber actually performs — hosting a listing, executing an NDA, holding escrow, facilitating a license, processing a resale. Streams involving pooled capital or a promised return (the Investor layer) intersect securities law and are deliberately not built.
12 · Legal Foundation
A deliberately small, transaction-complete legal stack.
Fewer moving legal parts, fewer places the business can break. Every document requires a licensed attorney to draft and finalize — the plan describes what each document needs to accomplish, not the language itself. The stack now covers the full lifecycle: option, packaging, purchase, and license.
01 · Terms of Use
Platform rules, 'not an offering' disclaimers, mandatory arbitration, broad liability release.
02 · Privacy Policy
Data collection, storage, and use practices.
03 · NDA (single template)
Executed before any core document is released. Liquidated damages + injunctive-relief consent.
04 · Option Agreement
Parties, listed value, option fee, term (6/12/18), reversion, extension, staged disclosure, resale, and license-election clauses.
05 · Packaging Agreement
Governs what a packager may and may not do during the option window: work-for-hire, attribution, ownership of attachments, rights to attach talent and capital, restrictions on removing assets, and what happens to packaged value if the option expires or the deal is resold.
06 · Purchase Agreement
Executed when a buyer exercises the option and acquires the business or equity stake. Asset/stock purchase terms, reps and warranties, closing conditions, indemnity, and allocation of packaged value.
07 · License Agreement
Executed when a buyer elects a license instead of an outright purchase. Scope, royalty or fee structure, exclusivity, term, sublicense restrictions, and reversion on breach.
08 · Escrow Terms
Third-party escrow processor. Timber integrates rather than builds from scratch.
14 · Deliberately not built yet
The Investor layer stays hard-gated behind securities counsel.
Any structure where a person contributes capital and expects a payout from the efforts of others risks classification as a security under Howey. Keeping that line clear is what keeps Timber's regulatory footprint small.
13 · Trust & verification
Removing gatekeepers isn't the same as removing standards.
- · Identity confirmation on buyer and seller
- · Ownership + IP attestation with timestamp at upload
- · Viability review against a scoring rubric
- · Financial verification for the revenue-verified badge
- · Escrow holdback with a dispute window
20 · Financial Projections · illustrative
Core-loop revenue only. Investor-layer upside deliberately excluded.
| Metric | Yr 1 | Yr 2 | Yr 3 | Yr 4 | Yr 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Active listings | 400 | 1,200 | 3,500 | 8,000 | 18,000 |
| Completed transactions | 60 | 240 | 875 | 2,400 | 6,300 |
| Transaction + option revenue | $297K | $1.18M | $4.29M | $11.8M | $30.9M |
| Licensing origination fee | $9K | $52K | $205K | $610K | $1.68M |
| Membership + featured + escrow | $129K | $431K | $1.28M | $3.3M | $8.3M |
| Total revenue | $435K | $1.66M | $5.78M | $15.7M | $40.9M |
| Gross margin | 72% | 74% | 76% | 78% | 80% |
Investor-layer features, if and when cleared by securities counsel, represent significant additional upside not modeled here — a conservative, evidence-first posture consistent with the validation-gated approach.
23 · About the Founder
Founder
Allan Meade, Jr.
Miami, FL · designchurch.co
Timber is what happens when a builder gets tired of watching good ideas rot in a slide deck.
Allan Meade, Jr. is a designer, brand-builder, and church planter based in Miami. For more than a decade he's worked at the intersection of creative direction and operating strategy — designing the identity systems, launch playbooks, and organizational structures behind startups, ministries, and packaged concepts across the country.
Through Design Church Co., his branding and design agency for churches and Kingdom ventures, he's built identity systems, launch playbooks, and digital experiences for ministries and faith-driven organizations across the country. That work surfaced a pattern he couldn't stop noticing: the people with the sharpest ideas rarely had access to the packaging — the audit, the operator, the soft-circled capital — that turns an idea into a fundable, executable deal. Gatekeepers held the packaging. Founders held the risk.
Timber is his answer to that asymmetry. A place, not a gatekeeper. A structure that lets founders, operators, and packagers assemble the deal in public view, on record, without asking anyone's permission.
Background
Creative director, brand strategist, church planter
Prior work
Design Church Co. — branding & design agency for churches and Kingdom ventures
Based in
Miami, FL
Contact
allan@designchurch.co
24 · The Short Version
A founder lists. A buyer options. Anyone packages. The buyer executes, resells, or walks. The deal stays.
That's the whole point.