BYOK economics: zero inference costs
Users bring their own API keys. NC processes intelligence locally. Zero inference costs. Compare: Cursor charges $20/mo but pays ~40% in inference costs.
Revenue
Pricing tiers
Community
forever
All 7 commanders (base), Email Intelligence, Provider Gateway (Ollama), Telegram + CLI + TUI
Pro
$12 Founders'$16.15/mo annual (15% off)
Full commander intelligence, 15 projects/15 emails/15 vaults, 5 providers, AI Reply, priority support
Team
5+ seats, $16.15 annual
Shared context (L3), centralised vault, admin dashboard, SSO
Unit Economics
Why BYOK = best economics in dev tools
Projected monthly churn: 5% (conservative for dev tools). Payback period: <1 month.
Projections
Organic growth projections
No paid marketing. Community-driven adoption via free Community Edition + developer relations.
| Month | Pro Users | Team Seats | MRR | ARR Run Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 40 | 5 | $575 | $6,900 |
| 6 | 80 | 15 | $1,805 | $21,660 |
| 9 | 120 | 30 | $2,850 | $34,200 |
| 12 | 148 | 45 | $3,762 | $45,144 |
| 15 | 200 | 65 | $5,035 | $60,420 |
| 18 | 350 | 100 | $8,550 | $102,600 |
Projected break-even: ~Month 15-18 at ~350 paid users (organic only)
Projected path to $10K MRR: Month 6-9 with Foundation 100 + organic growth
Projected path to $50K MRR: Month 18-24 with enterprise pilots
Funding
Use of funds
$250K SAFE
$2.5M-$5M cap, negotiable
Non-Dilutive Leverage
ESIC Tax Offset
20% of investment (~$50K offset on $250K)
ESIC CGT Exemption
Zero CGT for 10 years (investors)
NSW MVP Ventures
Up to $50K matching grant (NC)
R&D Tax Incentive
43.5% refundable offset on eligible R&D (NC)
Combined leverage:
$250K raise supports ~$335K total funding
Runway: 12-15 months to revenue validation milestone
Milestones
Revenue validation checkpoints
| Target | Success Criteria |
|---|---|
| Month 1 end | Event bus, state store, action queue, channel abstraction passing tests |
| Month 2 end | Morning briefing generating from real data, action queue functional |
| Month 3 end | Binary downloadable, nc setup works, 3 channels live |
| Month 3.5 | 100 founding users at $12/mo Founders' Rate |
| Month 5 end | Financial briefing section generating from real data |
| Month 6 | $1,805 MRR, 80 Pro subscribers, 15 team seats |
Thesis
Why invest now
Pre-revenue, pre-launch = maximum equity upside
Technical risk is de-risked: 200K+ lines of working Go code, 1,500+ tests
$60B+ market with zero local-first competitors
Founder-market fit: building from operational pain, not hypothesis
Non-dilutive leverage extends every invested dollar by ~60%
ESIC-eligible: 20% tax offset + 10-year CGT exemption. Free tier drives adoption, Pro drives revenue