Operating notes
How to make it work
The atlas is a map, not a plan. These pages are the practical residue: how the supply side actually gets built, what to put in a contract, where the cash goes missing between paying a crowd weekly and being paid net-60, and what a European operator selling into US buyers has to do differently.
01
Building the supply side
Seed supply first, but only as much as the first contract consumes — and answer the utilisation question before anything else, because it is what kills these companies.
8 min
02
Pricing and the contract
The buyer's alternative is nearly always to hire someone, and increasingly an offshore someone at half the cost. Price against that — then decide gross or net deliberately, because the same facts that book you gross make you an employer.
8 min
03
The first ninety days
A sequence: prove buyer urgency with money before building supply, build only what the first contract consumes, and measure seven things at day 90 — one of which decides everything.
8 min
04
Operating from Europe, selling to the US
The entity can be European. The crowd should not be — from 2 December 2026 an EU-resident contributor is a presumptive employee and the anti-fraud stack that works becomes unlawful.
9 min
05
When to stop
Five numbers and one calendar. Write them down before you need them, because every one of them will arrive attached to a reason it does not count this quarter.
8 min