Last lesson you mapped your Business Model Canvas and named the value your mini-business delivers. Today we get to the question every founder has to answer: does the money actually work?

Hold onto that gap. That's where today's lesson lives. By the end of the hour, you'll have a complete budget for your own mini-business and you'll know whether the numbers break even or need to change.

Four ideas drive today's work. Read the table carefully. Every row will show up again in the example and in your own budget.

Once you can use those two lines confidently, the rest is just picking realistic numbers for your own business.

Before you build your own budget, we'll work through a complete one together. But first, a quick word on pricing.

The three ways to justify a price

When you choose your price later in this lesson, you'll pick one of these three approaches and write a one-sentence reason. They're not mutually exclusive (most real businesses use a mix), but you only need to lead with one.

• Cost-plus — add up your variable cost per unit, then add a markup (e.g. 100% or 150%) for profit. Easy and safe, but ignores what customers will actually pay.
• Comparable products — find out what similar things cost from competitors or substitutes, then price near, above, or below them. Quick and grounded in reality.
• Survey evidence — use what your earlier survey respondents told you they'd pay. The strongest evidence because it comes from actual potential customers, but only works if you did the survey.

Now read the smoothie cart's numbers carefully and watch how all three justifications could apply to the same price. Then answer the two check questions to make sure the maths makes sense before you do your own.

Now do the same for your own mini-business. Fill in your Budget Sheet below — it saves as you type, so your figures are kept for you.

What to do:

1. List your fixed costs — everything you need to spend once to get set up (equipment, signs, basic materials, packaging stocks). Use the example lines as a starting point and add or change them to fit your business.
2. List your variable costs — what one unit costs to make or deliver (ingredients per portion, materials per item, per-customer packaging, per-service supplies). Don't guess wildly; look up rough prices if you need to.
3. Set a price per unit or service, and write a one-sentence justification using one of the three approaches from the last step: cost-plus, comparable products, or your earlier survey results. If you didn't do a survey, use cost-plus or comparable products instead.
4. Estimate how many units you'd realistically sell per week. Be honest; over-optimistic forecasts are how businesses go under.
5. The break-even line at the bottom updates automatically as you type your fixed costs, variable costs and price. If it looks impossible (e.g. you'd need to sell 400 units a week and you only have 30 potential customers), change something: raise the price, cut a fixed cost, or swap a supplier — and write what you changed in the reflection box.

Step away from your Budget Sheet for a moment.

Think about