Price the hidden work — the base, the drainage, the flashing — and survive the winter that closes most masonry startups.

A plan with the real regulatory spine, cited so you can check it. Contractor licensing by dollar threshold, with the spread named rather than averaged away — Washington requires registration once a project's labor-and-materials price reaches USD 500 (RCW 18.27.090), North Carolina's general-contractor threshold is USD 40,000 (G.S. 87-1(a)), and California's CSLB C-29 Masonry licence is required at USD 1,000 in combined labor and materials, with the sub-threshold exemption void if a permit is required or if you employ anyone (B&P §7048, as amended by AB 2622, effective 2025-01-01). Plus the OSHA exposures that actually cite masons: respirable crystalline silica under 29 CFR 1926.1153 (written exposure-control plan, competent person, wet cutting), and 29 CFR 1926.706 — the limited-access zone and the bracing of masonry walls over eight feet. Craft standards follow TMS 402/602, ASTM C90/C216/C270, and CMHA guidance (the body formed when ICPI and NCMA unified in 2022).

A model whose levers are the ones that decide the year. A real month-by-month freeze seasonality curve you can flatten for a Sun Belt market, a nine-month revenue ramp, blended gross margin against a 61%-of-revenue cost of goods that carries crew wages and burden, a true amortization schedule and depreciation line (owner's draw and loan principal sit below net income, where they belong), and a computed DSCR. It tells you your operating break-even in monthly revenue, the month your cash actually bottoms, and the reserve floor — one month of fixed costs plus your draw — you must not breach. Change any assumption and the whole thing recomputes.

Playbooks written for units laid in mortar, not for a generic service business. A per-square-foot cost build for every service line — paver field, SRW face foot, brick and CMU, veneer, repointing, chimney — and the itemized proposal that wins against a cheaper, vaguer bid. In-process hold points on the work nobody can inspect later: base depth and compaction before bedding sand, geogrid length and spacing before backfill, flashing and weeps before the veneer field, the four-foot/surcharge engineering trigger caught at estimating instead of on site. The manufacturer authorized-contractor channel (Belgard, Techo-Bloc, Unilock, Allan Block, Versa-Lok, Cultured Stone) as a lead engine, design tool, and warranty asset. And a winter operating mode — interior firebox, repair, shop fabrication, next-season design — so the crew and the cash keep moving.