OpsLight Founding Cohort
10 service-trade shops. Permanent founding rate. Direct founder access.
The first 10 shops to sign on at OpsLight shape what gets built next. The rate they sign at is the rate they pay for life. They get the founder's phone number, not a support queue. They aren't paying a discount to be early-adopters — they're paying a permanent founder-rate because they're the ones whose pain shapes the product.
As of 2026-05-19: 0 of 10 spots taken. Honest counter — we'll update this as shops sign on. When 10 are filled, the founding rate closes for the next applicant.
What's different about founding-cohort terms
Three structural commitments. Locked in writing.
1. Permanent founding rate
One-time install: $2,500 (vs $3,500-5,000 standard). Monthly retainer: $300/mo (vs $400-600/mo standard). This rate is yours for as long as you're a customer. When OpsLight raises prices (and we will), founding-cohort accounts stay at the founding rate. In writing, in the engagement letter, signed.
2. Direct founder access
You get the founder's cell phone. Weekly 1-on-1 office hours (30 min, scheduled). No support tier in between. If something's broken at 6am, you text the founder. If you want to debate whether OpsLight should build feature X or Y next, you debate it with the founder directly.
3. Explicit roadmap voting weight
The "What's coming next" priorities at opslight.app/what-it-is get re-ranked monthly based on the founding cohort's input. Your operational pain literally becomes the next quarter's roadmap. No customer-advisory-board theater. Real conversations, recorded preferences, shipped features.
Who this is for
The right shop for the founding cohort.
You probably:
- Run a 1-15 person service-trade shop (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, painting, roofing, glazing, landscaping, flooring, restoration, pest control, pool, septic, tree service, garage door, appliance repair, janitorial)
- Have tried at least one FSM platform (ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro, FieldEdge, Workiz) and walked away
- Spend 5-15 hours/week on operations paperwork the platform was supposed to solve
- Have a senior tech or two who flatly refuses to install another app
- Want OpsLight configured for YOUR specific trade vocabulary, account list, and on-call rotation — not generic FSM defaults
- Are comfortable with "this is early — we'll work through edge cases together" framing
- Will give us honest feedback when something breaks (and it will)
If three or more describe you, the form below is the right next step. If you want a no-commitment walkthrough first, try the live demo or talk to the scenario assistant — both are zero-signup.
Apply to the founding cohort
Tell us about your shop. We respond within 24 hours.
Nothing here is a commitment. We use this to decide whether we can configure OpsLight well for your trade and your shape of operation. If we can't, we'll tell you which competitor is a better fit.
What happens after you apply
The honest sequence.
- Within 24 hours: a real human (the founder) responds via email. Either "yes, here's a 20-min scheduling link to walk through your operation in detail" OR "I don't think we can configure OpsLight well for your shape — here's the competitor I'd recommend instead." No discovery-call gauntlet.
- 20-min walkthrough: we ask about your trade vocabulary, account list, on-call rotation, current intake channels (voicemail, SMS, email, form, crew SMS). You ask about anything. End of the call, we either both want to proceed or one of us doesn't. Either is fine.
- Install brief: we draft an engagement letter (2 pages) with the founding-cohort terms in writing: $2,500 install, $300/mo retainer, locked for life, founder access, roadmap voting weight. You read it.
- Sign + install: 2 weeks of work. Twilio number provisioned, classifier prompts tuned for your trade, Google Sheet schema configured, crew SMS roster wired, document templates branded.
- Go live: first real voicemail or text or form fills in. You watch Claude classify it on your dashboard. The Sheet starts being your system of record. Founder office hours start that week.
Common questions about the founding cohort
What founding-cohort applicants ask before signing.
Why limit to 10 shops?
Two reasons. First: the founder bandwidth to actually give you direct access + weekly office hours + custom configuration help doesn't scale past ~10 customers in the first 90 days. Second: we want a deliberate spread of trade verticals (1 HVAC, 1 plumbing, 1 electrical, 1 restoration, etc.) so the roadmap is informed by the cross-trade pattern, not biased to one trade. When 10 shops are signed, we hit pause on new sign-ups for 30 days while we ship the cohort-driven features.
Is the founding rate REALLY permanent?
Yes, in writing. The engagement letter contains: "Customer pays $2,500 one-time install and $300/month retainer. This rate is the customer's permanent rate. Future OpsLight pricing increases do not apply to this customer's retainer." Signed by both parties. If we go out of business or get acquired, that's a different situation — but for as long as OpsLight is operating, your rate is your rate.
What if I outgrow OpsLight (16+ techs)?
Your data is in your own Google Sheet — you can keep it and migrate to ServiceTitan / BuildOps / Procore / whatever fits your size. We'd rather refer you out cleanly than retain a customer past our shape. If you stay at 11-15 techs but become more complex, we configure deeper around your needs — that's literally what the founding-cohort roadmap weight is for.
What if OpsLight doesn't work for me after install?
The retainer is month-to-month, no cancellation fee, no lock-in. Full details. The one-time install fee is non-refundable once the install is complete (we did the work). But you owe nothing further. Your Sheet stays in your Drive. Text CANCEL to the company number, done.
How will I know you actually ship the roadmap-voted features?
The roadmap at /what-it-is/ is public. Monthly "what we shipped this month" updates go out to founding-cohort members via email. The features the cohort voted highest get prioritized first. If we ship something different, we tell you why. Transparent or quit pretending we're transparent.
Why should I trust a Day-1 startup with my shop's operations?
Honest answer: you shouldn't trust us blindly. You should: try the live demo at /try/ with a real scenario from your shop — that exercises the actual classification engine, not a marketing video. Talk to the scenario assistant at /scenario/ for a custom walkthrough. Read /no-app/ and /no-lock-in/ for the architectural commitments in writing. The Google Sheet stays in your Drive — if we vanish tomorrow, your data is still yours. Risk-asymmetric: install fee at risk, retainer at risk per month, data not at risk.
What if I want to come back to the founding rate later?
If the cohort is full (10/10), the founding rate has closed. We don't reopen it. The next 10 customers pay standard pricing. That's the structural promise to the founding cohort — they were first, the rate reflects that, permanently.
Curious but not ready to apply?
Try the live demo with a real scenario. Talk to the scenario assistant. Read what OpsLight will never be. No signup, no email capture, no follow-up. The "apply" form is here when you're ready.