# Venture Blueprint

## Working identity

**Category:** Human-Indexed Work  
**Protocol:** HIWP  
**Core product:** Capability Passport  
**Assessment unit:** Human Capability Unit  
**Tagline:** Hire the human. Measure the whole system.

Names are provisional pending legal and trademark review.

## Wedge

Do not begin as a general job marketplace. Begin as a paid assessment and work-design service for employers already experimenting with agentic workflows but unable to answer:

- which employees are genuinely more capable versus merely enthusiastic;
- how much human attention “autonomous” workflows actually consume;
- whether a worker’s system transfers across roles and vendors;
- what belongs to the worker versus the employer;
- how to validate capability without collecting private prompts and source code.

The first offer is a **Role Capability Pilot**: define one outcome, instrument three comparison conditions, issue experimental Passports, and deliver an ownership/portability schedule.

## Customers

### Initial buyer

Chief operating officers, innovation leaders, AI transformation teams, and professional-services firms with 50–2,000 knowledge workers. They have enough workflow volume to measure but can move faster than highly regulated enterprises.

### Initial worker segment

High-agency practitioners already building persistent systems: software developers, researchers, analysts, designers, marketers, project operators, and specialist consultants.

### Later participants

Recruiters, workforce platforms, universities, unions, professional associations, insurers, and independent certification bodies.

## Product ladder

1. **Role Definition Kit** — task population, acceptance rubric, autonomy and risk envelope.
2. **HCU Workbench** — manifest builder, evaluator harness, attention instrumentation, evidence receipts.
3. **Capability Passport** — worker-held, selectively disclosed verified claims.
4. **Employer Verifier** — reads claims, status, scope, and evidence without exposing private internals.
5. **Portability Audit** — clean-room exit and reconstitution.
6. **Benchmark Network** — governed role-specific tasks and evaluator pools.

## Business model

- employer pilot: fixed fee per role slice;
- assessment: per candidate/operator attempt;
- verification infrastructure: annual enterprise subscription;
- portability audit: fixed fee at transition or offboarding;
- benchmark licensing: role-specific assessment packs;
- assessor accreditation/support: later, only after scheme maturity.

Avoid charging workers large upfront fees. Employer-funded assessment and scholarships reduce the risk that the protocol becomes a pay-to-work gatekeeper.

## Defensibility

The file format should be open. The moat is not possession of a JSON schema. It is:

- validated role benchmarks and hidden task pools;
- longitudinal evidence connecting assessment to real job performance;
- trusted evaluator and employer network;
- clean-room portability methods;
- governance credibility and privacy-preserving verification;
- aggregate data on human attention, recovery, and transfer across model changes.

## Go-to-market sequence

### Phase 0 — Foundation (now)

Publish the thesis, HIWP v0.1, schemas, assessment method, and pilot invitation. Conduct naming and legal review.

### Phase 1 — Concierge proof

Run three paid role pilots manually. Use existing workflow and evaluation tools. Do not overbuild credential infrastructure before evidence exists.

### Phase 2 — Workbench

Productize manifests, receipt capture, blind evaluation, Passport issuance, and verification. Add employer-specific access boundaries.

### Phase 3 — Network

Recruit independent evaluators and benchmark maintainers. Establish appeals, conflicts, recertification, and public change control.

### Phase 4 — Institutional standard

Pursue professional associations, workforce systems, labor organizations, and compatibility with formal personnel-certification standards.

## First sales offer

**Human-Indexed Role Pilot — 8 weeks**

- one role slice;
- up to 12 operators;
- conventional, generic-AI, and personal-stack comparison;
- attention and failure instrumentation;
- experimental Passports;
- ownership/portability workshop;
- executive findings and production recommendation.

Pricing should be established after five discovery calls. A defensible early range is a professional-services engagement, not a seat license: approximately $25,000–$75,000 depending on task design, participant count, security review, and evaluator labor. This is a hypothesis to test, not a published price commitment.

## Operating principles

- Worker capability is not employer surveillance.
- Accountability follows control.
- Quality and failure evidence travel with productivity claims.
- Workers should not finance employer infrastructure by default.
- Private methods can be proven by outcomes and attestations.
- Negative trials are publishable evidence, not marketing failures.
- No universal “10x worker” score.

## Immediate backlog

1. Counsel review of IP schedule, worker portability, privacy, and liability.
2. Trademark/domain clearance for Human-Indexed Work, HIWP, and Capability Passport.
3. Five employer discovery interviews.
4. Select one role slice and recruit a design partner.
5. Implement a local manifest/receipt signer.
6. Build attention instrumentation and blind evaluator console.
7. Pre-register and run the first trial.
8. Publish results and HIWP v0.2 regardless of direction.