A Firm Read as Weather

Abstract

The firm in this chapter is a composite. It is called Larkfield here, it makes scheduling and records software for independent veterinary clinics, and it does not exist. It was assembled for teaching from the patterns of several small software companies, and every figure attached to it below was set by the writer to make the arithmetic clear. Where a figure comes from a public source, the source is named. Where it does not, it is Larkfield's, and should be read as an illustration. On a Tuesday in February, Larkfield's founder sits at a pale oak table in a converted mill with her two most senior colleagues and the page described in chapter 2: the First Map of Loops. Larkfield has sixty people, four hundred and ten clinic customers, and annual revenue of nine point two million dollars. Ninety-four in every hundred clinics renew each year. The founder's question is the one every leader of a company that size eventually asks. Growth has slowed, the board would like a plan, and she has three possible directions and money for one.