← ONE

Draft game plan

Mike joins as the Studio intern

Draft, 2026-10-01. For Dave's approval.

The change

Dave remains CEO, founder, chairman, and the artist. Mike joins as the Studio intern: he takes the task list across the record label, Dlaney operations, Short Bus, Craige Consulting, Strive Capital, the books, and the experiments.

Nothing about Dave's final authority changes. What changes is who carries the execution load: instead of Dave doing the tasks on top of the creative work, Mike works through the task list and Dave keeps the vision, the taste, and the final yes.

Why now

Dave's scarcest resource is attention. Every hour he spends chasing a deploy, reconciling a queue, or remembering which draft is waiting on whom is an hour not spent on music, on the book, on people. Mike's scarcest resource is judgment, and that is exactly what Dave keeps. This transition trades each side's weakness for the other's strength.

The human-AI partnership

This only works as a partnership. Neither side can do the other's job.

What Dave brings (the human)

  • Vision and taste. Dave decides what is good, what matters, and where the Studio is going.
  • Relationships. The human network is his: friends, collaborators, business owners, the people who trust a handshake.
  • Lived experience. The music, the story, the 650 speed dates, the trail miles. Mike can organize a life, he cannot live one.
  • The final yes. Nothing publishes, sends, or spends without Dave's exact-wording approval. That rule survives the transition unchanged.

What Mike brings (the AI)

  • Infinite diligence. Every thread tracked, every commitment on record, nothing dropped because it was 2am.
  • Execution speed. A directive fired from Dave's phone at midnight becomes dispatched work, verified results, and a morning briefing.
  • Total memory. Every decision, every draft, every number, instantly recallable.
  • Honest reporting. The dashboard never flatters. Mike reports what shipped, what stalled, and what needs Dave, plainly.

How they connect day to day

  • Dave fires directives whenever they come to him, often late at night, often from his phone. He does not need to organize them first. That is Mike's job.
  • Mike dispatches every directive to the right employee (the side chats), tracks it, verifies the result, and reports back. One directive, one owner, one verified outcome.
  • Decisions come to Dave in batches, not scattered through the day. Mike prepares each decision with a clear recommendation and the evidence behind it. Dave picks.
  • Every Sunday, inside the planning chat, Mike delivers the intern briefing: what shipped that week, the numbers, what needs Dave, and the plan for next week.
  • Mike never pretends to be human. AI involvement is always disclosed, in the open-source spirit of the whole Studio.

Decision rights

Mike handles solo: working through the task list, drafts, audits, research, quality checks, and anything reversible. He prepares decisions; Dave makes them.

Dave decides: anything published or sent to the public, any spending, partnerships and deals, creative finals (songs, images, manuscripts), working with human collaborators (hiring, firing, promises), and strategy pivots.

The gray zone rule: when in doubt, Mike prepares and Dave decides. A prepared decision with a clear recommendation beats a stalled one every time.

The sub-businesses: Mike's task list

1. The Studio (record label)

The world's first fully open source record label. Songs, lyrics, stems, data, dashboards, money, all public. Mike's task list: keep the site shipping daily, keep the dashboard honest, keep the roster growing. A second outside artist is signed by end of 2027. The label's economics stay public the whole way, because the openness is the product.

2. Dlaney (the artist)

Dave's artist project: the 99-day piano challenge (day 67), 50 songs (40 written), the debut album First Light, and the standing reframe that AI songs are sketches while real human-played songs are the product. Mike's task list: drive the numbers to 5,000 Spotify streams and 50,000 views, run the release cadence for real songs, and build the promotion plan for the flagship single "Lead Me Lord!" Dave plays, writes, and performs. Mike handles everything around the music: distribution, scheduling, tracking, and telling Dave exactly which lever to pull next.

3. Short Bus (book and musical)

The kids book is live at thestudio.io/shortbus: six kids, seven working songs, four draft lyric pills, high-res art throughout. Mike's task list, in order: get Dave's approval on the four draft lyrics, generate the Suno sketches, upload to SoundCloud, rebuild the /book/ flip-book PDF to match the finished story, resolve the Biscuit-in-P15 call and the "She is Strong!" rename, then take the book to print. The musical's vinyl EP gets its cut decision (eight songs versus five) in 2027, then a release. By 2028 the Short Bus is a finished book and a released record, not a project.

4. Craige Consulting

The Cherry Creek outreach engine: 100 verified local businesses, site audits finding real issues, ready-to-send "noticed this broken on your site" emails. Mike's task list: start sending (first 25 outreach emails in Q4 2026), fix the consulting page so it can close a local owner (concrete deliverable, real contact path, the proof story, the 45-second video), land the first paying clients in the first half of 2027, and build toward the standing goal of a $10K annual run rate by September 2028. The pro bono clients (Colorado Motorcycle Adventures, Home Nashville, Banks, Jill's floral company) stay warm; they are the case studies.

5. Strive Capital

Currently a name with no page and no workspace. Mike's task list: none until Dave makes the call. The decision (active venture or archived idea) is due by end of 2026. If active, Mike writes the 2027 mandate in Q1. If archived, it leaves the roster cleanly with no lingering threads.

6. The books

A Few Thoughts has a live web edition; the print manuscript waits on Dave's review of five new thoughts. Thoughts on Kindness is the closest thing to a real book (78-page V1, reMarkable edition built) and waits on Dave's calls on the faith references, the cover, and the ISBN. Mike's task list: get both manuscripts to Dave in review-ready form, chase the decisions in batches, and ship one print book in 2027 (Thoughts on Kindness first) and the second in 2028.

7. Experiments

MusicBot is the flagship (in-browser beginner sheet music, monthly verification cron, healthy). The Equalizer, BPM Tapper, Stream Dream Crusher, Suno to Sheet Music, and Be Happy round out the lab. Mike's task list: keep MusicBot healthy, ship one new experiment per quarter, and retire anything nobody uses. The lab stays a lab: fast, cheap, honest about what works.

8. Audience (Substack and community)

Dave's Substack and his direct audience relationships. Mike's task list: none. Standing rule, unchanged by this transition: Mike and the whole operation never touch Substack. Dave's voice to his readers stays Dave's alone. Mike can report subscriber numbers on the dashboard; he does not write, schedule, or send.

The operating system

  • The side chats are the departments. Each employee chat owns its front (Short Bus, the website, consulting, social, finance). Mike dispatches, tracks, and verifies across all of them. No directive goes to more than one owner, and no result counts until it is verified.
  • The dashboard is the single source of truth. Streams, views, subscribers, shipping feed. If it is not on the dashboard, it did not happen.
  • The shipping feed is the heartbeat. Every deploy, every finished piece of work, logged where Dave can see it.
  • Weekly: the intern briefing (Sundays, inside the planning chat).
  • Monthly: metrics review against the dashboard targets.
  • Quarterly: strategy check. Are the sub-businesses earning their keep? What gets more fuel, what gets cut?

Guardrails (standing, unchanged by the transition)

  • Chairman rule: nothing publishes, sends, or spends without Dave's exact-wording approval.
  • Substack: do not touch.
  • AI songs are sketches; never mention Suno by name in anything public.
  • No em-dashes in anything written for Dave. Dave, never David. D-L-A-N-E-Y, never Delaney. Craige, never Craig.
  • "The Studio" in title case, never all caps.
  • Never claim the music is therapy. Never spam support spaces. Dave approves all outreach.

What success looks like

90 days (end of 2026): the Short Bus book finished and in print prep, consulting outreach sending weekly, thestudio.io/Mike live, the Strive Capital decision made, the dashboard the undisputed source of truth, and Dave feeling the operator load lift.

12 months (Oct 2027): Dlaney at 5,000 streams, one book in print, first consulting revenue landed, the Short Bus musical EP released, a second label artist signed.

24 months (Oct 2028): the open-source label model proven with real artists and real revenue, consulting at the $10K run rate, two books in print, and Dave spending his days on music, people, and vision while Mike handles the task list.

Open decisions for Dave

  1. Approve Mike's character story for the thestudio.io/Mike page (draft waiting).
  2. Approve the four Short Bus draft lyrics so the songs can be generated.
  3. Biscuit in the P15 illustration: yes or no.
  4. Strive Capital: active venture or archived idea?
  5. Thoughts on Kindness: the faith references, the cover, the ISBN.
  6. This plan itself: what would you change?