What's the Strategic Plan and the Hierarchical Overview?
Once a plan graduates from Launching → Operating Mode, your Business Plan becomes a Strategic Plan — a live SVG chart of Business Drivers → Strategic Goals → Projects → Roadmap Tasks on one screen. Edges are health-coloured (green healthy, amber drifting, red red-line), a draggable Mini-Map lets you scrub around big plans in both axes, and every node is a click-through into the source surface. Launching plans get the same treatment via the Pre-Launch Overview (Business Plan → Compliance → Health → Goals). Set the default view (Overview vs. classic sections) per-user under Settings > Workspace.
How does the Attribution Loop work?
Every closed-won CRM deal and every marketing campaign carries an origin_ref back to the Strategic Goal or Roadmap Task that sparked it. That link powers a 4-week revenue sparkline on every Goal card, one-click filters on the CRM and Campaign lists (e.g. /crm?origin_goal=<goal-id>), a task-level attribution chip on Kanban cards, and Prefill From Origin — click 'Add to CRM' or 'Add to Campaigns' from a Goal and the new-record dialog opens prefilled AND pre-stamped with the origin link. Result: you can finally answer 'how much revenue did this Goal actually produce?' without a spreadsheet.
I have an idea but no business experience. Will this still work for me?
Yes — Three Little Birds was built for exactly this case. The 5-step wizard takes 10-15 minutes and assumes zero prior knowledge. We translate your raw idea into a strategist-grade plan, pricing model, 3-year projection, and a step-by-step execution roadmap. You don't need to know what a SWOT analysis is. We do that part.
How accurate are the AI-generated plans?
The plan is a rigorous starting point — not a finished document. It's grounded in industry templates, market signals, and your specific answers (including the new Personal Investment input on the wizard, which anchors the AI's runway and infrastructure recommendations). Treat it as a 70% draft you'll refine. Every section can be regenerated independently if a part doesn't match your vision — Infrastructure is capped at one regeneration unless you edit your Description, all other regenerable sections at three.
Is my idea private? Can other users see it?
Your plans are private to your account. Sharing only happens when YOU explicitly invite a collaborator (Standard or Advanced) or publish a public read-only link (Standard or Advanced). We never train models on your content.
What if I want to start a business but I'm scared of failing?
That fear is the single biggest reason most ideas die before they begin. Three Little Birds removes the guesswork — you'll see your runway, your compliance gaps, your launch-readiness score, and your weekly focus before you spend a dollar. Fear shrinks when the path is visible.
Do I need to pay to get started?
Every new account gets a 7-day free Standard trial — full access to compliance, grants, mentor, plan health, and budget tracking. During the trial, Competitive Analysis, Customer Acquisition, Infrastructure, Pricing Model, and 3-Year Revenue Projection are shown as samples (your real AI-generated numbers unlock the moment you subscribe). After the trial there are three paid tiers: Basic ($15/mo) for one founder testing the waters (5 plans, goals + watermarked Plan PDF), Standard ($25/mo) for the full launch OS (20 plans, everything except investor scenarios), and Advanced ($35/mo) for serial founders & agencies (unlimited plans, investor-scenario generation, plus Email & SMS campaigns). Annual billing saves one month on every tier.
What happens when my trial or subscription expires?
If you subscribed and then lapsed: your data is preserved indefinitely. The dashboard shows an 'EXPIRED' banner with a Resubscribe button; business details lock until you re-subscribe. Compliance CSV / ICS exports stay available even after expiry. If you DIDN'T convert from the free trial: your business plans are permanently deleted 21 days after the trial ends. Subscribing any time before that 21-day window unlocks everything instantly with your real AI-generated numbers intact.
What's the difference between the AI Mentor and the in-task service agents?
The Mentor is a cross-business advisor — ask it 'what should I prioritize across all my plans?' or 'draft an investor update'. Service Agents are task-specific (e.g. Stripe Atlas, ZenBusiness, Mercury) and only know about ONE roadmap item — perfect when you're filing your LLC and need step-by-step guidance for that exact form.
How do I find vetted services or vendors for a roadmap task?
Open any task on the launch board and, under "Get-it-done agents", tap Find services. The AI suggests 2-4 real providers matched to that exact task (e.g. Stripe Atlas or ZenBusiness for incorporation, Mercury for banking, Gusto for payroll), some marked "Vetted". Each suggestion opens an in-app agent that guides you through that vendor for that specific step, plus a Visit site button. Available on Standard and Advanced — tap Regenerate any time for fresh picks.
How do grants work?
We pull live federal grants from Grants.gov, add AI-sourced state, local, and private programs (Hello Alice, Amber Grant, IFundWomen, Comcast RISE…), and run a live web-cited search (Perplexity) that surfaces state, city and private programs with real, clickable source URLs you can verify. Everything is scored against your business, and you can start a tailored application draft directly inside the app. Each match is tagged by source — FEDERAL · grants.gov, AI-SUGGESTED, or WEB-CITED.
Can the app generate the financial documents a bank or lender requires?
Yes — on Standard and Advanced, the Lender-ready financial package turns your plan and budget into a bank-formatted PDF: a 3-statement model (Projected P&L with Year-1 monthly detail, Cash Flow, and a Balance Sheet that balances), Sources & Uses, Break-even, and DSCR per year — plus an Assumptions page and blank borrower forms (Personal Financial Statement, Debt Schedule, Collateral Schedule). You enter the loan amount, term, APR, and equity injection; the statements are formula-driven so they tie out. Find it under PLAN ACTIONS → Financing on any plan. You still supply lender items like tax returns, bank statements, and personal credit.
What is the Market research feature?
A Standard+ feature embedded in your Business Plan's Market analysis section (look for the "The market, with receipts" panel under the AI market-analysis block). One click runs a live web search and returns TAM/SAM/SOM market sizing, current growth trends, the most relevant competitors, demand signals, and 3-5 recommendations — with every figure backed by a real, clickable source URL (powered by Perplexity Sonar). It takes ~15-25 seconds and uses a small research credit per run, so Regenerate when you want a fresh pull. When a report exists, a Market research slide is automatically added to your Pitch deck (PDF and PowerPoint) so investors see your market sizing with sources.
How do I compare my numbers to my industry?
Once your Business Plan is complete, open the Industry benchmarks section. Beyond the cohort comparison (vs. other Three Little Birds founders), you'll see curated Industry standard ratios — typical ranges for gross margin, cost of goods, labor, rent, marketing, net margin and growth for your industry. Your own figures (derived from your budget and revenue projection) are shown next to each range, and anything outside the norm on the wrong side is flagged as an assumption to revisit. Each flag has a 'Fix this' deep-link that jumps you straight to the exact budget or revenue line driving it (with a brief highlight pulse). You can also tag each budget line with its benchmark category from a dropdown, and the benchmarks auto-refresh as you retag — so labor, rent and marketing roll up exactly the way you intend. Tap Snapshot PDF to download a one-page "your business vs. your industry" sheet — and the same benchmark page is automatically included in your Lender package PDF and Pitch deck export, so investors and bankers see how you stack up. Available on Standard and Advanced.
What is the What-if scenario planner?
An Advanced feature that lets you model alternate forecasts without touching your real plan. Open PLAN ACTIONS → What-if planner on any plan, then create named scenarios by changing four levers — Year-1 revenue, annual growth %, cost of goods %, and monthly operating spend. Each scenario computes a deterministic 3-year P&L (Year-3 net income, 3-year cumulative profit, break-even revenue, the year you turn profitable) and shows the delta versus your base plan, side-by-side. When you've built a Driver-based forecast, your scenarios automatically layer on top of it instead of the simpler base plan. Great for stress-testing 'what if growth is slower' or 'what if we run leaner' before you commit.
What is the Driver-based forecast?
An Advanced feature (PLAN ACTIONS → Driver forecast, or /business/{id}/forecast) that builds a bottom-up, 3-year MONTHLY P&L from the real drivers of your business instead of a single top-line guess: revenue streams (units × price × monthly growth), personnel (roles, headcount and start months → payroll), and operating expenses. Hit 'Sync from Budget' to pull your operating expenses straight from your Budget & burn module in one click — and if you later change the Budget, the page flags that it's drifted so you can re-sync. Each expense carries its benchmark category so it rolls up correctly. The result feeds a live chart, a monthly P&L table and KPI tiles, exports as a 36-month CSV, and powers your what-if scenarios, lender package and pitch deck.
I don't know where to start — is there an example I can copy?
Yes. Open Examples in the top nav (or the 'Browse example plans' button on an empty dashboard) to see polished sample plans across industries — coffee shop, e-commerce, SaaS, tutoring, salon, trades and more. Preview any one to study its strategy, financials and roadmap, then click Use this to clone it into your workspace as a fully editable plan you can tailor to your own venture. Sample plans are available on every tier.
Can I customize what's in my pitch deck or lender PDF?
Yes. On the lender package export (Plan actions → Financing) there's an 'Include the industry-benchmark page' checkbox so you can add or omit the 'you vs. your industry' page per download. For the pitch deck, open Plan actions → Customize deck to reorder slides (drag, or use the up/down arrows) and toggle any slide on or off — your layout is saved per plan and applied every time you download. To move even faster, load a built-in preset: 'Investor' (story-led order emphasizing traction, market and the ask) or 'Banker' (financials-forward for a lender), then tweak from there. You can also save your own current layout as a named preset and reuse it across plans. The cover slide always comes first, and data-dependent slides (like the live CRM pipeline) only appear when there's data to show.
What's the Plan Health Check and how is the score calculated?
A 0-100 hybrid score: 50% deterministic (computed from real data — Runway, Budget completeness, Revenue realism & Roadmap balance — each scored out of 25 pts) + 50% LLM qualitative judgment (founder fit, strategy coherence, market timing). The 'What drives the score' panel breaks out all four deterministic components so you see exactly which lever to pull. Customer acquisition was removed Feb 17 · 2026 — founders can't reliably predict which channels will work, and scoring guessed channels was penalising honest uncertainty. Health Check is exempt from the 3-regeneration cap that applies to other sections — re-run it as often as you want as your plan evolves.
What are all the Health scores I see across the app?
Six 0–100 scores that answer six different questions. **Plan Health** — the hybrid AI+data score on your Business Plan (see the question above). **Launch Health** — plain average of your Plan, Roadmap and Compliance progress (33% · 33% · 34%); answers 'am I ready to open the doors?'. **Business Health** — the Hub's north-star verdict blending Launch readiness, Financial Health and Growth Health (33 · 33 · 34); answers 'are the fundamentals solid right now?'. **Operating Health** — only for plans in Operate mode; blends Revenue trend, Financial Health, Marketing and Launch Health (30 · 30 · 20 · 20); answers 'is the live business trending up?'. **Financial Health** — Runway, Capital stack, Net-vs-plan and Marketing (25% each); answers 'is the money picture holding up?'. **Growth Health** — Audience, Reach, Conversion and Pipeline (25% each); answers 'is traction building?'. Every leg on every score is a clickable pill wired to the feature that moves the number, so the score is never a dead-end.
What's the Launch-readiness score (on the Dashboard card)?
A 0-100 grade (A/B/C/D/F) blending five dimensions: Plan Health (25%), Compliance Risk (20%), Roadmap Completion (20%), Budget Runway (20%), and Goals Progress (15%). Missing dimensions are re-normalized away so the score stays meaningful while you're still filling things in. Click the badge to see exactly which dimensions are pulling your grade down. On the Hub, a simpler headline number — 'Launch Health' — is the plain average of Plan, Roadmap and Compliance progress; the two agree on the big picture and disagree only on advisory weight.
Can I export my plan as a PDF?
Yes — Plan PDF is available on every paid tier (watermarked on Basic, clean on Standard and Advanced). Pitch Deck (10-slide landscape investor deck) is Standard and Advanced only. The PDFs honor your Brand Kit logo, tagline, and colors set in Settings.
Can I change the AI's writing voice?
Yes — go to Settings. Pick from 5 voice presets (Default, Formal, Friendly, Concise, Bold) plus a 500-character custom-instruction box. Every plan, focus list, mentor reply, and grant draft uses your voice from then on.
What if I want to start over with a different business?
Each plan is independent. Create as many as you want from the Dashboard — each gets its own roadmap, budget, compliance, goals, and weekly focus.
What is the 'How much are you investing?' question for?
It's the founder's personal capital going into the business — savings, personal loans, family contributions. The AI uses it to size your runway and to tailor the Infrastructure section (a $5K self-funded plan gets leaner staffing and tooling recommendations than a $250K backed one). Leave it as 0 if you're entirely pre-funding-decision — the field is optional, and you can edit it later via the wizard.
Why does Infrastructure only let me regenerate it once?
The three Infrastructure columns (Personnel · Technology · Administration) regenerate as a single coherent unit and feed straight into your Budget — so we cap manual regeneration at one to avoid the budget drifting out of sync with rerolled staffing lists. If you need another pass, open the wizard and edit the Description: changing the description automatically resets the Infrastructure regen counter, since the new framing is what should drive a fresh staffing/tools list.
I've already completed my Personality Profile. Why do I sometimes get sent there again?
You shouldn't anymore. Logging in (email/password or Google) routes you straight to the Dashboard the moment your Personality Profile has been saved or skipped. If you're still being asked to fill it out, your saved profile lost its updated_at flag — re-save once from the Profile page and the next login will land directly on /dashboard.
What happens if I get stuck?
Click the floating Mentor button (bottom-right) any time and ask. It has full context on every business you've created — it can tell you exactly what's blocking you and how to unblock it.
Is there a CRM to track sales leads and deals?
Yes — on Standard and Advanced, every plan has a native CRM. Track contacts, companies, and a drag-and-drop deal pipeline (Lead → Qualified → Proposal → Negotiation → Won/Lost). Closed-won deals automatically feed your Goals progress and extend your Runway, and a Pipeline summary lives right inside the Business Plan (after Funding strategy). The workspace-wide CRM Dashboard at /crm rolls every plan's pipeline into one view with charts, a win-rate tile, date filters, and CSV export.
Where do I store contracts, licenses, and other documents?
The Document Library (Standard+) is a per-plan and workspace-wide vault for your files — contracts, invoices, IDs, licenses, logos. Upload to folders, add tags, download securely, and click any tag to filter. AI 'Analyze' reads images and PDFs to auto-summarize, classify, and tag them. Open it per-plan from the plan's Plan-actions menu, or browse everything at /documents with grid or table views.
Can I connect QuickBooks Online or Xero to track my actual spend?
Yes — on Standard and Advanced you can connect QuickBooks Online or Xero in one click from Settings → Accounting integrations (/settings/integrations). We pull your last 30 days of transactions on demand — strictly READ-ONLY, we never write anything back to your books — then let you 'Apply to Budget Actuals' to merge revenue and expenses into the right month under a single 'Imported (QBO/XERO)' line. Re-applying is safe: it overwrites, never doubles. Disconnect any time and your tokens are deleted. If one-click connect isn't available yet for your account, a step-by-step CSV import guide (/help/qbo-xero-import) gets you the exact same result in about three minutes.
Can I send Email or SMS campaigns to my contacts?
Yes — Marketing Journeys (an Advanced feature) let you run outreach right from a business plan or the workspace-wide Marketing dashboard. Open a plan's Marketing tab (Plan-actions → Marketing, /business/{id}/campaigns) or Tools → Marketing (/marketing) for a cross-plan rollup. For one-off blasts, build reusable Email & SMS templates. For multi-touch nurture, open the Journey canvas (Plan-actions → Journeys, /business/{id}/journeys) and chain 5 node types — Email · SMS · Wait · Split · End — into a live automation triggered by manual enrolment, new-contact creation, entry into any of the 8 built-in Smart Segments, or entry into a saved Contact Group. Personalise every message with a rich set of placeholders — {{first_name}}, {{name}}, {{email}}, {{phone}}, {{company}} and {{business_name}} — surfaced right below every subject and body input as a click-to-insert chip strip so you never have to memorise the tokens. A live Cost Guard forecasts each journey's projected month-to-date sends against your global monthly Send Budget AND your per-segment sub-caps (Settings → Segment budgets) — anything that would exceed either cap is blocked before it can drain your quota. Each campaign card tracks Sent, Delivered, Opened and Clicked; email opens are tracked via pixel and clicks via a tracked redirect. Email is delivered live via our email provider. SMS defaults to sandbox mode; connect an SMS provider in your backend .env to flip real sends on — delivery status callbacks then update your Delivered / Failed counters automatically.
Can Three Little Birds draft social media ads for Meta / Google / TikTok / LinkedIn?
Yes — Ad Copy Studio (Advanced) generates 3 platform-tailored social media ad variants per platform in one call: Meta headlines + primary text + CTAs, Google's 3 headlines + 2 descriptions, TikTok hooks + hashtags, and LinkedIn intros + CTAs — all with per-platform character-limit guards so nothing overflows. Pick one of your active Products/Services, a target audience (segment or free-text), and a tone (Bold · Friendly · Expert · Playful). Every draft has a Copy CSV export that auto-appends UTM tags (utm_campaign=<draft_id>, utm_content=v<idx>) to your landing URL so every click routes into the CRM's attribution loop. When a deal flips to Won, Three Little Birds also fires a server-side Meta Conversions API (Layer C) Purchase event with SHA-256-hashed PII so your Meta bidding optimises for real closed customers, not just form fills. Regenerate any variant and thumbs-up/down each one — the studio biases future generations toward what works for you. Find it at Plan-actions → Marketing tools → Ad Copy Studio, or /business/{id}/ad-copy.
Can I trace a closed deal back to the exact ad that produced it?
Yes — Ads Tracking + CRM Attribution (Advanced) closes the loop from ad → deal → revenue. Paste your Meta Pixel ID and Google Ads Conversion ID once and Three Little Birds regenerates a copy-paste <head> snippet you drop into your landing page. Every closed-won deal can be attributed to a specific Ad Copy Studio draft × variant in three ways: automatic UTM parsing when you paste the inbound click URL, a manual draft × variant picker in the deal drawer, or a multi-select 'Bulk attribute' action on the CRM Pipeline that stamps N deals in one write. Same multi-select carries a 'Clear attribution' action for mis-tagged batches, both actions come with a 24-hour Undo toast (72h on Advanced tier by default, admin-tunable), and a server-side Meta Conversions API push fires a Purchase event when a deal flips to Won so your bidding optimises for real revenue. Above the Pipeline tiles sits a Filter Pills strip (Revenue / Win rate / Recent sort) that deep-jumps into a pipeline filtered to just that ad's deals. A 0–100 Attribution Health Score chip + 12-week sparkline trend shows whether your creative is improving week-over-week.
Is there a Reports dashboard with charts I can slice and print?
Yes — on Standard and Advanced, every plan has an interactive Reports dashboard (Plan actions → Reports, or /business/{id}/reports). A collapsible left sidebar switches between twelve visual reports: Budget, Pipeline, Funding, Cash flow, Unit economics, Break-even, Revenue bridge, Market size, Scenarios, Timeline, Sensitivity, and a one-page Investor snapshot. Each report opens with a short plain-English note explaining what it shows and how to read it (dismiss it once you know your way around). The date / product-service / customer-segment / stage filters drive the Pipeline report and only appear while Pipeline is selected. The Investor snapshot has a Print / save PDF button that prints just that report as a clean one-page packet for a banker or investor.
How does Three Little Birds compare to LivePlan?
LivePlan is a spreadsheet-first plan writer with templates and forecasting. Three Little Birds goes further in three directions: an AI that drafts every plan section from a 5-step wizard (LivePlan makes you type each section), a hybrid Plan Health score plus five other Health scores that turn the plan into a live dashboard, and a full execution layer — launch board with critical path, CRM + deal pipeline, jurisdiction-aware compliance tracker, grants finder, and an investor marketplace — that LivePlan doesn't ship. Pricing starts at $15/month vs LivePlan's ~$20/month, with a 7-day free preview of the Standard tier.
How does Three Little Birds compare to Bizplan?
Bizplan lets you assemble a plan block-by-block with a step-based UI. Three Little Birds drafts the plan for you in under 60 seconds from a 5-step wizard, then keeps your plan alive — a 0-100 Plan Health score, an executable roadmap with a critical path, budget-vs-actual tracking, and bank-ready lender packages. Bizplan is stronger if you want manual control over each block; Three Little Birds is stronger if you want an AI-drafted plan you can iterate + actually operate against.
How does Three Little Birds compare to Enloop?
Enloop grades your plan on a written-text quality score and lets you export a PDF. Three Little Birds grades your plan on a hybrid 0-100 score that blends real deterministic data (runway, budget completeness, revenue realism, roadmap balance) with a qualitative LLM judgment — so your score improves as you actually build the business, not just as you polish the copy. Add the execution layer (roadmap, CRM, compliance, grants, campaigns) and it's a full launch operating system, not just a plan formatter.
How is this different from asking ChatGPT to write a business plan?
ChatGPT will draft you plausible prose, but it doesn't do the math, doesn't stay in sync with your budget, doesn't produce a lender-ready 3-statement financial package, doesn't track your jurisdiction's licenses, doesn't find grants matched to your business, doesn't monitor your Plan Health as you edit, and doesn't let investors browse a curated marketplace of ready plans. Three Little Birds uses AI where AI is strong (drafting narrative sections, spotting risks) and deterministic code where determinism matters (runway, forecasts, tax, compliance).
Is Three Little Birds better than hiring a business plan consultant?
For a rigorous first draft: yes. A consultant charges $2,000–$5,000 and takes 2–4 weeks; Three Little Birds drafts a 14-section plan in about 60 seconds and iterates instantly as you refine your inputs. Consultants win for deeply specialized industries (biotech, aerospace, regulated finance) where domain intuition matters most. For 95% of small-business founders, the AI-drafted plan + Health scores + lender package is faster, cheaper, and more actionable.
Do you offer annual pricing or a discount for paying yearly?
Yes — annual billing saves one month on every tier. Basic drops to $150/year (vs $180 monthly), Standard to $250/year (vs $300), and Advanced to $350/year (vs $420). Switch between monthly and annual any time from Billing.
Do you offer student, nonprofit, or startup discounts?
Not on the standard tiers today, but we have a founder-forever offer inside the app: any user who completes their first plan and gets to Standard-tier Plan Health ≥ 60 unlocks a 20% permanent discount on Standard for referring one paying founder. For registered nonprofits, email hello@threelilbrds.com with your 501(c)(3) letter and we'll apply a 50% credit manually.
Can I cancel any time? Will I be refunded?
Yes — cancel any time from Billing → Manage subscription. Cancellation is effective at the end of your current billing period (monthly or annual). We refund unused portions of annual plans on a pro-rated basis within the first 30 days; after that, the annual plan runs to the end of its term. Cancelled or lapsed accounts keep their data indefinitely, so you can resubscribe and pick up where you left off.
What payment methods do you accept?
All major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover) via Stripe. Apple Pay and Google Pay are also supported on the checkout page. We don't currently accept ACH, wire, or crypto — but if you're a nonprofit or education customer we can invoice manually. Email billing@threelilbrds.com.
Can I try the paid features before I subscribe?
Yes — every new account gets a 7-day free preview of the Standard tier with no credit card required. During the preview you get full access to compliance, grants, mentor, plan health, and budget tracking; five sections (Competitive Analysis, Customer Acquisition, Infrastructure, Pricing Model, 3-Year Revenue Projection) show sample content until you subscribe, then unlock your real AI-generated numbers instantly.
Is Three Little Birds a good fit for a first-time founder with no business background?
Yes — it's exactly who the product was built for. The 5-step wizard uses plain-English questions (no jargon), the AI writes every plan section for you, and the Business Hub literally names the single move that will most improve your business right now. If you don't know what a SWOT analysis is or how to compute break-even, that's fine: the app does that math for you and explains what each number means.
Can I use this if I already run an existing business (not launching a new one)?
Yes — Three Little Birds has an Operate mode for existing businesses. Instead of Launch Health, you'll see Operating Health (revenue trend + financial health + marketing + launch health), a feasibility analyzer to pressure-test new products against real unit economics, an optimization panel that highlights the highest-leverage cost and pricing moves, and a continuous-improvement tracker for measured process changes over time.
Does Three Little Birds work for restaurants, cafes, and food-service businesses?
Yes — food & beverage is one of the most-used industries in the product. The compliance tracker auto-seeds jurisdiction-specific food-service items (health department, retail food license, food-handler certification, liquor if applicable). The budget templates seed COGS, labor, rent and utilities line items typical of the industry, and the industry-benchmark strip compares your food-cost %, labor %, and prime cost against vetted restaurant ranges.
Can I use Three Little Birds for a SaaS or software startup?
Yes — SaaS is well-supported. The driver-based forecast (Advanced) models MRR, ARR, churn, and CAC payback from real drivers (units × price × monthly growth, per-role headcount), the CRM handles a B2B deal pipeline (Lead → Qualified → Proposal → Negotiation → Won/Lost), and the investor marketplace lets you flip a switch when your Plan Health crosses 50 to let matched investors browse your plan.
Does the app work for e-commerce or Shopify stores?
Yes — e-commerce is a first-class industry in the wizard. The AI-drafted competitive analysis pulls DTC and marketplace comparables, the pricing model wizard handles bundles and tiered offers, and the driver forecast lets you model units × AOV × conversion × traffic. Budget templates seed shipping, fulfillment, ad spend, and platform fees typical of a Shopify or WooCommerce store.
Can I use Three Little Birds for a consulting or services business?
Yes — consulting is fully supported. Product & Service catalog handles retainer, fixed-fee, and hourly offerings side-by-side, the CRM tracks each engagement through the deal pipeline, and the driver forecast models revenue as billable-utilization × rate × active-clients. The 3-statement financial package and lender-ready PDF work identically to a product business, and the compliance tracker surfaces state-level occupational licensing when applicable.
Can I use this to plan a nonprofit or a social enterprise?
Yes — nonprofits and social enterprises use the same wizard. The grants finder is especially useful (federal, state, local + private and foundation programs), the budget module handles restricted vs unrestricted funds via categories, and the plan sections adapt to a mission-first framing when you describe your business as nonprofit or B-corp in Step 1. Registered 501(c)(3)s should email us for a manual credit — see the discount question above.
Do I need a US business address to use Three Little Birds?
No — the platform is available to founders in any country. Federal-baseline compliance items are US-centric today (EIN, IRS, EEOC, FLSA, etc.), but the LLM-generated compliance items adapt to the geography you enter, and the plan / budget / roadmap / grants finder / CRM / documents / campaigns work identically regardless of country. We're rolling out a UK and Canada compliance seed pack in H1 2026.
Can I switch the app language away from English?
Not yet — the UI is English-only today. However, you can write your plan inputs in any language (the AI will draft your plan in whatever language you use in the questionnaire) and the exported PDF/DOCX will match. Native Spanish, French, and Portuguese UI translations are on the H2 2026 roadmap.
Does the plan explain what business entity to choose (LLC, S-corp, sole prop)?
Yes — the AI Mentor and the Compliance tracker both weigh in. Ask the Mentor 'which entity should I form?' and it walks you through the tradeoffs based on your revenue projection, personal investment, hiring plans and state. The Compliance tracker then seeds the specific formation and reporting items for whichever entity you pick (Beneficial Ownership Information for LLCs and corps, quarterly estimated tax for sole props, etc.).
Will Three Little Birds file my LLC or business registration for me?
No — we don't file paperwork directly. Instead, the roadmap board's Find Services feature surfaces vetted providers (Stripe Atlas, ZenBusiness, LegalZoom) for that exact task and opens an in-app agent that guides you through their exact flow. You do the filing; we make sure you know what to file, in what order, and where.
Can I connect Stripe to accept payments through the app?
Not for direct checkout inside Three Little Birds — the app is a planning and operating tool, not a payments processor. But when you're ready to accept payments, the roadmap's Find Services feature deep-links you to Stripe Atlas for incorporation-plus-Stripe setup, and the CRM captures won deals so your forecast stays in sync with real revenue.
Does Three Little Birds integrate with QuickBooks Online?
Yes — on Standard and Advanced you can connect QuickBooks Online in one click from Settings → Accounting integrations. We pull the last 30 days of transactions strictly read-only (we never write anything back) and merge them into your Budget Actuals per month under a single Imported (QBO) line. Xero is also supported the same way; disconnect any time and we delete your tokens immediately.
Does Three Little Birds integrate with Xero?
Yes — Xero is supported identically to QuickBooks Online. Standard and Advanced users can connect Xero in one click from Settings → Accounting integrations and pull the last 30 days of transactions into Budget Actuals. Read-only, never writes back, and one-click disconnect deletes the OAuth tokens.
Do you support Google Sheets, Excel, or CSV import for budgets?
Yes — every tier supports CSV import of budget lines. Open Budget → Import CSV and map your columns (category, planned amount, actual amount, month) — the guided importer catches header mismatches and previews the first 5 rows before you commit. If you already use QuickBooks or Xero (Standard+), the direct integration skips the CSV middleman entirely.
Can I export my plan to Microsoft Word or Google Docs?
Yes — every paid tier can export a full plan as a .docx (Microsoft Word compatible, opens cleanly in Google Docs). The DOCX matches your Brand Kit logo, tagline, and colors. Alongside DOCX, you can export the plan as PDF (watermarked on Basic, clean on Standard+), the pitch deck as PDF or PowerPoint (Standard+), and the driver forecast as a 36-month CSV (Advanced).
Can I export my pitch deck as PowerPoint?
Yes — Standard and Advanced users can export the pitch deck as either PDF or PowerPoint (.pptx). The PowerPoint file is fully editable in PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides. Slide order and toggled slides in Plan actions → Customize deck are honored on both formats, and the market-research slide (if generated) is included with clickable source citations.
Does Three Little Birds work on mobile?
Yes — the app is fully responsive and works in any modern mobile browser (Safari on iOS, Chrome on Android). The 5-step wizard, plan reading, health scores, budget check-ins, CRM contacts, and receipt scanning all work on mobile. There isn't a native iOS/Android app yet, but the mobile web experience is a first-class citizen (roughly 30% of our founders launch their plan from a phone).
Does the app work offline?
No — Three Little Birds requires an internet connection. The AI drafting, health scoring, grants finder, and financial calculations all run on our servers. Once a section is drafted it caches for fast re-reads, but any edit or regeneration needs an active connection.
Where is my business data stored, and is it encrypted?
All data is stored in a managed MongoDB cluster in US-East (AWS), encrypted at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.3). Backups are taken daily and retained for 30 days. We do not train models on your data, we do not sell or share your data with third parties, and we do not use your plan content to improve model prompts for other users.
Is Three Little Birds GDPR-compliant?
Yes — we honor GDPR data subject rights for EU users. Ask via privacy@threelilbrds.com for data access, correction, deletion, or portability requests and we'll respond within 30 days. Our data-processing agreement is available on request. Sub-processors (Stripe, Perplexity, our email + SMS delivery providers, our LLM providers) are all GDPR-DPA covered.
How do I delete my account and all my data?
Open Settings → Account → Delete account. This immediately deletes your user record, all business plans, budgets, roadmaps, CRM contacts, documents, and Grants applications. Deletion is irreversible and takes effect within 24 hours across primary and backup replicas. If you'd rather export your data first, hit Settings → Export all data.
Do you support two-factor authentication (2FA)?
Not yet on password-based accounts — 2FA is on our H1 2026 roadmap. In the meantime, Google Sign-In is available on the login page and enforces whatever 2FA you have set on your Google account (Authenticator, security key, or SMS). For extra security use Google Sign-In today.
Can I invite my cofounder, accountant, or advisor to my plan?
Yes — on Standard and Advanced, click Share on any plan and invite collaborators by email. Choose a role: Editor (edit sections, budget, roadmap), Commenter (leave comments, no edits), or Viewer (read-only). You can also generate a public read-only link for external stakeholders. Invited collaborators don't count against your seat cap; they need their own Standard+ account only if they want to run their own plans.
What's the difference between the Standard and Advanced tiers?
Standard ($25/mo) is the full launch OS: plan, roadmap, budget, compliance, grants, CRM, documents, lender-ready package, benchmarks, investor marketplace, and pitch deck. Advanced ($35/mo) adds driver-based 3-year monthly forecasting (36-month CSV export), what-if scenario planning, investor scenarios (equity/income/hybrid), Email & SMS campaigns, unlimited business plans, and priority support. Advisor / white-label tiers start at $149/mo for firms serving multiple client founders.
Do you offer a white-label option for accounting or consulting firms?
Yes — Advisor / white-label tiers put your logo and colors on client PDFs, decks, and share cards, with a co-branded client login page, a cohort dashboard with per-client health scores, custom-subdomain support (plan.youragency.com via CNAME + TXT), and full Standard features on every client seat. Advisor Starter is $149/mo (10 client seats), Advisor Pro is $349/mo (unlimited).
Is there priority support on the Advanced plan?
Yes — Advanced customers get priority email support with a target 4-hour first-response time on business days (Basic and Standard target 24 business hours). Every tier also has the in-app AI Mentor available 24/7 for immediate answers, and the /help center is free and unauthenticated at /faq for public search.
How do I improve my Plan Health score?
Open the Health Check tile on your plan and read the What drives the score panel — it shows your four deterministic components (Runway, Budget completeness, Revenue realism, Roadmap balance) as progress bars, each with plain-English reasoning. Fix the weakest one first: if Roadmap balance is 8/25, ship a couple of To-Do tasks; if Revenue realism is low, tighten your Y1 target or your pricing; if Budget is incomplete, log a month of actuals. Re-run Health as often as you want (no cap).
What's a good Plan Health score to have before pitching investors?
Investors on our marketplace only see plans with Plan Health ≥ 50 (that's the switch to flip on the Investor tab). Practically: 60+ signals a coherent early-stage story with realistic runway and a shipping roadmap; 75+ signals a plan ready for a real check. Founders who close funding on the platform average 68 at listing time. Below 50, spend another week tightening the fundamentals before opening the door.
Can Three Little Birds help me find investors or angel funding?
Yes — Standard+ founders can flip a switch to list their plan on the Investor Marketplace. Investors who match your industry and stage browse a curated read-only directory of listed plans. You see per-section engagement counts — which parts of your plan are pulling investor attention this week — so you know exactly what to tighten. This is investor discovery, not a broker: you still run your own outreach and negotiations.
Does Three Little Birds help with SBA loans?
Yes — the Lender-ready financial package (Standard+) generates the exact documents an SBA lender asks for: a 3-statement projection (P&L, cash flow, balance sheet that balances), Sources & Uses, break-even, DSCR by year, an Assumptions page, plus blank borrower forms (Personal Financial Statement, Debt Schedule, Collateral Schedule). Enter the loan amount, term, APR, and equity injection; the statements are formula-driven so they tie out. You still supply tax returns, bank statements, and personal credit.
How does the grants finder actually work — where do the grants come from?
The grants finder pulls from four live sources in parallel: Grants.gov (federal open opportunities via the official API), SAM.gov Assistance Listings (federal authoritative catalog), Perplexity Sonar (a web-cited search that surfaces state, city, county, and private/foundation/corporate programs with real clickable source URLs), and an AI matcher that scores every hit against your business profile. Every match is tagged by source, and you can generate a per-grant application draft directly inside the app.
How long does it take to create my first plan?
About 15 minutes end-to-end. The 5-step wizard takes 2–3 minutes to answer, the AI takes 30–60 seconds to draft your 14 plan sections, and the remaining time is spent reading the draft and tightening any section you want. Roadmap, health score, and (on Standard+) compliance and market research auto-populate in the background so you don't have to click Regenerate on each.
Can I have multiple businesses on one account?
Yes — Basic supports 5 plans total, Standard supports 20 plans, Advanced is unlimited. Each plan gets its own roadmap, budget, compliance tracker, CRM pipeline, and health scores. Only 3 plans can be Active (editable) at once on paid tiers (1 on Basic and free); inactive plans are read-only until you flip Activate — this keeps founders from spinning up 20 half-built plans and losing focus.
What are Service Agents and how do they help me actually get things done?
Service Agents are in-app AI assistants that sit inside every roadmap task and walk you through a real vetted vendor — Stripe Atlas or ZenBusiness for filing your LLC, Mercury for banking, Gusto for payroll, Shopify for a storefront, Canva or Looka for branding, Calendly for scheduling, HubSpot for CRM, Mailchimp for email, and 15+ more across legal, finance, HR, design, marketing, product and ops. Each agent knows ONE task and ONE vendor, so instead of a generic chatbot you get step-by-step guidance for that exact filing / signup / setup. Two modes: Chat (ask anything about that vendor for that task) and Quick (answer 3–5 starter questions and the agent generates a ready-to-paste draft — an EIN filing summary, a business account application checklist, a payroll onboarding brief). Available on Standard and Advanced from any roadmap card's Get-it-done agents panel.
