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Standing Rules

The rules the CEO keeps repeating, written down once so he can stop repeating them. Every rule below exists because something went wrong or almost went wrong — the source incident is noted so the rule makes sense without the CEO explaining it again.

Compiled August 20, 2026, from Slack directives, corrections, and incidents

Money

  1. No invoice gets paid until the Bookkeeper cross-checks it against what we agreed. Full process in the Bookkeeper training.

    Source: Four vendor billing errors caught in two months, all after payment.

  2. A credit is not real until there is a written credit memo AND it visibly lands on an invoice or the aging. Verbal agreements from vendors do not count.

    Source: Zipscale credits agreed in meetings that never applied.

  3. Verify before paying anyone, vendors and contractors alike. Contractors are paid after deliverables are confirmed and paperwork (agreement, W-9) is in hand — no payment until the completed work list is verified and the thing actually functions.

    Source: ManyChat $300 payment held pending a working flow, Aug 2026.

  4. Festival cash deposits go to the income account, and the Bookkeeper confirms the coding.

    Source: The Aug 2026 deposit question.

  5. Event expenses come out of the events side account. The company settles the balance in one transfer after fest season, not per-expense. Cross-account items get logged as owed and netted at settlement.

  6. Annual SaaS renewals get tier-and-amount confirmed before they bill. Auto-renewals are treated like invoices, not background noise.

    Source: TripleWhale ~$7K; Printify renewal confusion.

  7. Ad spend stays at or under 30% of revenue. MER floor 3.3. This is the governing financial rule for paid media.

Product

  1. Every theme gets a planned drop of 5 and a bench of 10 to 20 finished designs. Art only — no mockups, no uploads.

  2. The Head of Product has final say on all design approvals and revisions, tracked on the Product Sheet, not in DMs. The CEO touches product at the monthly batch review and moment gut-checks only.

  3. Moments get pitched before they get designed: what it is, when it hits, why it will work, with data. The CEO answers ALL IN, TEST IT (social post first via the Social Media Operations Specialist), or PASS.

  4. No licensed IP in paid ads. Ever. Licensed or parody-adjacent designs run organic only. This one has zero exceptions.

    Source: Facebook account disabled over NBA IP in a paid ad.

  5. Every drop and moment gets logged in the performance tracker (design, timing, sales, why). This is what makes the AI recommendations and future picks smarter.

Content

  1. Best answer goes first. In multi-person videos, lead with the strongest or funniest person. Track who hooks viewers in the first 3 seconds and build the roster of who draws.

  2. Nothing posts without same-day confirmation. The scheduled video gets confirmed against the calendar before posting each day.

    Source: 8/24's video posted on 8/18 due to swapped folders.

  3. Deliverables are QC'd on receipt, not at post time — audio, captions, correct file in correct folder. Catching it on posting day is too late.

  4. Brand accounts keep it clean. No vulgar hooks or opens on reposted creator content; ask the creator for a clean version.

    Source: A reposted video opening with profanity, Aug 2026.

  5. UGC gets the pre-check before reposting: watermark scan (ViralHog, BVIRAL) and the exclusivity question asked explicitly, with signed content rights via the JotForm system.

  6. Every green-screen image ships TikTok size: 1080 × 1920, 9:16, full-screen. An image in any other size or aspect ratio is unusable and gets redone — confirm the dimensions before uploading a set.

    Source: Repeated image deliveries in the wrong format, each one unusable.

Communication & follow-through

  1. Closed means confirmed in writing. A task is not done because someone said they did it or a vendor promised something. It is done when the confirmation exists in writing. This applies to everyone, on everything.

  2. Anything the CEO assigns, anywhere, gets tracked to confirmed-done. The Executive Assistant is the accountability layer. Nothing depends on the CEO remembering.

  3. Comp and role changes go in email, not Slack. Slack is for work; email is for the record.

  4. The CEO's personal number does not get handed out. Partner and collab contact routes through the Executive Assistant or the Social Media Operations Specialist until the CEO decides otherwise.

  5. External meetings get a prep doc: who each person is, why the meeting exists, who made the intro, and what a good outcome looks like. The Executive Assistant builds it into the calendar block.

  6. Escalation goes to the person who owns the lane, not to the CEO. Design questions to the Head of Product, CS and Faire to the Ops Coordinator, books to the Bookkeeper, scheduling and tracking to the Executive Assistant. The CEO gets Friday summaries and deadline-blocking emergencies.

Documentation

  1. Every role section gets a Loom. One video per section of each role, hosted in HQ.

  2. When the same problem happens twice, it gets an SOP. A repeated correction is a missing process, not a people problem. That rule is why this document exists.