NOTQIN Business Model
Single source of truth for how NOTQIN makes money. Supersedes the scattered references in NOTQIN Project Management OS §5, NOTQIN Go-to-Market OS §6, Feasibility Study — NOTQIN Auto Tier-2 Scorecard 2026 Part 5, and AMICA Tier-2 Target List 2026 §3. Numbers below are indicative pending the discovery sprint (H3 of the Auto Tier-2 feasibility); they are working hypotheses, not booked revenue.
Context
NOTQIN is a Moroccan industrial intelligence platform — a sector-pack layer (textile, cement, steel, aero, auto, agrifood) that sits between factory PLCs and the audit, scorecard, and compliance teams downstream. The Phase-1 narrow thesis is AMICA Tier-2/3 automotive scorecard defense: helping Moroccan-owned auto suppliers hold their OEM scorecards (Renault, Stellantis, PSA) by surfacing line-stop root-cause and process telemetry in near-real time. The company is founder-led with AI-agent leverage today, and is pre-revenue with zero signed customers as of 2026-05-21 (see project-notqin-customer-state).
1. The one-sentence model
NOTQIN sells a three-rung ladder — Diagnostic, Pilot, Annual SaaS — that turns a one-day on-site audit into a recurring per-customer software contract priced against a single avoided line-stop event.
2. The three product lines
| Rung | What it is | Auto/aero band (MAD) | Broader-sector band (MAD) | Cycle | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic Pack | 1-day on-site walkthrough, 1-page diagnostic, scoped 30-day pilot proposal | 5–10k | 2.5–5k | ~2 weeks lead | Open the door without a software commitment; qualify the buyer |
| 30-day Pilot | Sector-pack deployed on one line, single KPI baseline, weekly review cadence | 300k–1.2M | 180–800k | 4–8 weeks calendar | Prove value on real telemetry before annual SaaS |
| Annual SaaS | Per-customer droplet, all sector modules, monthly KPI reviews, SLA-backed support | 900k–3.5M / year | 600k–2.5M / year | ≤ 30 days post-signature | Convert pilot into recurring revenue |
The higher auto/aero band reflects the NOTQIN GTM — Aeronautics & Automotive thesis (OEM scorecard exposure, AS9100D/IATF audit pressure, line-stop economics). The lower band is the broader-sector default from NOTQIN Go-to-Market OS §6 and applies to CBAM-driven cement/steel/textile/agro buyers without OEM scorecard urgency.
3. The revenue logic
The ladder is intentional: each rung de-risks the next for both sides. The Diagnostic is priced to cover the seller’s own audit time, so we don’t burn founder days on unqualified buyers — buyers who refuse to pay 5–10k MAD for a diagnostic will not pay 1M MAD for a pilot. The Pilot proves the technology on the customer’s own lines and builds the integration scaffolding (PLC tags, ERP hooks, KPI definitions) that the SaaS contract then runs on. The Annual SaaS is the recurring revenue line and the only rung that produces real ARR. This seller-side ladder mirrors the buyer-side 5-stage funnel in NOTQIN Customer Engagement Playbook — same staircase, viewed from the other side of the table.
4. Why this works in Morocco specifically
Three structural reasons. First, sector-pack templates (steel 6 specs, cement 2, textile 3, aero 2, agrifood 2 — see project_notqin_onboarding_demo Wave G) mean we don’t customise from scratch per customer; the cost-to-serve floor stays low because the second textile customer reuses 80%+ of the first. Second, data residency inside Morocco (CNDP-aligned, per Morocco UNS Standard v0.1 v0.2 envelope) is a real differentiator against SAP, 4Sight Holdings, and other foreign stacks that route telemetry through EU or US clouds — a binding constraint for OCP, Tanger Med, and any defence-adjacent aero buyer. Third, a founder-led shop with AI-agent leverage beats consultant burden costs at the SME tier; a Big-Four digital transformation engagement at YNNA-scale runs 4–8M MAD with a 6-month ramp, where NOTQIN delivers a working pilot in 30 days at sub-1M MAD.
5. The unit economics (conservative)
One avoided 10-minute Stellantis line-stop equals MAD 1.65M at our conservative €15k/min anchor (≈ MAD 165k/min). Published industry baselines run higher: ATS/Nielsen pegged auto downtime at 38k/min for Fortune Global 500 automakers. Our €15k/min is the floor we’d defend to a sceptical CFO. Stellantis’s own IATF Scorecard guide (April 2025) is the document Tier-2 quality directors are graded against, and a single yellow-flag event reverberates through quarterly business reviews.
The implication: an annual SaaS contract pays back in one avoided event. That is the math the buyer-side CFO signs off on.
Target gross margin on pilots is > 55%, the GO condition carried over from Feasibility Study — DigiTPME 2026 Part 5 (note: the team-of-10 cost basis in that document is superseded — actual cost basis today is solo-founder + AI agent + cloud + travel). The cost-to-serve floor for an active Year-1 customer is approximately MAD 250k (founder hours valued at opportunity cost, droplet + edge hardware, two on-site trips, support time). Discounting any annual SaaS contract below this floor means subsidising the customer. Both numbers are unmeasured until the first pilot lands — the first Diagnostic delivered is the first real cost datapoint, the first Pilot signed is the first real gross-margin datapoint.
6. The current state (fully honest)
Zero signed paying customers. Pricing bands above are working hypotheses, not validated willingness-to-pay. The five live sector packs (per project_notqin_onboarding_demo) can demo end-to-end on a customer droplet, but no contract has yet measured the unit economics in production. Older strategy documents (notably Q3-2026-strategy) reference “Hallotex” as an active pilot — this is a synthetic dev placeholder, not a real customer, and should be corrected on contact. The R1 conversion risk in NOTQIN Project Management OS §6 sits at red 25/25 until the first Diagnostic is invoiced.
7. What changes when (model evolution triggers)
- Discovery sprint validates pricing (H3 in Feasibility Study — NOTQIN Auto Tier-2 Scorecard 2026) → lock the bands, update NOTQIN Financial Model and Investor Deck v1 — Source §9.
- First Diagnostic delivered → first real cost-to-serve datapoint; revise the MAD 250k floor.
- First Pilot signed → first real gross-margin number; confirm or revise the 55% target.
- Engineer #1 hired → cost basis shifts off solo-founder; pricing floor may rise; revisit Diagnostic price.
- Sector-pack reuse rate validated (second customer in a sector) → cost-to-serve floor drops; consider band compression at the low end to widen the funnel.
Forward
The next validating event is the 5-day Auto Tier-2 discovery sprint (see Feasibility Study — NOTQIN Auto Tier-2 Scorecard 2026 §4) and the first invoiced Diagnostic Pack that follows. Every number above either survives those two events or gets rewritten.