Business simulator

The Growth Year: twelve months to grow.

You run an established contracting business with two crews, real projects and a website that looks fine and brings in almost nothing. Write estimates, win bids, keep crews busy and clients happy, then see how the same year plays out on your own and with connectrader.

Takes 15 to 25 minutes. Free, no sign-up, works on a phone.

Instructions

How to play

Each month is four work weeks, Monday to Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM. The clock runs while you play: decide which inquiries to estimate, keep an eye on your crews, and make the month-end calls.

  1. Pick a business and a path

    Choose remodeling, roofing or landscape design-build. Then run it on your own with a starter website, or hire connectrader on a $1,500, $3,000 or $6,000 a month plan.

  2. Answer inquiries with estimates

    Inquiries arrive through each work week. Tap one to write the estimate. Answer within about three work days or they hire someone who called back first. Each estimate shows your chance of winning.

  3. Keep crews working, not worn out

    Crews start your signed projects on their own. Worn-out crews make mistakes that turn into callbacks and bad reviews, so hand work to a fresher crew when one is free.

  4. Close the month

    At the end of every month you see the profit and loss, where the leads went, and what's holding the business back. Hire or let go of crews and pick next month's marketing.

  5. Compare the year

    After twelve months, the game plays the same year on autopilot as a hardworking owner: on their own, and with connectrader's Growth and Scale plans. See where you landed.

Controls

Tap
Write the estimate for an inquiry, or hand a project to a fresher crew
1x to 8x
Speed up the clock. Pause any time.
?
Open the full rules, including every number the game uses

Tips

  • Speed wins bids. An estimate written the day the inquiry arrives closes far more often than one written three days later.
  • Estimates take hours, and a tired owner writes worse ones. Bigger projects take longer to estimate.
  • Signed clients wait about a month for a crew before they cancel. If projects are stacking up, hire another crew.
  • Crews cost money every day, busy or not, and so does overhead. Don't hire faster than the work comes in.
  • Your progress saves in this browser. Close the tab and pick up where you left off.

Play The Growth Year

Best on a laptop or tablet, and it works on a phone.

Pick a business. Choose how you grow it.

You run an established contracting business: two crews, real projects, a website that looks fine and brings in almost nothing. Write estimates, win bids, keep crews busy and clients happy. On your own, or with connectrader.

Your business
How you grow it

What it shows

Same crews, same effort, different year

We built this game to show what a website and marketing system actually change for a business doing $1M or more a year, and what they don't. Hard work still matters. It just goes further.

The Growth Year is a game, not a quote or a forecast. Real results depend on the business, the market and the work.

  • Looking fine isn't the same as working

    The starter website in the game isn't broken. It's just not built to be found or to ask for the call. Fewer people find it, more leave without calling, and the ones who call compare you on price.

  • Speed to lead decides more bids than price

    When every inquiry gets an instant reply, people wait for your estimate instead of calling the next company. In the game, that alone wins more work than writing faster.

  • Marketing only works if the business can deliver

    More leads with too few crews means cancellations and bad reviews, and bad reviews mean fewer leads next month. The owner still has to run a good operation.

  • SEO compounds

    Search visibility builds month by month. The difference between paths is small in January and large by December.

  • Doing it all yourself has a ceiling

    Nights spent on marketing make a small difference and leave you worn out for the work that pays. Ads pointed at a website that doesn't convert cost more per lead and close less.

Your year next

Want this year for real?

connectrader builds and runs websites, SEO and lead systems for growing service businesses. Start with a free homepage design and we'll show you what your site should be doing.

Get my free homepage design or call (253) 400-5949

Built for businesses ready to invest $2,500+ in a website or $1,500+/month in growth.

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