From an idea to a board pack, in order

Name the venture and set a target date

Open the Venture Control Room and fill in three fields: the venture name, the sector, and the date you need the certificate in hand — not first flight, not first revenue. The certificate.

Everything downstream is scheduled backwards from that date. Setting it now, before you have any detail, is deliberate: it turns an aspiration into a constraint you can test.

Walk the certification pathway

Open the Certification Navigator and pick your sector. You will see the whole five-phase KCAA process at once — every requirement, in sequence, each carrying the instrument it comes from.

Work through it honestly and tick only what you genuinely have. The temptation is to tick what you intend to have; resist it, because the readiness index is only useful if it is telling you the truth.

• Items marked gate block the phase. Nothing behind them moves until they close.
• Read the postholders and manuals lists at the bottom — that is your recruitment brief and your document budget.
• Note any citation marked unconfirmed. Those need written confirmation from KCAA before you build a compliance matrix on them.

Size the capital and test the covenant

Open the Venture Builder. Adjust each capital line within its planning band until it reflects your actual plan, then build the funding stack: sponsor equity, third-party equity, subordinated debt, grant, senior debt.

Then the part that matters — enter a steady-state revenue assumption and an EBITDA margin, and watch the DSCR table. Four scenarios are computed from stress to optimistic.

Model the ownership chain

Open the Corporate Structure Designer and pick the archetype that matches your funding: a single Kenyan OpCo, a HoldCo/OpCo, or a three-tier HoldCo/SPV/OpCo if senior project debt is involved.

Enter the real shareholdings at each tier. The tool walks the chain and reports the look-through effective interest each party actually holds — the number a regulator reconstructs, and the one applicants most often get wrong by reading only the OpCo register.

• For an AOC, watch the ownership-and-control note. A structure can satisfy company law and still fail the aviation test.
• Work the governance checklist. Those are the questions diligence asks first.
• If your lender is also taking equity, read the lender-conflict check carefully.

Name the postholders

Open the Organogram Planner. It lists the posts the Authority must accept for your sector. Name a holder and a deputy for each — real names where you have them, "vacant" where you do not.

Certification does not proceed on a vacant post, so this list is a recruitment plan with a deadline attached. The tool flags every named post with no documented cover.

Read the whole picture, then print it

Go back to the Venture Control Room. Everything you have done now rolls into a single Launch Readiness Index, with the next action for each module and the critical path against your target date.

Three things to do before you print:

1. Check for a sector mismatch warning. If one tool is pointed at a different sector, the index is summing answers to different questions.
2. Save it as a scenario. Name it "Base case". Now you can test alternatives without destroying it.
3. Export the workspace. One JSON file, saved wherever you keep board papers. We hold no copy — if you clear this browser, it is gone.

Then print. You get the whole venture as one dated, branded document: readiness, every module, the critical path, and the date it turns on.

Run the Health Scorecard

Forty questions across eight weighted domains — safety, operations, fleet, cost, revenue, commercial, people, finance. Calibrate it first with your fleet type and operating model so the weights reflect your business rather than a generic one.

Benchmark your unit cost

The CASK calculator turns your operating cost lines and capacity into a unit cost, banded against peer benchmarks, and shows which cost buckets sit furthest from par.

Go deep on what the scorecard found

The scorecard's prescriber links directly to the right instrument. Depending on where you scored weakest:

• Fuel cost → the Fuel Contract Optimizer, to size what renegotiation is worth.
• Technical and airworthiness → the MRO & Technical Readiness diagnostic, built for Chief Engineers and CAMO Managers.
• People and competency → the Training Needs Analysis, which produces a costed training budget.
• Structure and accountability → the Operating Model Canvas, as a workshop instrument.