Business Plan & Operating Model

Birth with Peace

A faith-centered doula collective — built so Cece can do this for decades, not burn out in years.

At 12–16 births a month, Birth with Peace isn't a solo practice — it's a collective. One doula physically can't attend a birth every other day. The team isn't backup infrastructure; the team is the product. And it's the good version of what failed collectives only pretended to be.

Practice Revenue @ 12/mo
$259K
Gross, annual
Team Size (steady state)
4
doulas, 2-on / 2-off
Cece's Off-Time
2 wks
every month, fully off
The Core Thesis

Cece wears two hats. As owner, she takes a cut on every client — income that keeps flowing even during her two off-weeks. As doula, she earns on the clients she personally sells and attends. The owner cut is the mechanism that makes "off means off" financially survivable: the practice earns without her.

What makes it work

Faith-aligned clients self-select in. A real shared-call team. Doulas pay nothing to join — the practice only earns when they earn.

What sinks lesser collectives

Charging doulas monthly rent regardless of results. Routing wrong-fit clients by availability. "Support" promised on a sales page, never staffed.

$1,800 to hire Cece (or any Birth with Peace doula)

One flat fee, start to finish. Everything below is included — and the relationship is built on explicit, scheduled structure (the fix for her two biggest failure modes: unclear expectations and open-ended communication).

🌱
After day 10: the open frontier

Today the package ends ~10 days postpartum, with an hourly rate for continued work. Nutrition, breastfeeding, sleep training and a membership model all sit on top of an already-trusted relationship — Phase 2, not modeled here yet.

The $1,800 splits into three roles. Drag the slider to set the practice's cut and watch Cece's income — as both owner and working doula — update live.

Practice / Owner
Brand, lead-gen, website, insurance, admin. Cece earns this on every client.
Sold (X)
2 prenatals, monthly check-ins, point person all pregnancy.
Active Birth (Y)
Early labor + the birth itself. The on-call, unpredictable, hard part.
Practice / owner cut
10%35% (true founder economics)
Cece's Annual Income — Two Hats
Owner cut (all clients)
Sold work (X)
Birth work (Y)
Cece's total / year
…while still taking two full weeks off every month. Excludes self-employment tax & the future membership layer.

Two weeks on, two weeks off. When Cece is off, off means off — no fear of the phone ringing. A 4-doula team keeps ~2 doulas on call at any moment, so every client is always covered.

The external promise to clients: "You're hiring a team — you will never be unattended." The internal mechanic is the rotation below.
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
ON call OFF — phone doesn't exist

Don't recruit four doulas before proving the lead flow. Add one doula a month, growing volume as the team and the pipeline grow together. Steady state (~12/mo) by month four.

These aren't guesses — they're Cece's own receipts from three years of practice. Every "what works" gets built into the brand; every "what fails" gets designed out of the system.

Why it works when it works
Why it failed when it failed
The pattern
Every failure traces to one variable: fit, and being explicit about it. When faith and values align and expectations are set clearly, every other mechanic compounds. The fix is a fit-screen and written scope at intake.