The Golden Protocol

Most business decisions are made by feeling.

"What should we charge for this?" "Is this project worth taking?" "How long should this take?"

The answers usually come from a mix of fear, hope, and whatever a competitor is doing. This works until it doesn't. Then you're stuck wondering why your margins are shrinking and your team is exhausted.

The Golden Protocol is a different way to think about these decisions. It's not a rulebook. It's a set of perspectives anchored to two ideas: the 80% baseline and the Fibonacci sequence.

The Problem with Gut Feelings

Here's what typically happens:

A client comes in with a project. You quote a price based on what "feels right." The project runs longer than expected. You absorb the extra hours because you want to maintain the relationship.

By the end, you've made almost nothing. Worse, you couldn't take on other work because this project consumed all your bandwidth.

The problem isn't that you're bad at your job. The problem is that you didn't have a framework to evaluate the decision before you said yes.

The 80% Baseline

Most people think about revenue first. We think about margin first.

The baseline is 80%.

If your profit margin on a service falls below 80%, you're in danger territory. You're trading time for money at a rate that doesn't scale. You can't hire, you can't invest, and you can't grow.

This doesn't mean every single project needs to hit 80%. But it means your default expectation is 80%. Anything below that needs a very good reason.

The 3x Rule

When working with vendors or subcontractors, we follow a simple philosophy:

Whatever they charge you, you charge 3x to the client.

If a vendor quotes ₹50,000 for their work, your price to the client is ₹1,50,000.

The gap isn't pure profit. It's the value you add: project management, quality control, client communication, risk absorption, and the trust you've built with the client.

If you can't add enough value to justify the 3x, you probably shouldn't be in the middle of that transaction.

Short Projects vs. Long Projects

Not all projects are the same. Time changes the math.

Short projects (under 3 days) should be treated as products. They're repeatable, systematized, and should carry your highest margins - closer to 80% or above. If you're doing quick turnaround work at low margins, you're burning out your team for no gain.

Longer projects (weeks to months) have more complexity, more unknowns, and more relationship value. Here, it's acceptable for margins to flex down - but never below 65-75%. If you're going lower than that, the project needs to shrink or the price needs to rise.

The pattern: shorter = higher margin, longer = slightly lower margin is acceptable.

Ways to Use the Fibonacci Sequence

The Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144...) shows up everywhere in nature because it represents efficient growth. Each number is the sum of the two before it.

You can apply this pattern to many areas of business. Here are some perspectives:

Pricing tiers. Instead of picking random numbers, you can anchor your service tiers to Fibonacci values. This creates a natural progression where each level feels proportionally higher than the last.

Timeline expectations. Projects can be mapped to Fibonacci intervals (3 days, 5 days, 8 days, 13 days, 21 days, etc.). This helps you think about scope and complexity in structured steps rather than arbitrary deadlines.

Revenue milestones. You can set growth targets using the sequence. Each milestone becomes a natural stepping stone to the next.

Team bandwidth. The sequence can help you think about how many projects or clients you can handle at each stage of growth.

The point isn't to follow these numbers rigidly. The point is to have a system for thinking about these decisions instead of guessing every time.

Reference: The First 50 Fibonacci Numbers

For reference, here is the raw data. Use it however makes sense for your context.

n	F(n)	Factorization
0	0	-
1	1	-
2	1	-
3	2	-
4	3	-
5	5	-
6	8	2³
7	13	-
8	21	3 x 7
9	34	2 x 17
10	55	5 x 11
11	89	-
12	144	2⁴ x 3²
13	233	-
14	377	13 x 29
15	610	2 x 5 x 61
16	987	3 x 7 x 47
17	1597	-
18	2584	2³ x 17 x 19
19	4181	37 x 113
20	6765	3 x 5 x 11 x 41
21	10946	2 x 13 x 421
22	17711	89 x 199
23	28657	-
24	46368	2⁵ x 3² x 7 x 23
25	75025	5² x 3001
26	121393	233 x 521
27	196418	2 x 17 x 53 x 109
28	317811	3 x 13 x 29 x 281
29	514229	-
30	832040	2³ x 5 x 11 x 31 x 61
31	1346269	557 x 2417
32	2178309	3 x 7 x 47 x 2207
33	3524578	2 x 89 x 19801
34	5702887	1597 x 3571
35	9227465	5 x 13 x 141961
36	14930352	2⁴ x 3³ x 17 x 19 x 107
37	24157817	73 x 149 x 2221
38	39088169	37 x 113 x 9349
39	63245986	2 x 233 x 135721
40	102334155	3 x 5 x 7 x 11 x 41 x 2161
41	165580141	2789 x 59369
42	267914296	2³ x 13 x 29 x 211 x 421
43	433494437	-
44	701408733	3 x 43 x 89 x 199 x 307
45	1134903170	2 x 5 x 17 x 61 x 109441
46	1836311903	139 x 461 x 28657
47	2971215073	-
48	4807526976	2⁶ x 3² x 7 x 23 x 47 x 1103
49	7778742049	13 x 97 x 6168709
50	12586269025	5² x 11 x 101 x 151 x 3001

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Want to talk about how this applies to your business? Reach out.