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SHOAL
The Misfit Software Studio.
"Turning Chaos Into Flow"
Matthew Hatae  ·  April 2026  ·  Confidential
Tourism
Gaming
Logistics
Retail
AI Consulting
The Opportunity
Three Forces.
One Open Window.
01
Unlimited Underpriced Talent
A large pool of elite "reject/hacker" programmers in China — outside the official system, brilliant, and looking for their shot. Full team operational for $17–28K/month.
Identified by Sabina Crane
02
Western Distribution Network
Direct access to Costco, Walmart, global logistics contacts, Hawaii tourism operators, marine charter networks, and partner hotels. The captive audience is already in the room.
Sabina + Mash networks combined
03
The AI Consulting Moment
Companies are paying $500–$5,000+ for AI workflow setup and deployment right now. Demand is real. The supply of trusted, capable implementers is paper-thin.
"The window is open."
The playbook: build recurring SaaS products for verticals we already own, staffed by talent the market hasn't priced yet.
How We Operate
The Reverse Mullet.
Polished in front. Relentless engine behind. A hard wall between the two.
The Shield
US-Facing
Front End
Strategy, sales, and account management. The client only ever talks to this entity. Western brand, Western relationships, Western trust.
Mash-led
The Pivot
Bilingual
TPM
Translates Mash's architecture into daily offshore execution. Manages the 18-hour time-zone gap, code reviews, and quality gates. Mash touches minimal daily.
First hire
The Engine
Offshore
Dev Team
Sandbox-only. No live data, no client contact, no production credentials. Builds on dummy environments. US team handles all final deployments.
5 engineers to start
30-Day Crucible Sprints — Before any client work, the team builds self-contained internal pilots to test trust, speed, code quality, and security discipline. Trust before scale.
Sprint 1  ·  Days 1–30  ·  Internal Operations — Foundation
AI TPM —
The Morning Brief
The Problem
You can't manage an 18-hour time difference while running a tourism business.
The offshore team works while Mash sleeps. Without a monitoring and translation layer, the cost of oversight is either constant availability or flying blind. Nothing else on this roadmap ships reliably without solving this first.
The Solution
Three bullets at 8AM Hawaii. That's it.
  • Integrates with GitHub + Slack to monitor all offshore activity
  • AI translates Chinese team updates to English, summarizes real progress
  • Flags bugs, blockers, or quality issues automatically
  • 3-bullet daily brief delivered at 8AM Hawaii time via SMS or Slack
  • Mash architects. TPM executes. Tool confirms.
Revenue Model
Internal first  →  productize for agencies managing offshore teams
Sprint 1  ·  Days 1–30
Sprint 2  ·  Days 31–60  ·  Gaming Vertical — Largest Market
The Sovereign
Gateway
The Triple-I Squeeze
Solo Game Creators and Gaming Studios are trapped. The gatekeeper extracts 30% of everything.
$130B in mobile IAP in 2025. Apple and Google took $40B of it. Platform funding has collapsed to 2% — 35% of studios are self-funding. The "Triple-I" dead zone: too expensive to bootstrap, too small for AAA publishing. 87% of classic games are already inaccessible due to platform decay.
The Tipping Point
Non-gaming app spend ($85.6B) surpassed gaming spend ($81.8B) in 2025. Players are already conditioned to buy outside app stores. The behavior shift has happened — we just need the infrastructure.
The Solution
Epic v. Apple + EU DMA — Window Open Now
Sovereign infrastructure. Studios keep 95%.
$40B
Recoverable annually
$18.3B
Cloud gaming by 2030
25%
Immediate margin lift
  • Sovereign Gateway: global web store, 5% fee, GDPR-compliant, bypasses IAP entirely
  • API Connective Tissue: forces legacy console backends and entitlement servers to sync — Shoal's core skill applied to gaming
  • Cross-Platform Identity: unified player profile across PC, web, mobile — device is a dumb terminal
  • Streamer Pipeline: ad click → cloud demo in browser (no download) → 1-click purchase via Sovereign Gateway
  • Developer Consortia: studios pool infra costs, bypass discovery algorithms together (43% cite discoverability as #1 failure)
Revenue Model
5% transaction fee + SaaS  ·  1K clients = 1M RMB/mo MRR
Sprint 2  ·  Days 31–60
Sprint 3  ·  Days 61–90  ·  Logistics Vertical — Sabina Network
Manifest
Clearance Engine
The Problem
One bad document holds the entire container.
Customs inspects consolidated shipments as a single unit. One sender's wrong HS code or missing certificate of origin freezes every co-shipper's cargo for days to weeks. Demurrage fees alone can exceed the value of the goods — and the root cause is almost always a Chinese supplier invoice that Western tools misread.
The Solution
AI audit before the cargo leaves port.
  • Vision AI + LLM parses Chinese & English shipping docs in seconds
  • Auto-classifies HS codes direct from original Chinese product descriptions
  • Flags missing documents against country-specific customs checklists
  • Container Health Check: red/green only when 100% of co-shippers are clean
  • Viral acquisition: one freight forwarder brings in all co-shippers as users
Revenue Model
Per-audit fee + SaaS tiers  ·  ERP API sync Phase 2
Sprint 3  ·  Days 61–90
Sprint 4  ·  Days 91–120  ·  Retail Vertical — Costco / Walmart Network
Mobile Cart
Recovery SaaS
The Problem
85.65% of mobile shoppers abandon their cart.
Mobile commerce now accounts for 59% of global retail — but the checkout abandonment rate is catastrophic. 88% of retail apps rate as "mediocre" or worse UX. Every point of friction between intent and payment is lost revenue, and the industry has no lightweight plug-in solution to recover it in real time.
The Solution
1-click recovery link fired at the moment of abandonment.
  • API plug-in that integrates with any existing retail app — no rebuild required
  • Detects cart abandonment the instant it happens
  • Fires a 1-click checkout link via SMS while the customer still has intent
  • Alternative payment options surfaced automatically to reduce friction
  • Channel: Sabina Costco, Walmart, and global retail network
Revenue Model
Per-recovery fee + monthly SaaS  ·  % of recovered GMV
Sprint 4  ·  Days 91–120
Sprint 5  ·  Days 121–150  ·  Tourism Vertical — Built on Concierge+
External Triggers
Pricing Engine
The Problem
Tour operators leave thousands on the table every week.
Static pricing ignores external reality. When three cruise ships dock in Honolulu harbor, boat charter demand spikes — but prices don't move. When rain is forecast, indoor activities should command a premium. Nobody is capturing these signals. The infrastructure to do it already exists.
The Solution
Auto-pricing driven by public data feeds.
  • Scrapes cruise ship port schedules, weather forecasts, conference calendars
  • Pushes dynamic pricing updates to FareHarbor / Rezdy via API
  • 3 cruise ships at port → boat charters auto-raise 15% instantly
  • Rain forecast → indoor activities auto-raise 10%
  • Built on Concierge+ — scraping infrastructure already exists
Revenue Model
% of pricing lift + $99–299/mo SaaS
Sprint 5  ·  Days 121–150
The Plan
150 Days to Five Revenue Lines.
Sprint Timeline
Days 1–30
AI TPM
Brief
Internal Ops
Days 31–60
Shopify
for Games
Gaming
Days 61–90
Manifest
Clearance
Logistics
Days 91–120
Cart
Recovery
Retail
Days 121–150
Pricing
Engine
Tourism
Why This Order
AI TPM first — can't manage the engine without the dashboard. Gaming second — $40B recoverable, Sovereign Gateway regulatory window open now via Epic v. Apple + EU DMA. Each sprint builds team trust while shipping a sellable product.
US Headquarters — Mānoa Innovation Center
UH-affiliated tech incubator · Suite 280, 2,326 sq ft · $1.32/sq ft/mo (~$3,070/mo) · Short-term lease · 24/7 access, conference rooms, secured entry. Mash's land used for server infrastructure if necessary, reducing cloud costs at scale. Application: research.hawaii.edu/manoa-innovation-center
Phase 2 Candidates
Instagram-to-Calendar Closer  ·  Competitor Recon Scraper  ·  Collaborative Pickup Middleware  ·  Tourism Zapier
$275K
Startup Capital
~2M RMB  ·  1–3 mo prep + 6 mo build
$17–28K
Monthly Burn
5 engineers · office · hardware (120–200K RMB/mo)
$18.3B
Cloud Gaming by 2030
From $1.4B today — 50%+ CAGR  ·  $40B platform tax recoverable annually
$140K+
Revenue Target / Month
Across 5 products at scale  ·  recurring SaaS model
What We Need
The Ask.
Partnership Structure
45  /  45  /  10
Mash · Sabina · Option pool (TPM + key hires)
Capital — ~$275K USD
Team (engineers + TPM)  →  ~$120–168K
Mash salary 6 mo  →  ~$50K
MIC office lease 6 mo  →  ~$18.4K
Land server infra  →  ~$6–9K (In savings)
Hardware + buffer  →  ~$35K
First Hire
Bilingual TPM
Bridge between Mash architecture and offshore execution
Day One
AI TPM → Gaming
Build the management layer, then attack the $130B market
45%
CTO
Matthew Hatae
45%
Investor
Sabina Crane
10%
Option Pool
TPM + key hires
"Basically all the misfits that are brilliant unite to have a chance. And then we americanize it."
— Sabina Crane