Modelling with the Simulator

Overview

The Growth Simulator models business and creator growth trajectories, so you can stress-test a scenario before you commit resources to it. Growth rarely moves in a straight line — the Simulator makes compounding visible instead of abstract.

It answers the question a snapshot cannot: what happens if this keeps going?

Open Growth Simulator

Setting your starting point

A model is a set of assumptions made explicit. Start with today’s real numbers.

Starting point — current audience, customers, or revenue.
Growth rate — how fast each input changes per period.
Conversion & retention — how much of the top of the funnel survives to the bottom.
Time horizon — how many periods to project.

Ground these in real figures from the Calculator wherever you can.

Adjusting the levers

The value is in comparison, not in any single run.

Enter a baseline and run it.
Nudge one input at a time and watch the projection respond. This is how you find which lever is actually worth pulling.
Run it again and compare against the baseline.

Comparing scenarios

Try a conservative case and an ambitious case. The gap between them is your planning range — far more useful than a single guess.

Conservative — what happens if things go slightly worse than today.
Ambitious — what happens if the lever you are betting on works.
Plan against the range, and you stop being surprised by either end of it.

Reading the projections

Read the output for shape, not precision.

Look for the inflection point where compounding starts to dominate.
Notice how retention bends the long-term curve far more than acquisition does.
Treat far-out numbers as direction, not destiny — assumptions drift.

The Simulator models your assumptions. Garbage in, garbage out — the quality of the projection is entirely the quality of the inputs.

Common modelling mistakes

Changing several inputs at once. You learn nothing about which one mattered.
Modelling the case you want. A model that only works optimistically is a wish.
Ignoring retention. It is the quietest input and the most powerful one.
Projecting too far. Beyond a certain horizon you are modelling noise.

Saving & exporting

The Simulator saves your work automatically to your browser’s local storage as you go — there is no save button to remember. Because that storage is tied to one browser on one device, exporting is how you back up or move your work.

Export writes your current data to a file you can keep or transfer.
Import loads a previously exported file back in — useful on a new device.
Keep periodic exports of anything you would hate to lose; local storage is convenient, but it is not a backup.

The Tutorials walk through a full backup-and-move, step by step. For the underlying rules, see Importing & exporting.

Your data stays yours. Everything you create lives in your browser’s local storage on your own device — it is never uploaded to an ArboraX server. See Where your data lives and the Privacy Policy for the full detail.