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Build plan

What this curriculum is, who it's for, the three-tier structure, source documents, build phases, and open decisions.

HiON Executive Curriculum — Build Plan

Owner: Will Frank (will.frank@hionev.com) Document version: v0.1 — 2026-05-20 Status: Draft for principal review (Will, Jim, Joe Lewis)

1. What this is

A self-study curriculum that codifies what an executive at HiON Franchise Group needs to know to run the business — at three depths of fluency:

  • Tier 1 — Know that. The 60-second account of each topic. The version you can deliver to a counterparty without notes.
  • Tier 2 — Know where. The map of canonical sources — which document, which dashboard, which person owns the answer.
  • Tier 3 — Know how. The mechanics, the numbers, the decision frameworks, the edge cases.

Every module covers a single topic at all three tiers. A reader who runs out of time after Tier 1 still leaves with working fluency; a reader who needs the full mechanics goes to Tier 3 inside the same file.

2. Audience and use cases

Primary audience: Will Frank, Jim Frank, Joe Lewis, and any future executive hire at HFG Holdings, LLC.

Use cases the curriculum supports:

  • Onboarding a new exec hire — finish all ten modules, ~12–15 hours of self-study, and the new hire can hold a credible conversation with a franchisee, a Site Host, a regulator, a journalist, or an LP.
  • Refreshing existing principals — Jim writes most of this from memory; the act of writing it down (with [CONFIRM] tags where memory is uncertain) catches the assumptions that turn into mistakes later.
  • Codifying tacit knowledge before it walks out the door — what Jim knows about the Tesla relationship, what Joe Lewis knows about franchise scaling, what Bill knows about the capital stack — written down once, in one place, in one voice.
  • Pre-read for board, advisor, or capital-partner conversations — pull the relevant Tier 1 brief and source map; skip the rest.

Out of scope:

  • Franchisee operator training. That lives in the parallel ~/HiON Training Module/Curriculum-Rebuild/ 15-module program.
  • Site-level operational SOPs. Those live in the Operations Manual.
  • Module-level facilitator notes for live instruction. This curriculum is designed for self-study, with self-check answer keys included in the file.

3. Distinction from the Franchisee Training Program

The Franchisee Training Program (sibling project, ~/HiON Training Module/) teaches the operator running ONE HiON EV Facility how to comply with HiON’s system. It is operator-grade, FDD-aligned, and presumes a live facilitator.

This curriculum teaches the executive running HiON Franchise Group how the whole business actually works — the thesis, the two products, the Tesla relationship, the unit economics, the legal frame, the team, the brand. It is principal-grade, self-study, and includes the internal-only numbers Akerman stripped from public marketing.

Module 8 of this curriculum (Operating split + Franchisee Training Program overview) is the bridge — it gives the executive a top-down view of what the franchisee curriculum covers without recreating it.

4. Inputs and source documents

Confirmed available

  • ~/HiON Franchise Group Site v2/hion-context.md — master context brief, the canonical compressed source.
  • ~/HiON Franchise Group Site v2/site-v3/COPY.md — Akerman-redlined public-facing copy.
  • ~/HiON Franchise Group Site v2/brand-guidelines/index.html — voice playbook and identity system.
  • ~/HiON Franchise Group Site v2/HiON-Investment Deck 4.6.26 (CONFIDENTIAL).pdf — internal-only unit economics, portfolio math, capital stack.
  • ~/HiON Franchise Group Site v2/Meeting Transcripts/ — Powderfish and Surjeet Singh founder calls.
  • ~/HiON Training Module/Curriculum-Rebuild/ — sibling franchisee program (referenced in M08).

Not yet available — flagged as risks

  • Current Operations Manual (live version).
  • Current FDD (especially Item 11 training and Item 19 financial performance representations).
  • Master Services Agreement template.
  • Capital partner term sheets / debt facility documentation (relevant to M10).
  • Internal org chart with reporting lines beyond the named principals.

Mitigation: Module drafts will mark approximate values with [CONFIRM] tags wherever they reference specific dollar amounts, day counts, percentages, or procedural steps drawn from hion-context.md rather than primary sources. A source verification pass runs before each module is marked v1.0.

5. Output structure

All deliverables live under /Users/williamfrank/HiON Exec Curriculum/:

00_Plan.md                       — this document
01_Outline.md                    — the 10-module syllabus
02_Module-Template.md            — the template every module ships against
modules/                         — module files M01–M10
  M01-What-HiON-Is.md
  M02-The-Market.md
  M03-The-Tesla-Relationship.md
  M04-The-Franchise-Product.md
  M05-The-Host-Product.md
  M06-Unit-Economics-and-Portfolio-Math.md
  M07-Site-Lifecycle.md
  M08-Operating-Split-and-Franchisee-Training.md
  M09-Legal-Compliance-and-Brand.md
  M10-Team-Capital-and-Investor-Relations.md
reference/
  Source-Verification-Log.md     — consolidated [CONFIRM] tracker
  Glossary.md                    — terms used across modules (FDD, MSA, DA, NACS, NEVI, etc.)

When the curriculum reaches v1.0, the markdown files become content for a web app — either as a new section of the existing Astro training app at ~/HiON Training Module/web/, or as a sibling Vercel deployment. Decision deferred to Phase 4 below.

6. Build phases

Phase 1 — Foundation (this commit). Three docs: 00_Plan.md, 01_Outline.md, 02_Module-Template.md. Get principal alignment on scope, sequence, and module shape before drafting any module body.

Phase 2 — Module 1 quality gate. Draft M01 (What HiON Is) end-to-end against the template. Treat this as the proof-of-concept that the format works for the exec audience. Iterate the template if needed. Do not proceed to M02 until M01 is approved.

Phase 3 — Plow through M02–M10. Once M01 is locked, draft the remaining nine modules in sequence. Source-verification pass per module before next module begins. Cross-reference links wired up as modules ship.

Phase 4 — Web delivery. Decide between extending the existing Astro app or spinning up a sibling. Recommendation today: extend the existing app with a second content collection (exec-modules) and a route prefix (/exec/). Same Pagefind search, same auth posture, half the build cost.

Phase 5 — Continuing curriculum. Once the first ten modules ship, identify what’s missing in the first year of use. Likely candidates: a deeper Tesla relationship module if the Canvas Program evolves, a capital-partners module if HFG raises an institutional round, a regulatory module if NEVI/state-grant compliance becomes load-bearing.

7. Voice and brand constraints

The curriculum follows the same voice rules that govern public marketing — full source in ~/HiON Franchise Group Site v2/brand-guidelines/index.html. Even though the audience is internal:

  • No exclamation points. Anywhere. Ever.
  • No franchise clichés, hype words, motivational framing.
  • No climate / sustainability / green / eco / carbon language. Anchor to installed EV base and infrastructure math.
  • Sentence-case headlines. Em-dashes structural. Numerals over spelled-out numbers. “HiON” capitalization fixed.
  • Two facts. No adjectives. The reader fills in the implication.

The exec audience is the most sophisticated reader HiON writes for. They will register every soft word and every undefended claim. Voice discipline is more important here, not less.

8. Open decisions before drafting M01

  1. Scope confirmation. Are 10 modules in 4 phases the right shape, or should this expand (capital stack as its own module, governance as its own module) or contract (collapse Host into Franchise)?
  2. Internal-only number policy. The exec curriculum includes Section 3’s internal-only figures from hion-context.md — Year-3 / Year-4 EBITDA targets, payback, ROI, 10-loc portfolio EBITDA. Confirm those land in this curriculum, with the standard caveat that they don’t appear in any document derived from it that ever goes public.
  3. Source-verification depth. Aggressive [CONFIRM] tagging (anything not in a primary doc) or pragmatic (anything that contradicts what Jim says)? Recommendation: aggressive, with Jim as the verification interview path.
  4. Web delivery target. Confirm Phase 4 recommendation (extend the existing Astro app) or specify alternative.

These four answers don’t block Phase 1 (this commit). They block M01.