How the Workspace works
Plain rules, shown with their reasons. The same information always gives the same result, and nothing in the Workspace is a score, a certification or an approval.
Where the information comes from
Most of the Workspace fills in from the Seaweed Economy tools you use: the Product Development Builder, the Economics Lab calculators, the pricing and channel tools, the Regulatory Pathway Navigator and the Readiness Assessment. Each value shows which tool it came from and when.
Calculators only share their results once you have changed their starting numbers, so sample figures are never recorded as yours.
If two tools record different answers, for example two product categories, neither overwrites the other. The Workspace shows both and asks you to choose. Anything you enter yourself takes priority.
Ten readiness areas
Each area is rated from 0 to 5:
- 0 Not started
- 1 Early
- 2 In progress
- 3 Pilot-ready
- 4 Buyer-ready
- 5 Market-ready
The areas are:
- Your venture: Is it clear what you are building, for whom, and what you are trying to achieve next?
- Product and technical: Is the product defined, tested and repeatable?
- Seaweed supply (critical gate): Is your seaweed supply reliable, traceable and able to grow with you?
- Regulation and safety (critical gate): Do you know your regulatory pathway, and is it underway?
- Economics and finance (critical gate): Do you know your costs and prices, and does each sale make money?
- Customers and market: Do you know who buys, and have real buyers confirmed interest?
- Operations and infrastructure: Can you produce, store, ship and support the volume your buyer needs?
- Team and governance: Do you have the people, decision-making and ownership clarity to deliver?
- Progress and partnerships: What have you already achieved that proves the venture can work?
- Impact and community: Can you state and back up the environmental and community value you create?
The overall stage comes from the average rating: below 1.5 is Concept, below 2.5 Prototype, below 3.75 Pilot market, and above that Market-ready. There is no single readiness score.
Critical gates
Seaweed supply, regulation and safety, and economics and finance are critical gates. A weakness in any of them can stop a sale or a funder on its own, so a good average cannot hide it.
- Rated 0 or 1, or not rated: not met. The venture is held at Prototype stage at most.
- Rated 2 or 3: partly met. The venture is held at Pilot market stage at most.
- Rated 4 or 5, with at least one piece of evidence at Documented (2) or above: met. It no longer holds the venture back.
- Rated 4 or 5 with nothing documented: not yet evidenced. It counts as partly met until evidence is added.
- Economics and finance also needs price evidence: something at Documented (2) or above, under Customers or Economics, that records a price a buyer has offered or paid. A written quote, an agreement or a sales record counts. A letter of interest with no price, a calculation and a published benchmark do not.
On the Numbers page each figure is marked as an assumption, discussed but not in writing, a published figure from elsewhere or own evidence, and the result is shown with and without grants. A published price for another region is a guide to what similar operations were paid. It is never counted as the venture's own price.
Wherever a gate is not met, the Workspace names it: on the overview, in the next actions and in each capital pathway it affects. The Readiness Assessment on its own shows the stage from your ratings only; the Workspace also checks the evidence, so its stage can be lower.
Evidence maturity
Evidence is anything that backs up a rating: a quote, a lab result, a letter of interest, a pilot. Each piece is given a maturity level for how it was produced and what it can fairly claim, not how confident you feel. Each also records what it proves and what it does not.
0 Assumption
Believed to be true, with nothing gathered yet to support it.
1 Explored
Looked into, for example a conversation or a first calculation, but not written up.
2 Documented
Written down and traceable, such as a quote, a costing or a letter, but not tested.
3 Tested
Tested in a structured way, such as a lab result, a trial batch or a buyer sample, with results recorded.
4 Demonstrated
Shown to work in real conditions, such as a paid pilot, repeat orders or a full season.
5 Reviewed
Reviewed by a qualified outside party within a recorded scope. This is not a certification, an approval or a guarantee.
Level 5 means a qualified party reviewed the evidence within a stated scope. It does not mean regulatory approval, certification or readiness for investment.
Capital pathways
There is no single “investment ready” verdict. Different kinds of capital need different things, so the Workspace looks at each kind separately and says whether it looks plausible, possible or premature for your venture now, with the reasons, the conditions not yet met, and the milestones that would change it.
- Planning or research support. Feasibility funding and research partnerships, for ventures still testing the idea.
- Grants. Program funding for defined projects. Specific programs will come with the verified Funding Finder.
- Buyer-supported pilot or advance purchase. A buyer commits to a pilot or pays ahead, which needs a confirmed buyer and a product that can be delivered.
- Equipment or shared-infrastructure finance. Loans, leases or shared facilities, which need known equipment, costs and a plan to use it.
- Working capital or debt. Borrowing to run the business, which needs sales or contracts that can repay it.
- Community or Indigenous financing. Community, Nation or Indigenous financial institution capital, which needs governance and community agreement in place.
- Equity investment. Selling a share of the business, which needs evidence that the venture can grow well beyond its first sales.
These are types of capital, not specific programs or offers, and a suggestion is never a promise that funding is available.
Privacy
- Everything stays in your browser on this device. Nothing is sent to Seaweed Economy or anyone else.
- Evidence is recorded as a description and, if you want, a link to where you keep it. No files are uploaded.
- Saving your venture as a file is how you keep a copy or move it. The file stays with you.
- You decide what goes into any report you print or share.
Limits
- Ratings and evidence are self-reported. Nobody checks them.
- The rules are deliberately simple. They point to what to work on; they do not judge a venture.
- The Workspace does not replace financial, legal, regulatory or investment advice, or a funder's own due diligence.
- It does not rank or compare ventures.