Articles
What’s new, and the fundamentals explained
Updates about Corlova itself, and plain-English guides to the ideas the lessons teach. Open to everyone, no account needed.
Updates
- September 2, 2026 — Where ads appear on Corlova, and who never sees them.: Where an ad can appear on Corlova (one unit per page, one per lesson chapter), who never sees one, what Google receives, and how to remove them.
- September 1, 2026 — Corlova is free right now. Here is the whole story.: Since September 1, 2026, a free account opens all of Corlova. What changed, what is for sale, where ads appear, why, and the honest part: whether it lasts.
Guides
- How Do Businesses Actually Make Money?: A friendly, buzzword-free guide to how businesses actually make money: revenue vs. profit, the main business models, why big sales can still lose money, and the one question that decides whether any business works.
- Unit Economics Explained: How to Tell If a Business Actually Works: Unit economics in everyday words: contribution margin, customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), payback period, and break-even: the five numbers that reveal whether any business actually works.
- How to Value a Small Business: A Practical Guide: A practical, straight-talk guide to valuing a small business: seller's discretionary earnings (SDE), earnings multiples, what moves a multiple up or down, and the traps hiding in "adjusted" numbers.
- LLC vs. S Corp vs. Sole Proprietorship: How to Choose: A straightforward comparison of sole proprietorships, LLCs, and S corp elections: what each actually changes (liability and taxes), who each fits, and the two questions that decide the right structure.
- How to Read an Income Statement (P&L), Line by Line: A plain guide to the income statement: revenue, cost of goods sold, gross profit, operating expenses, operating income and net income, worked through one small business's year.
- How to Read a Balance Sheet Without an Accounting Degree: What a balance sheet shows and how to read it: assets, liabilities and equity, why the two sides always match, and the two ratios worth working out every time, using one bike shop's numbers.
- Cash Flow vs. Profit: Why Profitable Businesses Run Out of Cash: Profit and cash are different things, and the gap between them sinks healthy businesses. The five places cash hides, how growth consumes it, and what operators do about it.
- Markup vs. Margin: The Pricing Mistake That Quietly Costs Money: Markup is profit as a share of cost; margin is profit as a share of price. Mixing them up underprices everything. The formulas, a conversion table, and a worked example of the mistake.
- How to Price a Product or Service: Floor, Ceiling, and Everything Between: How to set a price you can defend: the cost floor, the value ceiling, what competitors' prices tell you, how volume responds when price moves, and how to test a change without guessing.
- What a Discount Really Costs You (and How Much More You Have to Sell): A discount comes out of your profit, not your price. The formula for how much more you must sell to break even, a table by margin, the costs the formula leaves out, and cheaper alternatives.
- How Business Loans Work: Payments, Coverage, and the Fine Print: A plain walk-through of a small business loan: how payments split between interest and principal, fixed vs. variable rates, the coverage ratio lenders test, collateral, guarantees and covenants.
- Debt vs. Equity: Which Kind of Money Should Fund Your Business?: Borrowing keeps ownership but demands payments from day one. Selling equity needs no repayment and costs a share of every future dollar. The same $200,000 raised both ways, worked through.
- How Startup Dilution Works: Pre-Money, Post-Money, and the Option Pool: What happens to a founder's ownership through two funding rounds: pre-money and post-money, price per share, how an option pool shifts the math, and what liquidation preferences do at a sale.
- How to Buy a Small Business: From First Look to Closing Day: The steps in buying a small business, in order: what to look for, how to read the first numbers, whether the financing works, the letter of intent, due diligence, deal structure and the handover.
- Seller Financing Explained: When the Seller Becomes the Lender: How seller financing works when buying or selling a business: why both sides agree to it, the terms that matter, a worked payment schedule, balloon structures, and how each side protects itself.
- Subscription Churn Explained: Why Small Monthly Losses Cap Growth: What churn is, why a small monthly rate compounds into a large yearly loss, how it limits lifetime value and puts a ceiling on growth, and where it comes from in practice.
- How Marketplaces Make Money, and Why They're So Hard to Start: How two-sided marketplaces earn a take rate on every transaction, why the first buyers and sellers are so hard to attract, what liquidity means, and what stops a marketplace from charging more.
- Inventory Management Basics: How Much to Order, and When: The core arithmetic of inventory for a small business: what holding stock really costs, economic order quantity, when to reorder, how much safety stock a service promise needs, and turnover.
- How to Forecast Sales for a Small Business, Without a Data Scientist: A practical way for a small business to forecast sales: start from a baseline, smooth the noise, account for seasons and trends, measure your error honestly, and plan for a range.
- How Rental Businesses Make Money: Utilization Is the Whole Game: The economics of renting out equipment, vehicles or anything else: why utilization drives everything, how rate and utilization trade off, payback on an asset, and what resale value is worth.
- Negotiation Basics: Alternatives, Walk-Away Points, and Where Deals Land: The core ideas behind any business negotiation: your best alternative, your walk-away point, the zone where a deal is possible, first offers, concessions, and trading things that cost you little.
- Marketing Funnel Math: From Ad Spend to What a Customer Costs: Follow $3,000 of ad spend through impressions, clicks and sales to find what each customer cost, whether the first order was profitable, and which stage of the funnel to fix first.
- NPV, IRR and Payback: How to Decide Whether an Investment Is Worth It: How to judge an investment with net present value, internal rate of return and payback period, worked through two projects that cost the same, and what to do when the three measures disagree.
- How to Set a Freelance Rate That Actually Pays You: Why dividing a salary by 2,080 hours underprices freelance work, and how to set an hourly rate that covers unbillable time, the costs a job would have paid, taxes and gaps between clients.
- What Is a Cap Rate? How Investors Price Income Property: Cap rate explained with a worked example: calculating net operating income, what a high or low cap rate says about a property, why value moves with NOI, and how financing changes the return.