The Ledger

Collabs trade exactly five things — money, skill, audience, credibility, capacity. Score yourself 0–5 on each. Your two highest are what you sell; your two lowest are what you buy. Every later step starts from this page.

Self-audit — score yourself tonight

Whitepaper Ch. 2 defaults — then make them yours.

Your name / label (used in drafts, optional)

Stays in your browser. Used to fill agreement and outreach drafts.

The mirror — a typical counterpart

YouMirror (5 − you)

A new graduate's ledger and an established brand's are near mirror images — which is the whole reason the trade works. The Atelier room itself is a matching mechanism.

The Ladder

Six rungs, each a proof you buy for the next. Tick only what you have delivered, with proof — a photo, an invoice, a testimonial, or a number. Your rung is the highest rung with at least one proof; three deliveries at a rung earn the climb.

The ruleEach rung pays for the next: gig cash funds the shared table, the table's data justifies the capsule, the capsule's sell-through wins the stockist, the stockist's volume history supports the licence application. Skipping rungs is allowed only with someone else's money.

The brands' mirrorEstablished brands run the ladder in two directions at once — buying rungs 1–3 (capacity from juniors) to fund climbing 5–6 (partnerships, licences). If you hold capacity, you are somebody's rung 1–3. Same ladder, two directions, one quarterly review.

⌕ Explore

A brainstorm between your Ledger and your shortlist. The AI reads your brand context (from BrandForge, if you've done it there in this browser), asks five questions about your style, then turns your answers into collab directions worth exploring — each with the partner shape that completes it. Nothing is sent anywhere until you press a Send to AI button.

1 · The style interview

five questions, picked for you

Answer in plain words — half-sentences are fine. Your answers stay in this browser unless you run Step 2 below.

2 · Directions to explore

collab concepts shaped by your answers

Four to six directions — each names the concept, why it fits your style, the partner shape that completes it, a first move, and the honest risk. Every direction links straight into Calibre Match to find the humans, and can drop into Step ③ as a partner target.

How this connectsDirections are ideas, not commitments. Shortlist the ones that stick as Partner Targets (Step ③), paper the one that happens in the Trade Designer (Step ④), and let the Forge (Step ⑤) attack it. The ladder (Step ②) still decides which rung you start on.

Partner Targets

Up to 10 prospects, scored before you pitch. Six criteria × 1–5 = 30 points: brand health, audience overlap, payment record, decision-maker access, contract sanity, capacity match. Below 18 — build proof first, not a pitch.

Before you score: check the room firstCalibre Match (match.jdmis.com) profiles graduates by skills checklist — employers find you there. CJS sells members' work at DORS while you sleep. The Atelier room is the warmest shortlist a brand will get all year. Score outsiders against what the room already offers.

The Trade Designer

Design the trade before the handshake: what each side gives in countable units, how costs and revenue split, and whether a real sale still pays you at your floor. Then run the three tests — one-line, exit, friend.

Design the trade with

Collab form

Give / get matrix

Side A — you give

Side B — they give

Units are enforced — pieces, posts, hours, S$ or %. "6 renders, 10 photos, PNG + RAW" is a brief; "some content" is a wish.

The three tests

① The one-line test — both sides must agree this sentence

If their version of the sentence differs from yours — different split, ownership or obligations — the deal is not done; it is merely undescribed.

② The exit test — if it ends in week two

Notice either side may give (days)

Kill criteria

Stock

Content

Who keeps the stock, the content rights, the customer list, the capsule-name trademark — on paper before launch. Every collab ends; the only choice is whether it ends on purpose.

③ The friend testExplain the deal to a friend outside the industry. If you catch yourself hiding a term — the exclusivity, the true cost share, who owns the designs — that term is the problem, and you already know it.

Agreement preview — 8 headings

Appendix A structure. The Forge fills every line; a lawyer reads anything rung 4+ with real money at stake.

The Forge

Three adversarial AI passes, one per button press: the Strategist drafts the whole package, the Skeptic attacks it, the Insider role-plays your partner rejecting it. AI drafts, you decide — every line stays editable before export.

What leaves your browser — read this once Nothing from Steps 1–4 is ever sent anywhere by this tool until you press a Send-to-AI button — in ⌕ Explore (your brand context from BrandForge, your ledger, and your interview answers) or here in the Forge (your ledger scores, your rung, your partner names, types, scales and scores, and the trade terms you entered). Whichever brief you send goes to the AI model you chose, via OpenRouter, over HTTPS. With your own key the request goes browser → OpenRouter only. On jdmis.edu.sg, school AI runs the same request on the school's managed key, which the school logs (it pays for the tokens). Everything else — answers, drafts, edits, exports — stays in this browser. Telemetry is anonymous usage counts only, never names, partners, prices or messages.

Pass 1 · The Strategist

drafts the complete package

Drafts the one-page agreement from Step 4, the three outreach messages (gig pitch · brand pitch · maker-to-maker), a 30-day plan of 5 touches a week mapped to your named partners, and a success metric per partner type.

Pass 2 · The Skeptic

attacks the draft

Argues the partner's side of your split, hunts the missing exit terms, flags IP risks — registered-design novelty ("have you posted this design yet?"), the commissioned-work copyright default — checks ASAS disclosure on any creator deal, and redrafts the weak clauses.

Pass 3 · The Insider

role-plays the rejection

Becomes the person your outreach actually lands on — a salon owner counting her display cases, a licensor's licensing manager reading her seventh pitch this week, a macro creator's manager guarding the calendar — rejects it with real objections, then rewrites the three messages to survive that rejection.

FAQ & Privacy

Straight answers, because the whole method runs on trust.

Is my information going to JDMIS?

Not unless you ask it to. Everything you enter — scores, partners, trade terms, drafts — is stored only in your own browser. No account, no server-side copy… unless you press ☁ Backup and verify by email + code (a copy is then stored on JDMIS servers tied to your email), or you press Send to AI at Step 5 (the brief then goes to the AI model you chose). Both are always your choice, never automatic.

What IS collected, then?

Usage counts only — when you opened the tool, how long you used it, which features were used ("a partner was added", "pass 2 completed") — never what you entered. Like every page on jdmis.edu.sg, the site's Mautic analytics pixel is included. Links may carry ?cohort=oct2026 (a class tag) or ?oid=… (your contact id) — these attach to the anonymous counts so a teacher can see class engagement.

What exactly does the AI see at Step 5?

One thing: the brief built from your answers — ledger scores, rung position, your partner names, types, scales, vetting scores, and the trade terms from Step 4. It goes to the model you chose, via OpenRouter. With your own key, browser → OpenRouter, nothing in between. With school AI, the request runs on the school's managed key and is logged server-side (the school pays for those tokens). Drafts come back, are stored in your browser, and every line is editable before you export. If that is more than you want to share — use a partner label like "Salon A" instead of the real name.

Do I need AI for this to be useful?

No. Steps 1–4 — ledger, ladder, partner scorecard, trade designer with the floor check — run fully offline and never send anything. Step 5 is optional drafting help, one explicit button press per pass.

The jargon, in one breath?

Floor — the price at which a sale pays you nothing; the split must clear it. Usage rights — who may repost/reuse the content, where, for how long. UEN — Unique Entity Number, the Singapore business id on invoices and agreements. ASAS — the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore; commercial relationships must be disclosed clearly, prominently, understandably: #ad, #sponsored, "Paid partnership" pass; #collab, #partner, #ambassador do not; gifted product needs #gifted. MG (minimum guarantee) — a licence fee owed even if sales never happen. Registered design — the jewellery-specific registered right (S$200, ~4 months, IPOS); file before you post — publishing first destroys novelty, worldwide.

What happens if I clear my browser data?

Your plan goes with it. Protect yourself: ⬇ Download my data (a .json you keep), Excel export of the partner table, or ☁ Cloud backup (email + code, restores on any device).

Who made this?

Built for the JDMIS Atelier Sessions — the weekly graduate growth lab — as a companion to Collaborations That Grow Your Reach (30 September 2026). Method follows the session whitepaper; the MK100 course files partnerships under joint activities in the promotion mix.

Self-test

Open this page with ?selftest=1 to run the built-in checks — ledger, ladder, scoring, split arithmetic, the tolerant JSON parser and every export builder, without spending a single AI request.

Your data, your control

Clear removes everything this browser stored for this tool (a cloud backup, if you made one, stays on the server until you overwrite it).

The Ledger

Self-audit — score yourself tonight

The mirror — a typical counterpart

The Ladder

⌕ Explore

1 · The style interview

2 · Directions to explore

Partner Targets

The Trade Designer

Give / get matrix

The three tests

Agreement preview — 8 headings

The Forge

Pass 1 · The Strategist

Pass 2 · The Skeptic

Pass 3 · The Insider

Compile the Collab Plan

FAQ & Privacy

Your data, your control

Partner

Vetting scorecard — 1 (poor) to 5 (strong)

AI Setup

Backup & Restore