Tiny Business Simulator

Simulate your next business simply by defining a .txt file for each product in which you define sale prices and costs.

Example

+ Beer : 2.7 USD : 0.2 mins
  - 0.27 USD labor
  - 0.32 USD beer
  - 0.10 USD cleaning costs

Features

Simulate by the next business goals:

• the monthly net profit goal
• the yearly net profit goal
• the parallel products/services that can be delivered
• the workday hours (the amount of hours a day the business operates)

The simulator targets a net-profit goal (income minus costs), not revenue. Each month, the monthly goal is split across products by their sales-% share, giving a required sales count per product:

required_sales = ceil(share * monthly_goal / net_profit_per_unit)

The yearly goal is a reference target shown next to the 12 × monthly sum; the yearly total is the sum of the 12 monthly results, so the yearly goal is only a reference.

workday hours and parallel products define a monthly production capacity in minutes:

capacity_minutes = workday_hours * 22 workdays * 60 * parallel

If the required production minutes exceed capacity, sales are scaled down to fit (the goal cannot be fully met that month). The parallel products range is automatically enforced so the financial goals stay reachable; the slider's own min/max is recomputed on every change.

The workdays figure shown in the results is:

workdays = required_hours / (workday_hours * parallel)

Obtain simulation results (per product and totals) to meet your business goals:

• required monthly sales
• required monthly workdays
• required monthly work time in minutes and hours
• required yearly sales
• required yearly workdays
• required yearly work time in minutes and hours

Yearly barchart graph with sales number and (sales amount - profit amount) per month. Above each month's bars a green ✔ marks months whose achieved net profit meets that month's goal; a red ✖ marks months that fall short.

Global minimums & monthly overrides

The top-level period tabs select Full Year or a single month (Jan..Dec); the sidebar changes accordingly:

• Full Year — four global sliders:
  • min. workday hours (default 8)
  • min. parallel products (default 1)
  • min. monthly net profit (default 500)
  • target yearly net profit (default 500, a reference shown next to the 12 × monthly sum)
• A month — four override sliders: workday hours, parallel products, net profit target and fix costs for that month. Each override must be at least its global minimum and replaces the minimum for that month only. fix costs adds a monthly fixed cost (currency units) subtracted from the month's net profit, so the required sales grow to cover both the goal and the fixed burden.

The monthly net-profit goal used in the required_sales formula is therefore the per-month value (the override when set, otherwise the global min. monthly net profit); the per-month fix costs are added to that goal when computing the required sales, and subtracted from the achieved net profit used by the goal-achievement check. Workday hours and parallel products are likewise per-month values floored by their global minimums. The yearly total is the sum of the 12 monthly results, so the target yearly net profit slider is only a reference.

Sidebar totals

The bottom of the sidebar shows achievable (capacity-capped) totals that always match the chart. The layout depends on the selected period:

• Full Year — left column = Yearly totals; right column = Yearly ref.
• A month — left column = Monthly totals (plus a goal-achievement line); right column = Yearly totals + Yearly ref.

Each period block (Monthly / Yearly) shows four rows:

• sales — total units sold (after capacity capping).
• minutes — achieved production minutes (capped units × product production time).
• hours — minutes / 60.
• workdays — hours / (workday_hours * parallel). The annual workdays sum each month using that month's own workday hours / parallel override.

For a selected month, an extra line at the end of the Monthly block shows whether the month's net-profit goal was reached: a green ✔ if the month's achieved net profit ≥ the month's goal, a red ✖ otherwise, followed by the goal value.

The Yearly ref block compares the sum of the 12 monthly net-profit goals (each including that month's fix costs) against the target yearly net profit:

• 12x mo — sum of the 12 monthly net-profit goals (each month's override, else the global min. monthly net profit) plus each month's fix costs.
• ✔ / ✖ + goal — green ✔ if that sum meets the target yearly net profit, red ✖ otherwise, followed by the target value. The target yearly net profit is only a reference; the yearly total is the sum of the 12 monthly results.

Monthly / yearly sales distribution %

Each month's goal is divided between products using percentages. Every month column always sums to exactly 100%. Percentage sliders move in steps of 0.10% (the value is shown with one decimal, e.g. 50.0%).

• A month (selected via [/]): each product has a monthly-% slider. Editing it sets that product's % and redistributes the remainder equally across all other non-locked products in that month.
• Full Year: each product shows a yearly-% slider (the mean of its 12 monthly values). Editing it propagates the target to every month where the product isn't month-locked, redistributing within each month.

The chart draws 12 separate monthly columns, so the mix can vary per month (seasonal demand — e.g. beer sells more in summer, hot chocolate in winter). The yearly total is the sum of the 12 months.

Locks

Locks freeze a product's percentage so it is excluded from redistribution.

• Yearly lock (Full Year period, Space on a yearly slider): freezes the product in all 12 months. Month checkboxes render checked and greyed out.
• Month lock (a month period, Space on a monthly slider): freezes the product only for the selected month (disabled if the product is yearly-locked).

Locked products keep their fixed share of the 100% pie; the remaining percentage is split among the unlocked products.

Exports & state

Pressing Control+E exports the simulation to files and saves the current percentages, locks, and settings:

• one <product>.simulation_results.txt per product (stats + 12 monthly rows
  • annual row + workday/parallel)
• a totals.simulation_results.txt aggregating all products
• a non-hidden, plain-text simulation_state.txt file in the product folder saving percentages, locks, and settings (editable by hand)

Reopening the app restores the saved distribution. If products were added or removed since the save, each month's percentages are re-normalized to sum to 100%.

Interface language

Set the interface language with --lang <code> (default en):

• en — English
• es — Spanish
• zh — Chinese
• de — German
• ru — Russian
• fr — French

Keys

• Tab — move between "Products" and "Graph" sub-tabs
• Shift+Tab (or o) — move between sidebar and main area (o works on all terminals, including raw Linux VTs where Shift+Tab is indistinguishable from Tab)
• [ / ] — move the top-level period selection left / right (Full Year, Jan, Feb, … Dec)
• Up/Down — scroll the main area (Products tab) or navigate the sidebar sliders
• Left/Right — adjust the focused slider
• Space — toggle the lock checkbox of the focused product slider
• Control+E — export the simulation per product and the totals to files
• Control+H — full-screen help on how the simulator works
• q / Esc — quit

Quickstart

Installation:

• via cargo: cargo install tiny-business-simulator
• via git source code: make build && make install

Run program:

tiny-business-simulator ./sample_business

Define a business with products/services

See ./sample_business folder for a sample business with 10 products.

For each product create a .txt file defining:

+ <product_name> : <sale_price> <currency> : <production_time> <production_time_units>
  - <cost_a_price> <currency> <cost_a_description>
  - <cost_b_price> <currency> <cost_b_description>
  - <cost_c_price> <currency> <cost_c_description>

• first line is the product details
• define as many line costs as you need to produce and deliver such product
• supported currencies: any 3-letter ISO 4217 code (e.g. USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CAD, MXN, CNY)
• supported production-time units: mins, hours
• products whose net profit (price - total cost) is zero or negative are skipped
• files matching *.simulation_results.txt and simulation_state.txt are ignored by the loader

Example of a product (./sample_business/beer.txt):

+ Beer : 2.7 USD : 0.2 mins
  - 0.27 USD labor
  - 0.32 USD beer
  - 0.10 USD cleaning costs

Run simulation

./tiny-business-simulator ./sample_business

Run with a specific language:

./tiny-business-simulator --lang es ./sample_business

Parse and print all product definitions without launching the simulator:

./tiny-business-simulator --list ./sample_business

Install system wide

make install