ETA isn't a stand-alone school. It sits inside a four-part system: three apps and the design + development company whose revenue makes the education free. Each part stands on its own. Together, they cover the whole arc — from the contractor's website, to the operating system inside it, to the school that explains it, to the market data underneath it all.
BCF is the agency arm of the system — the entity that builds and hosts contractor websites and acts as the revenue engine funding the free ETA education. When BCF sells a contractor a website, marketing tier, or a Benchmark deployment, a share of that revenue funds free ETA seats for contractors who haven't paid for one.
Where contractors learn the business side of the trade. Curriculum, tools, prescriptions — built around the BASE/BALL methodology. The Basic Business Foundations course covers everything a working solo contractor needs to set up and run the business. Free for any contractor — funded by BCF.
Where contractors actually run the business. A complete construction operating system built on the same BASE/BALL methodology ETA teaches. Estimates, proposals, change orders, invoicing, job costing, payroll, profit distribution, draws — everything that makes a residential contractor or service business operate.
Benchmark deploys as a white-labeled subdomain on the contractor's own website. Their employees sign in through the contractor's brand, not ours, and access only what their role permits — field workers see day sheets, foremen see crew + job costing, owners see the full operating picture.
American Cities Intel Database. The data layer underneath market-aware decisions in Benchmark. Demographics, permits, wages, migration, housing age — scored across seven dimensions and surfaced as plain-language guidance where it's useful.
Every market call we make runs through the same engine. Enter a ZIP and the analyzer pulls the tier, the pattern, and the seven dimension scores for that city. This is the lite read. Founders get the full breakdown — radius scan, three-market comparison, signed roadmap.
Most "free" trades education is a loss-leader for an upsell or a lead-magnet for a coach. ETA is funded by a real business doing real work. Here's the loop.
BCF designs and hosts contractor websites, sells branded marketing tiers, deploys Benchmark, and runs a 1099 rep program. Tradespeople paying for tools that work. Real revenue from real contractors.
A share of every BCF sale funds free ETA seats — for the contractor who can't pay yet, the apprentice deciding whether to go on their own, the foreman trying to figure out if his market supports a business at all.
Contractors learn the business — BASE, pricing, market reading, crew, scaling — without a paywall blocking the foundation. The curriculum is open to anyone with an internet connection.
Some of the contractors ETA educates eventually need a website, a hosting platform, a Benchmark deployment. They hire BCF. The loop closes — and the next round of free seats gets funded.
Most software stacks don't talk to each other. This one does. When a real signal shows up in Benchmark — labor variance over 15%, three months below BASE, pricing drift — ETA assigns the right prescription automatically. When ETA needs market data, it pulls from ACID. The contractor doesn't manage three apps. They use one system that happens to have three faces (and a fourth that built the front door).
Operating system reads the contractor's real data — three months below BASE, labor variance creeping past 15%, BASE not even calculated yet.
Signal triggers a prescription assignment — FIN-001, PRICE-002, PROD-001 — pulled from the protocol library and shipped into the contractor's ETA dashboard.
14–30 day protocol with sequenced action steps and check-ins. Tools and lessons pulled in. Outcome measured against the original signal in Benchmark.
One ETA account doubles as your Benchmark login. Auto-login between apps via signed tokens. The business plan you build in an ETA Mastery course exports straight into Benchmark's settings. There's no manual handoff between learning and running — and when BCF deploys Benchmark on your site as bm.{yoursite}.com, your employees access it through your brand without ever touching a separate login portal.
The school is the front door. Free account, BASE calculation, the basic business curriculum. When you're ready to run the business on the same methodology, Benchmark is there — same login, same record, no migration. When you want a proper website with Benchmark deployed on it, BCF is the path.
Create free ETA account Browse the courses firstIf you're already in Benchmark, ETA prescriptions auto-assign when signals fire. No second account to create. Your operating record drives your education record. For a website + hosting + branded Benchmark deployment, talk to BCF.