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ADR-0016: Devonside Labs Sells Structured Digital Templates via Third-Party Marketplaces

Status

approved — ratified by the Founder on 2026-07-12.

Date

2026-07-12

Context

The venture with slug digital-products adopted "Devonside Labs" as its public brand name under ADR-0009, now approved. Until now, the venture's actual business model — what it sells and how — existed only as an unresearched working assumption in ventures/digital-products/docs/strategy/venture-brief.md: "Marketplaces such as Etsy or Gumroad are plausible initial distribution channels, but this is unresearched and unconfirmed." Product format was similarly tentative: Excel workbooks named as the initial format, with Google Sheets, Notion, and Monday.com listed only as "plausible future directions," not decided ones.

The Founder has now directly instructed firming this up: Devonside Labs sells digital templates (Excel, Notion, Google Sheets, Monday.com) on marketplaces such as Etsy or any other avenue found appropriate. This is consistent with, and a natural continuation of, work already done in this venture — ventures/digital-products/docs/standards/marketplace-listing-standard.md already exists and covers Etsy and Gumroad listing rules in detail, and the venture brief already described the product philosophy (structured, trustworthy, auditable tools, not decorative templates) this decision doesn't change. No product has yet cleared discovery; this ADR settles the venture's product category and channel strategy, not a specific first product.

This decision also clears a blocker for a separate, related request: the Founder has asked to scaffold an implementation repository for Devonside Labs. Doing so before the venture had any decided product category or channel would have been premature per ADR-0014, which ties implementation-repository creation to a venture being approved for implementation work.

Decision

Devonside Labs' business model is decided as: sell structured digital productivity templates/tools as downloadable digital products, distributed primarily through third-party template/creator marketplaces.

  • Product formats: Excel workbooks remain the initial format. Notion templates, Google Sheets templates, and Monday.com templates are decided additions to the product line — not merely "plausible future directions" as previously recorded — to be built out as the venture's roadmap prioritizes them, not necessarily simultaneously.
  • Distribution channel: Etsy is the named primary channel. Other marketplaces (e.g. Gumroad, Creative Market, or others) may be added as they're found to fit, rather than the venture being restricted to Etsy exclusively. This is an intentionally open channel strategy, not a single-marketplace commitment.
  • This decision does not commit to a specific pricing model, a specific first product, or specific marketplace fee/support tradeoffs. Those remain open questions in venture-brief.md and are unaffected by this ADR.
  • This decision does not change the venture's product philosophy or visual design standards (workbook-visual-design-standard.md) — both continue to apply unmodified.

Consequences

  • ventures/digital-products/docs/strategy/venture-brief.md's "working assumptions" and "open questions" sections need updating: the marketplace-channel assumption is no longer "unresearched," and the product-format list is no longer purely speculative for Notion/Google Sheets/Monday.com. Updated as part of this same change.
  • ventures/digital-products/docs/strategy/brand-and-positioning.md still states "Brand name status: not finalized," which is now stale given ADR-0009's approval — updated as part of this same change, since leaving it stale would contradict an already-approved decision.
  • portfolio/venture-registry.json (the root-level registry) is stale relative to ventures/digital-products/venture.json — it still shows display_name: "Digital Products (working name)", brand_type: "internal-working-name-pending-public-brand", and public_name_status: "not finalized", all of which directly contradict the now-approved ADR-0009. Reconciled as part of this same change.
  • The venture now has a decided product category and primary channel, which — combined with ADR-0014 — makes scaffolding an implementation repository for Devonside Labs appropriate rather than premature.
  • Remaining open questions (pricing model, first product, specific marketplace-fee tradeoffs, legal/compliance review for any finance-related product) are unresolved by this ADR and should not be treated as decided.

Alternatives Considered

  • Leave the channel/format assumption as "unresearched" indefinitely. Rejected: the Founder has directly instructed moving this to a decision, and the venture is about to receive an implementation repository, which needs a decided direction to scaffold against.
  • Commit to Etsy exclusively. Rejected: the Founder's own instruction ("Etsy or any other avenue we find appropriate") is an intentionally open channel strategy, not an Etsy-exclusive commitment.
  • Commit to Excel only, deferring other formats. Rejected: the Founder's instruction named Excel, Notion, Google Sheets, and Monday.com templates together as the product line, not Excel alone as previously recorded.

Follow-up Actions

  • Research and decide a pricing model for the first product(s) once a specific product is selected — remains open.
  • Select the first product from the backlog (as of 2026-07-27, relocated to the devonside-labs repository's docs/ai/product-backlog.md — see ADR-0017) — remains open, not resolved by this ADR.
  • Research specific marketplace fee structures and support-model tradeoffs (Etsy vs. Gumroad vs. others) before committing operational effort to more than one channel.
  • Confirm docs/company/portfolio-strategy.md references this venture's decided business model, if that document tracks per-venture business models at the company level.

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