Realization

Cadalus requires comparatively few resources to get started. The equivalent of 8 seat licenses of the Autodesk AEC Collection would be enough to hire a full-time employee, so to complete stage two with with six employees, an equivalent of 50 seat licenses might well be enough. This means if only 1% of the architecture firms in Denmark alone would be willing to support this initiative, this project would be sustainable.

Technical realization

On a technical level, Cadalus will most likely be a Blender extension. Doing so has various advantages:

• Blender will be part of the chain anyway – at latest in the visualization stage.
• It's widely known that Blender is a powerful 3D editor, though maybe lesser known that it's a powerful 2D drawing and vector graphics editor as well, with its grease pencil and curve editor.
• Being a Blender extension means that a lot of the difficult technical work – UI system, data model, data management, etc. – is already done, and can be used by Cadalus. This massively cuts back on development time.

Organizational realization

A European Co-op (SCE) likely would be the best approach here. Individuals and architecture firms would join the coop, and both finance the operations of the development, and oversee the direction of the development. Details may be found in the articles of association.

For example, a full membership might be 500€/month (the price of a single Autodesk AEC Collection license), with supporting memberships below that level being available. Members with a full membership get to vote on what features get implemented next, to ensure that the development is in line with their very real needs. Supporting members may leave suggestions, but won't have the ability to directly influence development.

With this model, the co-op would be sustainable extremely quickly. If the members feel this price is too high, they might vote to lower the membership fee. Likewise, if they feel more development is needed, they might vote to increase membership fees, or figure out other means to invest into the co-op – or charge non-members for access to the software.

Unlike a normal corporation, this model also avoids a misalignment of interests: A VC-funded corporation would enjoy a period of hypergrowth where they de-throne the encumbents, but very quickly pivot to being comparable to the encumbents, with incredible pricing and draconian terms, to make up the 1000x ROI the investors so desperately seek. A co-op, funded by members which are also its customers, cannot experience this misalignment.