The beta charter · what we're testing, shipping, and holding back

You're in the founding cohort. This page is the one document that tells you what this beta is testing, what we're shipping across the eight weeks, and what stays off-limits until after. Bookmark it; it's the source of truth for the cohort.

The Open Beta launches Monday 2026-04-27 and the founding cohort runs through Sunday 2026-06-22. During those eight weeks, Solo subscribers get the €149/month beta price locked for their first six months (standard is €179). Free users have two lifetime exposés either way — the quota model is stable, not a beta-only allowance.

What we're learning

Three questions drive this beta:

Market fit. Which broadcasters do documentary producers actually pitch, and does the Format-Bound output hold up against what commissioning desks want to read?
Pricing. Is Solo at €149/month (beta) the right shape for producers without a researcher? Is Producer at €990/month the right shape for a working freelance producer? Does Studio at €1,990 clear the value bar for a small house running several pitches a week?
Onboarding friction. From first signup to first broadcast-ready exposé, where does a new producer stall? That's the step we need to remove.

What's live, what's rolling out, what's on the roadmap

Most of what the product needs to do is already live at launch. The eight weeks are for stress-testing decisions made pre-launch — not a feature-shipment schedule. A handful of things roll out into your account as we validate them:

Prep-for-editor briefing. A one-page meeting doc built from your finished exposé — key story beats, format-fit argument, three likely objections, feasibility summary. Currently behind a feature flag; rolls out cohort-gated once we've heard from ten producers on whether the shape lands.
Research-v2 grounding. A supervisor + worker pattern that pins claims against Wikipedia before the Fact-Checker runs. Structural fix for the "correct headline, fabricated specifics" failure we documented in the factcheck sandbox. Cohort-gated roll-out.
Follow-up nudges. Day-7 and Day-14 emails if you started a pitch and didn't finish it. Quiet by default, unsubscribable.
Themed visuals · multi-language French · virtual editors round. Further-out roadmap items with honest dates at /roadmap. Not a beta-week promise.

Order shifts based on what the first week's usage surfaces. The product isn't on a conveyor belt — it's responsive to what the cohort actually hits.

What we won't build during beta

Deliberate scope guardrails, so the eight weeks stay focused on the core bet:

In-app PDF editor. Export to Markdown or DOCX, edit in your own tools. We're not building Word.
Team seats and studio collaboration. Parked until the single-user product is tight. Multi-user is a v2 problem.
Broadcaster CRM. Not our layer. Notion, Linear, Airtable already do this well.
Side-by-side broadcaster comparison. A v1.1 feature, not a beta one.
Private Slack or community forum. Re-evaluated at Week 3 if cohort size and support volume justify the moderation cost. Until then the ? button and our Journal are the channels.

How to help us most

Three things move the needle more than anything else:

Run at least three pitches in Format-Bound mode. One session isn't signal. Three across different broadcasters tells us whether the format profiles hold up for your practice.
Rate each exposé with the star banner at the top of the pitch detail page. One-to-five plus an optional note. This is the single most useful signal we get back.
Tell us when you actually send a pitch. The "Did you send this?" prompt at twenty-four hours (or seven days) is our shortest feedback loop to real editorial desks. Even a "parked" answer is useful data.

How to reach us

? button bottom-right inside the app. Direct line with context about your account and latest pipeline auto-attached. Use this first.
Reply to any email from us. Welcome drip, cohort digest, approval email. every one of them lands in a human inbox.
Direct to Sebastian. If something feels too long for the ? button, his address is in the Welcome drip Day 0.

Response SLA: within one business day, Monday through Friday. Weekends we leave alone, so the team stays sustainable across the full eight weeks.

What changes at the end

On Sunday 2026-06-22 the founding cohort closes. Two things change on that date:

Solo subscribers who signed up at the €149 beta price keep that rate for six months from their signup date. After the lock, billing rolls to the €179 standard rate automatically.
Founding Producer members (the first ten at €790/month) keep that rate for twelve months from signup. A short transition email sequence in the two weeks before your lock ends tells you what applies to your tier and how to pick the right plan going forward.

Your existing exposés, quotas, and iteration history all persist. Nothing you've already created goes anywhere.