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

The one page that tells you what the founding cohort is for, how to help, and what changes at the end.

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.

Beta runs through Sunday 2026-06-22. After that date, the free tier returns to two pitches per month and your twelve-month founding-price lock begins on any paid plan you subscribe to.

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 Producer at €990/month the right shape for a working freelance producer? Does Studio at €1,490 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 we'll ship during beta

Rough week-by-week roadmap. Order shifts, dates slip, but this is the current shape:

  • Weeks 1–2. [TO VERIFY]-tag onboarding banner · updated help articles for the iteration flow · Topic-Coach calibration from real usage.
  • Weeks 2–3. URL ingestion layer. paste a link into topic or existing-access, the pipeline reads the article as a primary source rather than re-searching for it.
  • Weeks 3–4. Grounded-only research output. Structural fix for the "correct headline, fabricated specifics" hallucination pattern documented in the factcheck sandbox. Rolls out cohort-gated.
  • Weeks 4–5. "Prep for editor call". a one-page briefing built from your finished exposé for the commissioning meeting itself.
  • Weeks 5–6. Final-pass auditor. Every assertion in the Composer prose gets matched back to a verified claim from the research stage, or tagged [TO VERIFY] inline.
  • Weeks 6–7. Day-7 and Day-14 re-engagement emails for producers who started a pitch but haven't finished one.

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 Pitchcraft are the channels.

How to help us most

Three things move the needle more than anything else:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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 beta closes. Three things change on that date:

  • The free tier returns to two pitches per month. The five-pitch beta allowance ends.
  • Your twelve-month founding-price lock begins on any paid plan you subscribe to. The lock runs from your signup date.
  • A short transition email sequence in the two weeks before close-out tells you exactly what applies to your tier, what you save over the twelve-month lock, and how to pick the right plan.

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