episode zero first, the rest of setup after

a new underway account now opens on one card. it says episode 0, it asks for your first name and one line about what you are documenting, and it has one gold button: start episode zero. press it and the next screen is the conversation itself. everything else that used to come first, the series name, the logo, what the app should already know, the photograph of your landing page, the rhythm, now comes after, on today, as finish setting up your series.

why we moved setup after episode zero

most people who sign up arrive from an ad, on a phone, inside instagram's or facebook's own browser. they are signed in the moment they give an email address, and they land on today. until today, that page said have a look round first if you like, offered set up my series and take the tour, a welcome film and a row about our ads. set up my series was seven screens: who is filming, what it is called and the series name, a logo, what it should already know, a read back of all that, a photograph of your landing page, and the rhythm. then a screen asking for one line about what you are documenting. then a screen to name your co-host and pick its voice. then start the conversation.

that is about ten screens before you say a word. we could see where people stopped, because the app now records which steps a new account reaches (only that a step happened and when, never anything typed or said), and the answer was plain: people saw today and left. nobody pressed anything. a page that offers four ways forward is a page that asks you to choose, and the person who just tapped an ad does not know enough yet to choose.

episode zero is the one thing the app genuinely cannot do without. it is the beginning of your series, the episode a new viewer starts from, and its transcript is the standing context every later interview leans on. it is also the one episode with a deadline: where it stands right now is only true right now. so everything on a new account now points at it.

what the first page asks

two things. your first name, so the co-host has something to call you. and what you are documenting, in one line, in your own words: taking my agency from three clients to twenty, the first year of a coffee shop, a guest camera for weddings. there is still no list of categories to pick from; your one line covers a shop, an agency and a software product equally, and the co-host opens from it.

under the card are two quiet links: watch the welcome film, which unfolds the short film from clay, and take the tour, five screens on what the app is. both are there for anyone who would rather be shown first. neither is in the way of the button.

what start episode zero does

it saves your name and your line, and opens episode zero straight into the conversation. there is no second screen asking for the line again, and no seats to fill in: your co-host uses its default voice and name, which you can change in account whenever you like. the screen is one sentence about what the co-host will ask and one gold button, start the conversation, which is when the browser asks for your microphone. no camera, nothing to prepare, up to fifteen minutes on every plan.

if the microphone is refused, the page says so in plain words and how to allow it, and the button tries again. if the co-host cannot be reached for your account, the page says that too, rather than dropping you into something else.

finish setting up your series

your series needs a name, so until you give it one it is called after you: sam's series, if your name is sam. it is a placeholder and the app treats it as one; the co-host never calls your business by it. once episode zero exists, today shows a card called finish setting up your series. it opens the same setup as before, starting at what it is called, with your line already filled in, and ends back on today rather than at episode zero, which you have already made. hide this puts the card away, and every part of it is in account too.

on the phone it is the same card, the same two boxes and the same button. start episode zero saves the series, sets the daily prompt for the default time, and opens the conversation. afterwards, finish setting up your series asks what it is called, the series name and when the daily prompt should arrive.

nothing changes for anyone whose series is already set up. if you set yours up the long way, today looks exactly as it did.

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