episode zero is the foundation now, everywhere

episode zero was always meant to be the foundation. it is the one conversation where you say what you are building, who it is for, what those people do instead today, where it honestly stands, the hardest part, and what you are setting out to do and by when. everything underway asks you after that is supposed to stand on it.

we went through every part of the app that should read it, one by one, and checked that it really does. most did, in some form. some read it only when your browser remembered to send it. some never read it at all. and a founder who had just kept their episode zero, with nothing else on the record yet, opened today to an empty list of things to film. that is fixed now.

what to film has topics from the moment you keep it

what to film on today used to wait for your first numbered episode before it suggested anything, because it read your episodes and you had none. now, as soon as you keep episode zero, it reads that. the first topics come from what you said there: the hardest part you named, the goal you set, anything you said was still unresolved. each one carries your own line as its basis, so you can see where it came from.

it never suggests retelling episode zero. what it is, who it is for and why you started are already on the record. the topics are what happens next with them.

your first episode builds on it

your first daily episode is the one where it matters most, because episode zero is the only thing underway knows about you. so the first interview is written to build on it, and that is decided in code rather than left to chance: at least one question reaches back to the hardest part you named or the goal and the date you set, in your words, and connects it to what you picked to talk about today.

an example, from underway's demo series, about a small photo printer. its founder said in episode zero that the hardest part was the rollers, which work for forty prints and then do not, and that the goal was two hundred units in real houses by the end of the summer. their first episode was about a change to the roller springs. the questions asked what the change was meant to fix, then: you said the rollers lie, working fine then failing. did today change that? and to close: two hundred units by the end of summer, where does today leave that?

written without episode zero, the same day got: what did they change, what was it struggling with, what would it take. fine questions. but nobody watching would know this was a series with a beginning.

every later interview, however long ago you filmed it

the questions, the threads offered on the setup screen and the interviewer who decides what to ask next now all read the episode zero you kept, from your account, whatever device you are on. the phone sent none of it before; it does now, because nothing depends on the phone sending it.

your co-host reads it too. its briefing used to cover the last ninety days, so an episode zero filmed in spring quietly dropped out of it by summer. it is always in the briefing now, in your own words, as the standing answer to what you are building and why.

it is read as background, never as news and never as instructions. a question can name the goal you set in episode zero; it will never claim something happened today because episode zero mentioned it.

your season's goal

the season on today proposes a goal when you have not set one. it used to propose it from your episodes, which meant nothing until you had a few. when episode zero says what you are setting out to do and by when, that is now the suggested goal, in your words, with your date. it is still only a suggestion: nothing is set until you press make it the goal.

only the one you kept

episode zero can be a practice run now: have another go, keep it or delete it. everything above reads the one you kept, and never a go you have not kept yet. a few places used to pick up whichever intro they found first, which could have been an attempt you were about to throw away. they all ask the same question now, in one place.

and if what episode zero taught the series memory never reached your account, because the tab closed before it could save, underway now writes it in itself once it has stood for half an hour, so every later question finds it.

faqs

start your series with episode zero, free, no card. start free.