a new account starts in three short steps

most people meet underway for the first time from an ad, on a phone, a few seconds after tapping something in instagram. until today the first screen they saw asked them to start episode zero straight away: one big card, a name, a line, a gold button, and three small links underneath for anyone who wanted to look round first.

rich signed up that way himself, as a brand-new founder, from a direct message. his verdict was short. the page took ages to load, it pushed him straight into episode zero, and the links that would have shown him what this was felt like an afterthought. someone fresh from an ad is in see-what-this-is mode, not ready-to-film mode. and the numbers agreed: of the people who reached today in the last few days, more than half left without typing a word.

so the first visit is now three short steps, each with a small win, one at a time.

step 1: set up your series

three answers. your first name, one line about what you are documenting, and how you see yourself making it: on camera, mostly your voice like a podcast, or a bit of both. on a computer your series card draws itself beside the answers as you type.

press save my series and that is the first win: your series card, with its name and episode 0 in gold, and a line that says nothing is public. the name is yours to change whenever you like; until then it is called after you. if you set your series up on one of our ad pages before signing up, the answers are already filled in.

not ready to type anything? under the button there is a quiet line: look around a real account first. whatever you had typed is still there when you come back.

step 2: see how it works

three buttons, the same size, each one press. pick whichever suits you; one is plenty, and the others stay there.

• look around a real account: underway's own series, every episode and every screen, open to press anything. whatever would post, publish or record stops and says what it would have done. nothing is saved.
• watch the welcome film: a minute and a quarter with clay, our animated presenter, on what is here and what happens next.
• show me around my app: a tour of your own screens. it lights up one thing at a time, today, the vault, context and account, with a short card beside it, and finishes back on today at episode zero.

the tour works with a keyboard and a screen reader: the card takes focus at each stop, escape skips it, and the arrow keys move between stops. on a phone the card sits along the bottom so it never covers what it is pointing at. you can take it again whenever you like from show me around my app on your account page. and if none of the three appeal, skip to episode zero moves straight on.

step 3: episode zero

episode zero is still the start of every series, and the context every interview after it reads. it is now introduced in plain words before you press anything: this is where underway learns what you are building, a co-host asks the questions out loud, and nothing is posted. you can have a three-minute practice each way first, then the real one, and afterwards keep it, have another go or delete it.

nothing you answered in step 1 is asked again. the camera or voice choice on the next screen starts on the answer you already gave.

fewer doors on day one

until episode zero exists the bar at the top is shorter: today, vault and account. context, which is everything your day collected for the interview, the directory of other founders' series and agents join it as soon as episode zero is made. context is the page people found hardest to read before they had made anything, and nobody needs any of the three to make episode zero. all of them still open by their address, and the tour stops at context to say what it is.

and once you are signed in, the directory's pages keep the app's own top bar. pressing directory used to land you on the public site's header, with log in in the corner, which felt like being signed out. now a series, an episode and following all show today, vault, account and the rest, with directory marked. visitors who are not signed in see the public header as before.

faster, too

the first load is quicker. we measured the old one on a throwaway account over a slow phone connection: about eight and a half seconds from landing to the first card, and four of those were the page waiting to sync an account that had nothing in it yet. a brand-new account now gets step 1 drawn by the server, before any script has run, so the form is there as soon as the page is: under two seconds on the same slow connection.

inside instagram's browser

if you signed up inside instagram, facebook, tiktok, linkedin, x or snapchat, a sheet comes first: underway works best in safari, or chrome on android. recording works best there, and you can come back to it from your email any time. open in safari opens your account there, already signed in. stay here closes it, and it is not asked again in that browser.

the same three steps are on the phone. see how it works opens the real account in your phone's browser, plays the welcome film on today, and show me around my app is a few cards over the tabs.

faqs

start your series in three short steps, free, no card. start free.