how to document your startup journey, from episode zero

everyone says document the journey. almost nobody says how, and the people who try mostly stop in week three. here is a method that survives contact with a tired tuesday. it is the one underway is built around, and most of it works without any tool at all.

one. start with an episode zero. before the first daily entry, film the setup: 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 by when. do not sell it. a question that invites marketing language has failed. episode zero is the entry point for anyone who arrives at episode 47, and it is the context every later question is asked against. a founder ten years in has more to say here, not less.

two. write one line about what you are documenting. not a category, your own words. "taking the agency from ten clients to a hundred." "opening the second shop." "learning to sell." everything else is generated from that line, and it is the thing that keeps the questions about your business rather than about businesses in general.

three. daily, at the same time. not weekly. a weekly update is an appointment and appointments get cancelled. the cue has to arrive at the same hour every day, even on the days the entry is thirty seconds. the commitment can be weekdays, or three a week; the prompt is daily regardless.

four. answer questions, do not present. an interview about the day you had gets the real story out; a piece to camera gets a performance. the beats are the same every day: how it started, what you worked on, what broke, what you did, what changes. three minutes of answers, then stop, while you still have something left to say.

five. keep it in order. the honest structure is chronological. the day it went wrong comes before the day it got fixed, and nobody moves the good line to the front. a reordered video feels produced; a chronological one feels like a diary, and the diary is what people come back for.

six. count episodes, not days. the number goes on the front of every entry and only rises when you press the button. a gap is invisible; a numbered day you skipped is a public failure. track the streak separately and privately, against the days you actually committed to, and give yourself a declared pause for holidays rather than a broken chain.

seven. decide the look once. one title card, one accent colour, one typeface, the same every episode. someone who sees episode 12 and episode 40 should recognise them instantly. that recognition compounds exactly the way the episode counter does, and it is the whole brand. do not redesign it monthly.

eight. keep the archive, not just the posts. every entry, dated, transcribed, downloadable, in order. the posts are a by-product. the archive is what a new hire watches in their first week, what you send an investor instead of a deck, and what a documentary would be made from if that day ever comes.

nine. publish when it is worth it, not before. private from day one is fine. release the archive whole on launch day, in order, to a page built for a back catalogue: a youtube playlist, a podcast feed, an archive page. the feed gets one launch post, not forty, because a feed cannot hold two timelines at once.

ten. protect the bad day. an audio entry from the car, a voice over the day's screenshots, one question answered in thirty seconds. the day you nearly skipped is the day the habit is decided, and the entry only has to exist.

underway does the asking, the cutting and the counting, and keeps the archive. start tonight, whatever stage you are at. three episodes are free, no card.