your co-host shows you round first

a new underway account starts in three short steps: set up your series, see how it works, then episode zero. until today the second step was four boxes of the same size, and the one most people need, a voice to show them round, sat last. we watched what new founders did with that, and we changed the order.

the voice guide comes first

talk me through it puts your ai co-host on a short voice call while you click around the app. it says what each page is for, answers whatever you ask out loud, and suggests episode zero when you are ready. it is one free call per account, on every plan, and nothing on it is recorded.

now it is the first thing you are offered, twice. at the top of step one, above the four questions about your series, a quiet line asks: want your co-host to walk you through setting up? with talk me through it beside it. you can ignore it and type, or press it and have the questions explained while you answer them. and in step two, see how it works, talk me through it is the first box and the largest. look around a real account and watch the welcome film sit under it, side by side.

the silent tour is still there

not everyone can talk to an app. some people have no microphone, some are on a train, some are in an office where speaking out loud to a laptop is not an option. so the tour that lights up your own screens one at a time, without a word, is a small link under the boxes: prefer to read? take the silent tour. it is the same tour as before, today, the vault, context and account, with next, back and skip the tour, and it is still on home and in account whenever you want it again.

once your one call has been used, the voice guide steps aside and the silent tour is a box again, beside look around a real account and the welcome film. nothing is offered that cannot run.

choosing a way in no longer moves you on

before this change, starting the guide from step two marked the step done and jumped straight to episode zero, while your co-host was still saying hello. the demo and the film did the same when you came back from them. it read as being hurried into filming, which is the opposite of what the step is for.

now starting any of them only marks the one you chose with a tick. step two stays open until you decide you have seen enough. before you pick one, skip to episode zero is a small link at the bottom. after you have picked one, it becomes a proper button: next: episode zero. you can try the film, then the demo, then come back, and nothing moves until you press it.

a new account starts empty

one more fix from the same test run. a new account made in a browser that had held a different account showed that account's first name and its one line in step one, because the browser had kept them. it now starts empty: what step one remembers is kept for the account that typed it and nobody else, and anything the browser held for a different account is cleared before the page draws. what you type on our set up your series page before you sign up still arrives in the account you make from it, as it always did.

the same browser also drew the page and then loaded it a second time while it tidied up after the previous account. it now tidies up first, so the page loads once.

on the phone

the phone does not offer the voice guide yet, so its step two keeps its three boxes: show me around my app, look around a real account and the welcome film. the new rule is the same there: choosing one marks it, and next: episode zero moves on when you are ready.

why the order matters

underway is an interviewer. the whole product rests on talking being easier than writing, and the first few minutes in it should feel like that too. the founders who talked to their co-host first got to episode zero with a voice they had already heard once. putting that first, and letting people take their time, is the cheapest change we could make to the step where most people decide whether to stay.

faqs

start your series, free, and let your co-host show you round first. start free.