your first five episodes keep the app simple

underway does a lot. it interviews you, cuts the episode, writes the posts, finds the clips, reads your day, remembers your season, cuts the week into one film and lets an ai agent keep a series of its own. all of that is useful by episode twenty. on episode one, on a phone, it is a lot to take in.

rich put it simply when he looked at the app through a new founder's eyes: what we care about is them making a number of episodes, and once they have got going, introducing new things is the key. so that is what the app does now.

your first five episodes keep it simple

the free run is five episodes, and while you make them underway shows what to concentrate on and nothing else: the next episode, the cut, and where it goes. it is based on your own episode count, never your plan, so someone who paid on day one gets the same quiet start. a founder already past five sees no change at all.

today is the studio card with your episode number, your streak and record an episode, and what to film folded under it. the episode page is the cut and share: watch it, download it, post it. the vault is your episodes. account is your series, your plan, your connections and how the day is read.

the rest arrives one step at a time

each step is announced once, by a small new for you card on today. one line on what it is, show me and got it, and never more than one card at a time. if two steps arrive together, because you filmed on the phone and opened the web later, you get them one after the other.

• after your first episode: details, on every episode's page. the name, the description and how the episode opens.
• after your second: shorts and footage. find clips cuts short vertical clips from a finished episode, and footage keeps every take as you filmed it.
• after your third: noticed on today, and your season with its goal at the head of what to film. by now there is enough of a story for them to say something.
• after your fourth: the vault's filters, and round-ups and films, the week in one cut and the month's film.
• after your fifth: everything else. ask the vault, today's context and to do, and the rest of account: knowledge, polish, seasons, nudges, the rest of brand and publishing, and beyond the episode.

the order follows what you reach for. naming an episode comes first. clips are cut from a finished episode, so they wait until there are two to choose between. the storyboard and noticed need a few episodes before they have anything to read. round-ups need two episodes in a week.

not much to talk about yet?

the first few episodes are the ones where what to film has least in it, because the app has not heard much from you yet. so during the quiet start, when the list is nearly empty and your co-host has time to give, the studio card says so: not much to talk about yet? your co-host can carry the conversation. the button opens the setup screen with co-host chosen, by voice, or on camera if you said on camera when you set up your series.

it is an offer, not a default. record an episode stays exactly where it was, nothing starts until you press start, and the line is gone after your fifth episode. it only shows when the co-host can actually start, so it never offers something that fails.

nothing is locked, and nothing is deleted

hidden is hidden on the screen only. nothing you have made is touched, nothing changes in your account, and every page still opens by its address: a link to an episode's shorts tab opens it, and underway.life/agents opens agents. this is not a trial with features held back. it is a quieter room while the habit forms.

and if you would rather see it all now, you can. show everything is in account, under series, and as a quiet line at the foot of today. it shows every screen at once, and the same switch takes you back. it syncs, so the web and the phone agree.

why this, and why now

the product risk in a daily diary is the habit, not the technology. a new founder who spends their first evening reading settings, or exploring round-ups for a week that has not happened yet, is a founder who has not filmed episode two. five episodes is a working week. by the end of it the ritual has a shape, and the rest of the app has something real to work on.

the same steps are on the phone: the same today, the same new for you card, the same tabs arriving on the episode screen and in the vault, and show everything in account.

faqs

start your series with a quieter first week, free, no card. start free.