your words on every clip, checked before it posts

the short version

every clip on an episode's share tab now has its own words for each place it goes: youtube, instagram, linkedin, x and tiktok. one box each, under the clip.

the boxes are filled in for you the first time you open the clip, written in your first person from what you actually say in that clip. no links. no link in bio. no line sending people somewhere else. change any of it, or all of it.

then a post asks once more before it goes, and sends exactly what is in the box. nothing is added on the way out.

what was wrong before

until today a clip posted the moment you pressed the button, with words underway put together from a template: the clip's title, a line saying the full episode was on youtube with a link in bio, and a link to the directory of founders building in public.

you could not read it first. you could not change it. on 4 october one went to instagram reading like an advert for underway rather than a founder talking about their day, and the founder only saw it once it was up.

that is the wrong way round. a clip is yours. the words that go with it are yours. they should say what you said, in your voice, and you should see them before anyone else does.

how the words are written

the draft is written from the clip's own words, the run of sentences that plays, and nothing else. a line you struck from the episode is not in the clip, so it is not in the draft either.

• first person, as you. i rewrote the pricing page, not the founder rewrote the pricing page.
• only what the clip says. no number, result or feeling that you did not say.
• no links, no web addresses, no link in bio, no full episode, no follow, no subscribe.
• no hashtags, no emoji, no em dashes. add your own if you want them.
• sized for the place: one post under 280 on x, a few short paragraphs on linkedin, a sentence or two on instagram and tiktok, and a title plus a description on youtube.

whatever the draft comes back with, links and promo lines are taken out before it reaches the box. what you type yourself is never touched: if you want a link in it, put one in, and it goes as you typed it.

editing them

under each clip, the words for each post has a tab per place. pick one, read it, change it. it saves when you leave the box. a count beside each box says how much room that place gives, and turns red when you are over; the button will not post a box that is empty or too long, and says by how much.

write a fresh draft writes every box again from the clip. a place the clip has already gone to keeps the words it went with, so the box always shows what was posted.

posting them

post as a short, post to instagram, post to linkedin and post to x each open a small question first: post this now, with the words above exactly as they are? post now sends it. not yet puts it back.

post to tiktok keeps tiktok's own questions, who can see it, comments, duet and stitch, and whether it promotes a business. that sheet is its confirmation, and it posts the words in the tiktok box.

on the phone it is the same tabs and the same boxes, and the question comes up as the phone's own alert.

the full episode's own buttons, at the top of share, have not changed. they already post the words in the episode's boxes.

the cover, place by place

each clip has its own cover. not every place will take one from an app, so each box now says plainly what happens:

• instagram takes the clip's cover as the reel's cover.
• tiktok takes a moment of the film rather than a picture, so it shows the frame your cover was taken from, without the words on it.
• youtube takes no cover for a short from an app. once it is up, choose a frame in the youtube app.
• linkedin and x make their own still from the video.

is post as a short really a short?

yes. a clip is portrait and under a minute, and youtube files any portrait video of three minutes or less as a short by itself. underway no longer adds #shorts to the description, because it does not need to and because the description is now yours, word for word.

the end card of every clip still says where the full episode is. set the full episode as the short's related video in youtube studio and the short links straight to it.

clips are on the share tab of every finished episode, on the web and the phone. start a series.