Testing

Help us get this right.

We are letting a small number of authors and book event planners in before everybody else. You get the thing early and cheap, and we get somebody honest telling us what is broken. Both rounds are open now.

Round one

The alpha

Ten places · running now

Small, rough, and close to us. You will find things that do not work, and telling us is the job.

  • A full year free. From the day you join, not the day we decide. Nothing charged, no card asked for.
  • Then $75 a year, for as long as you stay. Not for a year. For good. The standard price is $200, so that is $125 a year, every year, for being early.
  • $10 per extra squad, instead of $80. Same deal, same for ever.
  • Founding member badge, on your profile and your squad page, permanently.
  • A direct line, not a ticket queue. You email a person and a person answers. The reading room and the CSV lineup import both came from testers asking.
What we ask: use it with a real squad, and tell us when something is wrong. An hour a week, roughly. Blunt is more useful than kind.
Round two

The beta

Fifty places · opens after the alpha

Bigger and steadier. Most of the sharp edges gone, and still early enough to change things.

  • A full year free. Exactly the same as the alpha. No card asked for.
  • Then $75 a year, for as long as you stay. And $10 per extra squad. The same founding price as round one.
  • Founding member badge, on your profile and your squad page, permanently.
  • Everything, with nothing held back. Reading room, asset bank, chat, rewards, the lot.
  • Your readers get the badge too, if they join your squad during that first year.
What we ask: run a real squad and answer one short survey a month. Perhaps twenty minutes.

When you are asked for a card

Not on the way in, and not during the year. We ask 31 days before your first renewal, and not a day earlier. You will have had the whole year to decide whether it is worth $75, and if it is not, you do nothing and it stops.

Readers never pay for anything, in any round, ever.

Apply to the alpha

Ten places. We read every one of these properly and reply either way within a week.

However many, including none. Somebody starting from scratch tests something different, and we want both.

A team of sixty where four people post is exactly the problem this is for. Say so if that is you.

Whatever you are using, including nothing.

This is the part we actually read. Two or three sentences is plenty, and honest beats polished.

We keep your name, email, and what you write here, and nothing else. No address, no phone. If we cannot fit you in we will say so and delete it on request. See our privacy policy.