| Tier | Monthly | Annual | What unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Applicant | $0 (7 days) | — | Daily Dossier, Cipher, partial Black Book preview, 1 referral |
| Member | $19 | $190 ($16/mo) | Full Dossier, full Black Book, year-365 Eulogy, 3 referrals, tip-steer access |
| Inner Circle | $199 | $1,990 | Monthly live "interrogation" (90 min Bedrock voice session), custom adversarial archetype, system writes letters on your behalf to people you name, capped at 100 members worldwide |
---
The viral mechanic IS the product, not bolted on. Every Dossier is generated with three pre-selected share_lines — the most provocative non-private sentences in the user's file. The user does not write a viral post; the system has already written it for them. They just decide whether to send it.
Day 1: User reads Dossier → 3 lines feel uncomfortably accurate
Day 1: System surfaces "Three lines from today" share card
Day 2: User shares 3 redacted lines to one friend with no context
Day 2: Friend lands on /referred/{token} — sees three more redacted lines from
the REFERRER's file (not the new user's), with the prompt:
"Someone you know thought you'd recognize yourself in this. Apply."
Day 2: Friend takes the Cipher → becomes Applicant
Day 3: Original user receives a Dossier line: "You brought a name into the file
yesterday. We approved them. Welcome them." ← reinforces the gift loop
K ≈ 0.45 × 0.30 × 0.22 = 0.029 paid-to-paid (low)
K ≈ 0.45 × 0.30 = 0.135 paid-to-applicant (the relevant funnel)
K is low by design. We're not optimizing for unbounded growth; we're optimizing for signal density. The cap (10,000 members year 1) inverts the usual K-decay problem: scarcity itself accelerates application surges when public posts hit critical mass.
1. Three-Line Share Card (in-app share)
- PNG generated client-side: black bg, serif type, sigil, three lines
- Shareable to iMessage, Signal, Twitter/X, Threads, Bluesky
- No OBSIDIAN URL on card — only the sigil. Recipients have to ask.
2. The Sigil Screenshot (public ritual)
- Phone clock at 04:44 + sigil overlay = a visual the user posts to mark "today's entry came in"
- Mimicked from the Wordle daily-emoji-grid social ritual
- Tracks via UTM on the (rare) clicks; mostly a brand surface
3. Referred Landing Page (recipient-side conversion)
- Each invite generates a one-time URL /referred/{token}
- Lands on a black page with three redacted lines from the referrer's Black Book (chosen by the system to be relational, e.g. "They have not told you something they think about you.")
- One CTA: "Take the Cipher."
4. The Vol II Tease (paywall as virality)
- Public page: /vol-ii shows the OBSIDIAN gate, sigil, one rotating redacted Dossier line submitted by an opted-in member, and the application status.
- Updated daily. Indexed by Google for organic discovery on terms like "shadow self", "dark psychology test", etc.
This MVP demo budget is too small for paid acquisition. The $25 is allocated entirely to:
In production, channel mix would be: