What is the Founder thread on AskSami?

Where it is, and who writes there

Every page of the platform has one chat panel, and on every page it is Sami's. On your product's Verdict tab the panel's head becomes a switch of two: Sami and Founder. Press Founder and the panel shows the thread: the founder's lines under the founder's name, yours on the other side, oldest first with the newest at the foot, and a box to write in. Press Sami and your chat with Sami is back exactly as you left it. Under the Founder review, or its place while it is being written, one button, Write to the founder, opens the panel on Founder. One thread for each product: on a plan with more than one, each has its own.

• The founder writes as themselves. Every line of the founder's carries the founder's own name. The founder reads the thread, what you gave, Sami's honest reads of your product and the public page you send, and never your chats with Sami.
• The people on your account write too. Anyone you bring in reads the thread and writes in it, each line signed with their own name.
• Sami never writes in it. Nothing you write there is a message to Sami, and no model reads a line when you send it. Sami answers you in its own chat.
• Nobody is waiting on the other side. There is no live session. A new line from the founder shows the next time you open Founder or load the page, and a letter tells you it is there.

What a line can carry

A line is whatever you send at once. It can hold words, long pastes, and screenshots, images, tables and files, together or alone.

• Words, up to 20,000 characters in one line, kept exactly as you typed them. An address in them is drawn as a link.
• Pastes. A long paste, a log, a page of your code, a list of replies, goes in whole, word for word, as a tile the other side opens.
• Files: screenshots, images, tables as CSV, text files and the other kinds Sami's chat takes, up to 20 with one line and 4 MB each. The founder can send you files too. Only the people on your account and the founder can open a file sent in the thread.

A file you send is read into Sami's memory right after the line, at AskSami's cost: a screenshot is described, a table is read into figures, and any other file is kept as it is. A zip of code is kept unread, since reading code is a read of your product, which you ask for in Sami's chat. A file the founder sends is read the same way, and never writes a figure into your numbers.

Under every line there is Copy. Under a line of yours that did not send there is Retry, which sends the same line again. There is no Delete, on either side. A line written in the thread stays in it for good.

Sami remembers every line

The moment a line is written, it is written into Sami's memory too, as a dated fact that says who wrote it and when, and its files go in beside it. You see them on your Memory tab, the lines under Founder thread lines and the files under Uploads, each marked From the Founder thread. So when the founder suggests something in the thread, you can open Sami's chat and ask what Sami makes of it, and Sami has read it.

• It is memory, not evidence. A line of the thread never changes Sami's honest read of your product. The read is judged from what you gave and what AskSami read, and a line someone wrote is neither. Nothing in the thread counts as something new since your last read.
• It is never corrected and never deleted. A fact on your Memory tab can be corrected, with the old record kept. A line of the thread cannot: Sami's memory of what the founder wrote is always what the founder wrote. Write in the thread to add to it.
• Nothing goes the other way. Sami never passes anything to the founder, never writes as the founder and never says what the founder thinks or will do. Where Sami and the founder disagree, Sami says so plainly and says which it holds.

How you hear of a new line

When the founder writes, a black dot appears on your product's card in the sidebar and after Founder on the switch, and on a phone on the button that opens the sidebar and the button that opens the chat. The Founder review carries a New mark on your Verdict tab until you have seen it. The dots go once you have opened the thread and seen the review.

By email, one letter. When the founder writes and you have not seen it on the page, AskSami sends you one email with the founder's lines quoted, up to three, and a button that opens your Verdict tab on the thread. At most one letter an hour for each side, and never for a line you have already seen. A few lines written close together go in one letter. The founder gets the same when you write: one letter, with up to three of your lines quoted.

The letters are on by default. On your Account page, under Founder thread, there is one switch, Email me when the founder writes, with Turn it off beside it. The dots and the letters are the account owner's alone. A person you brought in reads the same thread, sees no dot, and their reading never clears yours.

When it opens, and what it costs

The thread opens once your product reaches the founder. That happens when your account pays: every product you have had read, or asked to have read, reaches the founder then, with what you gave and Sami's honest read. A product you add later reaches the founder once Sami's honest read of it is done. Until then, Founder on the switch says so. You can write from the moment the product arrives, before the Founder review is written.

Two things are announced in the thread by a short line in the founder's name, written the moment they happen, so you never have to go looking: the first release of your Founder review, and each time your public page goes live, with its address under Products on AskSami. When the founder sends your page back, the note comes as a line in the thread too.

Signing up is free, and so are your full honest read and your ranked plan. A plan adds more of Sami and a Founder review. The Founder thread comes with Starter and every plan above: Starter $20, Growth $100 and Max $240 per month. Writing in it costs nothing and uses none of your allowance. A file you send is read into Sami's memory at AskSami's cost. On Free, Founder on the switch says what Starter adds, and nothing more.

To have it, sign up free, get your honest read, and pick a plan on your Account page. The pricing lists what each plan holds, and how AskSami works says what it reads and writes before the founder ever sees your product.

After you cancel

Cancelling stops the plan at the end of the period you have paid for. From that day the account is on Free, and the thread is closed: Founder on the switch says so, nothing in it is lost, every line and file stays in Sami's memory and on your Memory tab, and no letter goes. The Founder review waits out of sight, and your public page stays up. Reopening the plan opens the thread again, with everything in it.