BBJKS · Coordination doc · v3.1 (2026-09-17)

Launch Coordination

Dependency map, projected timeline, and the estimates we need to firm up to make the launch date real.

Owners: Kelly, Brian, Shawn, John, Bret Projected launch: Oct 12, 2026 (Kelly + Brian estimates in; Shawn's positioning still open) Status: Living doc — iterated per Kelly 9/17 and Shawn 9/16

Dependency map

Solid arrows are hard blockers. Dotted arrows are soft influences (may shift a decision but don't stop the downstream work).

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flowchart LR
    KB["Kelly
Brand identity"]:::box
    KS["Marketing site
(design + copy + build)"]:::box
    SS["Shawn
Positioning + copy"]:::box
    SR["John + Bret
Staging requirements"]:::box
    ST["John + Bret
Set up staging"]:::box
    BD["Bret
Purchase domains"]:::box
    SP["Brian + John
Stripe / Paddle setup"]:::box
    CA["Brian
Chart of accounts"]:::box
    PS["Brian
Polling to GL"]:::box
    TP["Brian
Test payments"]:::box
    L(("LAUNCH")):::launch

    KB --> KS
    SR --> ST
    BD --> KS
    SP --> CA
    SP --> TP
    SP --> PS
    ST --> TP
    CA --> PS
    KS --> L
    TP --> L
    PS --> L
    CA --> L

    SS --> KS
    SS -.-> SP

    classDef box fill:#ffffff,stroke:#0f4c81,color:#151820,stroke-width:1.5px
    classDef launch fill:#0f4c81,stroke:#0f4c81,color:#ffffff,stroke-width:2px

Projected timeline

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gantt
    title Launch timeline (projected, calendar days)
    dateFormat YYYY-MM-DD
    axisFormat %b %d
    tickInterval 3day

    section Design (Kelly)
    Site review                :ksr, 2026-09-17, 2d
    Page ideas                 :klp, 2026-09-17, 5d
    Draft Pathom logo          :kld, 2026-09-17, 9d
    Set up socials             :ksm, 2026-09-22, 4d
    Final logo + brand guide   :klf, 2026-09-28, 10d

    section Positioning (Shawn)
    Positioning decision       :active, spd, 2026-09-17, 7d
    Warm outreach list         :active, swl, 2026-09-17, 8d
    Landing page copy          :active, slc, after spd, 12d

    section Availability
    Brian OOO                    :crit, ooo, 2026-09-21, 5d
    Bret OOO (Big Bend)          :crit, ooob, 2026-10-12, 5d

    section Infrastructure
    Staging requirements       :sr, 2026-09-23, 1d
    Set up staging             :st, after sr, 2d
    Deploy payments to staging :dp, after st, 1d

    section Payments (Brian)
    Stripe / Paddle setup      :sp, 2026-09-18, 1d
    Chart of accounts          :ca, 2026-10-03, 2d
    Test payment pipeline      :tp, after ca ppr, 1d

    section Payments (John)
    Payment pipeline research  :ppr, 2026-09-21, 2d

    section Milestone
    LAUNCH                       :milestone, launch, 2026-10-12, 0d

    section Post-launch
    Monitor + patch              :mp, 2026-10-13, 5d

Firm estimate Placeholder (needs a real number) Availability constraint

Bars show calendar days. Grey columns mark weekends. John / Bret / Brian can schedule work on weekends (see Brian's Chart of accounts, Sat/Sun Oct 3-4); Kelly and Shawn stay on weekdays.

Estimates driving the launch date

Kelly and Brian have delivered most of their estimates. Shawn's positioning + landing page copy are the largest remaining placeholders — firming those up is the fastest way to lock a real ship date.

Shawn

Positioning direction decision

Placeholder: ~5 business days for team consensus

Sent problem statements + 4 positioning options 9/16. Blocks landing page copy and downstream site work. Team feedback needed.

Shawn (+ Kelly)

Landing page copy

Placeholder: ~8 business days after positioning locks

Depends on positioning direction being decided. Kelly designs, Shawn writes, John reviews for framework accuracy.

Brian

Chart of accounts

2-3 business days starting Wed Sep 30 (Brian's earliest start)

John

Payment pipeline research

2 business days - Acodei alternatives (Zapier / Cinder / etc.) or manual pull + summary entries. Tracked: #760.

John + Brian

Test payment pipeline

1 business day - Stripe + Paddle → polling tool → Quickbooks end-to-end

John

Deploy payments to staging

~1 hour (shown as 1 day for Gantt visibility) once staging is provisioned

John

Payments integration in app

Complete (confirmed 9/17)

Kelly

Landing page ideas

Deadline: Mon, Sep 21

Kelly

Draft Pathom logo

Deadline: Fri, Sep 25

Kelly

Set up social media accounts

Deadline: Fri, Sep 25

Kelly

Final logo + brand guide

Deadline: Tue, Oct 7

Kelly

Current site review

Near-term (~2 days)

John

Landing page iteration + site build

After brand guide (Oct 7); iterates on existing marketing/home.html.erb skeleton

Shawn + John

Pricing decision (launch numbers)

Owned jointly (per John 9/17)

Brian + John

Stripe / Paddle setup

~2 hours (shown as 1 day for Gantt visibility)

John + Bret

Set up staging

1 to 2 days (using 2 for planning)

Brian

Polling: payments → GL

A few hours (shown as 1 day)

Bret

Purchase pathom.app

Complete (purchased 9/17)

Tasks by owner

Brian Critical payments chain

Task	Depends on	Notes
Stripe / Paddle setup ~2 hours	Joint with John	Sales strategy may shift pricing model.
Chart of accounts 2-3 business days	Stripe / Paddle setup	Starts Wed Sep 30 (Brian's earliest start). Blocking.
Test payment pipeline (with John) 1 business day, joint	Chart of accounts + Payment pipeline research (John)	Stripe + Paddle → chosen polling tool → Quickbooks end-to-end. Replaces old Test payments + Polling to GL rows (consolidated).

John Shared ownership on several items

Task	Depends on	Notes
Payments integration in the app Code work	—	Complete (confirmed 9/17).
Staging requirements discussion	Joint with Bret	Precursor to staging setup.
Set up staging 1–2 days	Staging requirements discussion	Blocks Brian's payments testing.
Landing page iteration + site build Iterates on existing marketing/home.html.erb	Kelly landing page ideas + brand guide (Oct 7); Shawn positioning + copy	Skeleton exists (feature-flagged with :public_signup). John iterates using own expertise + Kelly inputs; final pass once brand guide lands.
Payment pipeline research (#760) 2 business days	—	Acodei alternatives (Zapier, Cinder, others) or manual pull-down from Stripe/Paddle + daily summary entries for Brian. Feeds "Test payment pipeline" step with Brian.
Test payment pipeline (with Brian) 1 business day, joint	Chart of accounts + Payment pipeline research	Verify Stripe + Paddle transactions land in Quickbooks end-to-end.
Pricing decision (with Shawn)	Joint with Shawn	Specific launch numbers within Sales Playbook tier ranges.
Support Shawn as needed on Sales Playbook items	Shawn primary	John acts as minion where useful; Shawn owns and drives.
OBS stack + other infra	Joint with Bret	Bret primary.

Bret Infrastructure and platform

Task	Depends on	Notes
OBS stack + other infra	Joint with John	Bret primary.
Purchase pathom.app	—	Complete (9/17). Defensive TLDs still open if we want them.
GitHub issues (ongoing)	—	Product work, tracked in issues.

Kelly Brand identity + design direction (dates from Kelly 9/17)

Task	Deadline	Notes
Draft Pathom logo	Fri, Sep 25	First-pass wordmark for review.
Set up social media accounts	Fri, Sep 25	Pathom handles claimed on relevant platforms.
Landing page ideas	Mon, Sep 21	Design direction / layout ideas. Feeds into landing page copy + site build.
Current site review	Near-term	Review current site for flow / design / friction reduction opportunities.
Final logo + brand guide	Tue, Oct 7	Depends on draft logo (Sep 25). Brand guide follows logo.

Shawn Positioning + go-to-market (Shawn owns; John assists on request)

Task	Depends on	Notes
Positioning direction decision Sent 9/16: 3 problem statements + 4 positioning options (A/B/C/D)	Team feedback	Blocks landing page copy and downstream site work. Needs consensus.
Landing page copy	Positioning decision + Kelly landing page ideas	Shawn writes, Kelly designs, John reviews for framework accuracy.
Warm outreach target list	Joint with John (+ inputs from Bret, Brian, Kelly)	20-30 warmest contacts across all founder networks. Pre-launch personal outreach wave.
Sales strategy (with John)	—	Ongoing. Soft influence on pricing decisions.

Constraints and timing

Brian unavailable last week of September (Sept 21–25)

Chart of accounts (2-3 days) starts Wed Sep 30 per Brian's earliest-start commitment. Runs Sep 30 – Oct 2.

Bret in Big Bend Oct 11–16 (business-day OOO Oct 12–16) — conflicts with current launch date

Per Bret's 9/7 email: driving to West Texas with mom, one day travel on each side. Lodge may have wifi (spotty) so limited evening work possible, but not reliable availability. Current launch (Mon Oct 12) is Bret's first day OOO. Options: pull launch forward to before Oct 10, push to Oct 19+ (after Bret returns Sat Oct 17), or launch without Bret's active support that week.

Payment pipeline: automation tool is undecided

Acodei may not be the right tool. Brian is looking at alternatives (Zapier, Cinder mentioned). John researches options (2d) in parallel with Brian's chart of accounts. If no automation fits, fallback is manual Stripe/Paddle pull-down + daily summary entries in Quickbooks. Testing the chosen chain end-to-end is 1 day (John + Brian).

Payments testing requires staging with payments deployed

Sequence: John & Bret discuss staging → set up staging → John deploys payments to staging → Brian tests.

Non-estimate questions to resolve

Coordination questions

Positioning decision: target date to lock it? Shawn sent 9/16; landing page copy blocks until team decides A/B/C/D. If "reply within a week" the decision lands 9/23; every day past pushes copy start.
Anyone else have hard availability constraints (travel, holidays, external commitments) between now and launch?

Launch-critical GitHub items (owner + timeline still needed)

John

#666 Privacy + Terms pages

Can't legally take money from anyone without a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service page on the site. Neither exists yet.

Bret

#409 Provision production servers

The app needs a real home on the internet. Spin up the servers, database, and network so pathom.app is actually reachable.

Bret

#370 / #372 / #373 Alarms + dashboards

When production breaks, we need to know before users complain. Stand up error tracking, monitoring, and dashboards.

Bret

#732 Verify email inboxes exist

The app sends email from addresses like hello@pathom.app. If those inboxes don't exist, replies bounce silently and we look broken.

John

#481 Postmark cutover

Move outbound email off Resend onto Postmark (more reliable at scale, handles inbound too) before real users start signing up.

John

#430 Re-enable llm_eval

Automated quality check for our AI prompts. Was turned off temporarily — flip it back on so bad prompts can't sneak into a release.

John

Onboarding polish (5 issues)

Rough edges in the first-time walkthrough — confusing labels, unclear buttons, awkward step ordering. Smooth before we ask people to pay. (#292, #293, #294, #295, #484)

John

In-app rough edges (7 issues)

Small papercuts everywhere — a confusing back button, awkward form component, stats jargon like "p75". Fix so pages feel finished, not beta. (#52, #106, #309, #312, #485, #515, #734)

John

Audit-log correctness (3 issues)

Our who-did-what record currently saves wrong IPs and skips some blocking events. Legally + operationally needs to be complete before real users show up. (#185, #735, #736)

John

LLM cost + safety (4 issues)

Hard caps on any single user's LLM spend + overage billing so runaway usage doesn't wipe our margin. Also unblock a blocked dep upgrade. (#82, #668, #694, #751)

John

#232 Bulletproof transactional email

Password resets + invites need to render right in Gmail, Outlook, iCloud. Broken emails = users bounce before ever logging in.

Bret

Infrastructure epic (~25 issues)

AWS + IAM setup, Coolify deploy, Discord/ntfy alerts, MFA hardening, org + repo split under BBJKS, obs boxes. Rolls up under #363 + #499.

96 open issues scanned. About 45 are Phase 0/1 launch-relevant and roll up into the umbrellas above (rule: infra + obs → Bret; app code → John); ~40 are Phase 2+ (LinkedIn/GitHub ingestion, application assistant, BLS/comp sources, community surface, ActionCable rewrite, Case Story rework, mobile audit) and dropped from launch scope; the rest are pure refactors or docs. Housekeeping: #760 closed as duplicate of #759 (payment pipeline research). #724 stays open — it's the source of truth for the staging chain shown on the Gantt above.

Draft v3.1 (2026-09-17) — Kelly's brand deliverables and Brian's payment work now have firm estimates. Shawn's positioning decision + landing page copy are the largest remaining placeholders on the chart. Task management tool question still deferred until we see whether this doc plus the weekly call closes the coordination gap. Redeploys land at the same URL.