What now works
A coherent journey
Signup, first-use guidance, Free value, limit messaging, upgrade success, higher allowance, and subscription management now feel like one product.
Founder brief · subscriber journey
The customer experience is nearly ready. The money path is not live yet.
A new user can now understand Tegy, get useful work done, hit a clear Free limit, upgrade, continue on Pro, and manage a cancellation. The experience works. The remaining launch blocker is operational: payments are still in a safe test environment and do not control access.
The one-minute briefing
Where Tegy stands today
What customers get
Real strategy help
A fresh Free user uploaded a real document and received a grounded recommendation backed by StrategyOS—not a canned demo response.
What still blocks revenue
Billing is simulated
Polar is in sandbox mode and billing enforcement is off. Tegy can demonstrate upgrading, but it is not yet safe to collect and enforce real subscriptions.
Founder verdict: ready for controlled user testing; not ready for a public paid launch.
Invite users through the Free experience and test the conversion story. Do not treat the current upgrade path as production revenue infrastructure.
The customer journey
Five moments now connect end to end
A fresh user signs in by email and reaches their own workspace.
Three short screens explain Tegy, the Free plan, documents, and StrategyOS.
A real document produces a useful recommendation, although Tegy asks more follow-up questions than ideal.
The user gets a warning, then a clear stop with reset time and an upgrade choice.
Upgrade, welcome, larger limits, continued use, and cancellation work—but no real money moves.
What changed this week
The largest customer-facing gaps are closed
Closed
New users no longer land in an unexplained empty chat
A short, skippable introduction now sets expectations about the Free plan and how Tegy uses documents and StrategyOS. It is remembered, so returning users are not interrupted.
Onboarding
Closed
Free limits now feel deliberate instead of broken
Tegy warns users as they approach their allowance. At the limit, the explanation stays beside the chat box and the upgrade choice opens automatically—the same behavioral pattern seen on Claude.
Conversion
Closed
Successful upgrade feels continuous
After checkout, a full-screen “Welcome to Pro” moment fades into the same new-chat screen. There is no awkward second page, manual continue button, or provider token left in the address bar.
Upgrade
Closed in test billing
Customers can understand and manage cancellation
A canceling subscriber sees that Pro remains available through the paid date, can open billing management, and can reverse the cancellation in the provider portal.
Trust
See it working
Four short chapters of evidence
These are real browser captures or clearly labeled controlled UI captures. No fake assistant answers were inserted, and no new subscription was purchased for this report.
1 · First impression
New-user onboarding
Claude’s real signup is shown beside Tegy’s shorter product introduction. Optional Claude marketing consent remained off.
Watch the 65-second Claude onboarding reference
Live Claude account creation through Free selection and the new-chat screen.
2 · First value
Document analysis backed by StrategyOS
The answer used facts from the uploaded document and ended with an actionable 30-day plan. Durable runtime records confirmed StrategyOS was loaded.
Remaining friction: the user had to make five choices across three rounds before reaching the recommendation.
3 · Conversion moment
Warning, hard stop, and upgrade
The warning can be dismissed. The actual limit cannot: the chat box disables, the reset time remains visible, and the upgrade choice opens automatically.
Evidence note: Claude’s hard stop was observed live. Claude’s current app also contains a percentage warning, but our live allowance jumped straight to the hard stop, so we did not independently capture its exact timing and styling.
4 · After conversion
Pro welcome and subscription management
The return from checkout is visually smooth. A canceling subscriber keeps Pro through the paid date and can still manage or reverse the cancellation.
Important: this proves the experience and provider connection in Polar’s safe sandbox, not real payment collection.
Founder decisions
What has to happen before taking money
01 · P0
Authorize and configure live billing
Choose when Tegy is ready to leave Polar sandbox, confirm the live product and price, payment ownership, tax and customer-support process, then enable access enforcement. This unlocks the final live proof required before launch.
02 · P0
Run one real lifecycle before launch
After live billing is enabled, use a designated account and payment method to prove: charge → Pro access → continued usage → cancellation → access through paid date → downgrade. The team deliberately did not spend money for the current report.
03 · P1
Choose whether first-value speed matters more than extra clarification
Document analysis is useful, but a first-time user currently answers too many questions. Changing that behavior touches Tegy’s AI instructions and needs explicit operator approval before engineering proceeds.
04 · P1
Preserve the exact task through checkout
The blocked message stays visible before upgrade, but the external checkout returns to a clean new chat. Restoring the exact draft would remove the last visible break in task continuity.
05 · P2
Decide what account consent Tegy requires
Claude captures terms, acceptable-use, age, and optional marketing choices during signup. Tegy’s new screens teach the product; they do not yet collect equivalent policy consent.
Confidence and limits
What this report does—and does not—prove
Proven
- Fresh signup, login, and persisted onboarding
- Real Free document work and grounded output
- StrategyOS present in durable runtime records
- Free-limit warning and blocking experience
- Sandbox upgrade, increased allowance, and continued work
- Pro welcome, billing management, and cancel-at-period-end experience
Not yet proven
- Collection or settlement of real money
- Billing actually granting and revoking production access
- Live renewal, failed-payment recovery, or expiry downgrade
- Every step completed by one uninterrupted automated test
- A frictionless first answer to every underspecified document request
Bottom line: the product story is now credible enough to test with users and investors. The commercial system still needs a deliberate launch decision and one final live proof before Tegy should accept paid subscriptions.
Technical appendix
Delivery and verification record
What engineering verified
| Area | Evidence | Delivery |
|---|---|---|
| Onboarding | Fresh production authentication, all three persisted steps, existing-user backfill, and real chat after completion. | #1125, #1130 |
| Usage limits | 11 browser cases plus production authentication and real-chat smoke checks. | #1136 |
| Billing experience | 9 browser cases, billing backend tests, real sandbox account state, and real provider portal. | #1138 |
All short UI videos were captured in Chromium Profile 3 / tegy. Representative beginning, middle, and ending frames were inspected. The long document-analysis clip is a live production recording; the onboarding, limit, and Pro-return clips use controlled API states against the real built interface. Multi-tab provider evidence is shown as a separate privacy-cropped screenshot rather than implying one recorder followed across tabs.