The campaign
One thousand founding members.
The goal is $50,000 over thirty days. We set it deliberately low, because the money is not really the point. The point is the first thousand people inside the architecture, because a pattern brain and a room full of strangers both get better the more people are in them.
$15
The Manifesto
A signed digital edition of the document this company is built on, and your name on the founding wall inside both apps.
Unlimited
$45
Founding Member
Everything above, plus one full year of Ramble On+ and prox.vip Premium from the day they launch.
Unlimited
$120
Charter Member
Lifetime Ramble On+ and prox.vip Premium. Never billed again, on any app we ever ship. First access to app three before it is announced publicly.
Limited to 500
$350
The Room
Charter Member, plus an invitation to a prox.vip founding night in Los Angeles or Manama, and the manifesto letterpressed on cotton stock.
Limited to 150
$1,500
Bring it to your room
We run a full prox.vip launch night at your venue, campus, or organisation, with the pattern matching switched on and our team in the room.
Limited to 25
$5,000
Build Partner
Everything above, a working session with both founders on how the architecture applies to your world, and your name in the credits of every app we ship.
Limited to 10
Rewards are not investments. Backing this campaign gives you products and access. It gives you no equity, no ownership, no share of revenue, and no repayment. That is not our preference, it is Kickstarter’s rule and the law behind it, and it is a good rule.
Where the money actually goes
Every line here funds making the thing and putting it in people’s hands. None of it is salary.
Shipping Ramble On to the App Store, and the build of app three
40%
Running the pattern brain for every backer, for the first year
25%
The first ten prox.vip nights, on campuses and in venues
15%
Arabic localisation and the Gulf launch through IKA Bahrain
12%
Kickstarter and payment processing fees
8%
Risks and challenges
The software exists and runs, so the usual crowdfunding risk (will they ever build it?) is mostly behind us. The real risks are these, stated plainly.
Density. prox.vip works better the more people are in one room. Our own estimate of how much better is modelled, not measured. If a pattern-matched room turns out to need as many people as a random one, the product still works, but it grows more slowly than we plan for.
Cost per conversation. Thinking properly about a person is not free. Our current modelled cost per ramble is higher than a consumer subscription comfortably supports, and closing that gap is engineering work we have scoped but not finished.
App store timing. Review queues are outside our control, and a rejection can move a launch date by weeks.
Two markets at once. Running America and the Gulf in parallel is our advantage and our biggest execution risk. If one has to wait, it will be the Gulf, and we will say so in an update rather than quietly slipping.