Confidential Intake

TALU

Prepare for: Michelle Keefer, founder of TALU

Michelle, Thank you for the years of friendship. One of my latest products is designed to help founders like yourself. Early stage during the 'sorting.' This is not another 'form' but it's you helping me dial in the demo and the product itself. The product is a deliverable of the work I prepare for myself on every startup and project I work on. Years of knowledge all compressed into a deliverable. Pricing on the deliverables is part we are grading.

The more details will be the better the deliverable is for your Brand. Thank you for helping and because of founders paying it forward for other founders, I can shape this product to help others who don't have a direct connection like you do. As always, rooting you on and wishing you the best in all things.

— WILL

Answer the questions in your own words. Your Brand will be shaped and presented from your explanations. Once your answers and materials are in, my team will 'start the clock' which is a portion of what we are 'grading' ourselves on internally.

There are no wrong answers, and no wrong way to say it. Part One is seven questions so answer them first, in one sitting preferably.

Part Two is sixteen more, in your own time; save and return as often as you need.

Where a question asks what exists, providing a deck or link to the item itself is best.

Part One — The Opening · 7 questionsPart Two — The Intake · 16 questions

PART ONE — THE OPENING

1What are you building — in one sentence, as you'd say it to a stranger?

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PART ONE — THE OPENING

2What does it sell, and to whom?

The actual offer, the actual buyer.

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PART ONE — THE OPENING

3The problem, in your own sentences: what problem does it solve — who feels it, and what do they do about it today?

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PART ONE — THE OPENING

4Do you own the domain, or are you picking the name?

The moment you answer, the search starts. And the launch never waits on a name: if the domain isn't ready, a working address carries the brand live until it is.

I own the domain I'm picking the name

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PART ONE — THE OPENING

5What are you naming — a brand, a product, both? Do you have a name, or no name yet?

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PART ONE — THE OPENING

6What names are in play — and which do you love, which do you merely hold?

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PART ONE — THE OPENING

7What exists today — a site, materials, a record?

Everything you have, handed over: if a site, materials, or a deck exists, send the thing itself — link or file — with your answer.

Drop files here, or browse — decks, documents, images, anything that existsSend what you have now — you can add more later.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

8Are you a formed company yet — or not?

Either answer is fine — it changes how the run proceeds, not whether it can.

Formed Not yet

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

9Who is it for, first — the first buyer, named as specifically as you can?

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

10Who is it NOT for?

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

11What do you refuse to sell, promise, or become?

The refusals — including the visual ones: colors, forms, or looks the brand must never wear.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

12What words do you already use for it?

Your own language, unedited.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

13What words do your customers use — for the problem, and for what they want instead?

Their language, as you've heard it.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

14What must the name survive?

The markets, the languages, the collisions you know of.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

15What does success look like at the first milestone — in numbers you choose?

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

16What is already decided — truly decided, not open?

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

17What is open — and whose call is it?

Including who else has a say — a partner, an investor, counsel.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

18What would break this?

The thing that, if true, kills it.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

19What is the money shape at the start — price, or price range, as you hold it today?

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

20What exists in public already — profiles, posts, listings, press?

Yours — where the brand already exists in public.

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

21Who should find this first — the rooms, lists, and people who matter at launch?

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

22When does it need to be live — and what date is real, versus hoped?

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PART TWO — THE INTAKE

23What is the site's job at launch — in your words?

Credibility, capture, sales, or another job you name — the one thing the site must do first.

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THE LAST SCREEN

What happens next

Your answers start the run. Twelve further questions are spoken, not typed — they are recognition questions, asked in a sitting, where you correct what we present rather than compose from a blank page. Twenty-two more we answer ourselves, from research, the registries, and the record; you'll see that evidence in the book, each item with its source or its honest label.

Nothing on this form was pre-filled — where we already know a fact about TALU, the run checks it against your words here, and any difference between the two is treated as a finding, not an error.

Saved as you go. Part Two can be finished in more than one sitting — come back whenever you're ready.

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TALU

Received — thank you.