B Babelio Playbook 17 / 24
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Operating System · Artifact 17

90-Day Plan

Thirteen weeks in six phases. Weeks 1–4 validate the wedge, willingness-to-pay and the growth loop before a line of pipeline code is written; weeks 5–13 build the dual-track MVP and drive the first cohort to the North Star (≥4 sessions/user/week). Every week has named owners, an upstream dependency, a success criterion — and the four-week phases close on a hard kill-gate.

Horizon
90days
Phases
6 × 15d
Kill-gate
W4
North Star
≥4sess/wk
The whole back half is gated on one hire

Phases 1–2 (validation, W1–4) can run with a founder alone. Phases 3–6 (the MVP build, W5–13) cannot start until a committed Rust + CoreAudio/WASAPI engineer is on payroll (product.md §3, REVIEW.md P0, VC Team 0/50). The native per-process audio capture is the long pole; if that person is not confirmed by the end of Phase 2, the build half of this plan is fiction and the only honest move is to keep validating and recruiting, not to slip the calendar.

Plan-of-record assumption: the engineer joins by W5 (Day 0 of the build). Every build-phase owner labeled ENG below assumes that hire exists. If they don't, this becomes a recruiting plan first.

CEOFounder / CEO
ENGAudio / OS-internals engineer
BOTHJoint outcome
= depends on prior week's output

Phase 1 · Wedge & WTP

01
Talk to humans, charge moneyDays 1–15 · validation, no scaling
Days 1–15

Theme: prove the immersion learner actually feels the pain, will pay above subtitle COGS, and lives in reachable communities — before the engineer is hired and a dollar of pipeline is built. This is the growth.md §7 Week-1/2 plan executed verbatim.

Week Outcomes (3–5) Owner Depends on Success criterion
W1D1–7
  • Run experiment #1 from the backlog 09 · top exp: recruit + complete 15–20 Mom-Test interviews with immersion learners from r/LearnJapanese, Refold/MoeWay/Migaku.
  • Probe a dated <30-day painful live/native-content incident + actual tool-spend line items (Migaku/Anki/Patreon).
  • Test subtitle-WTP vs dub-WTP directly (the ceiling-vs-floor question).
  • Populate the real ICP brief (01) from verbatim, replacing the desk-derived composite.
CEO Entry week — prototype in hand ≥30% of interviewees recall a specific painful live/native-content incident in the last 30 days.
W2D8–15
  • Concierge delivery: hand-deliver subtitle / sentence-mining for 5–10 learners (human-in-the-loop, no product yet).
  • Charge metered $5/hr (or $5/session) to test WTP against the ~$0.31/hr subtitle COGS.
  • Run Van Westendorp on 30–50 ICP buyers; collect 3 testimonials.
  • Map named watering-hole communities + moderator contacts for later seeding.
CEO W1 interview shortlist supplies the concierge cohort & pricing band. ≥5 paying / LOI users at a rate that clears subtitle COGS, + 3 testimonials.
KILL-GATE · W2

Kill if <30% recall a dated painful incident (W1) OR nobody pays a rate that clears subtitle COGS (W2). Either fires → the wedge or the WTP is unproven; do not hire the engineer, do not build. Re-segment or stop.

Phase 2 · Loop & Go/No-Go

02
Find the loop, decide to buildDays 16–30 · thin product + channel test
Days 16–30

Theme: ship the narrowest capture flow on ONE OS, get the first loop-factor K reading, and run the single calendar-timed channel test. The gate at W4 is the make-or-break go/no-go for the whole 90 days — and the trigger to confirm the engineer (growth.md §7 Week-3/4).

Week Outcomes (3–5) Owner Depends on Success criterion
W3D16–22
  • Ship the thinnest native-desktop capture flow, ONE OS, subtitle-default + dub-paid gate (a manual/Wizard-of-Oz backend is acceptable here).
  • Instrument the activation event = first exported/shared sentence-mining card, plus artifact_shared_external + install-completion + K.
  • Hand-onboard every install via a 20-sec Loom (also seeds loop content + clears install friction).
  • Administer the day-14 Sean Ellis PMF survey to the W2/W3 cohort.
CEO W2 concierge cohort becomes the onboard list; testimonials seed the Loom. ≥40% of installs reach activation (even hand-held); first K + PMF readings logged.
W4D23–30
  • ONE channel test: time launch to a recurring immersion-challenge kickoff (Refold/MoeWay/Migaku + r/LearnJapanese monthly thread).
  • Seed via a trusted community-member demo; publish 4–6 long-tail content/demo pages.
  • Measure install-completion, CAC, time-to-activation, loop factor K, GM/active-user.
  • Write the go/no-go narrative answering all 4 Balfour fits with REAL margin + K data.
CEO W3 activation instrumentation must be live to read K from the channel test. K ≥ 0.3 (loop proven) OR community CAC ≤ $37; install-completion ≥ 50%.
KILL-GATE · W4 · GO/NO-GO

Kill if <40% reach activation even hand-held (W3) OR K<0.15 AND community CAC >$37 (W4) — i.e. LTV:CAC falls below 3:1 with no inversion path (growth.md §6). This gate also commits the engineer hire: only a clean go authorizes Phase 3. A weak-but-alive read (K 0.15–0.3) → demote the loop, re-budget paid CAC in 06/10 before building at scale.

Phase 3 · Capture Core

03
Build the thing extensions can'tDays 31–45 · the hard part, most of the risk
Days 31–45

Theme: the engineer is now on payroll (gated by the W4 go). Build native per-process audio capture on both OSes with telemetry instrumented from the first capture — the moat-candidate flywheel starts at session 1, not "someday" (product.md §3 Wk 3–6, REVIEW.md P1).

Week Outcomes (3–5) Owner Depends on Success criterion
W5D31–37
  • Engineer Day-0 onboarding + stand up babelio-evals with the 20+ hand-labeled gold clips (evals before features).
  • macOS 14 CoreAudio per-process tap captures clean audio from one real native client (e.g. desktop Webex or VLC).
  • Per-app capture + eval telemetry pipeline logging from session 1.
ENG CEO W4 go authorizes the hire; W1 gold clips seed the eval set. Clean per-process capture on ≥1 macOS native client; evals run green in CI.
W6D38–45
  • Windows 11 audio-session capture reaches parity with macOS on one native client.
  • VAD pre-scan flags speech-vs-music processes so the picker recommends the right app.
  • Capture verified on ≥3 real native clients per OS (the extension-can't-do-this proof).
  • Notarized + code-signed builds for both OSes (kills the Gatekeeper/SmartScreen wall).
ENG W5 the macOS tap architecture ports to Windows; telemetry schema reused. ≥3 native clients per OS capture cleanly; both installers pass verified-publisher.
RISK-GATE · W6

Slip-gate (not a kill): if per-process capture is not clean on ≥3 native clients per OS by end of W6, the moat head-start is unproven — do not start the pipeline (Phase 4); spend Phase 4 hardening capture instead and push the cohort launch right. Capture is the long pole; everything downstream is cheaper to delay than to build on a flaky tap.

Phase 4 · Pipeline & Dual-Track

04
Make it real-time, keep the original voiceDays 46–60 · streaming + the hero mode
Days 46–60

Theme: wire the streaming STT→MT→TTS pipeline behind the capture, render the caption overlay, and ship the dual-track default — quiet whisper-dub layered under the preserved original voice (the immersion learner's job, product.md §3 Wk 7–8). Hit the latency eval gate.

Week Outcomes (3–5) Owner Depends on Success criterion
W7D46–52
  • Streaming STT→MT→TTS pipeline on Cartesia Sonic + Deepgram, token-by-token render.
  • Confidence-shaded floating caption overlay (draggable, original audio preserved).
  • MT constrained to transcript tokens (anti-hallucination, <2% insertion rate).
  • Auto-degrade to caption-only on latency spike ("fast mode" badge), never echo.
ENG W6 clean cross-OS capture feeds the pipeline its audio stream. Caption first-token <500ms; insertion rate <2% on the gold set.
W8D53–60
  • Dual-track default: whisper-dub mixes under preserved original at a usable level on real lecture audio.
  • Mode toggle (dual-track / caption-only / opt-in auto-mute dub) + whisper-under mix slider.
  • Session Review screen: aligned bilingual transcript + one-click Anki export (the loop artifact).
  • First-Run Trust screen wired ("why these permissions" + canned-clip latency proof).
BOTH W7 streaming pipeline must run before the whisper-under mix can be tuned. Glass-to-glass p95 <700ms; original stays intelligible under the dub; export works.
EVAL-GATE · W8 · LAUNCH CRITERIA

Do not onboard the cohort (Phase 5) until the launch eval gate passes: glass-to-glass p95 <700ms, caption first-token <500ms, STT WER <12% on accented speech, MT adequacy ≥4/5 on the 20-example gold set, hallucination/insertion <2%, and dual-track verified intelligible on real lecture audio (product.md §3 "done"). A miss → spend the start of Phase 5 on eval-hardening, not user onboarding.

Phase 5 · Cohort to North Star

05
Get 15 humans to ≥4 sessions a weekDays 61–75 · hand-onboard, harden, retain
Days 61–75

Theme: hand-onboard the first real cohort and drive them to the North Star — ≥4 native-desktop sessions per active user per week, sustained 2 weeks (product.md §3 Wk 9–10 + launch criteria). Wire the D1/D7/D30 retention hooks; harden graceful degradation under real load.

Week Outcomes (3–5) Owner Depends on Success criterion
W9D61–67
  • Hand-onboard 15 wedge users from the W1–W4 community pipeline; D1 auto-detect foreign-audio app → one-click "subtitle this now".
  • Ship D7 hook: saved language/app presets + "your mined cards" history.
  • Promote Session-Review corrections into the gold eval set weekly (flywheel loop closes).
CEO ENG W8 eval gate passed; activation event & loop already instrumented in W3. ≥45% of installs hit activation by D7; 15 users live on real content.
W10D68–75
  • Harden graceful degradation (cost spike → soft-throttle, provider outage → router fallback) under real cohort load.
  • Ship D30 immersion-streak digest ("you mined 42 sentences / 6 hrs native content").
  • Drive the cohort to ≥4 sessions/user/week sustained for 2 weeks (the North Star).
  • Track GM/active-user against the $0.31 subtitle / $0.50 dub COGS line.
BOTH W9 cohort must be onboarded & activated before a 2-week North-Star streak can be measured. ≥10 of 15 users sustain ≥4 sessions/wk for 2 weeks; GM holds ≥65%.
NORTH-STAR-GATE · W10

Re-segment if fewer than 10 of 15 hand-held users sustain ≥4 sessions/week for 2 weeks — the wedge has habit but the product doesn't hold it, or the wrong users were recruited. Tripwire: GM/active-user < 50% (dub-heavy usage) → recompute pricing in 05-pricing.html before the W11 PMF survey, per 10-financial-model sensitivity.

Phase 6 · PMF Read & Raise-Ready

06
Measure PMF, package the storyDays 76–90 · proof, not promises
Days 76–90

Theme: take the first defensible PMF reading, lock real unit economics, and turn the 90 days of evidence into a fundable narrative — or an honest stop. No PMF claim until ≥40% "very disappointed" is measured across ≥30 hands (growth.md §9).

Week Outcomes (3–5) Owner Depends on Success criterion
W11D76–82
  • Expand the cohort to ≥30 hands (second community seed) to make the PMF read defensible.
  • Administer the day-14 Sean Ellis PMF survey across the full ≥30-hand base.
  • Re-run LTV:CAC on REAL paid/community CAC + measured churn (cap at ~3:1, no 5.7:1).
  • Confirm the second loop reading (K) on the larger base.
CEO W10 a retained North-Star cohort is the precondition for a meaningful PMF survey. ≥30 hands surveyed; LTV:CAC re-stated on real data; K reading confirmed.
W12D83–86
  • Land ≥5 paying users OR 10 signed LOIs from the wedge persona (the traction bar).
  • Refresh 10-financial-model assumptions with the live usage ledger (conversion, churn, COGS).
  • Replace ≥1 composite persona in 01-icp-brief with a real sourced narrative.
CEO W11 PMF + economics readings feed the financial-model refresh and the LOI ask. ≥5 paying or 10 LOIs secured; financial model re-grounded on real numbers.
W13D87–90
  • Write the 90-day decision memo: go-deeper / raise the $1.2–1.5M seed / bootstrap / stop.
  • If raising: assemble the data room + send the M1 investor update (18) with real KPIs.
  • Set the next 90-day plan from the binding constraint the data exposed (churn / loop / capture).
CEO W12 traction + refreshed model are the inputs to the raise/bootstrap/stop decision. A written, evidence-backed go/raise/stop decision + the next 90-day plan exists.
PMF-GATE · W13 · 90-DAY VERDICT

Claim PMF only if ≥40% of ≥30 hands answer "very disappointed" on the Sean Ellis survey (W11) AND ≥5 paying / 10 LOIs landed (W12). Miss both → do not raise on a PMF claim; either continue the bootstrap subtitle-margin path (10-financial-model) or stop. The 90 days exist to produce this verdict honestly, not to manufacture a yes.

Cross-references
  • 09-experiment-backlog.htmlW1 outcome #1 IS the top experiment from the backlog (the 15–20 immersion-learner interviews).
  • 01-icp-brief.htmlW1 interviews populate the real ICP brief; W12 replaces a composite persona with a sourced one.
  • 10-financial-model.htmlThe engineer hire = the load-bearing line; W10 GM tripwire and W12 model refresh feed it.
  • 14-kpi-dashboard.htmlNorth Star, activation, K, install-completion and GM/active-user are the metrics tracked weekly.
  • 16-risk-register.htmlEach kill/slip-gate above is the tripwire for a P0/P1 risk (wedge, capture, churn, WTP-vs-COGS).
  • 18-investor-update-m1.htmlW13 sends the first investor update if the PMF-gate verdict is "raise".
Babelio · 90-Day Plan · Playbook 17/24 Replan weekly · gates are hard, dates are soft