What's coming this alpha

The alpha runs three weeks, from May 17 through June 7. Beta opens the same day alpha closes. Here's what's actually happening behind the scenes during your three weeks in the cohort.

Week 1 (May 17 → 24): waves of invites

The first five to ten of you get the app this weekend. We're staging invites this way so we can fix the most likely first-impression bugs around Plaid sync, Lumi cold-start, and install paths before the rest of the cohort hits them. If you're in wave one, that's the work we're asking from you. If you're in wave two later in the week, you walk into a cleaner room.

The bug triage loop runs daily. Hieu reads #bug-reports every morning, applies tags, files GitHub issues, and replies with the issue link in your thread. Status tags update as we work. 🔎 Triaged means filed. ✅ Fixed means shipped. We've never run a cohort this way before, so if the triage flow itself feels weird, that's also feedback.

Week 2 (May 24 → 29): Stripe and tier gating

This is the load-bearing week. Stripe lands, tier gating goes live, the in-app paywall surface ships. By the end of this week, the app knows the difference between "trial" and "paid," and the upgrade flow exists. The hard deadline is May 29. Your wave-one fourteen-day trial timer expires around May 31, and we'd rather you hit a working paywall than a broken one.

The referral system ships alongside. Codes get auto-assigned to everyone. The share UI lives at the high-signal moments — first overdraft avoided, first goal milestone — plus a settings page. The 14+14 trial mechanic kicks in. Refer a friend who connects a bank, both sides earn a 14-day extension.

Week 3 (May 30 → June 7): paywall validation and beta prep

Wave-one founding members start their first paid month on the 50%-off-forever rate. Wave-two trials mature toward the back of this week. Privacy and Terms of Service get a real legal rewrite, since App Store review will not accept the current placeholder text. The waitlist landing page CTA shifts as we approach the June 7 beta open.

What's intentionally rough

A few things we already know about and are not asking you to report:

• Lumi feels generic in the first session, before it has context on you. Real personalization shows up after a few conversations.
• The Plaid initial sync takes 5 to 15 seconds on first connect. We pull liability data inline so your day-one numbers are accurate; the trade-off is the wait.
• Mobile is a Capacitor wrapper around the web app. Native polish (gestures, haptics, deep-link plumbing) is partial. The React Native rewrite is the v2 plan, on the post-beta runway.
• Lumi has a daily fifty-message cap. If you hit it, you'll see a polite refusal until midnight UTC. Working as designed.

What we want you focused on

The strongest feedback comes from natural use. Use the app the way you'd use any money app. The moments we most want to hear about:

• Connecting a real bank account. The whole product hinges on this working cleanly.
• The first Lumi conversation. Ask something specific to your money, like "can I afford this" or "what's my runway if I lose my job" or "should I move money to savings before rent."
• Whatever feels confusing on first open. We've stared at these screens for months. You're the first eyes that aren't ours.

Thanks for being here.

— Ryan