Phase 1: start

Phase 1: start

• Read RULES.md, SELLING.md, FACTS.md. Done before this plan.
• Read the public work at bananafest-destiny.com as a stranger would, and note in LEARNED.md what it can honestly prove to a buyer.
• Ask the boss, one at a time, the factual questions the offer leaves open. First: where this repository's git remote is, since the log must be pushed.
• Then step 1 of SELLING.md: name the two kinds of buyer as specific people in specific places, and check from each platform's own current rules that a nobody can reach them there.
• No sales page yet. No outreach yet.

Phase 2: the sales page

• Build site/ as one static page for vibecider.bananafest-destiny.com.
• It says only what FACTS.md supports: what the client gets, what they bring, $100 first month, $30/month after or take it, all profits theirs, the /work terms the boss confirmed.
• Proof: the four shipped apps and the real $18.09, linked to the live record.
• No pay button until the boss gives a pay link. Until then, a "how to start" that points at the boss's contact, if FACTS.md has one; otherwise ask.
• Deploy to Cloudflare, open it, check every claim and link on it.

Phase 4: reaching them

• Draft posts in outbox/ for the boss to send, aimed at someone with an app idea and no one to build it: one Reddit post shaped to the subreddits the boss can post in, and one Product Hunt launch in "product" framing.
• Ask the boss which subreddits their account is active in, since karma and history are counted per community.

Phase 5: price change to $50

• Change the page to $50 first month, $30/mo after, and add the boss's "take the bot and be the boss" line.
• Pull the $100 pay button until the boss gives a $50 link, so the page never shows one price and charges another. Point "Start" at the studio form.
• Update the outbox drafts to $50.

Phase 8: measure, then the next channel

• Recount page visits about an hour after the link comment, against 61.
• Product Hunt next, from the boss's account, framed as a product. Read Product Hunt's current launch guidance before picking the day.
• Keep reply drafts coming for anything the boss forwards.

Phase 9: find where the views leak

• Product Hunt is out (services are removed; see LEARNED).
• Ask the boss for the Reddit post's view count, to set against page visits (66 requests to "/", including my own tests and bots).
• Keep reply drafts coming; wait on the X community's approval.

Phase 1: start

• Read the rules and the public work. Wrote what the record can and cannot prove into LEARNED.md.
• Asked the boss about the git remote. They set it up; the log now pushes to github.com/walkertbrown/Cider-Prod. Cloudflare token confirmed on the zone.
• Asked what "take it" hands over ("all of these"), whose Stripe (theirs preferred, client's choice), Reddit (the boss's account, will try), Buffer (fine when ready).
• Channel research: Show HN and Product Hunt read from source; Reddit, Indie Hackers, Fiverr, Upwork could not be read from this machine. The boss ruled out Fiverr and Upwork from experience and has a Product Hunt account.
• Change from plan: I found the studio's /work page already publishes this offer with fuller terms. The boss confirmed it is the same offer. That answered most of my open questions at once.
• Not done: no channel is proven yet. Reddit rules are still unread.
• Subdomain picked for the sales page: vibecider.bananafest-destiny.com (no DNS record exists for it today).

Phase 2: the sales page

• Built site/index.html, one static page. Deployed as the Cloudflare Worker vibecider-sales on the custom domain vibecider.bananafest-destiny.com.
• Tested: opened the live page (200, new copy served), and opened every link on it: the four apps, the numbers page, /work and its #start form, and this repo. All 200.
• Every term on it is from FACTS.md: the boss's offer, the /work "Get it running" terms they confirmed, and "live inside a month", which they changed from two weeks during this phase.
• Proof shown as it is: four shipped apps and $18.09 earned, with "sales are not promised".
• Change from plan: there is no pay link yet, so "Start" goes to the studio's existing private form at bananafest-destiny.com/work#start.
• Left out on purpose: handing over the bot itself, since the boss only leaned "all of these" on that.
• Still open: the /work page says "inside two weeks". This page says a month. The boss owns that page.

Phase 2b: lead with the idea buyer (boss's direction)

• Rewrote the top of the page for someone with their own idea: "You have the idea. A bot builds it and markets it, around the clock." "24/7" is the boss's word, in FACTS.md.
• The novelty buyer is now one line ("No idea yet? The bot can bring one.").
• Redeployed. Opened the live page; the new headline is served.

Phase 3: the pay link

• The boss made a one-off $100 Stripe product and payment link, with an optional "app idea" field at checkout. I advised one-off, not recurring, and no tax registration for one $100 sale; the boss skipped tax.
• Put the link on the page as "Pay $100 and start". The studio's private form stays as "questions first".
• Tested in a headless browser at phone width (390px, no sideways scroll): the live page loads, the button goes to Stripe checkout, and checkout shows "VibeCider Bot", $100.00, live mode, the boss's offer text and the idea field. I did not pay.
• The page is now ready to sell: a stranger can pay without more code.

Phase 4: reaching them

• The boss's Reddit is active in dev groups; "vibe coding groups clearly work".
• Wrote two drafts in outbox/ (not pushed): a Reddit post for vibe coding subreddits, and a Product Hunt launch in product framing. Both lead with the real record ($18.09, 4 shipped, 1 killed) and promise no sales.
• Caught and cut one claim of my own in the Reddit draft (a review-queue time I had pinned on the wrong app). Every number left is from the public site.
• Nothing sent. The boss sends.

Phase 5: price change to $50

• The boss changed the price: $50 first month, $30/mo after.
• Page updated and redeployed: $50 everywhere, no $100 left, plus "take the bot and be the boss". Checked the live page: three mentions of $50, none of $100, no Stripe link.
• Pulled the $100 pay button so the page cannot charge a price it does not show. "Start" goes to the studio's private form until a $50 link exists.
• Drafts in outbox/ changed to $50.
• So the page is not ready to sell again until the $50 link is on it.
• Still the boss's to fix: /work says $100 and "two weeks".
• The boss made the $50 link and turned off the $100 one. Put "Pay $50 and start" back on the page and redeployed. Tested at phone width: the button lands on live Stripe checkout, "VibeCider Bot", $50.00, with the idea field. The old link now says "no longer active". Ready to sell again.

Phase 6: logo, and the boss's X post

• The boss rewrote the X post in their own words; saved in outbox/. It runs about 441 characters by X's count, over the 280 limit for accounts without Premium.
• The boss asked for a VibeCider logo. Made one: a cider-amber apple with a terminal prompt for a face, on the page's dark ground (site/logo.svg, with 400px and 1000px PNGs). Added it to the page header, as the favicon, and as the share image. Deployed; all four files load (200).
• Boss asked for the prompt signs moved up as eyes and the Bananafest banana as the smile. Redrew it: > and _ as eyes (it reads as a wink), the studio's own banana mark from bananafest-destiny.com, in its banana yellow, as the mouth, and the apple deepened to cider orange so the banana shows. Deployed.
• Boss asked for the name on it. Added "VibeCider" under the apple ("Vibe" in cream, "Cider" in the apple's orange): site/logo-word.svg and PNGs. The share image now uses it; the page header and favicon keep the plain apple, where the name is already in text or too small to read. Deployed; files load.
• Boss asked for the X wording in a picture. Made a 1200x675 card (site/cards/x-card.png): the logo, their three lines, "$50 first month · $30/mo after" and the page address. The post text is now two short lines plus the link.
• The boss said "Ok.... next" after the X card. Taking the X submission as handled by them. Wrote a short r/SideProject draft in outbox/ in the same voice as the card.

Phase 7: first posts out

• The boss posted the r/SideProject post (their rewrite, with bullets and the card) and handled the X card. I did not post anything.
• Nothing sold yet. Next: watch for comments the boss forwards, and count visits to the sales page.
• Baseline from Cloudflare zone analytics, requests for the page "/" today (UTC): 23 Chrome, 11 unknown, 7 curl, 6 Firefox, 5 TwitterBot, 4 Chrome Mobile, 2 headless Chrome, 1 Safari, 1 AppleBot. The curl and headless ones are my own tests; TwitterBot is X fetching the link preview. These are requests, not people.
• Rechecked after the boss said Reddit views were rising: page "/" requests went from 60 to 61 (one more "unknown"). Views on the post are not turning into visits to the page yet. (Cloudflare does not give referrers on this plan, so I cannot tell where a visit came from.)
• A commenter posted a screenshot of Google's AI summary of the studio ("four live AI-built products... $18.09"), then deleted it. The boss added their own comment with a clickable link to the sales page.
• Recount at 04:32 UTC on 16 Oct, about an hour after the link comment: page "/" requests went from 61 to 66 (+3 Chrome, +2 unknown, +1 Opera Mobile). That is a few visits at most. The link comment helped a little, not a lot.
• Product Hunt checked before drafting a launch: its help page on removals says posts are removed for "services, agencies, or other businesses that do not offer a tangible or digital product." This offer is a paid build, which is a service. Product Hunt is dropped; the draft stays in outbox, unused.
• The boss's Reddit insights screenshot (about 1h after posting): 1.6k views, US 53.8%, Canada 7.9%, India 5.5%. Against at most a handful of page visits, that is well under 1% clicking through. The post is being seen; the offer is not pulling people to the page.