Get launch news
Join the waitlist
Reserve for $20
Order Detent One
Buy Detent One
Get launch news

One email when the list opens 10.20. Nothing else.

Join the waitlist

Free. Every friend who confirms earns you a reward.

Reserve for $20

Fully refundable. Locks the $299 launch price.

Order Detent One

$299 until 12.04. Free shipping.

Buy Detent One

$349. Free shipping, 60-day studio trial.

The launch plan.

Five phases, one config value. A silhouette on 10.06, reservations on 11.10, orders on 12.01, an open store on 12.04, and Batch 1 on desks in February 2027.

Status
Approved, v1.0
Revised
Owners
Launch team (founder, growth, community, ops)
This build
Reserve phase
Long form
LAUNCH_PLAN.md OPERATIONS.md

Turn the launch.

Five detents and two hard stops. Each click moves every call to action on the site to that phase, this page included. Nothing reloads, and nothing leaves this tab.

Detent One in Graphite, seen from directly above, the round display dark
  1. Tease
  2. Waitlist
  3. Reserve
  4. Launch day
  5. Live

Previewing

Tease

10.06 → 10.19 · 14 days · flips 09:00 PT · phase 1/5

Landing page
/l/tease/
Announcement bar
The waitlist opens 10.20.

Waitlist

10.20 → 11.09 · 21 days · flips 09:00 PT · phase 2/5

Landing page
/l/waitlist/
Announcement bar
The waitlist is open. Every reservation locks the $299 launch price.

Reserve

11.10 → 11.30 · 21 days · flips 09:00 PT · phase 3/5

Landing page
/l/reserve/
Announcement bar
Reservations are open. Batch 1 ships February 2027.

Launch day

12.01 → 12.03 · 3 days · flips 09:00 PT · phase 4/5

Landing page
/l/launch/
Announcement bar
Detent One is here. $299 until Friday, Dec 4, 09:00 PT.

Live

12.04 → open · flips 09:00 PT · phase 5/5

Landing page
/
Announcement bar
Detent One is $349, with free shipping and a 60-day studio trial.

The button every page shows right now

Get launch news Crack the safe

One email when the list opens 10.20. Nothing else.

Join the waitlist Crack the safe

Free. Every friend who confirms earns you a reward.

Reserve for $20 Configure yours

Fully refundable. Locks the $299 launch price.

Order Detent One Watch the film

$299 until 12.04. Free shipping.

Buy Detent One Compare finishes

$349. Free shipping, 60-day studio trial.

Walk the site in Tease Walk the site in Waitlist Walk the site in Reserve Walk the site in Launch day Walk the site in Live Back to the build phase

The whole feel profile behind this dial: {"detents": 6, "stops": [-120,120], "strength": 1, "damping": 0.2, "spring": 0, "accents": []} Every click weighs the same. This build ships in Reserve, set by the LAUNCH_PHASE repository variable.

Eight weeks from a silhouette to orders.

One tick per day, a long one every Monday. The lit segment is the phase you are previewing; turn the dial above and watch it move.

Today · Sun, Sep 27

  • Prep week
  • Silhouette drop
  • Games go public
  • Reveal
  • Reveal week
  • Show HN
  • Date email
  • Reservations open
  • Founders for all
  • Creator units ship
  • No Black Friday
  • Launch
  • Product Hunt
  • Discord AMA
  • Launch price ends
  1. Prep 09.21 → 10.05 site private
  2. Tease 10.06 → 10.19 /l/tease/
  3. Waitlist 10.20 → 11.09 /l/waitlist/
  4. Reserve 11.10 → 11.30 /l/reserve/
  5. Launch day 12.01 → 12.03 /l/launch/
  6. Live 12.04 → open home page /

Then the scale changes to months. We only date what suppliers have committed to.

  1. January 2027 Review units 30 production units to independent reviewers. Reviews publish while every deposit is still refundable.
  2. February 2027 Batch 1 ships 2,500 units. Balances are charged as each unit ships, never before.
  3. April 2027 Batch 2 ships 5,000 units, including launch-week and December orders.

One number that means money down.

North star: committed units. Deposits held plus orders paid, net of refunds and cancellations.

It is the one number that means someone put money down for a thing they can’t touch yet. Signups are a leading indicator; committed units are the business.

  1. 2,500 by Batch 1 is full on deposits
  2. 3,300 by Launch pricing ends
  3. 4,000 by First month of the live store

Five goals

  • Fill Batch 1 before launch day. 2,500 refundable deposits by Dec 1.
  • Build a line worth converting. 15,000 confirmed waitlisters by Nov 9.
  • Sell through launch week. 800 paid orders by Dec 4, when the $299 price ends.
  • Keep deposits honest. Deposit refund rate under 10%; zero fake-urgency incidents.
  • Stay fast under load. LCP under 2.0 s at p75 on mobile for every landing page, launch day included.

At plan: 3,502 orders by the time Batch 1 balances are charged, about $1.2M gross at a 25% Founders mix, and $57 of launch budget per order.

Five phases. One job each.

Each phase owns one landing page and one primary action. The button text, the offer line and the announcement bar come from src/config/launch.ts, the same file the site reads. Showing Tease. Waitlist. Reserve. Launch day. Live. Switch phases with the bar above or the dial.

Phase 1 of 5

Tease

→

14 days · flips 09:00 PT (16:00 UTC)

Get 4,000 people to hand over an email before they know the price, on the strength of one turn of the dial.

Landing page
/l/tease/
Primary action
Get launch news One email when the list opens 10.20. Nothing else.
Offer
A first look on reveal day, and first claim on the $299 launch price. No discount code, no giveaway.
Who we talk to
Warm first: the SmartKnob and maker communities, the founders’ own followers, 100 SDK testers. Cold paid traffic only as a capped test of the 5% benchmark.
Channels
  • Silhouette drop: the knob in shadow, one click of audio
  • Founder essay on /story/: “Why a knob?”
  • Crack the Safe and Daily Detent go public on 10.13
  • Capped cold paid test, $6,000 across four audiences
Announcement bar
The waitlist opens 10.20.
Measure Target Alarm
Visit → email 5% cold · 12% warm under 3% cold
Visitors who turn the dial 40% under 25%
Double opt-in 70% under 55%
Signups by 10.19 4,000 under 2,000
  1. Silhouette drop. The knob in shadow and one click of audio. /l/tease/ goes live.
  2. Games go public. Crack the Safe and Daily Detent, new every day at 00:00 UTC

Moves on when: Cold visit → email holds at 5% for seven straight days. If it doesn’t, we rewrite the tease before reveal day, not after.

Open landing page Preview the whole site in this phase

Phase 2 of 5

Waitlist

→

21 days · flips 09:00 PT (16:00 UTC)

Turn curiosity into a line: 15,000 confirmed waitlisters by 11.09, about a quarter of them brought in by a friend.

Landing page
/l/waitlist/
Primary action
Join the waitlist Free. Every friend who confirms earns you a reward.
Offer
Free. Every friend who confirms earns you a reward. One friend gets the Referral Ratchet profile, three get the 72-hour Founders priority window, ten get their handle on the display at first boot, 25 get an engraved knob ring.
Who we talk to
Everyone the reveal reaches, routed by the one-tap question “What will you turn?” into editors, producers, designers and developers.
Channels
  • Reveal on 10.20: film, specs and price, then one drop a day to 10.23
  • Show HN on 10.27: the open SDK and firmware, with a technical write-up
  • Discord opens to everyone on 10.27, once 200 members are seeded
  • Message-matched paid social to /for/ pages, $14,000
  • Creator briefings under a 12.01 embargo
Announcement bar
The waitlist is open. Every reservation locks the $299 launch price.
Measure Target Alarm
Signups, all sources 21,500 under 12,000
Confirmed by 11.09 15,000 under 8,000
Signups who refer a friend 15% under 9%
Discord members 2,000 under 800
  1. Reveal. Film, specs, price. Waitlist and referrals open.
  2. Reveal week. The Feel Engine, The Face, Founders Edition: one a day to 10.23
  3. Show HN. A technical write-up on the open SDK and firmware. Discord opens.
  4. Date email. Reservations open 11.10: what $20 does, with a calendar file

Moves on when: Reservations open on 11.10 at 09:00 PT whatever the count. The date has been public since reveal day, and we keep dates.

Open landing page Preview the whole site in this phase

Phase 3 of 5

Reserve

→

21 days · flips 09:00 PT (17:00 UTC)

Fill Batch 1: 2,500 refundable deposits before launch day.

Landing page
/l/reserve/
Primary action
Reserve for $20 Fully refundable. Locks the $299 launch price.
Offer
$20, fully refundable in one click, locks the $299 launch price until your batch ships. Founders Edition: $50 holds a numbered serial. Reservations ship in Batch 1, February 2027.
Who we talk to
Confirmed waitlisters first (the 72-hour Founders window goes to people with three confirmed referrals), then everyone.
Channels
  • Reservation email to every confirmed waitlister, 11.10 at 09:00 PT
  • Founders priority window 11.10 → 11.13 for three-referral waitlisters
  • “How it’s made” CNC film; batch meter from real counts (live mode)
  • 60 creator units ship 11.16 under embargo
  • Retargeting of waitlisters who haven’t reserved, $18,000
Announcement bar
Reservations are open. Batch 1 ships February 2027.
Measure Target Alarm
Waitlist → deposit, 14 days 15% under 8%
/l/reserve/ visit → deposit 8% under 5%
Deposits by 11.30 2,500 under 1,200
Deposit refund rate under 10% over 15%
  1. Reservations open. 72-hour Founders window for three-referral waitlisters
  2. Founders for all. The priority window closes; numbered serials open to everyone
  3. Creator units ship. 60 units, embargo until 12.01 at 09:00 PT
  4. No Black Friday. Feel Friday instead. The launch price is the only price cut.

Moves on when: Launch day is fixed. If Batch 1 fills early, Batch 2 opens the same hour with its April date on the button.

Open landing page Preview the whole site in this phase

Phase 4 of 5

Launch day

→

3 days · flips 09:00 PT (17:00 UTC)

Turn launch-week attention into 800 paid orders in 72 hours, with no number on the page that we can’t source.

Landing page
/l/launch/
Primary action
Order Detent One $299 until 12.04. Free shipping.
Offer
$299 for 72 hours, ending 12.04 at 09:00 PT. Free shipping, 60-day studio trial. Launch-week orders ship in Batch 2, April 2027.
Who we talk to
The whole list, plus everyone the creator embargo lift, the film and Product Hunt bring in.
Channels
  • Embargo lifts 12.01 at 09:00 PT: 60 creator videos, every one disclosed
  • Launch film and email to the full list
  • Product Hunt 12.02 at 00:01 PT
  • Discord AMA 12.03
  • Launch cut-downs to all four audiences, $12,000
Announcement bar
Detent One is here. $299 until Friday, Dec 4, 09:00 PT.
Measure Target Alarm
Paid orders by 12.04 800 under 400
Buy clicks per product view 8% under 5%
Checkout completion 60% under 45%
Creator posts with disclosure 100% any miss
  1. Launch. Embargo lifts. Orders open at the launch price.
  2. Product Hunt. Maker comment with a feel link
  3. Discord AMA. Founders and the firmware lead

Moves on when: Automatic. Launch pricing ends at 17:00 UTC on 12.04 and the site flips to Live the same minute.

Open landing page Preview the whole site in this phase

Phase 5 of 5

Live

onward

flips 09:00 PT (17:00 UTC)

Run the store as one product page: 2.5% of sessions become orders, and every week the page gets a little faster and a little clearer.

Landing page
/
Primary action
Buy Detent One $349. Free shipping, 60-day studio trial.
Offer
$349, free shipping, 60-day studio trial, 3-year warranty. New orders ship in Batch 2, April 2027, and the date is on the button.
Who we talk to
Search, AI assistants, creator affiliate links, the /for/ pages and word of mouth.
Channels
  • Evergreen /for/ pages and search
  • Creator affiliate codes, disclosed
  • Feel Friday: one community profile a week
  • Weekly CRO review (docs/OPERATIONS.md)
Announcement bar
Detent One is $349, with free shipping and a 60-day studio trial.
Measure Target Alarm
Session → order 2.5% under 1.5%
Checkout completion 60% under 45%
Deposit → order at capture 80% under 70%
AI-referred conversion reported weekly untracked
  1. Launch price ends. The only countdown on the site, and it is real

Moves on when: There isn’t one. The plan hands over to docs/OPERATIONS.md.

Open landing page Preview the whole site in this phase

The numbers we’ll be judged on.

Targets start from published benchmarks and lean on the one edge we have: people who turn the dial. Every stage has an alarm. Below it, we stop spending and fix the page first.

  1. Visit → email

    landing view → lead_submit

    7%

    alarm under 4%

    Waitlist pages: 3.4% median, 8–9% top decile. 5% from cold paid traffic, 12% from warm and referred. The dial is the hook: people who turn it are the ones who sign up.

  2. Email → confirmed

    lead_submit → email_verified

    70%

    alarm under 55%

    Double opt-in: 55–58% median, 70%+ top quartile. The confirm email is the reward email: “Confirm and we’ll send you the date reservations open.”

  3. Email → referral

    lead_submit → lead_submit (referred)

    15%

    alarm under 9%

    Share of signups who refer one friend: 9–10% median, 18%+ strong. Rewards are feel profiles and early access, never discounts. Only confirmed friends count.

  4. Waitlist → deposit

    email_verified → reserve_submit (14 days)

    15%

    alarm under 8%

    Waitlist to paid deposit: 5–25%, about 20% if deposits open within a month. Reservations open 21 days after reveal, before the list goes cold.

  5. Reserve page → deposit

    /l/reserve/ view → reserve_submit

    8%

    alarm under 5%

    Strong preorder pages: 10–20% of warm visitors. Blended with cold traffic, so we plan below the warm benchmark on purpose.

  6. Deposit → order

    reserve_submit → balance_paid

    80%

    alarm under 70%

    No public benchmark. This is our assumption; we re-baseline on Batch 1. Review units reach independent reviewers before any balance is charged, so people decide with evidence.

  7. Store session → order

    session → checkout_complete

    2.5%

    alarm under 1.5%

    Consumer electronics stores: 1.2–2.4% sitewide. One product, one page that shows the feel, express checkout. Single-SKU stores beat catalog averages.

Run the chain.

Pick how many people visit before reservations open on 11.10. The same rates as above do the rest.

230,000
Visits before reservations open
230,000
Emails at 7%
16,100
Friends they bring (k 0.35)
+5,635
On the list
21,735
Confirmed at 70%
15,214
Deposits in 14 days at 15%
2,282
Orders when the batch ships at 80%
1,826

The list fills 91% of Batch 1 (2,500 units). The other 218 deposits need about 2,723 new visitors to /l/reserve/ at 8%.

Who it’s for, in one sentence.

For people who make things on a screen for hours, Detent One is an instrument for software: the first input device whose feel changes with what you’re doing. Macro pads and stream controllers give every task the same click. Detent clicks one frame at a time in Resolve, bumps at 0 dB in Logic, and snaps to every hunk in your diff.

The sentence we sell with.

A premium customizable controller for creators with beautiful design.

The sentence every competitor could write. We don’t.
The buyer
Spends four or more hours a day inside one creative or technical app. Owns a keyboard that cost more than $150 and a mouse that cost more than $100, maybe a Stream Deck. Pays for tools that save minutes a day. Trusts specs, demos and other makers; distrusts adjectives.
Not the buyer
Gamers shopping for RGB, anyone who wants a $30 volume knob, and procurement departments. We don’t chase them.

The order we go after them in

  1. Video editors “Cut on the frame, not near it.” Editors first: the sharpest pain (overshooting the frame) and a habit of buying $300+ panels.
  2. Music producers “A real knob for every fake one.” Producers second: they already think in knobs, and Wall with a bump at unity gain sells itself on audio.
  3. Developers “Feel the diff.” Developers third: fewer buyers, but the open SDK makes them the people who build profiles for everyone else.
  4. Designers & 3D artists “Rotate it by feel.” Designers and 3D artists fourth: strong fit, longer consideration, reached mostly through the others’ content.

Five prices. Each has one job.

Two real editions, one dated launch price, and a deposit small enough to say yes to. The launch price is 14% off list, and it is the only price cut in year one.

$20 Deposit
Filters intent. 6.7% of the launch price. Low enough that nobody needs to ask anyone, high enough to separate a buyer from a browser. Credited in full, refundable in one click.
$50 Founders deposit
Stops serial squatting. A Founders deposit holds one numbered serial out of 2,000. A higher bar keeps people from parking on numbers they won’t buy.
$299 Launch price
Rewards commitment. $50 off, for reservers until their batch ships and for everyone for 72 hours on launch. A dated reward, not a permanent discount.
$349 List price
The anchor. Shown next to the launch price from reveal day, so $299 is a real saving and never a fake strikethrough. Priced against the workflow it replaces: a jog wheel, a MIDI encoder and a macro pad.
$449 Founders Edition
A real second product. +$100 buys Tally anodize, a serial from 0001 to 2000, the walnut plinth, the Founders feel pack and early firmware for life. It anchors high because it is worth more, not because it is a decoy.

What we don’t do with price

  • No decoy tier. Two real editions; the Founders run is finite and says so.
  • No price tests. Everyone sees the same price on the same day.
  • No Black Friday. The launch price is the only price cut in year one.
  • Cost per use (about $0.28 a workday over five years) lives in a tooltip, and only if it wins a test.
  • Pay-over-time appears in the Live phase only, and only with the provider’s own numbers.

Where we show up, and where we don’t.

  • Kickstarter

    No.

    Not this launch, not later

    We take refundable deposits on our own store. We keep the customer list, set our own one-click refund terms, skip the 5% platform fee, and the store is already the demo. Backers aren’t customers; depositors are.

  • Hacker News

    Yes.

    10.27

    Show HN at 08:30 PT on a Tuesday, linking the SDK repository and a technical write-up, not the store. The founder answers every comment for six hours. Nobody asks for votes.

  • Product Hunt

    Yes.

    12.02

    The day after launch, at 00:01 PT, so launch day belongs to customers. Maker comment tells the story and links a feel you can turn. Supporters come from the Discord, never from vote requests.

Creators

60 creators, 15 per audience: 40 mid-tier (100k–1M subscribers) and 20 tool-obsessed micro creators (10k–100k). 20 of the 60 get a flat $2,000–$4,000 for a dedicated video. The rest keep the unit and owe us nothing.

  • No script approval. Negative reviews are allowed, in writing.
  • Disclosure in the video and in the first line of the post, never only in a bio.
  • Every creator gets a ?ref= code, prerelease SDK builds and their own feel profile in /profiles/.
  • Units ship 11.16. Embargo lifts 12.01 at 09:00 PT, for everyone at once.

Community

A Discord that opens on 10.27 with 200 people already inside. Onboarding asks one question, “What will you turn?”, and the answer sets the role:

  • Editing
  • Music
  • Design & 3D
  • Code
  • Streaming

#start-here #feel-lab #daily-detent #crack-the-safe #show-your-desk #sdk-dev #firmware-roadmap #launch-desk

  • Feel Friday: one community profile featured on the site every week
  • SDK office hours in #sdk-dev, Wednesdays
  • AMA with the founders and the firmware lead on 12.03
  • It opens only once 200 people are already inside. An empty server is anti-proof.
  • One invite code per /for/ page, so Discord’s own counts attribute joins.
  • Someone from the team is in the server 09:00–21:00 PT every day until 12.04.

$200,000, and where it goes

At plan that is $57 per order across 3,502 orders. Creators get the biggest line because they are the channel that can show the feel.

  1. Creator seeding 60 units at landed cost, 20 flat fees, shipping and duties $70,000 35%
  2. Paid social Tease $6k, Waitlist $14k, Reserve $18k, Launch $12k $50,000 25%
  3. Film and content Reveal film, CNC film, four one-take audience clips $40,000 20%
  4. PR and press kit B-roll, renders, sound pack, briefings $10,000 5%
  5. Community Two part-time moderators through launch, AMA, bots $10,000 5%
  6. Tools and ops Email, analytics, waitlist endpoint, support desk $10,000 5%
  7. Contingency Held until 12.04, then released to Live $10,000 5%

Twelve weeks, week by week.

Monday to Sunday. Paid spend is $50,000 in total and stops the week after launch; everything after that is the operations plan.

Week Site and email Community Creators and press Paid
Sep 28 – Oct 4 Prep Tease page and dial toy final. Double opt-in and referral codes tested end to end. Private Discord seeded: the team, 100 SDK testers, the creators. Target: 200 people. Shortlist of 60 across four audiences. Press kit v1: B-roll, renders, fact sheet, sound pack. $0 Four one-take clips shot, one per audience.
Oct 5 – Oct 11 Tease 10.06 at 09:00 PT: /l/tease/ goes live. One email on reveal day, nothing else. Silhouette posted in the SmartKnob and maker communities, inside each one’s self-promotion rules. Invitations and NDAs go out. No creator posts yet. $3,000 Cold test to /l/tease/, split across four audiences. Proves or kills the 5% benchmark.
Oct 12 – Oct 18 Tease 10.13: Crack the Safe and Daily Detent go public. Founder essay: “Why a knob?” A daily clip: one feel, one sound, name it. Answers in #daily-detent. Thirty-minute briefings with the engineer who tuned the feels. $3,000 Keep the two best audiences from week one. Cut the rest.
Oct 19 – Oct 25 Waitlist 10.20 at 09:00 PT: reveal film, specs, price. Waitlist and referrals open. One drop a day to 10.23. One thread per drop. The team answers every question the same day. Press briefing embargo lifts with the reveal. The press kit goes public on /press/. $5,000 Message-matched ads to the four /for/ pages.
Oct 26 – Nov 1 Waitlist 10.27: a technical write-up on the open SDK and firmware, on /changelog/. 10.27 at 08:30 PT: Show HN. Discord opens to everyone. Feel Friday #1 on 10.30. Creators get beta firmware and prerelease SDK builds. Three commit to publishing a feel profile. $5,000 Developers get budget only if Show HN lands. Otherwise hold it.
Nov 2 – Nov 8 Waitlist 11.03 email: reservations open 11.10, here’s what $20 does, calendar file attached. Referral push: three confirmed friends earn the Founders priority window. List locked at 60. Addresses and disclosure terms signed. $4,000 Retarget tease and waitlist visitors who never signed up.
Nov 9 – Nov 15 Reserve 11.10 at 09:00 PT: reservations open. Founders priority window to 11.13. #launch-desk staffed 09:00–21:00 PT for the first 72 hours. Press gets the reservation terms and batch dates in writing. $8,000 Waitlisters who haven’t reserved, plus lookalikes of depositors.
Nov 16 – Nov 22 Reserve “How it’s made” CNC film on /story/. Batch meter goes live from real counts (live mode). Feel Friday #3. SDK office hours. 11.16: 60 creator units ship. Embargo: 12.01 at 09:00 PT. $6,000 Retargeting plus the best-performing /for/ audience.
Nov 23 – Nov 29 Reserve 11.27: Feel Friday, not Black Friday. The launch price is the only price cut, and everyone gets it. Quiet week. Moderators on a light rota. Creator questions answered within 24 hours. Disclosure checklist resent. $4,000 Warm retargeting only. Cold ads pause while holiday ad prices spike.
Nov 30 – Dec 6 Launch day 12.01 at 09:00 PT: orders open at $299 for 72 hours. 12.04 at 09:00 PT: the site flips to Live. 12.03: Discord AMA with the founders and the firmware lead. 12.01 at 09:00 PT: embargo lifts. 12.02 at 00:01 PT: Product Hunt. $12,000 Launch film cut-downs to all four audiences, capped at three views per person.
Dec 7 – Dec 13 Live Weekly CRO review starts. FAQ updated from the first week of tickets. Public launch retro: what worked, what didn’t, what’s next. A roundup of every creator video, each with its disclosure shown. $0 Launch budget closed. Evergreen spend moves to the operations plan.
Dec 14 – Dec 20 Live The product page says it plainly: new orders ship in Batch 2, April 2027. Not a holiday gift. Feel Friday continues every week. Affiliate codes stay live for creators who want them, disclosed. $0 Evergreen only.

Twelve tests, in the order we run them.

  • Never tested: prices, urgency claims, disclosures, refund terms.
  • Minimum seven days per test, so every weekday is in both arms.
  • Ship a winner at 95% confidence with no guardrail breach. Refund rate and support tickets are guardrails on every test.
  • One test per page at a time. The backlog is ordered; the next test starts when the last one ends.

  1. E01

    Ask after the dial, not before

    If the email form appears after a visitor has turned the dial through three feels, more of them sign up, because they have felt the product first.

    Measure
    Visit → email
    From → to
    7% → 8.4%
    Needs
    5,689 per arm
    Where
    /l/tease/ (Tease)

  2. E02

    One tap before the email field

    If step one is a single tap (“What will you turn?”) and step two is the email, completion rises, because the first step costs nothing.

    Measure
    Form view → lead_submit
    From → to
    30% → 34%
    Needs
    2,623 per arm
    Where
    /l/tease/, /l/waitlist/ (Tease)

  3. E03

    Confirm to get the date

    If the confirmation email says “Confirm and we’ll send you the date reservations open”, more people confirm than with “Confirm your email”, because confirming earns something concrete.

    Measure
    Email → confirmed
    From → to
    60% → 66%
    Needs
    1,013 per arm
    Where
    Confirmation email (Tease)

  4. E04

    A reward you can feel today

    If the first referral earns a profile that plays on the site immediately, more people refer than when it earns a display face they see in February.

    Measure
    Signups who refer
    From → to
    12% → 15%
    Needs
    2,033 per arm
    Where
    Waitlist success state (Waitlist)

  5. E05

    Share the feel, not a picture

    If the share link opens a dial that feels like the sharer’s profile, more friends sign up per share than from a static image card.

    Measure
    Referred signups per sharer
    From → to
    10% → 13%
    Needs
    1,772 per arm
    Where
    Referral share sheet (Waitlist)

  6. E06

    Say how the refund works

    If the button note reads “Refund in one click, any time before it ships” instead of “Fully refundable”, more visitors reserve and refunds do not rise.

    Measure
    Reserve page → deposit
    From → to
    8% → 9.2%
    Needs
    8,565 per arm
    Where
    /l/reserve/ (Reserve)

  7. E07

    Turn to reserve

    If the reserve button arms after three detents and an end stop, more visitors reserve, because the commitment is physical. The plain button always works too.

    Measure
    Reserve page → deposit
    From → to
    8% → 9.2%
    Needs
    8,565 per arm
    Where
    /l/reserve/ (Reserve)

  8. E08

    Audience demo first

    If /for/ pages open on the app demo (timeline, mixer, canvas, diff) instead of the bare dial, visitors sign up more, because they see their own work.

    Measure
    Visit → email per audience
    From → to
    7% → 8.4%
    Needs
    5,689 per arm
    Where
    /for/<audience>/ (Waitlist)

  9. E09

    Hands, not screens

    If the ad is one take of a hand on the dial with sound, landing visitors sign up more than from a screen recording, because the promise matches the page.

    Measure
    Paid landing visit → email
    From → to
    5% → 6.3%
    Needs
    5,330 per arm
    Where
    Paid social (Waitlist)

  10. E10

    Cost per workday

    If the price block shows “about $0.28 a workday over five years” in a tooltip, buy clicks rise without more returns.

    Measure
    Product view → buy click
    From → to
    8% → 9%
    Needs
    13,216 per arm
    Where
    /shop/ (Live)

  11. E11

    Pay over time, quietly

    If a single line under the price shows four interest-free payments, checkout completion rises and average order value does not fall.

    Measure
    Checkout completion
    From → to
    55% → 59%
    Needs
    1,982 per arm
    Where
    /shop/ price block (Live)

  12. E12

    Invite after the value moment

    If the Discord invite appears on the signup success state instead of the footer, more signups join, because they just got something.

    Measure
    Signups who join Discord
    From → to
    8% → 10%
    Needs
    2,273 per arm
    Where
    Waitlist success state (Waitlist)

What breaks, and what we do first.

Every risk has a tripwire we can see coming and a first move agreed in advance, so nobody improvises on a bad day.

  • Supply chain: the gimbal motor, the encoder or CNC capacity comes up short

    Tripwire
    Any long-lead part more than two weeks behind its purchase order
    First move
    Two qualified motor suppliers before deposits open. 15% buffer on long-lead parts. Batch sizes come from signed supplier capacity, never from demand.
    Owner
    Ops lead

  • Batch 1 slips past February

    Tripwire
    An EVT or DVT milestone more than two weeks late
    First move
    A delay notice within 48 hours of knowing, with a new date or an honest “we can’t date it yet”, and a one-click refund. Update launch.ts; the site updates everywhere. Monthly progress log either way.
    Owner
    Founder

  • Fake-urgency temptation on a slow day

    Tripwire
    Anyone proposes a timer, a stock counter or “only a few left”
    First move
    The only countdown is the real launch price end. Counts come from real data with an as-of time, in live mode only. “Founders sold out” appears when, and only when, it is true. Anyone on the team can veto.
    Owner
    Everyone

  • Refund load: deposit cancellations, then 60-day trial returns

    Tripwire
    Deposit refund rate over 10% in any week
    First move
    Refunds are self-serve and one click. Budget 10% refunds plus 3–4% card-fee leakage. Read every cancellation reason that week and fix the page that caused it. Returned units are refurbished and sold as such.
    Owner
    Support lead

  • Demand below plan

    Tripwire
    Fewer than 8,000 confirmed waitlisters on 11.03
    First move
    Drop the Founders priority window rather than invent a queue. Move paid budget to the best audience. Reservations still open on the published date.
    Owner
    Growth lead

  • Demand above plan

    Tripwire
    Batch 1 fills before 12.01
    First move
    Say “Batch 1 is full” in the banner the same hour and open Batch 2 with its April date. Never sell a unit we can’t date.
    Owner
    Ops lead

  • Reviews say the firmware doesn’t match the demo

    Tripwire
    Any reviewer calls a feel on the site “not what it’s like”
    First move
    Review units go out in January, before balances are charged, so buyers can cancel after reading. The web demo uses the firmware’s own profile JSON.
    Owner
    Firmware lead

  • A creator leaks before the embargo

    Tripwire
    Footage appears before 12.01 at 09:00 PT
    First move
    The tease is already a deliberate silhouette leak, so there is little left to spoil. Acknowledge it, move nothing.
    Owner
    Growth lead

  • Launch-day load

    Tripwire
    Waitlist or checkout endpoint p95 over 800 ms
    First move
    The site is static on GitHub Pages and doesn’t go down. The endpoint is load-tested to 50× the expected peak; checkout is the commerce provider’s hosted page.
    Owner
    Ops lead

Flipping a phase.

One repository variable, LAUNCH_PHASE, and one redeploy. Two people do it together, at the times below. We don’t automate flips: each one is also an announcement, and announcements go out after we have checked.

This build: Reserve reserve

Set the variable to On Pacific UTC
tease Tease Tue, Oct 6 09:00 PT 16:00 UTC
waitlist Waitlist Tue, Oct 20 09:00 PT 16:00 UTC
reserve Reserve Tue, Nov 10 09:00 PT 17:00 UTC
launch Launch day Tue, Dec 1 09:00 PT 17:00 UTC
live Live Fri, Dec 4 09:00 PT 17:00 UTC

  1. Rehearse the day before

    Open any page with ?phase=<next> and walk the header, the announcement bar, the landing page and /shop/. Then build it for real.

    export PUBLIC_LAUNCH_PHASE=<next>
npm run check && npm run build && npm run test

  2. Freeze main two hours before

    No merges until the flip is verified. The deploy that flips the phase should contain nothing else.

  3. Set the repository variable

    At flip time minus 15 minutes, set LAUNCH_PHASE; the deploy workflow hands it to the build as PUBLIC_LAUNCH_PHASE. Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → Variables, or from a terminal:

    gh variable set LAUNCH_PHASE --body <next>

  4. Redeploy

    The variable only takes effect on the next build. Run the Pages workflow by hand; a build takes about two minutes.

    gh workflow run deploy.yml --ref main && gh run watch

  5. Verify from outside

    A private window (no ?phase= in sessionStorage), then the HTML itself:

    curl -s https://alexmorrison12.github.io/detent/ | grep -o 'data-phase="[a-z]*"'

  6. Then announce

    The email, the Discord post and the social posts go out after verification, never before.

  7. Roll back if needed

    Set the variable back and run the workflow again. Nothing else changes, so rollback is the same two commands.

The long version.

Your cart

    Nothing in here yet.

    A Detent takes about a minute to configure. Turning the dial is the fun part.

    Build yours