26 KiB
title, type, status, owner, launch-target, last-updated
| title | type | status | owner | launch-target | last-updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AIBook.fun — Product Requirements Document | prd | draft | Patrick (Product) | 2026-09-26 | 2026-08-31 |
📚 AIBook.fun — Product Requirements Document
Status: DRAFT. Dollar figures, dates past today, and commercial terms in this document are planning assumptions, not commitments. Nothing here should be quoted to backers or the public until the specific line is signed off (see §10 Open decisions). This revision rewrites the prior draft for plain language and folds in a product review — see Appendix D for what moved and why.
TL;DR
AIBook.fun is a crowd-written, practical field guide to using AI agents responsibly at work — sold as an annual subscription, launched on Kickstarter on September 26, 2026. Its unit of content is not a chapter but a workflow you can actually run: a documented, tested recipe for getting a real job done with AI, complete with the guardrails.
The one thing that must work on day one: a reader opens a workflow, runs it in ~15 minutes, and shares the result with other readers. Everything else — the contributor economy, the cohort program, the agent-onboarding use case — is a layer we build on top of that loop after we've proven the loop works.
- Who it's for: busy professionals (real-estate, financial advisors, fractional executives, higher-ed, community leaders, technologists) who want to apply an AI workflow this week, not read AI theory.
- The ask: fund the first edition on Kickstarter — $5K minimum / $35K target.
- The bet: if the "run a workflow and share it" loop is genuinely useful, the same people who read become the people who contribute — and the book stays alive.
1. The core loop and the one metric
Everything in this product either serves this loop or waits its turn:
READ a workflow → RUN the Try-it (~15 min) → SHARE the result
▲ │
└────────── see others' results, come back ──────┘
North-Star metric — Activation: a backer reads at least one workflow and completes at least one Try-it within 14 days of getting access.
If activation is healthy, the product is alive and the rest (renewal, contribution, community) becomes possible. If activation is weak, no amount of funding, community scaffolding, or governance saves it. We report activation first, above the fundraising numbers, from the first day backers have access.
2. Background & problem
The problem: Professionals are drowning in AI hype and have nowhere practical, trustworthy, and current to learn how to actually use AI agents in their real work — safely. Books go stale in months. Courses are generic. Twitter threads aren't accountable. And nobody's guide is written by, and kept current by, the practitioners doing the work.
Why us, why now: WeOwnNet needs a shared, practical AI-literacy base for the people (and, later, the AI agents) it works with. A living book of tested workflows — contributed by practitioners, curated for quality — is that base. The Kickstarter both funds the first edition and assembles the founding community.
What makes it different (the claim we have to earn): every workflow is grounded in practice — it shows the real steps and the real tool output, not a plausible-sounding description. "It works" is not a claim we make; it's something the reader can verify by running the Try-it themselves.
3. What the product is — and what it is not yet
The prior draft treated five different products as one launch. They are not one product. Here is the honest layering:
| Layer | What it is | When |
|---|---|---|
| Core (v1 — launch) | A subscription book of tested AI workflows + the read→run→share loop | 9/26 launch |
| Layer 2 (post-launch) | Community contribution — readers submit their own workflows | After core loop proven |
| Layer 3 (post-launch) | Cohort learning — "Book Circles," Workflow-of-the-Week showcase | After first content proves demand |
| Layer 4 (later) | Agent onboarding — the same content, read by AI agents to onboard | Deliberate future use of the format |
| Layer 5 (later) | Funnel into the wider WeOwnNet ecosystem (AgencyPRO) | Ongoing, low-effort |
This matters because each layer has a different success metric and a different failure mode. Trying to build all five for 9/26 is how a small team ships none of them well. v1 is the core loop, done excellently. The other layers are designed-for but not built-for launch.
Explicit non-goals
- Not a general-purpose AI chatbot or tool. It's a learning product.
- Not regulated professional advice on the book's own authority.
- No crypto / token / Web3 / NFT language on any public or Kickstarter-facing surface. (This is a hard Kickstarter-policy constraint — see Appendix A.)
- Not building a separate "eBookNFT platform" — that's a future idea; this book is the first product.
4. Who it's for
Personas are written as jobs-to-be-done. Note the buyer's job is utility ("help me do a thing this week"), which is how we should lead the pitch — ownership and community come later, as reasons to stay, not reasons to buy.
| Persona | The job they're hiring us for | We've succeeded when… |
|---|---|---|
| Reader / subscriber | "Apply one documented AI workflow in my real job this week." | They complete a Try-it within 14 days of getting access. |
| Contributor (Layer 2) | "Publish a workflow I've proven, earn recognition (and, if we build it, income)." | Their first workflow is accepted within 90 days. |
| Curator / co-author | "Keep the quality bar high; own a vertical." | Reviews turned around within ~10 working days. |
| Affiliate | "Refer backers, earn commission." | First payout lands within one cycle of a referred pledge. |
| Ecosystem prospect | "Learn responsible AI; maybe get more involved." | ≥40% of backers join the community (draft target). |
| AI agent (Layer 4) | "Onboard by reading the corpus." | Designed-for, not a launch requirement — see §6.4. |
Who it's not for: people who want AI theory with no practice behind it; anyone seeking regulated professional advice from the book itself; teams wanting private hosted infrastructure (out of scope).
5. The content model — where the real risk is
5.1 The unit of content: a Workflow Recipe
Every entry follows one template. This template is the product's quality guarantee — it's the structural answer to "how do I know this AI advice isn't hallucinated?"
| Field | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Problem (the job) | The real task or pain this solves |
| Actors | Who runs it — a person, a role, or an AI agent |
| Method | Ordered, reproducible steps — showing the actual tool output, not a description of it |
| Safeguards | The responsible-AI guardrails: data handling, human oversight, failure modes, escalation |
| Evidence | The documented result — artifacts or metrics |
| Try-it | A ~15-minute exercise so the reader learns by doing |
| Costs | Model/tool costs where known — honesty about the economics |
| Author & sources | Who wrote it, when, for which vertical, with citations |
Chapters are substantial essays, one per vertical (Real Estate · Financial Advisors · Fractional C-Suite · Higher Ed · Communities · Technology), with full Workflow Recipes nested in the argument. See §5.4. Editions refresh annually — which is the honest justification for a subscription rather than a one-time purchase: the content genuinely goes stale as AI changes.
5.2 The cold-start problem (this is the #1 product risk)
The value proposition is "a rich living library." At launch, the prior plan has us with 2 sample chapters and 3 runnable kits — a pamphlet, not a library — and a hope that the crowd fills the rest. Crowd-sourced libraries reliably die at cold-start. We must not bet the launch on strangers showing up to write content for free.
Requirement — "Minimum Lovable Library": before we ask anyone to pay, the founding co-authors and team produce a floor of 15–20 fully-tested workflows across at least 3 verticals (recommended number — team to ratify). This is a launch gate, not a post-launch aspiration. Community contribution is Layer 2 — an experiment we run after we've seeded a library worth subscribing to.
5.3 Be honest: v1 is an authored book, not yet a crowd book
The prior draft's "contributor economy" pays co-authors 15% affiliate commission, which is a reward for referring backers, not for writing workflows.
Signed 2026-08-31 (D-2): founding writers are paid on contract. v1 is an authored book. Affiliate referral can still pay for referring backers. It is not how writing is paid. Open contribution with royalties or bounties waits for Layer 2.
So we state plainly: the first edition is written by a founding set of co-authors and the team. Layer 2 is the next thing we build, after the library is worth subscribing to.
5.4 The reading surface (locked 2026-08-31)
People read chapters, not a shelf of detached cards. A chapter is a substantial essay for one vertical: it argues a way of working, then nests full workflows inside that argument as the proof.
This is a deliberate break from treating the workflow as the only page. The workflow is still the unit of practice (and of activation). The chapter is the unit of reading.
Chapter page
- Title, vertical, edition, authors
- Opening promise (what this chapter is for) plus a Skip to a Try-it control — activation must not require finishing the essay
- Essay body: sections that teach the practice (stakes, constraints, how we work here)
- Nested Workflow blocks at the points in the argument they earn — not bunched in an appendix
- End matter: further workflows in this vertical, sources, last updated
Nested workflow block (the recipe, in full — not a teaser)
- Chrome: recipe ID, version, time, cost
- Title as the job
- Problem
- Actors
- Setup (tools, sample files, cost)
- Safeguards before the steps so data-handling is read before anyone pastes a client list
- Method, with real tool output in the steps
- Evidence
- Try-it (~15 min, sample data, mark complete — fires Activation)
- Share result (community template; events, not content)
- Author, sources, last updated
Addressability
- Every workflow has a stable ID (e.g.
RE-01) and a URL that opens the chapter scrolled to that block (and a focused/print view of the same block). Campaign samples, clone-and-run kits, and Workflow-of-the-Week link here — never to an essay with no way in. - PDF matches this stack: chapter essay + in-place recipes. Print and web must not drift.
Non-goals for the reader
- No chatbot on the chapter page
- No crypto/Web3 language
- Nested recipes are not collapsed “click to reveal” cards that hide the Method
Writing drafts live in workflows/chapter-structure.md.
Copy that blank into a vertical file (workflows/real-estate.md, etc.) when a chapter is assigned.
6. Requirements
Priorities: 🔴 must-have for 9/26 · 🟡 should-have (launch window) · 🟢 post-launch. Requirements are grouped by the layer they serve; most 🔴 items serve the core loop.
6.1 Campaign (Kickstarter) — 🔴
| ID | Requirement | Pri |
|---|---|---|
| C-1 | Kickstarter page: hero video (2–3 min), problem, the book, co-authors, 6 pledge tiers ($10→$4,888), stretch goals, FAQ (≥10), risks — passes the NFT-language scrub and Kickstarter category rules | 🔴 |
| C-2 | Pre-launch landing page on aibook.fun with email capture + a 3-email warm-up sequence. Target: 500+ emails before Day 1. | 🔴 |
| C-3 | Affiliate program live (Kickbooster): co-author 15% / community 10% / podcast 10% / press 5%; 30-day cookie, last-click | 🔴 |
| C-4 | Launch playbook: Day-1 hour-by-hour schedule, weekly cadence, mid-campaign tactics, final-48h push | 🔴 |
| C-5 | Campaign analytics dashboard: raised, backers, avg pledge, email list, cost-per-click, affiliate share — reviewed daily | 🔴 |
| C-6 | Post-campaign comms staged before launch: final update, backer sequence, fulfillment announcement | 🟡 |
6.2 Content (the core loop) — 🔴
| ID | Requirement | Pri |
|---|---|---|
| K-1 | Workflow Recipe template (§5.1), published, with 3 filled, reviewed examples | 🔴 |
| K-2 | Minimum Lovable Library: 15–20 tested workflows, ≥3 verticals (§5.2) — team/co-author authored | 🔴 |
| K-3 | Chapter outline per vertical, with a named owner for each | 🔴 |
| K-4 | 2 sample chapters delivered pre-launch as the backer preview | 🔴 |
| K-5 | 3 "clone-and-run" kits, each verified by actually running it | 🔴 |
| K-6 | Editorial pipeline: submit → co-author review → accept/revise → publish → track updates | 🔴 |
| K-7 | Content stored in a structured, versioned, machine-readable format (frontmatter + provenance + trust tiers) so editions are diffable and, later, agent-readable | 🟡 |
6.3 Access & subscription — 🔴 / 🟢
| ID | Requirement | Pri |
|---|---|---|
| A-1 | Post-campaign access: a digital key unlocks PDF + web reader for 12 months, renews annually | 🟢 |
| A-2 | Anchor price $47/yr (signed 2026-08-31) + hardcopy at-cost upcharge. No lifetime SKU as an equal product. | 🔴 |
| A-3 | Lifetime tier — not offered as a v1 SKU (D-1 signed 2026-08-31: $47/yr only). Revisit only as a capped early-bird later, not as an equal product. | 🟢 |
| A-4 | Fulfillment ledger: backer ↔ key/upcharge tracked (a spreadsheet is fine for v1) | 🟢 |
6.4 The other layers — mostly 🟡 / 🟢
| ID | Requirement | Pri |
|---|---|---|
| L-1 | (Layer 3) Try-it feedback loop: readers post results in the community channel (pinned template) | 🔴 |
| L-2 | (Layer 3) "Book Circles" — 6-week cohort format + facilitator playbook; 1 pilot cohort post-launch | 🟡 |
| L-3 | (Layer 3) Workflow-of-the-Week showcase (site + community + email) | 🟡 |
| L-4 | (Layer 2) Public contribution intake + curation checklist — opens after the Minimum Lovable Library exists | 🟡 |
| L-5 | (Layer 4) Agent-onboarding: the same content, structured for machine ingestion — a property of the K-7 format, not a separate build for launch (see decision in D-5) | 🟢 |
| L-6 | (Layer 5) Ecosystem funnel: backers flow into the wider WeOwnNet programs | 🟢 |
6.5 Site, email, ops — 🔴
| ID | Requirement | Pri |
|---|---|---|
| S-1 | aibook.fun production landing (hero, the book, a sample workflow, tiers, affiliate, CTA, FAQ) | 🔴 |
| S-2 | Working HTTPS (current cert fails — verified 08-21); keep existing analytics continuity | 🔴 |
| S-3 | Email/CRM tags for the funnel: prelaunch, backed, subscriber, affiliate |
🔴 |
| S-4 | 8-email campaign sequence (3 pre-launch, 1 launch, 2 mid, 2 final), dates aligned to 9/26, NFT-scrubbed | 🔴 |
| S-5 | Instrument events, not content — track that a workflow was downloaded/submitted, never the confidential content itself (see Appendix B) | 🔴 |
7. Non-functional requirements
| ID | Requirement |
|---|---|
| NFR-1 | Truth in status: no draft/unconfirmed figure appears in any external asset. Hard gate before publish. |
| NFR-2 | Kickstarter compliance: zero crypto/Web3/NFT terms on any campaign surface (Appendix A). |
| NFR-3 | Privacy: no confidential client data in any workflow or campaign asset; track events, not content. |
| NFR-4 | Availability: landing page up through the campaign; emails on schedule; affiliate tracking live from Day 1 (the 30-day cookie means every hour of Day 1 counts). |
| NFR-5 | Content quality: every workflow passes the Recipe template + at least one co-author review. |
| NFR-6 | Domain continuity: aibook.fun must not lapse (renewed 2026-08-31). |
| NFR-7 | Accessibility: reader and landing page are mobile-readable, targeting WCAG AA. |
| NFR-8 | Cost discipline: pre-revenue burn stays within the ~$6K budget (Appendix C). |
8. Success metrics
Product health first, fundraising second. The prior draft led with fundraising vanity metrics; those measure the campaign, not the product. A funded campaign can still hide a dead product if nobody activates, renews, or contributes.
Product health (report these first)
Ratified 2026-08-29 (Product). These are the numbers we run. Do not quote the 60% renewal target on Kickstarter or any public surface.
| Metric | Floor | Target | Clock / notes | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Activation — read 1 workflow + finish 1 Try-it | 20% | 35% | 14 days from access-key date, not pledge date. North-Star. | Is the core loop actually useful? |
| Contributor waitlist during the campaign | 50 | 100 | People who say they will contribute a workflow. Not written recipes. | Early Layer-2 signal without betting launch on cold-start writing |
| Workflow submissions | 10 | 25 | First 90 days after keys go out | Is paid/open contribution real once the library exists? |
| Renewal rate — year-1 paid cohort | 40% | 60% | Exclude lifetime SKUs from the denominator. 60% is internal. | Is a subscription the right model at all? |
| Curation turnaround ≤ 10 working days | 80% | 95% | Ops SLA after Layer 2 is on — not a launch health bar | Can we keep quality without becoming the bottleneck? |
Leading indicator before fulfillment: % of the pre-launch list who run the sample Try-it.
Campaign performance (the fundraise)
| Metric | Min | Target | Stretch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total raised | $5,000 | $35,000 | $54,000+ |
| Total backers | 300 | 700 | 1,000+ |
| Pre-launch email list | 500 | 1,000 | 2,000+ |
| Days to fund | 7 | 3 | 1 |
| Ad return on spend | 3:1 | 5:1 | 10:1 |
| Affiliate share of total | — | ≥20% | 35% |
| Backers → ecosystem pipeline | 50 | 150 | 300+ |
⚠️ Two bars, not one. Hitting the $5K funding floor (~106 backers) proves people will pre-order. It does not prove they'll renew or contribute — the two things this business actually depends on. Treat the product-health floors above as a separate, equally-weighted validation bar. "Funded" is not "validated."
All draft targets must be ratified before being quoted anywhere.
9. Immediate next steps
This week — decisions and de-risking (before any copy or build locks):
Renew aibook.funDone. Domain renewed (confirmed 2026-08-31). Launch remains 09-26.Resolve the pricing spine (D-1 / D-2)Done 2026-08-31. Anchor is $47/yr. No lifetime SKU as an equal product. Founding writers are engaged on contract — v1 is an authored book; open royalties are not the v1 mechanic. Copy freeze is unblocked on price.Ratify the North-Star + the product-health floorsDone 2026-08-29. Locked in §8: activation 20/35 from access date; campaign waitlist 50/100; post-key submissions 10/25 in 90 days; renewal 40/60 excluding lifetime; curation SLA not a launch bar.- Ratify the Minimum Lovable Library number and assign every workflow an author (§5.2).
- Confirm the two unconfirmed co-authors (Higher Ed, Communities) or re-scope those verticals out of v1.
Build phase (weeks to launch): 6. Landing page ships as a hook A/B test ("run this AI workflow today" vs. "own a community-built AI guide") — we should learn which message converts before we spend ad budget, not just capture emails. 7. Author the Minimum Lovable Library to its floor number. 8. Standard campaign build — hero video, email sequence, Kickstarter page — after 1–5. 9. Keep two governance gates sharp and drop the ceremony from the rest (Appendix B): the NFT-language scrub (existential — Kickstarter will reject us otherwise) and truth-in-claims (no draft figures go public).
Launch → fulfillment: run the campaign, then fulfill (manuscript → edit → layout → proof → issue access keys → print/ship hardcopies), then turn on the renewal system and open Layer 2 contribution. Detailed timeline lives in the Implementation Plan.
10. Open decisions
These are the genuinely open strategic decisions. Each carries a recommendation so the decision-maker has a starting point — but the recommendation is not yet a decision.
| # | Decision | Recommendation | Blocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| D-1 | Locked. Don't quote a lifetime price. Hardcopy remains an at-cost upcharge. | — | |
| D-2 | Locked for v1. Revisit royalties before opening Layer 2. | — | |
| D-3 | Co-author confirmations (Higher Ed, Communities verticals). | Confirm within the week or cut those verticals from v1 and add post-launch. | Chapter outline, scope |
| D-4 | Refresh the source-of-truth plan to the 9/26 dates and re-signed terms (depends on D-1/D-2). | Do after D-1/D-2 land. | Copy freeze |
| D-5 | Human-first or agent-first for v1? Writing for human motivation and for machine ingestion are different jobs. | Human-first. Build the content format so agents can read it later (K-7), but optimize v1 for human learners. Agent onboarding is Layer 4. | Content design |
| D-6 | Does "you own a stake" survive the NFT-scrub as a true claim? If the ownership model was fundamentally token mechanics, stripping them for Kickstarter may leave "ownership" as marketing over an ordinary subscription. | Audit the claim. Either define what ownership concretely means without tokens (governance rights? revenue share? credited authorship?) or stop using the word publicly. Add it to the claims register. | Public messaging integrity |
Resolved and removed from this list: the domain "decision" — it's a chore (renew it, §9), not a strategic gate.
Appendix A — Kickstarter compliance (the NFT scrub)
Kickstarter bans NFT/crypto/Web3 language. Any internal terms rooted in that model must be translated on every public surface before submission, e.g. an internal "subscription NFT" becomes, publicly, an "annual digital subscription." A single scrub gate reviews every asset (page, emails, landing, video captions) against a translation table before anything ships. This is the single most existential compliance requirement — a rejection here kills the launch date.
Appendix B — Trust & privacy posture
Kept deliberately lightweight for this stage; two rules are load-bearing, the rest is proportionate:
- Confidential material never appears in public content. Workflows are illustrative and use non-confidential examples.
- Instrument events, not content. We record that a workflow was downloaded or submitted — never the private content of what a user did.
- Honest data-handling language. Describe what's actually true ("your documents stay on your instance"); never claim a security property we haven't verified is switched on.
- Heavier governance ceremony (formal sign-off registers, isolation-floor audits, corpus conformance) scales up with the product — it doesn't precede a pre-revenue, unvalidated launch.
Appendix C — Budget
Pre-revenue, ~$6K, matching the source plan:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| LinkedIn ads (campaign wks 2–4) | $1,300 |
| Meta ads | $700 |
| Google ads | $280 |
| Cover / video edit | $0–500 |
| Kickstarter fees (~8% on $35K) | ~$2,800 |
| Kickbooster (10% on referred pledges) | ~$700 |
| Domain renewal | ~$15–20 |
| Pre-revenue total | ~$6,000 |
| Projected revenue | $35,000–$54,000 |
Appendix D — What changed in this revision
This revision is a plain-language rewrite with a product review folded in. Substantive changes from the prior draft, and the reasoning:
- Named one core loop + one North-Star (read→run→share; activation). The prior draft marked ~half of 40 requirements "must-have" — no real prioritization.
- Layered the product (§3) so v1 = the core loop; contribution, cohorts, agents, and the funnel are explicitly later layers.
- Elevated the content cold-start to the #1 risk and added the Minimum Lovable Library launch gate (§5.2).
- Told the truth about incentives (§5.3). D-2 signed 2026-08-31: founding writers on contract; v1 authored; royalties wait for Layer 2. Affiliate still pays referrals, not writing.
- Forced the subscription-vs-lifetime tension into a real decision. D-1 signed 2026-08-31: $47/yr only. No lifetime SKU as an equal v1 product.
- Split the validation bar from the funding floor (§8) so a funded-but-dead outcome can't hide.
- Reframed the pitch as utility-first (§4, §9 hook test) — the buyer wants a workflow, not an ownership philosophy.
- Demoted governance to proportionate (Appendix B), keeping only the NFT-scrub and truth-in-claims as active gates.
- Turned the domain into a same-day chore (§9). Done 2026-08-31:
aibook.funrenewed. - Translated the jargon out. Internal codes, handles, and merge-history are gone from the body; a who's-who / glossary can be maintained separately if the team wants traceability back to the source-of-truth IDs.
(A field-by-field mapping from the old FR-x IDs to these can be produced on request.)