Still open
- OpenThe measurement half is not wired yet. firstfoot writes and refuses, but results do not reach next week's writer. This is the next thing we fix.
- OpenThere is no privacy policy, and the waitlist collects email addresses. It is being written.
- OpenThe rate limiter on the waitlist endpoint is per-instance and keyed on a header a caller can rotate. A durable one is planned.
Shipped
19 September 2026
Removed 45 links that went nowhere
The site had 46 links and 45 of them were anchors to the same page. A Channels column of six links to one section, a Sign in button for an account that does not exist, a Source link to a private repository, and Privacy and Terms pointing at the top of the page while the form collected email addresses.
All of it is gone. What replaced it is a test: the build now fails if any link resolves to nothing. It was verified by deliberately breaking a link and watching the build go red.
19 September 2026
The site has tests now
Twenty-four of them. Layout at five widths, every waitlist state, accessibility, and WCAG contrast computed with proper alpha compositing. The contrast sweep immediately found four real failures nobody had checked — the rail navigation was at 2.43:1 against a required 4.5.
Everything had been verified by hand before this and none of it was reproducible. Now it runs on every change.
19 September 2026
Field notes published
The two research documents behind most of the copy on this site are now readable in full rather than quoted. One is what founders say about why marketing fails; the other is what channel data actually costs after Reddit closed its free tier.
18 September 2026
Rebuilt around channels rather than posts
firstfoot used to write social posts. It now decides where a founder should show up, earns them standing there, and reads what the numbers meant — writing is the by-product.
The reasoning is in the field notes: content generation is the commodity, and in 2026 it is a liability. The unserved problem is knowing where, and knowing why a week went quiet.
August 2026
First client, twelve weeks
Share rate held at 3.5% against a 0.5–1% norm. Saves never moved, and we still do not know why.
August 2026
The critic
Four tests per draft. It killed roughly a third of everything written, which turned out to be the point rather than a problem.