Your private biographerFounding Families

The first chapter

Join the families helping shape Joan’s first chapter.

Joan is early. The families who start now get the first conversations, the lowest rate we will ever offer, and a direct hand in what Joan becomes.

Join Founding FamiliesSee how Joan works →

What it includes

What the founding experience includes today.

Written in the present tense on purpose. Everything below exists now. Everything we intend to build later is in the second column, so you can tell the difference without asking.

Included today

What you get now

  • One conversation with Joan, free, with no card. You choose the day and time, and Joan calls the storyteller by phone.
  • The finished story from that conversation, shaped in the storyteller’s own words and sent back for approval.
  • The original recording, kept alongside the story so the writing can always be checked against the telling.
  • A private archive that holds both, which only the people you invite can see.
  • A founding rate, locked for as long as you stay.
  • A direct line to the people building Joan, and a real say in what gets built next.
Not yet

What is still ahead

  • Printed keepsakes. A paperback becomes available once there are enough approved stories to fill one, and it is bought separately.
  • Audio editions. Planned, and built from the original recordings rather than a synthetic voice.
  • Anything that generates new speech in a storyteller’s voice. Not built. If it ever is, it will require its own explicit, separate permission.
  • Published prices. Founding rates are set when membership opens, and yours is locked before list prices rise.

Your rate

Your rate, locked.

Founding Families keep the rate they start on for as long as they stay, even as published prices rise. That is the whole offer. There is no application to write and no place to be turned down from.

We used to put a number on this cohort. We took it off, because the number kept changing as our capacity changed, and a count is a worse promise than a locked rate. We admit families in small groups so that every early conversation gets real attention — but how small is our problem to manage, not a countdown for you to race.

What we ask

What we ask of founding families.

Three things, and only the first is a requirement.

  1. 01

    Permission to record

    Joan records conversations because the recording is what keeps a story honest. The storyteller gives that permission themselves, in their own words, and can withdraw it later. Recording consent covers recording and nothing else.

  2. 02

    Candid reactions

    Tell us when a question landed badly, when a story missed the point, when Joan sounded like a machine. Founding families are not a discount tier. The feedback is the reason the rate is locked.

  3. 03

    Patience with the rough edges

    Some things will be manual at first, and some will be slower than they should be. What will not be rough is who controls the material: approval and privacy work from the first call.

Founding Families

Leave your details and we’ll write when a place opens.

No card, and nothing to install. We will ask who the story is for, because the person who buys Joan and the person who talks to Joan are usually not the same, and the difference changes how we start.

Join to hear when Joan begins inviting Founding Families. You can unsubscribe at any time.

If a brother or sister should see this first, send them this page.

Read what Joan promises before you decide, or ask us something first.