What a validation is, what the score means, and what happens to your money and your data. If your question isn’t here, the last section is a real person.
How a validation works
A validation is bought per business, once. It costs $7.99 USD and it does not renew — there is no subscription to cancel and nothing recurring attached to it. Three businesses means three validations.
You name the business, and Nathan takes the brief. He asks ten questions and writes your answers down as you give them; he is not scoring you and he does not improve your answers. When he has the picture straight he reads it back and asks whether that is what you want evaluated. Nothing goes further until you say yes.
The Council then convenes in the same thread. Five operators pressure-test the brief, and you are in the room — they ask you things, and what you say moves the result. It ends with a verdict, a score out of 100, five sub-scores, and the specific conditions attached to it. That verdict is filed as a Briefing in the business’s record, and it is yours to keep. The thread becomes read-only afterwards, because a filed verdict is a record of what was decided rather than a document that keeps changing.
What the Council is
Five operators with different jobs, convened for your business specifically. They are not a panel of yes-men and the score goes down as often as up — a number that only ever rises is not a score, it is flattery with a decimal point. If the honest answer is that the idea does not stand up, that is the answer you get, and you keep the reasoning either way.
What each verdict means
Every validation ends in one of four verdicts. The score in brackets is the range each one usually lands in.
- Validates strongly (80–100) — The idea holds up under pressure. The Council found no gap serious enough to stop you, and says so plainly.
- Validates with conditions (60–79) — The idea holds, and specific things have to be true for it to keep holding. The conditions are the work, and they are listed in your verdict.
- Does not validate — addressable (30–59) — Something important does not stand up yet, and it is the kind of problem that can be worked through. The verdict names what would have to change.
- Does not validate — structural (1–29) — The problem is in the shape of the idea rather than in its execution. Reworking the plan will not reach it; the premise itself is what the Council could not get past.
The bands are where each verdict usually falls, not a formula. The Council chooses the verdict that fits what the session actually surfaced, so a score near a boundary can carry either label. The one rule that does not bend: a score of 29 or below always carries a does-not-validate verdict.
Refunds
A Path A validation is refundable until you send your first message in the validation chat. You can pay, open the chat, read Nathan’s greeting and see who you are about to work with, and still ask for your money back.
That is the short version. The Refund Policy is the full statement and the one that governs — it covers subscriptions, tier changes, failed payments, and how to ask.
Your data
You can export everything at any time from your account settings: your account details, and for each business the brief you gave the team, the verdict if one has been filed, any Briefings, and the full transcript of every session. It downloads as readable pages you can save or print, with the same content as structured data alongside them.
You can also delete your account yourself, at any time, from the same place — there is no request to make and nothing to wait for. Deletion is permanent. The Privacy Policy sets out exactly what is removed, what two operational records are kept, and for how long.
The four advisors
Elijah, Sarah, Michael and Daniel are the ongoing team — one thread each, across every business you bring. They are not available yet. A validation is complete on its own and was never a trial of anything; when the advisors open, they will read your verdict before they sit down.
Still stuck?
Write to us through the Contact page. If it is about a charge, include the email address on the account and the date of the charge, and we will come back within two business days.