Deck outline

1. Title

"AI-native workspace for creative teams to go from brief to pitch-ready concepts faster, without losing taste or context." Pitching is existential and expensive (up to £200k per pitch). The opportunity is to reduce fragility at the earliest stage while keeping creative judgement central.

2. The core problem

Context fragmentation in early creative work. Brief constraints split across docs, chats, boards, links and assets. References scattered; decisions and rationale lost; handoffs degrade quality. Tool proficiency and switching breaks flow. The problem is not "generate content" — it is "hold the thread" from vague seed to presentable concept.

3. Worldview

Taste is scarce; AI is leverage. Human judgement selects and shapes ("all that's left is taste"). The product must be anti-slop by design: humans stay in control. Position FC as a taste amplifier, not a replacement.

4. The wedge: pitch and concepting

Highest urgency and measurable ROI (speed, iteration count, win-rate proxies). High spend and fragile process; fastest willingness-to-pay. Success metric: time-to-first pitch-ready export.

5. What FC is

Creative Context OS for the pitch phase. Not another chatbot and not another whiteboard. A project spine (brief to constraints to refs to decisions to artefacts to exports) plus across-tool capture via browser extension. Structured under the hood, freedom on the surface.

6. The core loop (5 steps)

1. Brief ingestion — constraints, audience, mandatories
2. Direction generation — multiple territories and routes
3. Reference loop — suggest, save, analyse, improve
4. Decision capture — what we chose and why; approvals
5. Export bundle — deck outline, boards, script/frames plus provenance

7. Governance as superpower

"Receipts" built in: prompts, models and assets captured; audit export. Turns AI from risky and opaque to client-usable. Enables model restrictions per client or project. Frame as provenance and trust, not compliance theatre.

8. Strategic fork

Pitch OS (recommended): win the pitch-phase workflow, become canonical project spine, seed memory early, governance capture from day one.

Pitch Packaging Engine (contrarian): wedge is persuasion throughput — routes to rationale to client-ready deck, fast. Deprioritise ledger early, sell per pitch pack.

The fork: is the wedge "don't lose context" or "ship a winning deck fast"?

9. Target customer and GTM

Primary: independent, pitch-heavy agencies. Secondary: larger agencies and brands when governance pull is strong. Alternative: mid-tier agencies, in-house teams and pitch operators. Motion: founder-led pilots to case studies to land-and-expand.

10. Pricing

Current: £50 per seat per month. Recommended hybrid: seats for procurement simplicity, included AI credits plus clear overage, Pitch Packs as a project-based offer, enterprise tier for governance (SSO/SCIM, audit exports, model controls). Keep simplicity externally; track AI cost per project internally.

11. Roadmap (two-speed)

Lane A (12 weeks): Pilot Win Loop — onboarding, reliability, collaboration, export bundles, baseline governance.

Lane B (12+ weeks): Memory and Governance Moat — creative memory v1, mismatch warnings, audit exports, model restrictions.

This prevents the common failure: shipping-only (no moat) or moat-only (no revenue).

12. Team system

Momentum (Conor) x meaning (Polina) x reality (Marin). Rituals: 4-6 weekly Alignment Sprint, weekly Decision Ledger, weekly Complexity Reveal, Flow Protection Protocol. The main scaling risk is imbalance, not conflict.

Executive summary

What First Concepts is

An AI-native workspace for creative teams focused on the earliest, most fragile part of the workflow: pitch and concept development, where context fragmentation and tool-switching destroy flow and dilute ideas. The promise is not "more AI output" — it is speed with taste intact. Humans keep judgement and point-of-view; the system keeps the thread.

Why now

Pitching is high urgency and high spend (up to £200k per pitch). That makes a credible ROI story possible quickly: time-to-first pitch-ready concept, number of viable routes explored, reduced rework. It is also where teams most need a single source of truth: brief constraints, references, decisions, artefacts and provenance.

Differentiation

A creative context engine and memory layer that persists across project, user and agency, paired with governance and audit (prompts, models and assets captured, exportable receipts). The design challenge is the core paradox: playground feel with structured backend.

Strategy

• Recommended: Pitch OS — own the project spine, integrate commodity generation, become the canonical workspace from brief to pitch-ready
• Contrarian: Pitch Packaging Engine — assume the binding constraint is persuasion throughput; focus on routes, rationale and deck outputs; sell per pitch pack

Commercial model

£50 per seat per month as pilot list price, moving toward hybrid (seats plus usage credits plus overages). Add Pitch Packs for project-based budgets and an enterprise tier for governance when pulled by procurement.

Operating model

Two-speed plan: a 12-week Pilot Win Loop (onboarding, reliability, collaboration, exports, baseline governance) plus a strategic lane (memory and audit moat). Protect the founder system with lightweight alignment and load-balancing rituals.

Decisions to make

1. Pick the wedge hypothesis: Pitch OS (context spine) vs Pitch Packaging Engine (persuasion throughput)
2. Define the minimum viable pitch loop: 3-5 steps, mandatory objects, what counts as "pitch-ready export"
3. Choose one primary target customer for the next sprint: indie top-tier agencies vs mid-tier/in-house/pitch operators
4. Packaging decision: pilot offer = seats + included credits + optional pitch pack

2-week execution plan

• Draft a Pitch Loop Spec (one page): inputs, steps, outputs, success metrics
• Instrument funnel steps: brief ingested, first route, first ref saved, decision note, export
• Ship the export bundle MVP: deck outline, speaker notes, reference board, provenance summary
• Create 2-3 persona one-pagers: Creative lead (taste and flow), New biz (more shots on goal), Ops/risk (audit receipts)

Checkpoints

Week 4: wedge validation

Evidence needed: repeated use on real pitches (not demos), improving time-to-first-export, strong qualitative response from creatives and new business leads.

Kill signals: outputs feel generic, require too much manual editing, teams refuse to start in FC.

Week 6: commercial fit

Evidence needed: at least one pilot converting with chosen packaging, AI cost per project understood well enough to price credits.

Week 12: Pilot Win Loop proven

Evidence needed: pilot-to-paid conversion (or LOIs), early seat expansion within at least one agency, audit capture baseline working.