The Founding 20 Agreement

1. What this is

This agreement covers Sauron's founding beta cohort ("the Founding 20"). It applies once we have accepted your store into the cohort and you have started a subscription on the founding plan. It sits alongside our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and section 18 of those Terms incorporates this page. Where this page and section 18 differ on a detail of the beta, this page governs.

2. What we give you

• Growth capabilities at $19/mo. Every limit on the $99/mo plan, at the founding rate.
• The rate is held. It does not expire, and it does not rise when the App Store listing goes live and standard prices change. It lasts for as long as your subscription stays continuously active on the founding plan.
• Direct access to the founder for the length of the cohort, rather than a support queue. If you want a call, ask and you'll get one.
• Onboarding that runs itself. The app reads your storefront, scans your catalog, works out what your shoppers search for, finds the collections you're missing, writes the copy and plans the blog, without you being walked through it. If any of that needs a call to make sense, that's a bug in the product and we'd rather hear about it than paper over it.
• Your work is yours. Collection pages, titles, descriptions and articles are written to your own Shopify account as real records. They stay if you cancel, if we end the beta, or if we fall out.

3. What you commit to

These are the things the cohort cannot function without. Each one exists because a specific thing is unmeasurable otherwise, not as an administrative hurdle.

• Connect Google Search Console within 7 days of installing. It is the only measured feedback loop either of us gets. Without it neither of us can tell whether any of this worked.
• Leave the automation ("Autopilot") switched on for the first 3 months. The app publishes weekly and search engines respond slowly; a shorter window produces nothing anyone can read.
• Record your screen the first ten minutes you use the app. Any screen recorder will do, and you don't need to narrate it. We want to see where you hesitate, because that's a thing we can fix. This replaces a kickoff call on purpose: nothing to schedule for you, and better evidence for us, since people behave differently when someone is watching live.
• Tell us when something breaks, in whatever detail you feel like giving.
• One call at the end of the 3 months, around 30 minutes. That call is the testimonial in clause 4, not an extra commitment.

4. The testimonial

4.1 What we're asking for

The closing call in clause 3 is recorded, and that recording is the testimonial: around 30 minutes in which you describe your experience of using Sauron on your store. There is no separate filming session to arrange. We may also ask to quote you in writing and to name your store.

4.2 It does not have to be favourable

Your founding rate depends on giving a testimonial. It does not depend in any way on what that testimonial says. If your experience was poor, say so on camera; that discharges this commitment completely and your rate is unaffected. We are not asking you for praise, a rating, a star count, or a particular conclusion, and nothing in this agreement should be read as asking for one.

4.3 We won't push back

We will not ask you to re-record, soften, reshoot, or reconsider a testimonial because we didn't like it. We will not ask a second time hoping for a different answer.

4.4 Nothing is published without your written consent

Recording is separate from publishing. After the recording we will ask you, in writing, whether we may use it, and for which of: your name, your store's name, your likeness, the recording itself, and any written quotation. You may say no to any or all of it, and saying no does not affect your founding rate or your account. Where you consent, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use that material to market Sauron for as long as your consent stands. You may withdraw consent for future use at any time by emailing us, after which we will stop using it in new placements and remove it from pages we control within a reasonable period.

4.5 We disclose the arrangement

Wherever we publish a founding member's testimonial, we state alongside it that you are a beta tester on a discounted founding rate that was conditioned on providing a testimonial. Your discount is a material connection between us, and a reader weighing what you said is entitled to know about it.

5. Shopify App Store reviews are not part of this

We will never ask you for a Shopify App Store review, offer you anything in exchange for one, or make any part of this agreement depend on one. Shopify's own rules prohibit incentivising App Store reviews, and we intend to keep well clear of that line. If you choose to leave one, it is your own unpaid opinion, and we would rather you left it long after this agreement is finished, if you still mean it.

6. If you don't hold up your end

If you don't do the things in clause 3 (Search Console never gets connected, the automation is switched off for most of the window, or you decline to record anything at all), then the founding rate stops being appropriate, because it was priced against those things rather than against the software.

In that case:

• We will tell you first, and say which part is missing and how to put it right.
• If it isn't resolved, we will move your store from the founding plan to the standard Growth rate, with at least 30 days' notice. You can cancel instead, at any time, for nothing.
• We will not delete your work. Everything already published stays on your store either way. We will not suspend or degrade your account as a penalty.

To be explicit, because clause 4.2 matters more than this one: giving a critical testimonial is holding up your end. Only giving none at all is not.

7. If we don't hold up ours

The beta is pre-release software and some of it will not work. That is the arrangement, and it is why the price is what it is. But if we stop showing up, with no onboarding call, no replies and no fixes, you can cancel at any time from your Shopify admin, keep everything published to your store, and owe us nothing further. We will also refund your most recent month on request if we've gone quiet on you.

8. Ending the cohort

We may close the cohort to new applicants at any time. Ending the beta period does not end your founding rate: once you are on the founding plan and have met clause 3, the rate continues on the terms in clause 2 for as long as your subscription does.

9. The rest

Everything not covered here is governed by our Terms of Service, including the disclaimers in section 11, the limitation of liability in section 12, and the SEO results disclaimer in section 10. Nothing in this agreement is a promise about search rankings, traffic, or revenue, and nothing in a testimonial changes that.

10. Questions

Ask before you sign anything, not after. Email hello@sauron.so and you'll get the founder, not a form.