Demand candidates
The Exhale, Night Dose, and The Dose receive comparable traffic, price-specific signals, job-comprehension checks, and paid reservation tests.
OPERATING FILE / 001
A portfolio is not a launch plan
Make one
thing earn
the right.
Mycebo will test three non-ingestible candidates, prototype the strongest two, and pilot one winner. Every dollar after the first test is conditional.
01 / THESIS
The funnel is the factory.
Functional alphas
Only the top two earn 8–12 functional units, bench testing, moderated use, quote-backed economics, and a fourteen-day diary study.
Pilot winner
One object earns 25–50 beta units, a thirty-day field pilot, design freeze, supplier approval, and—if every gate passes—one 100–250 unit purchase order.
DEFAULT ANSWER: NO INVENTORY. A product advances only when the evidence changes the answer.
02 / 90 DAYS
Three conditional tranches.
| Window | Work | Conditional spend | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days 0–30 | Instrument demand; run 30 interviews; freeze three PRDs; screen marks and claims; issue RFQs; run comparable fake-door traffic. | $10k–$18k | Select two. Kill weak paid intent, unclear jobs, or material legal/FTO obstruction. |
| Days 31–60 | Build 8–12 alpha units for each finalist; bench test; run moderated use and a 14-day diary; shortlist suppliers; rebuild contribution models. | $10k–$18k | Select one. Require safe function, repeated use, viable quote, and paid demand. |
| Days 61–90 | Build 25–50 beta units; run a 30-day field pilot; freeze design/BOM/artwork; approve supplier and quality plan; prepare the pilot PO. | $22k–$39k | Order 100–250 only after commercial, quality, legal, and retention gates pass. |
Total authorization envelope: $42,000–$75,000, released by gate. It is not permission to spend the whole amount. Owners, due dates, artifacts, and decision fields live in the repository operating files.
03 / GATES
Admiration is not demand.
Day 30 / choose two
Score paid intent 35%; job clarity 15%; quote-backed contribution 15%; technical feasibility and safety 15%; expected repeated use 15%; claims and FTO risk 5%.
Day 60 / choose one
Require 80% uncoached task completion, fewer than 15% inferring an unsupported medical claim, 60% using the object at least three times weekly by Day 14, and at least 35–40% pre-CAC contribution.
Day 90 / release PO
Require 40% weekly use at Day 30, 40–50% “very disappointed” response, at least 20 paid signals and 2.5–3% qualified reservation conversion, zero serious safety events, and a frozen quality package.
Thresholds are operating hypotheses, not scientific facts. Qualified traffic excludes bots, internal sessions, existing testers, friends, and accidental bounces.
04 / PRIORITY
A ranking, not a prophecy.
| Current rank | Candidate | Why it may win | What can kill it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | The Exhale | Clear physical mechanism, distinctive form, strong giftability, credible $79 price. | FTO, oral-contact finish, airflow variation, cleanability, weak retained use. |
| 02 | Night Dose | Familiar job, simple supply chain, fast functional prototype, broad sleep demand. | Crowded category, weak differentiation, eye pressure, heat, bead leakage. |
| 03 | The Dose | Most ownable brand sculpture and easiest to carry into multiple rituals. | Unclear job, novelty decay, mechanism cost, pinch or small-part risk. |
Dose Zero is outside this race.
The capsule concept remains on regulatory hold. Commercial precedent is not clearance, microcrystalline cellulose is commonly used as an excipient, and the whole site may inform intended use. No ingestible prototype, payment, packaging, or purchase order is authorized without written specialist review.
05 / DATA PIPE
Measure the money and the use.
The present site records selections locally and opens a prefilled email. That is honest enough for a concept demo and too weak for a decision. Before paid traffic, install a first-party submission endpoint, bot protection, verified email, product/source/campaign/price-cell capture, and a refundable $5–$10 reservation for the non-ingestible finalists.
The north-star is not raw signups. It is paid, retained ritual users: people who pay, activate, still use the object at Day 30, would be disappointed to lose it, and generate positive contribution after payment, fulfillment, shipping subsidy, returns, warranty, and acquisition.
- Before traffic
Deploy the lead and event backend; verify the mailbox and domain; update privacy disclosures; exclude internal and bot traffic.
- Before alphas
Version PRDs and tests; collect consent; define critical-to-quality checks; log every complaint, failure, and claim misunderstanding.
- Before payment
Publish terms, refunds, operating-company identity, customer support, and delivery windows. Do not call an email draft a reservation.
- Before a purchase order
Freeze drawings, BOM, packaging, artwork, inspection plan, quality agreement, insurance, lot tracking, recall procedure, and cash forecast.
06 / CADENCE
Every week ends in a decision.
Critical path
Review cash committed, deadlines, open critical risks, product blockers, and the single action most likely to move the next gate.
Supplier desk
Read RFQ exceptions, engineering responses, sample status, material documents, lead time, landed cost, and next action by supplier.
Evidence court
Read experiments, retention, paid intent, complaints, and claim confusion. Record explicit advance, revise, pause, or kill decisions.