CueCumber · partner call · 15 Nov 2026

Erik × Bert: what we decide today, and how we could organise it

One global product: Bert's upload-to-quiz engine for daily study, with MindVault's adaptive level detection and premium content on top. Paid trial in Singapore, Belgium and Malaysia, growing through referrals. The goal is revenue.

0 Goal of this call

Agree

Partnership shape

One company, roles, who owns the data.

Agree

Code path

Build on Bert's live app or move it to a new codebase.

Agree

Trial scope

Ages, markets, price, start date.

Leave with

Owners and dates

Each decision has one owner and a date before the 13 Dec call.

1 Decisions to take

In each card, the green option is Erik's proposal and the dashed ones are the alternatives. These match cards CC-30 to CC-47 on the Trello board.

P1 · Launch gate

Legal vehicle, equity and roles

One company, one cap table, 50/50Equal partners worldwide, no territory split, vesting for both founders.

Joint venture plus a separate data entityMore flexible, but more paperwork and more complexity.

License deal firstFast to set up, but it doesn't commit us as partners.

Open: where the company is registered (BE or SG), when it gets set up, and who is CEO, CTO and CPO.

Outcome:

P1 · Launch gate

Data ownership and the ethics line

The company owns the data, with a written red lineWe never sell children's data or use it to train someone else's AI. Product insight uses aggregated, anonymised data only.

Data rights stay openDecide later. This is risky with minors and investors.

Outcome:

P1 · Launch gate

Code path: Bert's live app

Build on Bert's codeBert's app becomes the core. We add the adaptive engine (placement, mastery, mood and energy) and premium content as modules.

Move it to a new codebaseA cleaner start, but we lose weeks before the trial.

Run both side by sideConnect them with single sign-on. The quickest demo, but it becomes a maintenance burden.

Needed first: repository access, the stack, the hosting setup, and the live URL or a test account.

Outcome:

P1 · Launch gate

Trial scope: who, where, when

Ages 12–16, about 30 families per marketParents pay and give verified consent for everyone under 16. SG and MY in English, BE in Dutch and English.

Ages 13–19+ (Bert's age tiers)Less consent work at the top of the range, but the buyer is less clear.

Ages 10–16 (the MindVault range)Strongest fit with parents, but needs the most consent and safety work.

Target: first paying families in January 2027. Who recruits them? Our own networks, schools, tutoring centres?

Outcome:

P1 · Launch gate

Pricing and what's free

Freemium, priced per marketFree: a limited number of uploads and quizzes each month. Paid: unlimited use, the adaptive plan, the parent report and premium vaults. Anchor message: "a month for the price of one tutoring hour."

Bert's price: $29.99/mo or $299/yrSiblings $9.99/mo. The same price in every market.

Mockup price: SGD 20/moLower friction, but thinner margin after AI costs.

Test 2 price points per market during the trial. Keep the AI cost per active student visible on the dashboard.

Outcome:

P1 · Launch gate

How the referral programme works

Reward both sides, parent to parentWhen the friend pays, both families get a free month. Children can share a "challenge a friend" quiz, but rewards always go to the parent account.

Account credit instead of a free monthEasier to stack, but feels less generous.

Rewards between childrenSpreads fastest, but is the riskiest with minors.

Anti-abuse: reward only after the friend's first payment, cap at 12 free months, one reward per household.

Outcome:

P2 · Before build

Name, domain and mascot

cuecumber.io is an unrelated billiards app. cuecumber.com was registered in 2023 but shows nothing. Is it Bert's? .app, .ai, .be and .eu are still free.

Register cuecumber.app and .eu today; one mascotCue-Duck is the friendly study buddy. Kai, MindVault's coach, appears in the premium vaults or is retired.

Keep two mascotsOne for daily study, one for premium content.

Outcome:

P2 · Before build

First premium content in the trial

One vault: The Money EdgeFinancial literacy. Lesson 1, "The Ang Pow Question", is fully designed. Localised for MY and SG, then BE.

Builder's MindBusiness models. Lesson 1 is drafted.

Upload-to-quiz onlyNo premium content until we see that people pay.

Outcome:

2 How the product fits together

4 · Growth loop

Referrals, a weekly WhatsApp card for parents ("what they learned, 3 sentences"), a dinner-table question, "challenge a friend".

Viral engine

3 · Premium vaults

Curated "what school never taught" courses: money, AI literacy, business, persuasion. Each lesson follows the Five Moves (Hook, Case, Mechanism, Test, Frame).

Monetisation · Erik's track

2 · Adaptive brain

A 3-minute placement probe, per-concept mastery (BKT), a mood and energy check-in, and a self-adjusting plan: level up at 90% or higher over 3 sessions, step back below 60% over 2.

Shared · engine already exists

1 · Daily engine

Upload or scan school material, get quizzes, spaced repetition, Rubberducking with Cue-Duck, parent portal.

Habit · Bert's track (live)

Underneath everything: consent and privacy (GDPR, SG PDPA, MY PDPA), a rights ledger for content, an NSFW filter, and no AI-generated children's faces.

The money loop we're testing

Child has a test on Friday→ Uploads notes (free)→ Level detected, plan adapts→ Parent sees progress on WhatsApp→ Parent pays→ Parent refers another parent

3 A possible division of work

Area	Lead	What it covers
Daily engine and platform	Bert	The existing app, infrastructure, quiz generation, scanning, parent portal
Adaptive brain	Erik, then Bert	Port the MindVault engine (placement, mastery, frontier) into Bert's stack
Premium content and pedagogy	Erik	Vaults, Five Moves, AI video prompts, network of paid creators and educators
Go-to-market SG and MY	Erik	Parent networks, schools, tutoring centres
Go-to-market BE	Bert	Dutch-speaking families, schools
Compliance and legal	Both, plus a lawyer	Parental consent, privacy policy, copyright disclaimer, terms
Content operations and QA	Biah (paid intern, Evrard Consulting)	Tagging, rights ledger, test runs, video prompts. No access to student data.

4 Road to a paid trial (proposal)

Now → 13 Dec

Settle D1–D8, share the repository, register domains, start the company and the lawyer review.

Dec

Plug the placement probe and mastery tracking into Bert's app, add the consent flow, localise one vault.

Early Jan

Closed beta: 10 families per market, free. Track whether children come back on day 7.

Late Jan

Turn on payments and referrals. Grow to about 30 families per market.

Mar

Review: conversion, referral rate (K-factor), AI cost per student. Decide whether to scale.

KPI

≥ 25%

Beta families who go on to pay

KPI

≥ 0.3

Referrals per paying family

KPI

≥ 3×/week

Active study sessions per child

KPI

< 15%

AI cost as a share of price

5 Where content comes from

1 · Student uploads

Processed for that one student only. Watermarked. Never shared or reused without rights.

2 · Public sources and past exams

Open curricula and exam formats. We generate similar questions instead of copying them.

3 · Written with AI, reviewed by people

Five Moves lessons from YAML. Every item is reviewed before it is published.

4 · Paid creators and educators

Fee or revenue share per vault. Every item recorded in the rights ledger.

6 How we work: a spec-driven software factory

Specs

Spec Kitty

Every feature follows the same path: charter, spec, plan, tasks, implement, review, merge. AI agents do the build work against specs with numbered requirements. The CueCumber charter and the first spec (FR-001 to FR-054) already exist.

Tracking

Trello, integrated

Spec Kitty decisions and work packages sync to the Cuecumber board. Cards are numbered CC-n, so both of us can see where everything stands.

Code

Everything on one GitHub

A single organisation and repository for Bert's app, the adaptive engine, content (YAML) and specs. Pull requests, one CI pipeline, one source of truth.

Files

Google Drive

A shared folder for legal documents, the term sheet, contracts, media and research. Anything that doesn't belong in git.

7 Questions for Bert about his app

Status

Where does it run? Can Erik have the URL and a test account?
How many real users so far, and what have you learned from them?
Which Trello items have actually shipped? The board was last updated in April.

Technical

What is the stack (frontend, backend, database, AI provider)? Where is it hosted?
What is the AI cost per quiz or per upload today?
Can we get repository access this week?

Product

How do mood and energy work today? How does the self-assessment work?
Is the progressive-effort rule (90% over 3 sessions, below 60%) already live?
Which of your features matters most to parents?

Business

Is cuecumber.com yours?
Do you have contacts in BE schools or tutoring?
How much time can you commit each week until March?

8 Next steps

Action	Owner	By
Share repository access, the live URL and a test account	Bert	22 Nov
Register domains (.app / .eu)		Today
Draft the term sheet: company, equity, vesting, data clause	Erik	6 Dec
Compare Bert's code with the spec (map features against the FRs)	Erik	6 Dec
Recruit beta families: 10 each in SG, MY and BE	Both	Mid Dec
Create the GitHub org and repo, invite Bert; create the shared Google Drive folder	Erik	22 Nov
Next partner call	Both	13 Dec