Strangeland, in one picture
Strangeland already produces everything it needs to understand itself — conversations, receipts, photos, plans. Right now it all lands in a dozen scattered places. We're building one system that gathers it: people send things the way they already communicate, and it files everything into a clear, current picture of the program. Jaime sees the whole thing without chasing anyone — and Common Era sees what it's funding.
What we're building
A working hub for Strangeland. Everyone connects to it with skills they already have — sending a message, a photo, a recording — and it gathers everything into one systematic picture of the program: the records, the budget, the learning as it happens. AI runs it behind the scenes; what people experience is a conversation.
In the first two weeks, we — Jaime, me, and the system itself — map how Strangeland actually runs and build the first working version. It's live in her hands by the end of the first session, and it improves every time she uses it: feedback is built in. By the end, the team has a working demo and a fixed price for the full build.
- Week one — Jaime and me — we meet three times. She shows up as the expert on Strangeland and shares everything she's holding; I interview her documentary-style while the system builds in real time. It's in her hands before the first session ends, and she's using it daily within the week.
- Week two — the leaders — we bring leaders in: demo it, sit with them, and shape their side of the system around what they actually do.
- The map — the program's people and workflows, the forms, drives, transcripts, and Airtable bases in use now — where everything should live and who can see what.
- The September plan — how the full system rolls out to the whole program — who joins, how, in what order — with a fixed price for the build.
- The demo — hands-on, for everyone: send it a photo, watch it land.
After you book: nothing to prepare. Card or invoice — either works. If we go ahead with the build within 60 days of the sprint, the $7,500 comes off the build price.
Operating Agreement · The SprintPDF ↗
One page: the fee, who owns what, and how either of us ends it.
+How the Strangeland hub worksthe interface, the engine, the pages
The interface
Chatting. The team talks to the hub the way they'd text a person — send what you have, as it is: a voice memo from the drive home, a photo of a receipt, a half-formed idea at 1am. It can live inside the chat apps everyone already uses, or in simple interfaces we build just for the program. Finding the right doors is part of the sprint.
The engine
Behind the interface, I creative-direct a set of AI agents built specifically for Strangeland — one reads and files what arrives, one keeps the budget, one turns recordings into notes and records, one keeps the pages current. I design them, tune them, and supervise what they produce. Everything lands as ordinary files the program owns — you could take the folder and walk at any point. A closer look at the engine
The pages
From what's been filed, the system builds pages: an overview for the program, a working page for each leader, and a display clean enough to put in front of funders. They rebuild themselves as material comes in.
Nobody fills out a form. They tell the chat what happened, and the picture updates itself.
+Why we start with Jaimethe method
I've run one of these for myself every day since February. The sprint builds the same system, fitted to Strangeland instead of me.
Every transcript, decision, receipt, and relationship in this program crosses Jaime's desk. So week one builds her side first — it's the fastest way to see how the program actually runs. Week two brings the leaders in and builds their side from what week one showed us.
One boundary, on the record: Jaime's personal operating system stays separate from the Strangeland work. There's real overlap, but the program deserves a clear finish line, and her setup deserves its own attention rather than riding along on the program budget. We'll draw that line together during the sprint.
The team has built scattered versions of this before. Two weeks is how we find out whether this one is different.
+The bigger visionwhere this goes
By the end of the sprint, Strangeland has a working system it co-built. Something the team shaped in conversation, uses daily, and can demo to anyone — a system that makes running the program easier, so the people in it can spend themselves on the mission instead of the paperwork. The mission stays about humans; the system just carries more of the weight.
And it's designed to outlast the pilot. The same system that runs Strangeland's first season can keep running it — inside the organization and out — for as long as it earns its place. We'll prove it on Strangeland, push it to launch, and Common Era decides what it becomes from there, with a working system in hand.
Everything past the sprint is a decision made with the prototype in front of you. The numbers are ranges because I'd rather narrow them in the sprint than guess big now. All three stages together land between $40K and $55K — with a decision point at each one.
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Two weeks · starts on booking
The sprint $7,500 · credited
The map, your setup, the working prototype, and the September plan with a fixed build price.
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To the September launch
The build $20–30K
The full system, launched: the operator's side, a portal the leaders actually use, transcripts and documents read and filed, activations and receipts reported from a phone, materials in one place, scheduling and follow-ups, and the funder view. Documented and handed over — the program owns all of it. The sprint's fixed price lands inside this range unless we all agree the scope should change. And because everything is ordinary files, the whole program fits in a folder: when Strangeland opens in a second city, the next director gets the folder and starts where LA finished.
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Three months · fixed end
The stewardship $12–18K
Not a subscription. Scheduled reviews, adjustments as the program runs, coverage when the underlying platforms change, and a final learning report. Then it ends. The system is documented and yours — it doesn't need me to keep running — and if you ever want more help, that's its own small arrangement.
+Questionsdata, ownership, England
+What do the leaders have to learn?
Nothing. If they can send a text, they can use it. Everything complicated happens behind the scenes.
+Where does the material live, and who controls it?
On accounts the program owns and pays for directly — the AI provider (Anthropic) and hosting, about $50–200 a month depending on volume. Recordings and submissions are opt-in, nothing is used to train anyone's models, and everything lives as ordinary files the program can open, move, or hand to anyone.
+What does it need to keep running?
Somewhere to stay on. Either a hosted option or an always-on machine — I run mine on a Mac Mini that never sleeps. We'd pick the one that fits you and set it up during the sprint.
+Aren't you moving to England in September?
Yes — September. The timeline is planned around it, and I'm fully remote and available through the pilot's launch window from day one.
+What happens if it isn't working?
You stop. The sprint commits you to nothing, and you keep everything it produced — the map, the plan, the prototype. If two weeks says this should stay small, that's a real answer and a cheap one.
+Who builds it?
Mike Marrotte at Signalform Studio — a decade in strategic communications for complicated operations, now building systems fitted to how people and teams actually work.
Can't wait to build this with you.
— Mike
