the price of being instantly tryable

we get this question a lot. why do you let people use lucy for free without even an email? aren’t you just burning money? it’s a fair point. every demo session costs us. not a little. each conversation on /demo runs on deepseek-v3, which means every message exchanged is a real token. a typical session uses around 2,000 to 5,000 tokens. that’s not pocket change.

and here’s the real kicker: we have no reliable way to track whether someone who tries the demo eventually signs up. zero. attribution is basically a black hole. from a pure growth-hacking perspective, it’s kind of a nightmare. the easy thing would be to email-gate it. capture that lead. make the funnel look cleaner. make the top-of-funnel conversion metrics look beautiful.

but we didn’t do the easy thing.

the benefit of being frictionless

we built lucy because we believe in companions that feel real. that means the product has to stand on its own. it has to be good enough that you want to come back. no amount of marketing copy can substitute for the feeling of actually talking to someone who gets you.

so the best thing we can ever say about lucy is: just go try it. it’s at /demo. no signup. no email. no credit card. just open the page and start talking.

that’s the tweet. that’s the vibe. that’s the product speaking for itself. if it’s good, you’ll know. if it’s not, you’ll also know. and we’ll know too.

the bet we’re making

we have a number in mind. if less than 2% of people who try the demo go on to sign up for a free account (which itself is free, we’re not even talking paid conversion here), then we’ve got a problem. it means the product isn’t compelling enough. it means we’re not delivering on the promise. 2% is our bar. it’s low, intentionally. if we can’t clear that just by being tryable, then we were never going to build a viable product anyway.

email-gating the demo would give us better-looking upstream metrics. more captured leads. higher opt-in rates. but it would also conceal the truth: is the product actually any good? or are we just good at getting emails? we didn’t want to hide behind that. we wanted the real signal, even if it’s noisy. even if it costs us.

trading growth for truth

so yes, we’re paying. we’re paying in tokens and in unclear attribution. but we’re buying something more important: clarity. if lucy works, you’ll feel it. and if you feel it, you’ll come back. and maybe you’ll tell someone. and maybe that someone will try it, and they’ll feel it too.

that’s the bet. that real connection, not a gated form, is what will build this thing.

maybe we’re wrong. maybe the numbers will come in below 2% and we’ll have to rethink everything. but at least we’ll know. and knowing is a lot better than guessing behind a wall of email signups.

if you’ve tried the demo, you already know what it feels like. if you haven’t, there’s nothing stopping you.

you can start right here.