The app’s spine changed (Product, 6/14): the core is now “follow what you love, on your terms” — not the float. So the longest, brightest beat of first-run moves off coordination (which can’t pay off on day one, with no friends yet) and onto following your bands and venues — which works alone, immediately, for everyone. The float, proposal cards, and “your people” beat are deferred, not killed — they layer back on once the app has an audience. Same warm setup, new hero.
Beats 1–4 and 6 are essentially unchanged. The hero (beat 5) swaps, and notifications (beat 7) re-anchor to it. Here’s the swap.
brand → live/visiting → area → interests → follow your bands & venues → name → notifications → you’re set. Seven beats, light setup, one earned hero.
The old hero (the float) couldn’t deliver in session 1 — you have no friends in the app yet, and it served the organizer minority. Following a band works alone, immediately, for everyone. The “aha can’t happen on first open” flaw the avatar panel flagged disappears.
The panel said pull the permission prompt out of cold onboarding. Now it sits right after you’ve followed two bands — the payoff is concrete: “want us to tell you when Mt. Joy plays?” The ask earns itself instead of arriving before there’s any reason to say yes.
Following is a personal subscription, not a social act — so everyone takes the same path. Some people will later coordinate (the float, when it returns), but nobody has to declare that up front. One flow, no branch to agonize over.
The proposal-card and group work Brand built is good and stays on the shelf, labeled. When the app has momentum, the float layers cleanly on top of an audience that already follows and returns — a better foundation than cold-starting it in onboarding ever was.
Beat 7 spells out the brand’s one notification rule — only ever things you follow. That single sentence is what lets the alerts be warm and familiar later (see Alert voice) without ever feeling like spam.
Live/visiting, area, interests, name — all quick, all skippable-feeling. The design spends its one big moment on follow and nowhere else, so first-run stays short. Treasure attention: get them to a real payoff fast, then become the app.