Founding Members get access to the Pirate Eddie Bot and Pirate Christopher Bot to ask category design questions, weekly actionable insights, the full library with 30+ audiobooks 250+ mini-books, and more. See the Founders Deck here.
Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,
We have an exciting update for you.
A year ago this week, we launched the Pirate Eddie Bot. At the time, it was a librarian. You’d ask it a question, it would point you back to a mini-book, you’d go do your own thinking.
A year later, it’s a thinking partner. Pirates jam with it at 2 AM and walk away with categories they had been sitting on for years. They use it to design Lightning Strikes that produce six-figure outcomes. They send real Eddie text messages that say things like “the Pirate Eddie Bot is effing awesome.” (More on that in a minute.)
We’ve shipped a lot this past year, and we’re shipping even more today.
Here’s what’s launching today for Founding members.
Pirate Eddie Bot 2.0 ships today. This is our first major version upgrade since the bot launched a year ago. Going forward, the Pirate Eddie Bot will ship on a release cadence, the same way Anthropic ships Sonnet and OpenAI ships GPT. A new version will be released every six months.
Version 2.0 is so much better than 1.0 that it surprises even us. Every month, Founding members produce outcomes with it that we didn’t think a bot could produce.
Pirate Christopher Bot 1.0. Live for the first time, exclusively inside Founding. He’s the hammer to Eddie’s velvet. Where Eddie gives the direct answer, Christopher tells a story and reframes the question. Founding subscribers can access the Pirate Christopher Bot with the same password used for the Pirate Eddie Bot.
Of course, the Pirate Christopher bot won’t say “effing.”
Together, the two bots do something neither does alone. Ask the Pirate Eddie Bot. Paste the answer into the Pirate Christopher Bot. Watch the Pirate Christopher Bot push back. Run that back through the Pirate Eddie Bot.
It’s the closest thing to being in an Academy workshop without being in the room.
And here's everything else we shipped this past year. Already inside the Founding subscription.
Three new books shipped this year. Lightning Strike Marketing, Thinker’s High, and Creator Capitalist (available to Founding Members today).
24 new audiobooks.
24 new mini-books + access to the library of 250+ mini-books.
48 Wednesday Founder posts.
With that said, three things are changing this week.
1. The annual plan as you know it is ending today. Going forward, the annual tier and Founding are the same thing. Same benefits, access, and bundle. You will still see an annual option when you go to subscribe (Substack doesn’t let us remove it), but it is now functionally identical to Founding.
2. Founding pricing is moving Sunday May 17th at midnight. These are the final few days to lock in $350 forever. If you upgrade by Sunday, you get grandfathered in at $350 for life, as long as you keep renewing. That includes everything we just shipped today, this year, and next year. Starting Sunday at midnight PST, Founding moves to $375. Permanently. You can expect to see a modest price increase for new subscribers every year.
3. Both bots are now exclusively inside Founding. The Pirate Eddie Bot 2.0 and the Pirate Christopher Bot 1.0 live inside the Founding tier. That is the only place to access them.
What this means for you.
If you’re already a Founding member at $350: You are locked in at $350 forever, as long as you keep renewing. Your Pirate Eddie Bot password is the same for the Pirate Christopher Bot. You can access both bots here.
If you’re on the $200 annual plan: Many of you have been with us for years. As a thank you for your loyalty, we want to be radically generous. Starting today, you get the full Founding bundle at your same $200 price. Forever, as long as you keep renewing. Both bots. Every audiobook. Every mini-book. Every founder’s deck. You’ll receive your unique password for the bots in your inbox today.
If you’ve been on the fence: Now’s the time. After Sunday, the only way in is $20 a month for the library, or $375 for the Founding bundle.
The price is moving from $350 to $375 because the bundle is materially bigger than it was last year. Last year, you got one bot. Now you get two. Last year, there were 4 books; now there are 7.
👉 Lock in $350 Founding before Sunday May 17th at midnight here →
The best thing we’ve ever built.
In two careers, dozens of best-selling books, and several top 1% podcasts, we have never built anything that produces outcomes at this ratio.
For about a dollar a day, you get an AI thinking partner trained on every framework we have ever published. The same questions we ask people who pay $10,000 to be inside the Category Design Academy. Plus a second bot to push back on the first one. Available at 2 AM. Never runs out of words. Gets smarter every six months at no additional cost.
We hear it from Founding members every week. They opened the bot for one thing and walked out with the language for something they had been chasing for years. They closed deals they thought were dead. They named a category they had been circling for a decade.
It is the most leverage we have ever put inside a subscription. And it is the highest-leverage thing the people inside the Founding tier are using right now.
Pirates love it.
Kyle Okimoto has built his career on being rational. Cambridge Group strategy consultant. Head of strategy for Merrill Lynch’s wealth management business. Head of marketing at E*Trade. He’s launching a new category right now that helps families in Hawaii consolidate ownership of inherited commercial real estate.
He has access to every AI on the planet. He picked the Pirate Eddie Bot.
When Eddie asked him why, here’s what he said:
“I’ve known you for decades. I know your family. I know we have the same value system. I know your intellectual capital. I trust the rigor of your IC. I trust the integrity of your IC.”
A man who built his career on rational decisions made an emotional one. Around trust.
That’s what you get when you join as a Founding member.
One more thing. A group offer for teams.
For the first time, we’re opening a 10+ seat Founding bundle at $300 per seat. If you’re a CMO, a founder, or a team leader who wants ten people trained in category design with full bot access, you can register your team here.
Sunday is the line.
A year ago this week, we shipped the Pirate Eddie Bot 1.0. Today, 2.0. Six months from now, 3.0. A year from now, 4.0.
We’ll keep shipping. The price will reflect the work.
But the OG $350 only lives until Sunday May 17th at midnight. After that, it’s $20 a month for the library or $375 for Founding.
If you’ve been on the fence for a while, this is the week.
Arrrrrrr,
Category Pirates 🏴☠️
Eddie Yoon
Christopher Lochhead
