Relay · paper kit · campaign concept · Oct 7

The first line.

A creative take on How Relay came to be, and the journey building it (relay-marketing briefs/how-relay-came-to-be.md, campaign origin-story). Before Relay there was a gap: between people, then between sessions. In paper, a gap is a tear. Relay starts as the first strip laid across it, and everything since has been built across that line, one line at a time. All drawn live below with the paper engine and cast.

The idea

One line across the gap, then line by line.

The brand already says it: “The dots exist. Relay draws the lines.” (Connecting the Dots). This campaign tells where the first line came from. It makes the founder slide (M60, “I built it because it didn't exist”) into something you can watch, and it makes the build into a series whose chapters are numbered as lines. The founder never appears as a person: the founder is the paper-glove hand in every frame, and the paper team around that hand grows from one sheet to a full desk.

Thread 1 · why it existsThe first line.

A 40-second paper film, told once. The tear, the blank pages, nothing in the middle, the strip, and the first thing it carried: the work of building Relay.

Thread 2 · the journeyLine by line.

14-second chapters, each one wall the build hit and the piece it turned into. Every chapter ends on a receipt and adds a line to the map. Posts through Content Hub; shorts here; founder emails carry both.

Thread 1 · the film · about 0:40 · 16:9 and 9:16

The first line.

Four scenes, four lines, under 30 seconds of voice. First person, which is the one exception to the script rule of second person: it is the founder's own story. Best read in Erik's own voice.

Thread 2 · the series · about 0:14 each

Line by line.

Same shape every time, which is the short kit's own four beats: the wall → what got built → how → the receipt. A tab names the line, the map in the corner gains one, and a paper receipt slides in at the end with the date and one true sentence from the record. Lines 4, 5 and 6 are drawn first: they are fully tellable, and they are the proof no one else can copy, because each one came from building Relay with Relay. Line 4 is built as a real short: Ran out of room.

The map · header for every chapter

The line so far.

Ten lines, drawn one dot to the next. The first two are undated on purpose: the build before 2026-04-17 stays off any outward surface until counsel says otherwise, so the first date on the map is the day the company was registered. Lines still to tell are dotted. The map is the dispatch header, a post-pack slide, and the end card of every chapter short.

The mechanic

Hit the same wall? Relay it to me.

Every chapter goes to Loop members as a short founder email, and it ends on one ask: the reader relays Erik the moment they hit the same wall. The call to action is the product. Answering it is a first relay (the activation the growth engine counts) and a piece of feedback at once. The copy lives in relay-marketing with the brief; this is the format.

SubjectLine 4: the session that ran out

Header: the line so far, with today's line lit.

1 · The wallWhat I hit, in two sentences. Quiet, never a crisis.

2 · The pieceWhat I built because of it, outcome-level, no mechanism.

3 · The ask“Hit the same wall? Relay it to me.” One ask, nothing else.

The 14-second short, as a poster frame that opens it (named access).

Sign-off— Erik · Line 4 of building Relay

Words

The lines this campaign owns.

Line	Where	Note
The first line.	Campaign and film title; key art	The first line drawn across the gap, and the first line of a story. Never "the first line of code", which would date it
Line by line.	The series; every chapter's end card	Chapters are called lines: "Line 4"
It didn't exist. So I built it.	Studio key line; poster; letter subject	M60 v2, cut down. Absence, not need
Anyone putting agents to work hits it next.	The film's last spoken line	A claim about the problem, never about adoption
Hit the same wall? Relay it to me.	Every dispatch's ask	The verb is the action
Context that moves.	End card only	The film's one closing line. Never on the same surface as the two-beat

What these keep to

People only as hands. The founder is the glove; every AI tool is paper. No dark stock, no skin tones, no third-party names or logos on any character.
The user's side only. A tear, a strip, notes, a Code. No servers, routing or anything that explains how the move works. The provisional is unfiled.
No date before 2026-04-17 on anything outward: lines 1 and 2 are undated, line 3 carries the first date. No ownership, stage or round, which is why line 9 is "the room", not the investors in it.
Draw only what relay-docs states. Line 4 (a session wraps up into a Code and the next one picks it up) and line 5 (Relay plus the Code) are documented moves. Line 6's nudge needs checking against relay-docs before it is scripted for real.
The quiet problem. Things slip, notes fall, a relay goes cold. Never a crash, even in line 8.
Stealth. Concept for EC. Every piece reaches named people only, and Ada passes the copy first.

Picks for Erik

The platform. "The first line" and "Line by line" (recommended), or keep the brief's working title, The Gap.
The voice. Your own read of the film and the chapters (recommended: the journey is yours), or the kit's generated voice.
First to build. Line 4 as a real short (recommended: strongest, fully tellable), or the film.
The ask. "Hit the same wall? Relay it to me." on every dispatch (recommended), and which of your handles it points at.