The one-line thesis
Fewer than 1 in 5 families call a second funeral home. The first answered call wins the case — worth ~$8,300 (NFDA median). Grace makes sure that call is never missed.
1. Brand stack — three names, three jobs
Aspire Digital LLC
The company. Legal counterparty, EIN holder, long-term relationship owner. A2P brand registers under this EIN. Ohio DBA "That Call You Missed" pending filing.
That Call You Missed
The product + marketing hook. The URL is the pitch. Funeral-first vertical; other verticals later ("funeral now, general later").
Grace
The voice's first name — never a standalone product name, never "Grace AI" (Afterword's NFDA-award "Grace" + EverGrace.AI exist; risk accepted 7/7 with this mitigation).
Origin: EFD funeral play (Apr 27) → folded into Aspire Concierge (May 2) → TCYM funeral-first build locked with $1,995/$399 pricing (Jun 25). Canonical: memory/drawers/aspire-digital/brand-architecture.md.
2. Build state — the three surfaces (as of 7/7 EOD)
| Surface | Owner | State | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Website (studio) | Vegas + Jaime | ALL P0s CLEAR (7/7 PM, Aria-verified on live HTML): form→GHL wired, consent copy locked, book-a-demo swap live (walkthrough request + demo number), testimonials removed, provenance notes out, guarantee unified (30 days from go-live), fair-use clause in /terms | Pending Jaime sign-off |
| GHL hub | Topher + Circa/Aria | Pipeline (8 stages) + 25 custom fields + tags + 5 email templates verified live via API; number purchased; Grace demo agent built + in tuning | Active build |
| The product (Grace on a phone) | Topher + Aria | LIVE on (740) 272-5590 as Harmony Funeral Home's receptionist (v3 single-agent design + 25-provider KB uploaded 7/10) — validation test call next | QA |
⚠️ Apex domain thatcallyoumissed.com currently serves a Porkbun parked page — the URL goes in ZERO outreach until NS cutover (CLI-160).
3. Decisions ratified 2026-07-07 (Topher)
- ✅ Sales-led motion for pilots 1–5 — demo call → team follow-up; self-serve checkout later. /get-started step 4 becomes "book a demo," not fake Stripe.
- ✅ Pricing canonical: $1,995 + $399/mo flat (locked 6/25; the May $499/$297 figures are historical). Flat rate intentional; fair-use/renegotiation clause required in Terms for call-center-scale outliers (30-day notice, no surprise overages).
- ✅ Persona stays "Grace" despite the Afterword/EverGrace collision — mitigated by never marketing the name standalone.
- ↩️ Superseded 7/10: the self-personalizing demo (Grace interviews the prospect, answers as THEIR business). On tape, every failure was a mode-switch artifact; the interview cost hang-ups. Replaced by ⬇️
- ✅ Demo = one fictitious brand (ratified 7/10): Grace is the receptionist for Harmony Funeral Home, full stop. No customization interview, no mode switching; the website does the framing ("you're the caller"). Appointments talked about, never taken; enrollment only via the site's Get Started form. Name vetted vs. real homes (Ohio clean).
- ✅ A2P brand under Aspire Digital LLC's existing EIN — the entity that already cleared A2P on 6/10. Ohio DBA "That Call You Missed" to be filed (parked, ticketed).
- ✅ Setup fee waivable at Topher's discretion in live negotiation (pilot flexibility — his lane).
4. Grace — the demo agent (call it: 740-272-5590)
Design (v3, live 7/10): Grace answers as Harmony Funeral Home — a fictitious 3rd-generation family home with its own crematory — and stays in character for the whole call. Caller plays a family (2 a.m. first call, pre-need, price shopper, stump-the-receptionist). Three narrow step-outs: calendar capability, "what is this?" → website enrollment form, address question. Honesty beat after the intake promise: "since this is a demo, no one's actually calling you back."
Knowledge base: synthesized from a 25-provider research sweep (small-town family homes OH/IN/IA/TN/PA, Dignity/SCI tier, metro flagships, cremation disruptors, green/modern providers) — burial ×4, cremation ×3 + witnessed, correct state-law postures (aquamation not legal here; human composting pending), veterans, pets, pre-planning w/ Medicaid angle, honest price ranges, the 2 a.m. FAQ list. Paste kit + console steps: /info/tcym-grace-demo.
Competitive moat
Across ~10 competitors (EternalVoice $299–399/mo, Miraven ~$485, Upfirst, Smith.ai, Ciela…), essentially nobody offers a public call-and-test line. "Call the funeral home that doesn't exist" is the pitch.
Safety valve
If a REAL grieving caller reaches the demo line, Grace drops the demo immediately and redirects them to their chosen funeral home. Non-negotiable guardrail.
Source of truth: memory/drawers/ventures/tcym/grace-demo-prompt.md + harmony-funeral-home-kb.md (this repo). Prior versions (v1 Maplewood immersive, v2 self-personalizing interview) preserved in git; agent-team template for paying clients still parked pending retired-FD review (CLI-158).
5. Critical path to first dollar
- Grace passes the QA gauntlet — in-character from the first ring, clean 2 a.m. intake flow, zero invented facts (KB-grounded), first-person always, step-outs fire only on their triggers (CLI-40 → CLI-8 ten-call test).
- Site P0s close (CLI-159, Vegas + Jaime): book-a-demo replaces fake checkout; placeholder testimonials + mockup footer note removed; guarantee contradiction resolved; fair-use clause added; form actually writes to GHL incl. A2P consent state.
- Live demo number + widget on the site — "Call the funeral home that doesn't exist. 2am. Hear what your families would hear."
- NS cutover Porkbun → CF (CLI-160; gated on 1–3 + Jaime sign-off + explicit promote instruction).
- A2P filed same day the site is live (§6) → SMS unlocks in 1–4 weeks (missed-call text-back, demo recap texts).
- Outreach begins — sales-led, pilot pricing at Topher's discretion, FD-reviewed scripts in hand.
Parallel: retired-FD consultant review of Grace's scripts ($500–1.5K one-time) before the first real sales call — the load-bearing derisk from the April plan.
6. A2P 10DLC — plan + battle scars
What A2P is and isn't: SMS-only carrier registration. Voice is NOT gated — Grace answers calls today, unregistered. A2P unlocks texting (missed-call text-back, recap SMS).
The madebyaspire.com lesson (rejected 3×, approved 6/10)
- • Single-checkbox consent rejected twice; Twilio error 30896 ("opt-in workflow insufficient") once
- • Winner: two distinct unchecked, non-required checkboxes (marketing + transactional) + compliance text block + live same-domain /privacy + /terms
- • Privacy policy must carry the three verbatim "How we share your information" paragraphs (no mobile data to third parties, etc.)
- • Checkbox wording must match the Trust Center campaign description verbatim
- • Canonical standard:
aspire-clients/shared/build-rules/a2p-form-compliance.md
TCYM filing plan: brand = Aspire Digital LLC (existing EIN, already carrier-trusted since 6/10; same EIN supports up to 10 brands) · website = thatcallyoumissed.com (must be live first — hence CLI-160 gates filing) · opt-in evidence = the /get-started consent cluster, which must be functional, not decorative · use case = customer care/mixed with demo-recap + reminder samples. Full compliance brief for Jaime + Vegas: aspire-digital/clients/thatcallyoumissed/a2p-compliance-brief.md (also on CLI-159).
7. Tickets + open items
| Ticket | What | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| CLI-40 · P1 | Grace on the demo line — build + tuning (active) | Topher + Aria |
| CLI-158 · P1 | Verbatim scripts v1 (drafted) → FD-consultant review | Aria → Topher |
| CLI-8 · P1 | 10-call QA gauntlet before any real client | Topher + Circa |
| CLI-159 · P2 | Site launch-blocker fix package + A2P compliance brief | Vegas + Jaime |
| CLI-160 · P2 | NS delegation + production cutover gate | Topher + Aria (blocked) |
| CLI-162 · P3 | Voice-AI substrate watch (x.ai 8/1 + GHL post-promo 9/1 + plan-tier audit) — intel page | Aria |
Parked / notes
- • Ohio DBA "That Call You Missed" under Aspire Digital LLC — Topher files with the state (ticketed, low priority)
- • Lead-alert workflow upgrade: fire only when business-name field captured (kills hang-up email noise) + create opportunity in TCYM Enrollment pipeline — spec on CLI-40
- • Demo/discovery calendar so Grace can book instead of "team will follow up" (v1.1)
- • GHL Voice Interaction Widget (click-to-talk Grace) on the site alongside the number
- • Ohio SB 367 (pending AI consumer-protection law) — watchlist; current disclose-when-asked posture already matches the Utah-template safe harbor
- • Field-key gotcha #2 documented: GHL inserts
_or_into generated field keys (after 6/25's hyphen-strip) — always verify keys via API before wiring workflows