Tala on the web · prototype
The life-story book, sold like the best apps and used from the inbox.
Remento showed families will buy a life-story book on the web with no app. This prototype pairs that product with a web-to-app quiz funnel, and Tala’s own AI that turns a few minutes of talking into a finished page.
The Story of Ruth Ellis
Ruth Ellis
Today · 8:00 AM
Picture the house you grew up in. What did you see when you walked in?
Record your answerThe journey
Thirteen stops, in order
Sell it on the web
An ad lands on the page, the quiz builds their plan, and the paywall sells a plan length, not an app.
Landing page
Book first, like Remento and Storyworth, with one job: get people into the quiz.
/
The quiz
The storyteller funnel at its own address. One tap on Female or Male, then a quiz that plans their book from their own life.
/my-story
Plan and paywall
Before and after, a 12-week projection from their own chapters, and the 1-month and 1-year plans.
/plan
Checkout
Stripe-style payment with Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal or card. Nothing is charged.
/checkout?plan=yearly
Welcome and upsells
One-click hardcover, family copies and the book in your voice, then the account and question time.
/welcome
Use it from the inbox
A question every morning. One tap and they're talking. Tala writes the page.
The web app
Today's question, the book so far, and what's next. Works on any phone or computer.
/app
The daily email
The inbox is the app: one question every morning, one big button, no password.
/emails
No-login answer
What the email's button opens: straight into recording, from any device.
/answer/today
The recorder
Talk in the browser. Follow-up questions, then the page lands in the book.
/record
Voice interview
An ElevenLabs voice agent that interviews you like a biographer would.
/interview
Keep it forever
A book that reads like a printed memoir, in their voice, ready to print and give.
Book and reader
A printed-book reader: chapter openers, photo prints, and a QR code by every story.
/app/book/read
Design the linen hardcover and order copies for the family.
/app/book/print
Give it as a gift
A gift message that arrives at 6 AM on the day they pick, the way Remento does it.
/gift
The daily loop
From their inbox to a finished page, with nothing to install
The same loop Remento and Storyworth run weekly, run daily, with Tala’s follow-up questions and page writer in the middle.
- 1
8:00 AM, their time
pg_cron picks the day's question from their plan and freezes it.
- 2
Email and text
Resend and Twilio send it, with a signed one-tap link.
- 3
One tap
The recorder opens in the browser. No login, no app.
- 4
They talk
Audio goes straight to private Supabase Storage.
- 5
Scribe
ElevenLabs transcribes it, without the ums.
- 6
Gemini
Asks up to 3 follow-ups, then writes the page in their words.
- 7
Family hears
The page lands in the book and the family gets the story.
How it would be built
One backend for the app and the web
The web product reuses the iOS app’s Supabase backend, question bank and page writer. The new pieces are Stripe on the web, the daily email and text, and links that open the recorder without a login.
- Secrets stay on the server: ElevenLabs, Gemini and Stripe are called from API routes and Edge Functions.
- An answer link can record one answer to one question, and nothing else.
- The proposed schema is in web/supabase/schema.sql. It has not been applied anywhere.
Where people are
No app to download
Browser
Landing, quiz, checkout, web app, recorder, reader. Any phone or computer.
Inbox
Today's question each morning, new-page and family emails.
Text message
The same question by SMS, for people who live in their texts.
Tala web
Next.js on Vercel
Pages
App Router, server-rendered marketing, client app.
API routes
/api/transcribe, /api/followup, /api/write-page, /api/tts, /api/checkout.
Webhooks
Stripe events create the account and the book.
Supabase
The iOS app's backend, shared
Auth
Magic links. Answer links that open the recorder without a login.
Postgres
Books, stories, prompts, family, orders. Row-level security.
Storage
Private audio, photos and print PDFs.
Edge Functions + pg_cron
send-prompts every 5 minutes, write-page, answer-link.
Partners
Keys stay on the server
Stripe
Payment Element, subscriptions, one-click upsells.
Resend and Twilio
Email and SMS delivery.
ElevenLabs
Scribe transcription, voices, interview agents, voice cloning.
Gemini
Follow-up questions, pages, titles, tomorrow's question.
Print partner
Lulu-style API for hardcovers.
PostHog
Funnel analytics and experiments.
Honest about the prototype
What’s real, and what’s faked
Blank means fake: every service runs on a stand-in until its key is set in web/.env.local, then it goes real.
| Feature | In this prototype | In production | Switch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan mathReal | Real. The iOS app's chapter, question and page rules, ported to TypeScript, with its 167-question bank. | The same code, shared by the web and the app. | None |
| Payments | A Stripe-style checkout. Any card works; nothing is charged. | Stripe Payment Element and Checkout Sessions, with webhooks that create the Supabase account. | STRIPE_SECRET_KEY, NEXT_PUBLIC_STRIPE_PUBLISHABLE_KEY |
| Accounts and data | Saved in this browser (local storage). | Supabase Auth with magic links, Postgres with row-level security, Storage for audio and photos. See web/supabase/schema.sql. | NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL, NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY |
| Transcription | ElevenLabs Scribe when a key is set; otherwise the browser's own speech recognition. | ElevenLabs Scribe, batch, with the ums and false starts left out. | ELEVENLABS_API_KEY |
| Follow-ups and pages | Gemini when a key is set, with the iOS app's own prompts; otherwise an on-device writer that cleans and shapes their words. | Gemini: follow-up questions, the page, the title, and tomorrow's question. | GEMINI_API_KEY, GEMINI_MODEL |
| Voice interview | A live ElevenLabs agent when configured (scripts/create-agent.mjs makes one); otherwise a practice interviewer in the browser. | ElevenLabs Agents, with the transcript turned into a page by Gemini. | ELEVENLABS_AGENT_ID or NEXT_PUBLIC_ELEVENLABS_AGENT_ID |
| Their voice | Ruth's sample page is a stand-in recording (a macOS voice); scripts/generate-audio.mjs remakes it with ElevenLabs. Other stories are read aloud by the browser. | Every recording kept; ElevenLabs voice cloning for the audiobook upsell. | ELEVENLABS_API_KEY, ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID |
| Emails and texts | Rendered on /emails, and logged to its Sent tab when the prototype would send one. | React Email via Resend, SMS via Twilio, sent by pg_cron at each person's own time. | RESEND_API_KEY |
| The whole order flow; nothing is sent to a printer. | A print partner API (for example Lulu) with the PDF rendered server-side. | None yet |