Priya's exclusion list
Tara (Module 1, the college-essay tracker) wrote this exclusion list for her sister Priya:
- It does NOT write essays. (Many AI tools do; Tara explicitly refuses. Priya already writes her essays well. The product solves the OTHER problem.)
- It does NOT score essays or give writing feedback. (No AI grading. No "this paragraph needs more passion." Refused.)
- It does NOT auto-submit to college application portals. (No automation. Priya copies the final essay over manually. Refused for legal reasons, and because automation here would feel creepy.)
Those three exclusions kept Tara shipped in three weeks instead of three months.
In week four her sister said, "wait, you should add the AI feedback thing, everyone has that." Tara pointed at the list. Priya got over it in 90 seconds.
The product became a clean, single-purpose tool. Two of Priya's friends bought it specifically BECAUSE it didn't try to grade their writing. They had ChatGPT for that. They needed something else, and Tara had built the something else.