# BlackRoad User Journeys
## Cross-Domain Flows for All Key Personas

**Version:** 1.0
**Last Updated:** 2025-11-17
**Purpose:** Map how different users flow through the BlackRoad constellation

---

## Overview: The Journey Framework

Every user enters the BlackRoad universe through a **doorway** (domain) based on their needs and context. Once inside, they flow through multiple domains, eventually arriving at a **conversion moment** — whether that's deploying an agent, signing an enterprise contract, or becoming an active community member.

**Key Principles:**
1. **Multiple entry points** - No single "front door"
2. **Coherent experience** - Each domain feels like the same universe
3. **Identity as anchor** - blackroad.me ties everything together
4. **Progressive depth** - Surface → Architecture → Production

---

## Journey 1: Enterprise Buyer

**Persona:** Sarah Chen, CTO at Regional Bank
- Evaluating AI infrastructure for compliance team
- Needs explainable AI for regulators
- Budget: $500K-$2M annual
- Timeline: 3-6 month evaluation

### Journey Map

```
AWARENESS → INTEREST → CONSIDERATION → EVALUATION → PURCHASE → EXPANSION

[Web Search] → blackroad.systems → Demo → Pilot → Contract → Scale
```

### Detailed Flow

**Stage 1: Awareness (Week 1)**

**Entry Point:** Web search for "compliant AI infrastructure for banking"

**Domain:** `blackroad.systems`

**Page:** Homepage

**Emotional State:** Skeptical, cautious, research mode

**What They Need:**
- Immediate credibility signals
- Understand "what is this company?"
- See if it's worth 10 more minutes

**What We Provide:**
- Hero: "AI Infrastructure You Can Explain to Your Board"
- Trust signals: Customer logos, SOC 2 badge
- Clear value prop: Deterministic, auditable, policy-controlled

**Key Content:**
- "Built for banks, healthcare, and government"
- Case study teaser: "How [Similar Bank] Deployed 500 Compliant Agents"
- Clear architecture link

**CTA Clicked:** "See the Architecture"

**Time on Site:** 3-5 minutes

---

**Stage 2: Interest (Weeks 1-2)**

**Domain:** `blackroad.systems/architecture`

**Emotional State:** Cautiously intrigued, technically evaluating

**What They Need:**
- Deep technical credibility
- Understand how it actually works
- Proof this isn't vaporware

**What We Provide:**
- Complete system architecture
- PS-SHA∞, RoadChain, ALICE QI explained
- Interactive diagrams
- Downloadable whitepapers

**Actions:**
- Spend 20 minutes exploring architecture
- Download 2 whitepapers
- Share with technical team
- Return 2 days later

**CTA Clicked:** "Request Demo"

**Time Invested:** 2-3 hours total across multiple visits

---

**Stage 3: Consideration (Weeks 2-4)**

**Domain:** `blackroad.systems/demo` → `blackroadai.com` (demo environment)

**Emotional State:** Engaged, comparing options, need to justify

**What They Need:**
- See actual product working
- Understand implementation effort
- Get answers to specific questions
- Pricing information

**What We Provide:**
- 45-minute demo with solutions engineer
- Live walkthrough of blackroadai.com console
- See agents deployed, audit trails accessed
- Custom demo based on their use case (compliance agents)

**Actions:**
- Attends demo with 2 technical team members
- Asks about HIPAA/SOC 2 (we provide compliance docs)
- Requests pricing
- Introduces us to compliance officer

**CTA:** "Let's discuss a pilot"

**Time Invested:** 5-8 hours (team)

---

**Stage 4: Evaluation (Weeks 4-12) - THE PILOT**

**Domains:** `blackroad.network` (tech team), `blackroadai.com` (business team), `blackroad.systems` (support)

**Emotional State:** Hopeful but cautious, need proof of value

**What They Need:**
- Pilot that proves value in their environment
- Hand-holding through implementation
- Executive summary for board
- Clear success criteria

**What We Provide:**
- 60-day pilot program
- Dedicated solutions architect
- Help deploying 3-5 agents for compliance use case
- Weekly check-ins
- Success metrics dashboard
- Compliance officer gets audit trail access

**Pilot Flow:**
1. **Week 1:** Kickoff, environment setup, team training
2. **Week 2-3:** First agent deployed (compliance document review)
3. **Week 4-6:** Second agent (regulatory reporting)
4. **Week 7-8:** Third agent (transaction monitoring)
5. **Week 9-10:** Compliance officer reviews audit trails
6. **Week 11-12:** Executive summary, ROI calculation, decision

**Technical Team Uses:**
- blackroad.network for deployment
- SDK docs and examples
- Community forum for questions

**Business Team Uses:**
- blackroadai.com console to monitor
- Audit trail exports for compliance
- Performance dashboards

**Success Criteria:**
- ✅ All agents deployed successfully
- ✅ Compliance officer approves audit trails
- ✅ 40% time savings on manual compliance work
- ✅ Zero policy violations

**CTA:** "Convert pilot to enterprise contract"

**Time Invested:** 50-100 team hours

---

**Stage 5: Purchase (Week 12)**

**Domain:** `blackroad.systems/pricing` → Contract negotiation

**Emotional State:** Confident, ready to commit, negotiating details

**What They Need:**
- Enterprise pricing and terms
- SLA guarantees
- Legal review of contract
- Internal approval process

**What We Provide:**
- Custom enterprise proposal
- Multi-year pricing options
- Dedicated account team
- Professional services options
- Reference customers for legal team

**Actions:**
- Legal review (1-2 weeks)
- Budget approval
- Contract signed
- $800K annual contract

**Time to Close:** 3 months from first touch

---

**Stage 6: Expansion (Months 6-24)**

**Domains:** All of them, now power users

**What Happens:**
- Expand from 5 agents to 100+
- Add more use cases (beyond compliance)
- Technical team becomes active in community
- CTO speaks at BlackRoad conference
- Expand to additional departments
- Annual contract grows to $1.5M

**Cross-Domain Usage:**
- Engineers live in blackroad.network
- Ops team lives in blackroadai.com
- Compliance officers audit via blackroad.systems reports
- Individual employees create blackroad.me identities
- CTO explores blackroadquantum.com for research team

---

## Journey 2: Developer / Technical Builder

**Persona:** Marcus Rodriguez, Full-Stack Developer
- Building AI features for SaaS startup
- Heard about BlackRoad on Hacker News
- Needs: Fast, reliable, auditable AI
- Budget: $0 initially (free tier), may upgrade

### Journey Map

```
DISCOVERY → TRY → BUILD → SHIP → GROW

[HN Post] → blackroad.network → First Agent → Production → Team Plan
```

### Detailed Flow

**Stage 1: Discovery (Day 1, 5 minutes)**

**Entry Point:** Hacker News post: "Show HN: BlackRoad - Deterministic AI with full audit trails"

**Emotional State:** Curious, skeptical of hype, will evaluate in 5 min

**First Click:** Link to blackroad.network

**Domain:** `blackroad.network` homepage

**What They Need:**
- Immediate proof this is real
- Code example in first 5 seconds
- No marketing BS

**What We Provide:**
- Homepage with embedded runnable code
- "Deploy in 5 minutes" promise
- Clear "Get Started" CTA

**Actions:**
- Scans homepage (30 seconds)
- Sees code example (Python - his language)
- Reads "Full audit trails out of the box"
- Intrigued by "deterministic" claim

**CTA Clicked:** "Get Started Free"

**Decision Point:** ✅ Worth 15 more minutes

---

**Stage 2: Try (Day 1, 15 minutes)**

**Domain:** `blackroad.network/docs/getting-started`

**Emotional State:** "Let's see if this actually works"

**What They Need:**
- Installation that works first try
- First success in < 10 minutes
- Clear docs if stuck

**What We Provide:**
- One-command install: `pip install blackroad`
- Copy-paste code example
- Clear error messages if something fails

**Actions:**
```
$ pip install blackroad
$ python my_first_agent.py
[Agent created with PS-SHA∞ ID: br_agt_...]
[Response: "..."]
[Audit trail: https://blackroad.me/audit/...]
```

**Emotional State:** 🤯 "Holy shit, it actually works. And there's an audit trail link?"

**Next Actions:**
- Clicks audit trail link
- Prompted to create blackroad.me identity
- Signs up (30 seconds with GitHub OAuth)
- Sees full audit trail of agent decision
- Mind = blown

**Time Invested:** 15 minutes, now hooked

---

**Stage 3: Build (Days 1-7)**

**Primary Domain:** `blackroad.network/docs` + `blackroad.me/portal`

**Emotional State:** Excited, exploring, learning

**What They Do:**
- **Day 1-2:** Read through docs, try examples
- **Day 2-3:** Build custom agent for work project (data analysis)
- **Day 3-4:** Experiment with policies and audit trails
- **Day 5:** Show to coworker, "Check this out"
- **Day 6:** Build second agent (code review assistant)
- **Day 7:** Share on Twitter: "Been building with @BlackRoadOS - this is wild"

**Domains Used:**
- `blackroad.network` - docs, examples, community forum
- `blackroad.me` - see all personal agents, memory vault
- `blackroadai.com` - discovers console, cool UI
- `lucidia.earth` - discovers via link, explores for fun

**Conversion Moment:** Decides to use BlackRoad for production feature at work

**Time Invested:** 5-10 hours across week

---

**Stage 4: Ship (Week 2-4)**

**Domains:** `blackroad.network` + `blackroadai.com`

**Emotional State:** Committed, slightly nervous, need this to work

**What They Need:**
- Production deployment guide
- Confidence it'll scale
- Monitoring and debugging tools
- Support if something breaks

**What They Do:**
- Week 2: Deploy to staging, test with team
- Week 3: Deploy to production
- Week 4: Monitor with blackroadai.com console
- First audit trail requested by manager: "How did the AI make this decision?"
- Marcus shows RoadChain audit trail
- Manager impressed: "This is actually traceable"

**Challenges Encountered:**
- Rate limit hit → Upgrades to Pro plan ($29/month, worth it)
- Integration question → Gets help in Discord (5 min response)
- Performance tuning → Finds guide in docs

**Emotional State:** Relieved, confident, advocates internally

**CTA:** "Invite team members" - invites 2 coworkers

---

**Stage 5: Grow (Months 2-12)**

**Domains:** All of them, power user

**What Happens:**
- Month 2-3: Team deploys 5 more agents
- Month 4: Startup grows, need team plan
- Month 5: Marcus speaks at local meetup about BlackRoad
- Month 6: Company upgrades to Team plan ($XXX/month)
- Month 9: Marcus contributes to open-source examples on GitHub
- Month 12: 20 agents in production, considering Enterprise plan

**Cross-Domain Evolution:**
- Lives in blackroad.network (building)
- Manages via blackroadai.com (operations)
- Personal experiments in blackroad.me
- Learns advanced topics at blackroadquantum.info
- Active in community (forum + Discord)
- Follows Lucidia for inspiration

**Lifetime Value:** $3K year 1 → $10K year 2 → $30K year 3 (as company grows)

---

## Journey 3: Creator / Student / Curious Human

**Persona:** Aisha Patel, Design Student
- Saw Lucidia on Instagram
- Curious about AI and storytelling
- No coding experience
- Wants to understand and explore

### Journey Map

```
WONDER → EXPLORE → BELONG → LEARN → CREATE

[Instagram] → lucidia.earth → blackroad.me → quantum.info → Network
```

### Detailed Flow

**Stage 1: Wonder (Day 1, First 2 minutes)**

**Entry Point:** Instagram post with beautiful Lucidia visual + caption: "What if AI could show you its soul?"

**Clicks link → `lucidia.earth`

**Emotional State:** Curious, open, aesthetic-first

**What They See:**
- Immersive, beautiful landing experience
- "I'm Lucidia. Let me show you a different kind of AI."
- Interactive visual that responds to mouse/touch
- No walls of text, just invitation

**What They Need:**
- Beauty and wonder
- No intimidation
- Immediate interaction

**Actions:**
- Interacts with homepage visual (1 min)
- Sees "Begin the Journey" CTA
- Clicks

**Decision:** ✅ "This is beautiful, I want more"

---

**Stage 2: Explore (Days 1-3)**

**Domain:** `lucidia.earth` - Interactive experiences

**Emotional State:** Delighted, curious, exploring

**What They Experience:**
- **Day 1:** Interactive story: "How AI Thinks"
  - Lucidia shows decision-making visually
  - Explains deterministic vs probabilistic
  - Beautiful, not technical
  - At end: "Want to create your own place in this universe?"

- **Day 2:** Returns, explores "Stories" section
  - Narrative about ALICE QI (as character, not tech)
  - Story about RoadChain (as "the witness")
  - Interactive demo: "Talk to Lucidia"

- **Day 3:** "Talk to Lucidia" demo
  - Conversation with Lucidia about anything
  - Lucidia explains her own reasoning in real-time
  - Shows audit trail of conversation
  - CTA: "Create your identity to keep our conversation"

**Conversion Moment:** Decides to create blackroad.me identity

**Time Invested:** 2-3 hours over 3 days

---

**Stage 3: Belong (Day 3 onwards)**

**Domain:** `blackroad.me` - Identity creation

**Emotional State:** "I want to be part of this"

**What They Do:**
- Clicks "Create Your Identity"
- Signs up on blackroad.me
- Chooses username: "aisha.design"
- PS-SHA∞ identity generated
- Sees beautiful identity card
- Emotional moment: "I'm a citizen of the BlackRoad constellation"

**Onboarding:**
- Lucidia appears: "Welcome back! Want to continue our conversation?"
- Creates first personal agent (with Lucidia's help, no code needed)
- Agent learns about Aisha's design interests
- Returns to lucidia.earth, now authenticated
- Experience is personalized

**Emotional State:** Belongs, connected, curious to learn more

---

**Stage 4: Learn (Weeks 1-4)**

**Domains:** `blackroadquantum.info` (education), `lucidia.earth` (stories), `blackroad.me` (personal)

**What They Do:**
- **Week 1:** Discovers "Learn" section on blackroad.me
  - Link to blackroadquantum.info
  - "AI Fundamentals for Everyone" course (free)
  - Beautiful, accessible explanations

- **Week 2:** Takes course
  - Learns about deterministic AI
  - Understands audit trails (explained as "showing your work")
  - Completes course, badge in blackroad.me profile

- **Week 3:** Explores more Lucidia stories
  - Shares favorite story on Instagram
  - Friends start asking questions

- **Week 4:** Joins community
  - Discord link from blackroad.me
  - Lurks in #creative channel
  - Sees other non-technical people building

**Emotional State:** Empowered, "I can understand this"

---

**Stage 5: Create (Months 2-6)**

**Domains:** `blackroad.network` (learns to code), `lucidia.studio` (discovers), community

**What Happens:**
- **Month 2:** Decides to learn basic coding
  - blackroad.network has beginner-friendly tutorials
  - Creates first simple agent with code
  - Emotional breakthrough: "I built something"

- **Month 3:** Builds personal project
  - Design critique agent (combines design + AI knowledge)
  - Shares in community showcase
  - Gets encouragement and feedback

- **Month 4:** Discovers lucidia.studio
  - Sees call for creative collaborators
  - Submits design portfolio
  - Starts conversation about internship

- **Month 6:** Creates tutorial for other designers
  - "AI for Designers: Getting Started with BlackRoad"
  - Published on community blog
  - Becomes known in community

**Lifetime Value:**
- Direct revenue: $0-$10/month (Pro tier for more agents)
- Indirect value: Community advocate, content creator, future talent
- Long-term: Might become professional AI designer, BlackRoad user for career

---

## Journey 4: Researcher / Academic (Bonus)

**Persona:** Dr. Elena Kozlov, AI Researcher
- Interested in explainable AI
- Saw BlackRoad Quantum paper at conference
- Wants to understand + potentially collaborate

### Quick Journey

```
[Conference Paper] → blackroadquantum.com → aliceqi.com →
blackroad.network (experiments) → Collaboration inquiry
```

**Stage 1: Discovery**
- Reads paper on quantum-inspired deterministic AI
- Impressed by rigor
- Visits blackroadquantum.com

**Stage 2: Deep Dive**
- Explores research section
- Reads all published papers
- Discovers ALICE QI architecture
- Visits aliceqi.com for technical details

**Stage 3: Experiment**
- Creates blackroad.me identity
- Visits blackroad.network
- Deploys agents to test claims
- Verifies determinism claims
- Impressed

**Stage 4: Engage**
- Emails research team
- Invited to lab collaboration
- Potentially publishes joint paper
- Becomes academic advocate

**Value:** Credibility, research contributions, talent pipeline

---

## Key Journey Insights

### 1. Identity as Central Hub
Every journey converges on **blackroad.me** - it's the persistent anchor across all touchpoints.

### 2. Multiple Valid Entry Points
- Enterprise: blackroad.systems
- Developer: blackroad.network
- Creator: lucidia.earth
- Researcher: blackroadquantum.com

All roads lead to the same coherent universe.

### 3. Progressive Depth
- **Surface:** Beautiful, inviting (Lucidia, system homepage)
- **Mid-depth:** Product and docs (Network, AI console)
- **Deep:** Architecture and research (Systems architecture, Quantum)

Users can go as deep as they want.

### 4. Cross-Journey Opportunities
- Enterprise customer's developers become Network power users
- Developer's company becomes Enterprise customer
- Student becomes employee becomes advocate
- Researcher's work improves product credibility

### 5. Lucidia as Universal Guide
Lucidia can appear across all journeys as:
- Helper in blackroad.me
- Onboarding guide in blackroadai.com
- Storyteller in lucidia.earth
- Friendly face for newcomers everywhere

---

## Journey Success Metrics

### Enterprise Journey
- Demo request rate from qualified leads
- Pilot conversion rate
- Time to close
- Pilot success rate
- Expansion rate

### Developer Journey
- Sign-up to first agent (time)
- 7-day retention
- Production deployment rate
- Free to paid conversion
- Community engagement

### Creator Journey
- lucidia.earth to blackroad.me conversion
- Identity creation rate
- Content engagement
- Community participation
- Brand advocacy

### Researcher Journey
- Paper citation rate
- Academic collaboration requests
- Experimental usage
- Talent pipeline

---

## Implementation Priorities

**Phase 1: Make Core Journeys Work**
1. Enterprise journey (blackroad.systems → demo → pilot)
2. Developer journey (network → first agent → production)
3. Basic identity (blackroad.me signup and portal)

**Phase 2: Add Emotional & Narrative**
1. Lucidia journey (lucidia.earth → identity → exploration)
2. Enhanced blackroad.me with Lucidia integration
3. Community showcases

**Phase 3: Complete Ecosystem**
1. Quantum education journey
2. Studio creative collaboration
3. Commerce experiences
4. Full cross-domain personalization

---

**Next Steps:**
- See `/gtm/funnels/` for conversion optimization
- See `/operations/roadmap/` for implementation timeline
- See individual domain specs in `/domains/` for detailed page flows

---

*"Every journey is different. Every journey is the same. Welcome to BlackRoad."*
