1. Accepting these terms

BuildState Studio (buildstate.studio, "BuildState", "we") is a founder community, AI coaching platform, marketplace and code Foundry. By creating an account, subscribing, buying or selling on the marketplace, contributing to the Foundry, or using any part of the platform, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use BuildState.

2. Your account

One person, one account. You must be 18 or older. Keep your password private and turn on two-factor authentication in Settings; we strongly encourage it and may require it for sellers and payouts. You are responsible for everything done under your login. No Claude Pro logins: BuildState's AI runs on API keys, never on consumer subscriptions. Do not connect a Claude Pro, Claude Max, ChatGPT Plus or any other personal third-party subscription to BuildState, and do not share those logins with other members. We automatically reject Claude Pro OAuth tokens (they start with sk-ant-oat).

3. Marketplace licence

The marketplace lets members sell systems, playbooks, courses, templates and code. What buyers get: a personal, non-transferable licence to use what you bought inside your own business and projects. You may not resell, redistribute or repost a purchase, or pass it off as your own, unless the listing says otherwise. What sellers keep: you own everything you list. Listing does not transfer your copyright to BuildState or to buyers. You confirm you have the right to sell what you list and that it does not copy someone else's work. What BuildState gets: a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to host, display, preview, promote and deliver your listing on the platform and in our marketing for as long as it is listed, plus the right to keep serving copies buyers already paid for. Payouts run through Stripe Connect; the revenue split, hold period and clawback window shown on the seller page when you list apply to that listing. We can remove any listing that breaks these terms or the law.

4. Subscriptions and billing

Plans are monthly: Access $4.97, Premium $18.97 and Ultra $78.97 (US dollars, plus tax where it applies). Payments are processed by Stripe; we never see your card number. Your plan renews each month until you cancel. Cancel any time from Settings: you keep access until the end of the period you already paid for and are not charged again. Refunds: if BuildState is not for you, email us within 7 days of your first charge and we will refund it in full. Renewal charges and marketplace purchases are not refundable unless the law requires it or we removed what you bought for breaking these terms. Test-user codes: from time to time we hand out codes for free or discounted access to testers. Those codes are personal, can be withdrawn at any time, and do not convert into credit; testers agree to give honest feedback and keep unreleased features private. Prices can change; we will email you at least 30 days before a change affects what you pay.

5. Your content and the shared brain

You own what you write and build on BuildState: journal entries, projects, coaching conversations, profiles, posts and uploads. You give us the licence we need to store, display and process that content to run the platform for you, including sending it to AI providers to generate your coaching replies (details in the Privacy Policy). Anything you deliberately make public, such as your public profile, wins, feed posts and marketplace listings, may be shown to other members and visitors. Shared brain, off by default: the Tune menu has a share-progress switch. When it is on, patterns from your skill growth feed anonymous aggregate statistics that improve coaching for everyone. Aggregates never contain your words, your name or anything identifying, and turning the switch off removes you from future aggregates. We do not use your private content to train third-party foundation models.

6. Acceptable use

Do not: send spam or unsolicited promotions; scrape, crawl or bulk-export the platform or other members' data; harass, threaten, impersonate or dox anyone; post illegal, hateful or sexual content; upload malware; work around metering, payments, rate limits or security; or use BuildState's prompts and curriculum to build a competing coaching product. Do not publish anything you do not have the right to publish: recipes, images, decals, galaxy elements and posts must be your own work or material you are licensed to share. Copyright complaints are handled under section 10, and repeat infringers lose their accounts.

7. Bring your own key (BYOK)

Your key, your bill. You can add your own AI provider API key (currently Anthropic) in Settings. When you do, the requests you make are sent to that provider with your key and billed by that provider to you, under that provider's terms; BuildState does not mark them up or count them against your plan allowance. We store your key encrypted, use it only to run the requests you make, never use it for other members or for our own work, and delete it when you revoke it. Keeping the key valid and funded, and any usage under it, is on you. If a provider suspends your key, that is between you and the provider.

8. Foundry contributions and patchware

The Foundry is where members publish recipes, patches and small pieces of code ("patchware"). When you contribute, you keep ownership of your work. In return you grant BuildState and every other member a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, copy, adapt, fork and build on your contribution inside BuildState and in their own projects. You can withdraw a contribution at any time: we stop distributing it from then on, but copies members have already forked or downloaded stay licensed. Patchware is shared as-is. A patch is written for a specific setup and is not guaranteed to work in yours; each one says what it was built for, so read that and test before you rely on it. Paid patches also follow section 3.

9. Contributor content and licence

This section covers everything you publish on BuildState for other people to see or use that section 8 does not already cover: recipes, galaxy elements, decals and skins, feed and community posts, journal entries you make public, wins, and the images inside them. You keep ownership. Publishing does not transfer your copyright to BuildState or to anyone else. In return you grant BuildState a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display, adapt (for example resize, crop, format, translate or excerpt), distribute and promote that content on the platform, in previews and share cards, and in our marketing, and to derive anonymous aggregate statistics from it (counts, rankings, run rates and similar) that never identify you. Where the product lets other members use what you publish (a recipe they can run, an element they can place, a post they can repost inside BuildState), the licence extends to those members for that use. Removal on request: you can unpublish or delete your content yourself at any time, and if you email us instead we remove it from public view within 7 days. After removal we stop distributing it; copies other members already ran, forked or exported stay licensed, cached previews clear on their normal schedule, and anonymous aggregates already computed are not unwound. Your promise to us: what you publish is your own work or material you have the right to share, it does not copy someone else's work, and it does not include another person's private information without their permission. Content sold through the marketplace follows section 3 as well.

10. Copyright complaints (DMCA)

BuildState hosts content uploaded by members and follows the notice-and-takedown process of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If you believe content on BuildState infringes a copyright you own or represent, send a notice to our designated agent at dmca@buildstate.studio (postal address: to be listed here once our registration with the US Copyright Office is complete). A valid notice must include: (1) the copyrighted work you say is infringed, or a representative list if there are several; (2) the exact URL or location on BuildState of the material you want removed, with enough detail for us to find it; (3) your name, postal address, telephone number and email address; (4) a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, their agent or the law; (5) a statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for the owner; and (6) your physical or electronic signature. When we receive a complete notice we promptly remove or disable access to the material and tell the member who posted it. Counter-notice: if your content was removed and you believe that was a mistake or a misidentification, email dmca@buildstate.studio with (1) the material that was removed and where it appeared before removal, (2) a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief it was removed by mistake or misidentification, (3) your name, postal address and telephone number, (4) a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for your address (or, if you are outside the United States, any judicial district in which BuildState may be found) and that you will accept service of process from the person who filed the original notice, and (5) your physical or electronic signature. We forward a complete counter-notice to the complainant; unless they tell us within 10 business days that they have filed a court action to keep the material down, we may restore it 10 to 14 business days after we received your counter-notice. Anyone who knowingly misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, can be liable for the resulting costs and damages. Repeat infringers: we close the accounts of members who repeatedly infringe. Nothing in this section is legal advice; consider speaking to a lawyer before sending a notice or a counter-notice.

11. AI outputs

Coaches, estimates, archetypes and the assessment are generated by AI. They can be wrong, out of date or a poor fit for your situation, and they are not legal, financial, tax, medical or mental-health advice. Check anything that matters with a qualified professional before acting on it. The platform is provided as-is; to the fullest extent the law allows, BuildState's total liability to you is limited to what you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, and we are not liable for decisions you make based on AI output.

12. Services, reviews and turnaround

Work With Us services (onboarding calls, consultations, stack audits, sprints, agent implementation) are delivered by BuildState's founder personally, so scope and timing are agreed at intake and written into the intake record. Reviews of your work (a build, a landing page, a cold email, a pitch) are done within the window stated at intake, normally 5 business days; if we cannot meet that window we tell you before it passes and you may cancel that piece of work for a full refund of anything not yet delivered. A review is an honest professional opinion, not a guarantee of any outcome, and you remain responsible for what you ship. Community feedback from other members is not a BuildState service and carries no review window.

13. If we are unavailable

BuildState is run by one founder. If illness, an emergency or events outside our control (an outage at a provider we depend on, for example) stop us from delivering a service on time, the following applies and is the whole of our responsibility: scheduled work pauses and the clock stops; we tell you as soon as we are able; any scoped work that has not been delivered can be cancelled by you for a full refund of the undelivered part; subscriptions keep running because the platform itself keeps running, and if the platform is down for more than 3 consecutive days we extend every active subscription by the days lost. We are not liable for indirect losses (lost profit, missed deadlines, opportunity cost) arising from a delay. Nothing in this section limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

14. Ending your account

You can close your account at any time from Settings or by emailing us; the Privacy Policy explains deletion. We can suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, harms other members or has unpaid charges. On closure your subscription stops, your listings come down (licences already sold stay valid), your Foundry contributions stop being distributed, and any payable seller balance above the payout minimum is still paid on the normal schedule unless it is held for fraud or chargebacks. Licences already granted, amounts owed, disclaimers and governing law survive closure.

15. Changes

We will update these terms as the platform grows. Small changes take effect when posted with a new date. Material changes get at least 30 days' email notice. Continuing to use BuildState after the effective date means the new version applies; if you do not agree, cancel before then.

16. Governing law and contact

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, and any dispute will be heard in the state or federal courts located in New Jersey. If any part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still stands. Questions, refund requests or anything else: chandon294@gmail.com. Copyright notices and counter-notices go to dmca@buildstate.studio (section 10).