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Vol. 01 · Issue 02How it works · The product, end to endUpdated April 2026
The product, end to end

From quiz to portfolio,
in about ten minutes.

This is the long version. Six chapters, in the order you'd experience them — from the questionnaire that runs the engine, through the profile it produces, the portfolio it proposes, the account it opens for you, the cadence it keeps, and the way it talks to you afterward.

~10 minutes total$1 minimum5 profiles≤ 90 days thesis freshness
01
Chapter 01 · The questionnaire
Twenty-two questions across five sections. About five minutes.

We ask twenty-two questions before we recommend anything. They are organized into five sections, and the questionnaire is designed to be completed in one sitting but can be saved and resumed at any point. Progress lives in your account, not in the browser, so you can pick it up on any device.

Two things are measured independently. Risk tolerance is behavioral — how you'd actually respond to a 30% drawdown, asked five different ways in five different framings, because what people say they'd do and what they actually do are different things. Risk capacity is financial — what your balance sheet can survive without affecting your life. They produce two scores, and we default the portfolio to the lower of the two.

The lower-of-two rule
If your tolerance score says Aggressive but your capacity score says Conservative-Moderate, we default to Conservative-Moderate. We tell you exactly why, and what would need to change for us to move you up. No silent overrides.
An excerpt · Section C, question 3
Question 8 of 22Risk tolerance

The market drops 30% in one month. Your $10,000 portfolio is now worth $7,000. You would…

Asked again in question 11, 14, 18, and 21. With different framings.
The five sections
A4 questions
About you
Age, dependents, employment, time horizon.
B3 questions
Experience
What you've invested in, how long, how much you read.
C7 questions
Risk tolerance
Five behavioral scenarios + two stated-preference questions.
D5 questions
Liquidity & capacity
Income, savings, debt, an emergency fund, big-ticket plans.
E3 questions
Values & exclusions
ESG screens, sectors to exclude, religion-based filters.
02
Chapter 02 · Your profile
Five profiles. The lower of two scores wins.

Five profiles span the range from capital preservation to long-horizon compounding. They are not arbitrary — they are tuned to historical drawdowns at each allocation, and the asset mix is a starting point you can refine. Each profile has its own curated picks, its own concentration caps, and its own behavioral guardrails.

Pull quote · The platform default
"If you don't know what to pick, pick Moderate. It is the closest to the long-run optimum for someone with twenty-plus years and an emergency fund."
ProfileNameMixVol
01
Conservative
Capital preservation
EQ 25BD 65CASH 10
Low
02
Conservative-Moderate
Tilt toward growth
EQ 45BD 50CASH 5
Low-Mod
03
Moderate
The platform default
EQ 60BD 34CASH 6
Mod
04
Growth
Long horizon, calm hand
EQ 80BD 17CASH 3
Mod-High
05
Aggressive
Decades of compounding
EQ 95BD 3CASH 2
High
How tolerance × capacity → profile
Tol \ CapConsCons-ModModGrowthAggressiveDefaultConservativeConsConsConsConsConsConsCons-ModerateConsC-MC-MC-MC-MC-MModerateConsC-MModModModModGrowthConsC-MModGrwGrwGrwAggressiveConsC-MModGrwAggAgg
The lower of the two scores wins. The diagonal would be "what you said about yourself"; the rule pulls everyone below it. Override upward is available — through six layers of friction documented on the landing page.
03
Chapter 03 · The proposed portfolio
A specific allocation, with curated theses inside it.

Your profile produces a specific allocation. The bulk is ETFs, for cheap diversification. Inside the equity sleeve sit curated stock theses — capped per profile, sized by conviction, never more than 6% in a single name at any profile.

You can decline anything. Decline COST, and the engine substitutes another curated pick or rebalances into the index sleeve — your call. Add your own picks; we'll flag concentration and surface our thesis status if one exists, but otherwise leave them alone.
Caps that don't move
· Single name ≤ 6% of equity sleeve
· Curated stocks ≤ 30% of total in any profile
· User-added picks not counted against the curated cap
· International ≥ 20% of equity in profiles 3–5
Retirement · 2055
$24,182.14
+$418.06 this month · Goal 14% complete
MANAGED MODE
PROFILE · MODERATE
USER-CHOSEN ↑ ONE
EQUITY 60%BONDS 34%CASH 6%
Holdings
VTIVanguard Total Mkt32.0%+0.4%curated
COSTCostco 8.2%+1.2%curated
BNDWWorld Bond Index24.0%−0.1%curated
TSMTaiwan Semi. 4.4%+2.1%curated
IEFAIntl Developed14.0%+0.3%curated
NVONovo Nordisk 3.8%−0.6%you-added
Re-balance, not re-trade. The engine rebalances on drift thresholds, not on a calendar. Tax-loss harvesting runs as a side-effect of rebalancing, not as its own product line.
04
Chapter 04 · Opening and funding
About two minutes, end to end.
01

KYC

Name, DOB, address, SSN, employment. Standard FINRA disclosures. We don't ask for anything we don't need.

~60s
02

Account type

Taxable, Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, SEP. We explain the trade-offs in plain English — never marketing copy.

~30s
03

Link bank

Plaid for instant verification or micro-deposits for manual. Bank stays linked; you can change it later.

~45s
04

Initial deposit

One dollar to start. We don't apply pressure to deposit more. DCA is opt-in and explained before you opt in, never after.

~15s
05

Goal setup

Add a named goal (retirement, house, freedom fund) or skip. Defaults to Open Growth at your recommended profile.

optional
About DCA. We will set up dollar-cost averaging if you ask for it, and we'll explain what it is and what it costs first. We won't default-enable it; we won't make it the path of least resistance. Most retail platforms do, because reliable monthly inflows make their economics work. They aren't free for you, so we don't pretend otherwise.
05
Chapter 05 · The recommendation clock
Dual-trigger updates. Never more than ninety days stale.

Every curated thesis lives under two clocks. The first is event-driven — earnings, material news, regulatory action, a leadership change. The second is calendar — a hard quarterly review regardless of what's happening. The result is a guarantee: nothing on your dashboard is ever more than ninety days old.

What "freshness" means here
· Author re-read in the last 90 days
· Scenarios re-priced against current valuation
· Break criteria still defensible
· Confidence grade revisited and dated
A year on the clock · COST
Mar 14
Q1 review
Reaffirmed · confidence high
Apr 28
Q3 earnings beat
Scenarios re-weighted +5pp toward bull
Jun 12
Q2 review
Reaffirmed · target nudged to $208
Aug 02
Membership fee hike announced
Bull scenario triggered earlier than expected
Sep 11
Q3 review
Reaffirmed · narrowed bear scenario
Dec 04
Q4 review
Confidence high · holding into 2027
Event-drivenCalendar review
06
Chapter 06 · Notifications & the digest
What we'll send. And what we won't.

One email a week — a Monday digest of what changed and what's coming. Push notifications only for thesis events: a new pick, a broken thesis, a scenario re-weight, a goal milestone. That's it. We will never push a price-move alert.

Channel · purpose
Weekly digestEmail · Monday 8am localWhat changed this week, what to expect this week.
New pickPush + emailA new curated thesis is available for your profile.
Broken thesisPush + emailA break criterion tripped. Action recommended.
Scenario re-weightEmailProbability or target changed. Reason given.
Goal milestonePushQuiet acknowledgement. No confetti.
Price movesWe will not send these. Ever.
A Monday digest · sample
tarnMon · 8:02 AM

This week's brief

Two scenario re-weights, one new pick, no broken theses. The quarterly review of NVO is scheduled for Thursday.

What changed
COSTBull weight +5ppMembership fee hike announced
TSMConfidence Med → HighQ3 earnings + capex commentary
NewIDXX added to Growth+New thesis · Dr. Anaya Iyer
Read the long version →    Reply STOP to mute.
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01
Product
What Tarn is, in one page.
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03
Pricing
What you pay, in dollars.
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04
Research & Theses
The desk that writes what you read.
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05
Education
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