A transparent account of our first year building technology to reduce social isolation as a public benefit corporation.
I started Maitreya because the platforms that should have held me didn’t, and I eventually realized nobody was going to build the one that would.
Rono Xia, Founder & CEOThe question I got most when I incorporated as a PBC was “why that structure?” The honest answer is that I’ve been on the receiving end of platforms that optimize for engagement at the expense of people like me. I know what that costs. A PBC is legally binding -- I can’t walk the mission back later, even if an investor asks nicely. The incentive is in the charter, not the fundraising deck.
This quarter was about finding out whether the core thesis actually works -- whether an AI conversation (we call her Dora) can build enough trust with a stranger to mediate a real human connection. The honest read: the infrastructure works. Dora has held 25+ real user conversations in production (350+ total including QA and stress testing). Ten people have completed the full onboarding flow. Our consent-based matching workflow has been stress-tested but hasn’t yet produced a sustained match -- the first parent pair we attempted didn’t follow through. The system is live; the flywheel hasn’t spun yet. That’s the real status.
We also brought SlowBurn back online this quarter -- the same underlying trust infrastructure, tuned for professional contexts. likeu is the personal surface, SlowBurn is the professional one, and both run on the same graduated-disclosure model.
We built all of this with one founder, one contributor, and four AI agents. Dora handles onboarding. Ananda runs strategy. Wren ships engineering. Barbra produces content. We ship what a five-person team usually ships, at roughly half the cost. I’m proud of that; I’m also aware the model is still new. Q2 will tell us more.
If you want the ongoing version of this story -- what we’re learning, what we’re changing, what the community teaches us -- it lives at ronoxia.substack.com. This report is the quarterly checkpoint. The Substack is the working log.
-- Rono Xia, Founder & CEO
We don’t measure engagement. We measure connection. These are our Q1 2026 metrics.
Quarterly updates are published on our Substack.
Incorporated Maitreya Inc as a PBC. Built and deployed Dora AI conversation engine with three-layer architecture. Designed consent-first matching protocol with two-step reveal. Built 8 segment-specific entry points (parents, survivors, neurodivergent, educators, professionals, chronic conditions, UCLA, general). Launched likeuapp.com with Dora onboarding, crystal identity system, and trust-gated rooms. Created parent safety guides with automated PDF delivery. Grooming awareness reel went viral (460K+ views, 793 comments, 78 survivor disclosures). Stress-tested first consent-based matching workflow. Set up AI agent operations: 4 agents at L2 autonomy. Filed trademark with USPTO.
Re-launched SlowBurn (slowburn.network) as professional networking surface on shared codebase and auth. Shipped deterministic consent flow for email capture reliability. Handle picker, crystal capture, Seeds room -- full user journey end-to-end. Automated agent dispatcher for GitHub issues. Test persona bot for QA (8 personas, all passing on prod). Launched maitreya.company investor site. Initiated fundraising via SAFE notes. Onboarded first external contributor (Mathias, UCLA engineering).
SlowBurn founding member launch and paid tier. B2B school pilots (Erin’s Law compliance, parent education). Provider referral marketplace. Community advisory board formation.
likeu paid tier after 50+ matched users. First quarterly transparency report on Substack. Partnership integrations with support organizations.
We publish costs because we don’t trust promises that don’t come with receipts. From Q2 forward, full line-item methodology and ongoing updates will live on ronoxia.substack.com under the Transparency tag.
| Category | Monthly | Annual (projected) |
|---|---|---|
| Product Infrastructure | ||
| Claude AI (Anthropic) | $165 | $1,980 |
| Vercel (hosting) | $28 | $336 |
| Supabase (database) | $25 | $300 |
| Resend (email API) | $20 | $240 |
| Perplexity (research) | $20 | $240 |
| Canva (design) | $15 | $180 |
| Slack (team) | $9 | $108 |
| Agent dispatcher (est.) | $25-50 | $300-600 |
| Subtotal: Infrastructure | ~$307-332 | ~$3,684-3,984 |
| One-Time Costs (Q1) | ||
| USPTO trademark filing | $350 | -- |
| Gamma (presentations) | $108 | -- |
| Per-User Costs | ||
| Dora onboarding conversation | $0.15/user | -- |
| Room participation (ongoing) | $0.20/user/month | -- |
As a bootstrapped startup, our spending reflects investment in building the right foundation. We prioritize product and community over growth marketing.
These are the people we’re building for. As the community grows and individual stories can be published with full editorial collaboration and consent, this section will carry their actual words. The fuller picture of what we’re hearing from the community gets written about on ronoxia.substack.com.
Community stories coming soon. If you’re a likeu user and want to share your story, reach out to us at hello@maitreya.company.
Public commitments we’ll report against in our year-end report.
Q1-Q2 2026. Both surfaces live on shared codebase.
Q1 2026. Infrastructure stress-tested in production.
Q2 2026. Workflow live, first sustained match pending.
Q2 2026. Mathias (UCLA engineering) contributing to codebase.
Q2 2026. SAFE notes initiated.
Q2 2026. Currently at 10 of 50 completed journeys.
Q3 2026. Erin’s Law compliance and parent education.
Q3 2026. Founding member launch with paid tier.
Q4 2026. Independent WCAG 2.1 AA compliance audit.
Q4 2026. Formal partnerships with nonprofits and support organizations.
The complete annual report with all metrics will be available as a PDF in January 2027.
Coming January 2027