warmbox/docs/00-product-brief.md

Product Brief — Warmbox

One-liner

Warmbox is a self-hosted (today) / SaaS (tomorrow) cold email warmup engine that safely builds sender reputation for primary outbound mailboxes using a controlled network of satellite inboxes, realistic AI-generated conversations, and human-like engagement signals — without triggering ESP anti-abuse systems.

Problem

New or cold mailboxes used for B2B outreach land in spam. ESPs (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) evaluate:

• Sending volume patterns (ramps, spikes, consistency)
• Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
• Engagement (replies, not-spam actions, spam complaints)
• Content signals (spam triggers, templated/robotic text)

Commercial warmup tools exist but carry risks: toxic peer pools, detectable patterns, placeholder-filled AI content, and ESP policies against artificial warmup networks.

Solution

Warmbox gives operators full control over:

• Which mailboxes are warming (primaries) vs supporting (satellites)
• Warmup recipe (progressive ramp, flat, randomized, custom)
• Volume bounds (1–50/day), duration (30–45 days), reply rate (30–45%)
• Spam rescue and placement visibility per primary
• AI content quality guardrails (no placeholders, no spam triggers)

Target users (personas)

P1 — Cold email operator (FillCare / agency owner)

• Warms hello@fillcareapp.com and future sales domains
• Owns 4–10 personal Gmail/Yahoo/Live satellites
• Needs confidence before connecting Instantly/Smartlead
• Wants dashboard: sent, replied, spam rate, ramp progress

P2 — Deliverability-focused growth lead

• Manages multiple primaries across brands
• Needs recipes, custom schedules, alerts on spam spikes
• Cares about Google Postmaster / Microsoft SNDS integration (future)

P3 — SaaS customer (future)

• Signs up, connects mailboxes via OAuth or app passwords
• Pays per primary mailbox warmed
• Never sees other customers' satellites (tenant isolation)

Goals

Goal	Measure
Inbox placement	≥95% warmup emails in inbox (not spam) after week 3
Spam rescue	100% of detected warmup-in-spam rescued within rescuer cycle
Reply realism	Reply rate within configured ±5% of target
Content quality	0% emails with bracket placeholders; <1% AI validation failures
ESP safety	No account suspensions attributable to Warmbox patterns
Operator trust	Per-primary daily stats accurate within 1 message

Non-goals (MVP SaaS phase)

• Sending live cold campaigns (delegate to Instantly, Smartlead, Apollo)
• Shared public peer network at launch (optional later)
• Mobile native apps
• White-label reseller portal (future)

Competitive positioning

Capability	Warmbox	Typical warmup SaaS
Self-hosted option	Yes	Rare
Own satellite pool	Yes	Often forced shared pool
Recipe control	Full (4 types)	Often progressive only
Open source core	Possible	No
ESP-aware behavior	Designed-in	Varies

Success criteria for "production ready"

1. Multiple primaries warming concurrently with independent recipes
2. Satellites only engage assigned primaries (no random cross-primary noise)
3. Statistics dashboard matches raw logs
4. Auto-pause on auth errors, bounce spikes, or spam-rate thresholds
5. Web UI for all operator workflows
6. Documented ESP compliance checklist passed before go-live