The First Arc — Terms of Service

v1.1-FINAL · Moonshot window · 2026-04-18 Status: Provisional working document. This document has not been reviewed by licensed counsel and is not legal advice. Counsel review is scheduled for the v2 revision at the first-revenue / cold-traffic clickwrap activation milestone. For the Moonshot window, these Terms are published for disclosure via footer links at flowstate.com/elevate; binding clickwrap acceptance will be implemented concurrently with the cold-traffic Stripe flow in v2.

1. What this is

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a legal agreement between you ("you" or "User") and FlowState IQ LLC, an Illinois limited liability company ("FlowState IQ," "we," "us," or "our"). These Terms govern your use of The First Arc (the "Arc"), a self-guided assessment and profiling product that runs inside the FlowState IQ platform.

By clicking the "I agree" checkbox and completing the purchase of the Arc, you accept these Terms. Acceptance becomes effective at the time of the checkbox click. If you do not agree, do not purchase or use the Arc.

2. What the Arc does

The Arc is a guided, self-serve assessment that produces an operational profile of your business. It runs inside the FlowState IQ platform with an AI companion that guides you through:

  • Onboarding — establishing your business context and baseline
  • Intelligence gathering — commercial context, strategic priorities, vision
  • Process reality mapping — how work actually happens in your operation
  • Two focused workshops — surfacing operational tensions worth closing
  • An operational profile output — the written artifact you keep

The Arc is designed to be completed at your own pace. Many users complete it in a single half-day session; others take two to three days. There is no fixed timeline.

3. What you pay, what you get

Fee: $249 USD, one-time, charged at time of purchase.

You receive:

  • Access to the Arc workflow inside the FlowState IQ platform
  • AI companion guidance during the assessment
  • An operational profile of your business, generated from your inputs
  • An engagement-fit signal indicating whether a 90-Day Engagement with Elevate IQ would be a reasonable next step for your situation
  • Continued access to your operational profile for as long as the FlowState IQ platform remains available to users

What FlowState IQ receives:

  • Your assessment inputs and the operational profile generated from them
  • An internal engagement-profile signal, used by FlowState IQ to determine follow-up outreach priority (see Section 7 on data handling)

4. Refunds

The Arc is a digital product. Because significant platform resources are consumed the moment you initiate the Arc (AI companion guidance, processing of your inputs, generation of your profile), refunds are available only as follows:

  • Full refund within 24 hours of purchase if you have not yet initiated the Arc assessment
  • No refunds once you have initiated the Arc assessment, defined as the moment you begin responding to the first Arc question or otherwise generate any AI companion output. Logging into the FlowState IQ platform or previewing the Arc landing page does not constitute initiation.

If technical issues on FlowState IQ's side prevent you from accessing or completing the Arc, contact us at chad@flowstateiq.com and we will either resolve the issue or issue a refund at our discretion.

5. Your responsibilities

You represent that you are at least 18 years old and have legal capacity to enter into this agreement. If you are using the Arc on behalf of a business, you represent that you have authority to bind that business to these Terms.

You agree to:

  • Provide reasonably accurate information about your business during the Arc
  • Not share your account credentials with third parties
  • Not attempt to reverse engineer, copy, or extract the Arc's underlying methodology, prompts, or platform architecture
  • Not use the Arc to process any regulated data (see Section 9)

6. AI disclosure

The Arc uses generative AI to guide you through the workflow and to produce portions of your operational profile. AI-generated outputs are:

  • Working interpretations of the information you provide, not professional advice
  • Not a substitute for legal, tax, accounting, operational, strategic, or any other professional consultation
  • Generated by machine systems that can occasionally produce inaccuracies, omissions, or misinterpretations

You are responsible for reviewing and applying AI-generated outputs as you see fit. FlowState IQ does not warrant that AI-generated outputs are error-free.

7. How we handle your data

This Section summarizes how we handle your data in connection with the Arc. Our full Privacy Policy, available at flowstate.com/elevate/privacy, applies to your use of the FlowState IQ platform and the Arc generally. Where these Terms conflict with the Privacy Policy on Arc-specific matters, these Terms govern.

7.1 What we collect

During the Arc, you provide information about your business. This may include your name, contact information, business name, industry, size, tooling, workflow descriptions, operational challenges, and similar business context.

7.2 How we use it

We use your data to:

  • Deliver the Arc product (generate your operational profile)
  • Determine follow-up outreach priority (whether to offer Discovery Engagement or similar next steps)
  • Improve the FlowState IQ product in aggregate, anonymized form (see §7.7)

7.3 How we do not use it

We do not:

  • Sell your data to third parties
  • Share your data with any party other than the service providers necessary to deliver the Arc (see Section 7.5)
  • Train machine learning or AI models on your identifiable data

7.4 Your operational profile

Your operational profile is yours. You may download it, share it, use it in your business, or refer to it in any way you choose. We retain the profile in your account for your continued access.

7.5 Service providers

We use the following categories of third-party service providers to deliver the Arc, each governed by their own published terms:

  • Claude / Anthropic — AI model services (US-based; does not train on API data)
  • Vercel / Supabase — hosting and database services (US-based)
  • Payment processor — to process your Arc fee

These providers may process your data as necessary to deliver their services. They do not receive your data for any other purpose.

7.6 Retention and deletion

We retain your data for as long as your FlowState IQ account is active. You may request deletion of your account and associated data at any time by emailing chad@flowstateiq.com. Deletion is completed within thirty (30) days of request, except where retention is required by law, necessary to complete transactions already initiated, or permitted under §7.7 (anonymized aggregate).

You may also request access to, or correction of, the data we hold about you. See §13.4 for contact.

7.7 Anonymized aggregate data

We may retain anonymized, aggregated data about Arc completions — patterns of pain points, closure types, industry shapes — to improve the product and develop derivative templates used in other work. For purposes of this section, "anonymized" means data has been processed such that it cannot reasonably be used to identify you or your business, whether alone or in combination with other information. We apply this standard before retaining any data under this subsection. Anonymized aggregate data is not considered personal data under these Terms.

8. Intellectual property

8.1 What's yours

Your business information, your operational profile, and any outputs specific to your business are yours. You own them outright and may use them however you choose.

8.2 What's ours

The FlowState IQ platform, the Arc methodology, the underlying AI prompts and workflows, the FlowState IQ name and branding, the diagnostic frameworks (including but not limited to the three-pillar architecture, the SPRINT question battery, and the Forcing Questions methodology), and all related content are the intellectual property of FlowState IQ LLC. These Terms do not transfer any rights in this intellectual property to you.

8.3 License to use

We grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Arc and access your operational profile through the FlowState IQ platform. Your license permits you to:

  • (a) use the Arc as a User during your access period,
  • (b) download, copy, share, and reference your operational profile for any purpose related to your business, including sharing with employees, advisors, investors, or partners, and
  • (c) excerpt or describe your operational profile in external communications.

Your license does not permit you to:

  • (x) resell or redistribute the Arc or its underlying methodology,
  • (y) use the Arc or its outputs to build or operate a product that competes with FlowState IQ or the Arc, or
  • (z) share your FlowState IQ account credentials with others.

8.4 Our retained rights

FlowState IQ retains the right to use general skills, knowledge, and patterns developed through operating the Arc (including patterns that emerge from anonymized aggregate data under §7.7) in the ordinary course of our business, including in our consulting practice and in future product development. This reflects the standard pattern for residual knowledge in services and platform businesses.

9. Regulated data

The Arc is not designed for, and you agree not to use it to process, any of the following:

  • HIPAA-protected health information
  • CFPB/GLBA-regulated financial services data
  • PCI-DSS cardholder data
  • Data subject to the EU GDPR or similar data protection regimes unless you have independently ensured compliance with those regimes
  • Information subject to privilege (attorney-client, etc.)

If you submit such data despite this prohibition, you are solely responsible for any resulting liability.

10. Disclaimers

THE ARC IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." FLOWSTATE IQ DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

FLOWSTATE IQ DOES NOT WARRANT THAT:

  • The Arc will meet your specific requirements
  • The Arc will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free from security vulnerabilities
  • AI-generated outputs will be accurate, complete, or fit for any particular decision
  • Your engagement-fit signal predicts any specific outcome

11. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, FLOWSTATE IQ'S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY UNDER THESE TERMS SHALL NOT EXCEED THE $249 FEE YOU PAID FOR THE ARC.

IN NO EVENT SHALL FLOWSTATE IQ BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION LOST PROFITS, LOST REVENUE, OR LOSS OF BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.

Review item for counsel: standard ToS liability cap and disclaimer patterns warrant v2 review, including evaluation of a higher cap (e.g., 5x fee or fee-plus-minimum) given Arc is the intake point for a $12,500 engagement.

12. Termination

You may stop using the Arc at any time. You may request deletion of your account under Section 7.6.

FlowState IQ may terminate your access to the Arc if:

  • You violate these Terms
  • You use the Arc for any unlawful purpose
  • Your payment is reversed, charged back, or otherwise not honored

If FlowState IQ terminates your access to the Arc under this Section, we will retain your operational profile for a period of thirty (30) days during which you may download it, after which we will delete it subject to Section 7.7 (anonymized aggregate retention).

Sections that reasonably should survive termination (intellectual property, confidentiality, disclaimers, limitation of liability, governing law) survive.

13. Miscellaneous

13.1 Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles.

13.2 Dispute resolution

Any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms will first be addressed through direct good-faith discussion by contacting us at chad@flowstateiq.com. If a dispute is not resolved within thirty (30) days, you and FlowState IQ each irrevocably consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Cook County, Illinois, and each Party waives any objection to venue or inconvenient forum in those courts.

Review item for counsel: arbitration and class-action-waiver clause evaluation for consumer-facing product at scale. Not adopted in v1; defer to v2.

13.3 Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify Users via the email address associated with their account and update the "last modified" date at the bottom of these Terms. Material changes take effect thirty (30) days after notice is sent. Non-material changes (typo fixes, clarifications that do not alter substantive rights) take effect immediately upon posting. Continued use of the Arc after the effective date of changes constitutes acceptance.

13.4 Contact

Questions about these Terms, or to exercise any data rights (access, correction, deletion): chad@flowstateiq.com.

FlowState IQ LLC 825 S Evergreen Ave Arlington Heights, IL 60005

13.5 Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect.

13.6 Entire agreement

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and FlowState IQ regarding the Arc and supersede all prior oral or written agreements with respect to this subject matter.

Last modified: 2026-04-18 Version: v1.1-FINAL — Moonshot window Counsel review: Scheduled at v2 (first-revenue / cold-traffic clickwrap activation milestone)

v2 counsel re-engagement scope (consolidated)

Carry-forward items for the next counsel review, confirmed in internal contract review first-arc-tos-REVIEW.md:

  1. §4 Refund policy fit for Illinois consumer protection norms and payment-processor chargeback rules
  2. §7 Data handling scope — adequacy for expanded user base; confirm Anthropic subprocessor posture; evaluate if SCCs or similar are ever required
  3. §10–§11 Standard ToS disclaimer and liability patterns — enforceability of clickwrap at $249 price point; evaluate higher cap (5x fee, fee + floor, etc.)
  4. §13.2 Arbitration and class-action-waiver clause evaluation for consumer-facing product at scale (FINDING-11, FINDING-13)
  5. Clickwrap-pattern confirmation against current-year enforceability standards (scrollable-to-bottom, affirmative checkbox, version capture) — confirm when IMPL-01 lands
  6. Privacy-Policy standalone scope and publication (FINDING-05) — confirm once live at flowstate.com/elevate/privacy
  7. Anonymization standard defensibility under §7.7 (FINDING-06)
  8. License scope for "own business purposes" under §8.3 (FINDING-07)

Document status at launch: v1.1-FINAL provisional, footer-disclosure deployment under Moonshot discipline. Binding clickwrap acceptance deferred to v2 cold-traffic activation. Counsel re-engagement fires at first-revenue milestone.