Why does Scowty ask for so much info at signup?

Three reasons. Worth knowing, because it changes how you should approach the questions when you hit them.

Short version first: signing up asks almost nothing. The questions come later, inside the tools, and each one is short.

Reason 1: the system runs on what you tell it

Scowty's content engine, audit engine, and citation tracker all read from your customer record. The more specific and accurate that record, the better the output you get for the rest of your time on Scowty.

A customer who enters "I'm an attorney in Orlando" gets generic content. A customer who enters "I help young families in Orlando set up wills and revocable trusts so they don't have to think about it again" gets content that actually sounds like them and ranks for the queries their clients use.

Time spent on intake equals the quality of every piece of content for the next year. Worth doing carefully once.

Reason 2: AI engines distinguish specific from generic

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity are getting better at distinguishing specific, real businesses from generic ones. They cite the specific.

When your answers include your sub-practice areas, your cities served, the kinds of clients you help, and your voice, the system can produce content that AI engines see as specific and citable. When the answers are sparse, the system can only produce generic-feeling content, which doesn't get cited.

Reason 3: honesty

We tell you what we ask, why we ask it, and what we use it for. That's how we want our customers to be able to think about working with us.

If anything feels like more than you're comfortable sharing, skip the optional fields. Required fields are required because the system can't run without them. Optional fields make the output better but aren't blocking.

What we actually ask, and when

Creating an account asks for nothing but the account itself. There's no long form at the door.

The free brand preview at scowty.com/start asks eight things, no account needed: your email, business name, kind of business, the city you serve, your top three services, your ideal customer, the outcome you create for them, and three words for the vibe. Under a minute.

The Brand Maker, once you've bought, asks the same things plus the parts that actually shape the voice: five sliders (formal to casual, earnest to irreverent, authoritative to collaborative, minimal to expressive, reserved to bold), your service area, and an optional signature sentence. Two to three minutes, and you can change any of it and rebuild.

The SEO target market page asks where you want to win customers and which questions we should track. Click Suggest questions for a starting set, then edit it. About two minutes.

Total time

Well under ten minutes all in, spread across the tools as you get to them. Nothing is a single gate you have to clear before you can start.

To change anything later, go back to the same tool and update it. Everything here is yours to edit.