Verbal identity

2.1 Voice principles

1. Lead with the concrete. Numbers, outcomes, hours. "Four hours back every week", not "significant efficiency gains". If you cannot put a number on it, say the specific thing instead: "drafts the weekly report" beats "improves reporting".

2. Name the outcome and the agent — never the tooling. "A custom agent that drafts the weekly report." We build custom agents. We do not name third-party automation tools (n8n, Make, Zapier, Clay …) in public content. Specificity about outcomes buys credibility; specificity about our plumbing gives it away.

3. Respect the reader's time. Short sentences. No throat-clearing. Cut the first sentence of most drafts — it is usually warm-up. The reader is an owner-operator at the end of a long day.

4. Be honest, including about failures. "Our first agent failed. Here's what broke." Nobody believes a highlight reel. The failures are what make the wins legible.

5. First person, founder voice. "We tested", not "Since Labs conducted an evaluation". A named person talking to a named person.

6. Finnish-market aware. Use local verticals and local words where they land — tilitoimisto, maanrakennus, toimitusjohtaja, Hilma, Koneyrittäjät. Default language is English; Finnish for Finland-market-facing material. Never machine-translate Finnish for public use — get Jaakko to read it.

2.2 The signature sentence pattern

The brand's most recognisable verbal move opens with "Since …" and lands on the reader's own situation:

• "Since you read about AI daily but nothing has changed yet."
• "Since your team is still doing this by hand."
• "Since every agent you run answers to one layer."
• "Since we started, everything changed."

How it works: the word "Since" does double duty — it is the company name and a subordinating conjunction, so the sentence is already about the reader before they reach the verb. Then a single phrase inside it carries the emphasis (serif italic, terracotta — see § 5.4).

Use sparingly. One per surface. It is a hook, not a house style; a page that opens three sections with "Since …" reads as a gimmick.

2.3 Words

Words we use

agent · workflow · deploy · reclaim (hours) · test / tested · validated · stack · the gap · ship · automate · run · prove · by hand

Words we avoid

revolutionary · cutting-edge · synergy · transform · unlock · game-changer · "the future of work" · leverage (as a verb) · seamless · disrupt · robust · best-in-class · empower · effortless · magic · AI-powered · third-party tool names

Words that need care

2.4 Tone by context

2.5 Messaging framework

Core value propositions

1. Validated tools only — "We don't recommend tools we haven't used. We test every AI tool on our own company first."
2. Reclaimed time — the hours counter. Numbers are the hero.
3. No homework, just plans — "A step-by-step implementation plan written for your specific stack."

The case-study formula (use everywhere)

Problem:  [Role] was manually [task] every [frequency].
Solution: We built a custom agent that [action] — zero manual input.
Outcome:  [X] hours reclaimed every [period].

Elevator pitch (30 seconds)

Most companies know they should use AI but can't make it real — no developer, no time. Since Labs runs every AI tool on our own business first, then deploys what actually works into yours. You get a plan written for your exact stack, and the hours back to prove it.

Boilerplate (press, grants, footers)

Short (1 line). Since Labs is the command center for AI agents — memory, access and mission control in one place.

Medium (2 sentences). Since Labs is an AI-native lab in Turku, Finland. It builds and runs custom AI agents for Nordic owner-operators, and gives every agent a company runs one place for memory, access and mission control.

Long (paragraph). Since Labs is an AI-native lab based in Turku, Finland. We test every AI tool on our own company before it reaches a client's, then build and deploy the custom agents that take real work off owner-operators — starting with the tendering, invoicing and compliance paperwork burying Finnish infrastructure contractors. Everything we run answers to a single command center: one layer for memory, access and mission control across every agent in a business.

2.6 Product microcopy

The rules that make interface text feel like the same company wrote it.

Sentence case, always

Headings, buttons, labels, table headers, menu items, page titles. Never Title Case. The only capitals are proper nouns and the ALL-CAPS eyebrow label.

✅ Request access · Recent access requests · Set your password ❌ Request Access · Recent Access Requests · Set Your Password

Buttons name the action, not the concession

The label completes the sentence "I want to…".

✅ Save changes · Send invite · Delete organization · Book your AI Audit ❌ OK · Submit · Yes · Learn more · Get in touch · Click here

Errors: what happened, then what to do

Three parts, in order — and never more than two sentences.

✅ "That invite link has expired. Ask your administrator to send a new one." ✅ "Session expired — for your security, you've been signed out. Please sign in again." ❌ "Error: token invalid." · "Oops! Something went wrong 😅" · "Invalid input."

Never surface a stack trace, an error code, or the word "exception" to a customer. Operators may see IDs — set them in mono.

Empty states do a job

Title says what is not here. Description says why, or what to do. An action if there is one. Never a shrug.

✅ "No apps are active for your organization yet." / "No access requests yet" ❌ "Nothing to see here!" · "Empty" · "¯\(ツ)/¯"

Say what a thing is, not that it exists

✅ "Everything your organization has access to. Pin the ones you use daily — they lead the ⌘K switcher." ❌ "This is the apps page."

Numbers, dates, units

• Numbers in tables and stats: tabular figures, right-aligned. Always.
• Dates: 28 Aug 2026 in prose; 2026-08-28 in operator tables and logs. Never 08/28/26 — it is ambiguous to a European reader.
• Relative time for anything under a week: 3d ago, 2h ago, Just now. Absolute after that.
• Currency: €3,000, €3k–€8k/year. Euro symbol leading, no space.
• Ranges: en dash, no spaces — 2–30 employees, €300k–€10M.
• Counts: pluralise properly. 1 member / 2 members, never 1 member(s).

Punctuation

• No exclamation marks in the interface. One per marketing page, maximum, and only if it earns itself.
• Em dashes — like this — with no spaces, for a break in thought.
• The middle dot · is the brand's separator: Apps · Since Labs, AI NATIVE LAB · SINCE LABS. Not a pipe, not a slash.
• Ellipsis … as one character, not three periods. Placeholders and in-progress labels: Search apps…, Signing in….
• Curly quotes in prose ("…"), straight quotes in code.
• Serial comma: yes.

Second person, active voice

✅ "Your account is not attached to an organization yet." ❌ "The account has not been attached to an organization."

2.7 Do and don't

Do

• ✅ Use real numbers, and name the agent and the outcome
• ✅ Share failures and lessons, not just wins
• ✅ Write in first-person founder voice
• ✅ End social posts with a genuine question
• ✅ Adapt local-angle content to Finnish
• ✅ Cut the first sentence

Don't

• ❌ Use AI hype language or empty superlatives
• ❌ Name third-party automation tools in public content
• ❌ Use glowing-brain or humanoid-robot imagery
• ❌ Promise outcomes we can't back with a real example
• ❌ Sound like a corporate consultancy
• ❌ Use Title Case