# Upper Lip

> A planner for a 30-day November moustache fundraiser. Say what you are raising money for, your goal and the typical gift, how fast your facial hair grows, the style you want, where you will post, and the circles of people you can ask. The free side runs in the browser: a 30-day tape measure with the five growth stages and the estimated day your style takes shape, a barbershop style board, a comb that shows the share of each circle who would need to give, and a verdict by a fixed rule. One metered reply writes the campaign: an angle, a fundraising page story, one ask per circle, five updates timed to the growth stages with a photo idea each, a note on your style and your goal, and a thank-you.

App: https://upper-lip.skillsafe.ai/
API tutorial: https://upper-lip.skillsafe.ai/api.html

## Why it exists

Every November people grow a moustache for 30 days and ask friends, family and colleagues to sponsor them for a charity or cause. In October 2026, daily Wikipedia readers of the article on the November moustache fundraiser roughly tripled between late September and mid-October as the month came round again. The hard parts are not the moustache: it is knowing whether a goal fits the people you can actually ask, and keeping the asks and the updates going for a month without nagging. Upper Lip makes both quick.

## What the free side does

- Sponsors needed = the goal divided by the typical gift, rounded up. The share who would need to give = that number out of everyone across your circles (one per line, like "Work team, 30"; up to 6), rounded up.
- The verdict, checked in order: rethink the goal - no circles listed, or more than half the people would need to give; a stretch - more than a quarter would; on track - otherwise.
- The comb: one tooth per circle, its length set by the circle's size, filled to that share - a rough way to see who to ask, not a forecast.
- The tape: days 1 to 30, the five growth stages (clean start, itchy shadow, awkward middle, taking shape, full moustache), five update days (1, 8, 15, 22, 30) with the estimated length at each, and a marker on the day the chosen style should take shape.
- Growth speeds are rough estimates: slowly about 0.25 mm a day, steadily or in patches about 0.35, fast about 0.45. Rough lengths per style: pencil 3 mm, chevron 8, horseshoe 10, walrus 12, handlebar 15. A style is ready in time when it should take shape by day 24; when it will not, the page suggests the longest style that will (on patchy growth, at most a chevron).
- Through the month: pick the date of day 1 (empty means 1 November) and the tape marks today; tick each update once posted; type what you have raised so far to see the share of the goal and about how many more sponsors at the typical gift. None of this is sent to the model, and a kept plan remembers it.

## The paid reply

One JSON object: verdict (on_track | stretch | rethink), title, summary, hook, story (first person, for a fundraising page), asks (one {circle, message} per circle, in order), updates (five {day, caption, photo} for days 1, 8, 15, 22 and 30), style_note, goal_note and thank_you. It uses only what you enter: no invented facts about you, your cause or the people you know, no health facts or statistics, no guess at anyone's gender, and no number that is not in your plan. The page re-checks every reply against the rule and those limits.

## Exports

Markdown, JSON, an update calendar (.csv, one row per update day with the estimated length, caption and photo idea) and the five update days as all-day calendar reminders (.ics). Kept plans go to a list in your SkillSafe account (opt-in).

## Source

Built on the SkillSafe skill @affaan-m/marketing-campaign (https://skillsafe.ai/skill/@affaan-m/marketing-campaign) - end-to-end campaign planning: audience, positioning, angle, landing-page copy, email sequences, social posts and a content calendar - applied to one person's charity moustache month. The reply runs on gpt-terra and is metered per run.