Ready on the day.A rehearsal plan for the talk you actually have to give.
Add the talk and the date. Rehearse out loud. Walk in knowing your length, your pace, your filler words, and your longest pause.
In private beta. Waitlist members get in first, closest talk first.
Can't wait? Count your “ums” now, free →How it works
The talk is on a date. So is the plan.
Add the talk
Title, audience, how long you have, what kind of talk it is, and the date. “Q3 board update, exec team of twelve, eighteen minutes, March 4.”
Rehearse against a plan built for the days you have left
Nine days out looks different from nine weeks out. The plan fits the time on the calendar, and it changes as your rehearsals change.
Walk in knowing your numbers
Not a feeling about whether you're ready. A last run that came in at seventeen forty against an eighteen minute target.
A plan that reads your talk back
It works on what you say, not how you said it.
Footholds reads your script and your actual rehearsal transcripts, and rewrites the rest of your plan to match the talk you're really giving. The point you wrote down and never said out loud. The section you've rehearsed four times, and the one you've never touched. The question that audience is obviously going to ask.
When it finds a step that isn't pulling its weight, it proposes a swap and tells you why. Nothing changes until you tap.
Suggested change · Q3 board update
Replace
Polish the first and last line
Scheduled for Wednesday, day 6 of 9
With
Out-loud run of the risks section, timed
The part the board will push on
“Your opening and close already match your script word for word, on every run. The risks section is in your script but hasn't been said out loud once — and it's the part the board will push on. Spend Wednesday there.”
Example suggestion. Every proposal comes with the reason, and the plan stays put until you accept it.
What gets measured
Counted facts, not opinions.
After each take: four numbers, your transcript with every filler marked, and any point from your script you didn't say.
Length vs. target
17:40
target 18:00
Words per minute
142
across the whole take
Filler words
23
“um” 14 · “like” 9
Longest pause
4.2s
at 06:18
What it will never do is tell you how you sounded. Delivery gets counted, not graded.
No confidence score, no coach persona, no “you seemed nervous.” A machine can count seconds, words, and silence; it cannot tell you whether you were convincing, so Footholds doesn't pretend to. The numbers are yours to read. The readouts above are examples from a rehearsal.
Know it, don't read it
Your script fades as the day gets closer.
Write your script once. For the first steps of your plan you rehearse with all of it in front of you. Then only the first words of each sentence. By the full run, and on the day itself, nothing.
You say it from memory, and the transcript shows you which points never made it out loud.
- First steps
Revenue grew eighteen percent, driven by the two new regions.
- Midway
Revenue grew ········· two new ···
- Full run
from memory
The last five minutes
For the part where your hands go cold.
You're in a corridor, or a side room, or the back of a hall, and you're on in four minutes. There's nothing left to practise. Open the talk and Footholds gives you a short grounding sequence to run instead of spiralling.
About ninety seconds: slow breathing first, then a short checklist for the last minute. You can do it standing up, holding your notes, with people walking past.
“Breathe all the way out before your first word — not in.”
“Put both feet flat on the floor and let your shoulders drop.”
“Say your first line in your head. You already know it.”
“Find one friendly face and start there.”
After the talk
The second talk is easier because the first one was recorded.
When it's over, Footholds asks one question: how did it go? A sentence is enough. It's saved with the talk, the date, and every rehearsal you ran for it.
Next time there's a talk on the calendar you're not starting from nothing. You have a record of what you did last time, how long it actually ran, and what you told yourself afterwards.
And it uses what you told it. Say you rushed, or forgot a point, and your next talk's plan aims a step at exactly that, with one extra take.
Your history
- March 4
Q3 board update
6 rehearsals · ran 17:40
- January 22
Team all-hands
3 rehearsals · ran 11:05
- November 9
Best man speech
9 rehearsals · ran 6:12
Next plan: “I rushed” → an extra take on pace
Example history.
Pricing
A speaking coach is $150–600 an hour.
Most people can't justify that for one board update. Footholds is what you use instead, or between sessions.
Free
$0
Every talk gets its rehearsal plan, unlimited recording, your script and the steadying routine. Your first two talks include three measured takes each.
Talk Pass
$29one-time
For the talk that's already on the calendar. Unlimited measured takes on that one talk, right up to the day. Less than fifteen minutes with a coach.
Pro
For people who speak constantly$14.99per month
or $79 a year
Unlimited measured takes on every talk you give. Built for sales reps, founders and team leads giving thirty to a hundred talks a year.
Prices in US dollars. A measured take is a rehearsal Footholds transcribes and counts: length, pace, filler words and longest pause. Unlimited means fair use: up to 60 measured takes a day.
There's a date on the calendar. Start there.
Join the waitlist and we'll invite you in small groups, closest talk first.
Questions
Yes, a phone app for iPhone and iPad. You rehearse out loud into it, so it needs to be wherever you are — the kitchen, the hotel room, the car in the parking lot before you go in.