Zap
An AI-assisted reverse timeline planner for marketing teams operating inside strict, recurring review cycles.
This started while I was planning real timelines and went looking for a tool that did everything I needed and was free. Everything I found was either priced for a whole department or did not check all of my boxes. So I built my own, and I still pull it out for personal projects as they come up.
Give it a launch date and your review cycle rules and it plans backward from the deadline, enforcing hard compliance and review constraints instead of letting them get quietly missed in a spreadsheet. Zap treats the deadline as the anchor and the review windows as non-negotiable, then tells you when the work actually has to begin.
How it works
- Backward planning engine that works from a fixed deadline rather than forward from a start date
- Enforces recurring review-cycle constraints, for example weekly compliance review windows, as rules rather than suggestions
- Gantt view, an AI advisor chat for timeline questions, template import, per-phase completion tracking, and one-click copy for a stakeholder email
- Currently v4.7 with a full automated test suite
Where it stands
- Built solo, single-file architecture, heading into a pilot against live production timelines
- Next phase is a standalone web app with accounts and billing