VivaCoachPrep — Terms of Service

Effective date: June 21, 2026
Operator: Bidun Group LLC, a Georgia limited liability company (referred to as "I" or "me" in these terms). Contact: Mike Bidun, mbidun@gmail.com
Service: VivaCoachPrep, at vivacoachprep.com

These terms are written in plain English on purpose. If anything is unclear, email me and I'll explain it.

1. What VivaCoachPrep is

VivaCoachPrep helps you prepare for your PhD defense (viva). You upload your thesis as a PDF; the app extracts your research questions and claims, builds a preparation grid, generates practice questions in the style of different examiner types, and scores your practice answers. The questions and scores are produced by an AI model.

2. What the AI output is — and is not

This matters, so it gets its own section, and the same disclaimer appears inside the app:

AI-generated questions and scores are pattern-matched study aids. They are not predictions of what your real examiners will ask, how they will behave, or how your defense will go. A high practice score does not mean you will pass; a low one does not mean you will fail. VivaCoachPrep makes no guarantee, express or implied, about your defense outcome. Use it as one preparation tool among several, alongside your supervisor's advice.

3. Who can use it

You must be 18 or older and able to enter a binding agreement. During the beta, access is by invitation.

4. Beta status — things may break

VivaCoachPrep is a paid beta. That means:

• The service is provided "as is" and "as available." Features may change, misbehave, or be removed without notice.
• Usage limits may apply (for example, caps on uploads, sessions, or AI calls) to keep costs sane.
• I may pause or end the beta at any time. If that happens I'll give you reasonable notice and a chance to export or delete your data.
• Some beta testers receive compensation under separate written agreements. Those agreements are independent of these terms; where they conflict on payment matters, the separate agreement controls.

5. Your thesis stays yours

You keep all rights to your thesis and anything you write in the app. By uploading, you give me a limited license to store and process your content solely to operate the service for you — extracting questions, building your grid, generating and scoring practice. That's it. Your thesis content is never used to train AI models, and details of how it's handled are in the Privacy Policy.

You promise that you have the right to upload what you upload (it's your own work, or you have permission).

6. Acceptable use

Don't:

• share your login or access codes, or use someone else's account;
• probe, scrape, overload, or attempt to break the service or access other users' data;
• reverse-engineer the service or its prompts, or use it to build a competing product;
• upload malware or content you don't have rights to;
• use the service for anything illegal.

I may suspend or terminate accounts that break these rules.

7. Payments

If your beta tier involves fees, the amount and billing are stated when you sign up or in your tester agreement. Fees are non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise or I say so in writing.

8. Termination

You can stop using the service and delete your account at any time (deletion details are in the Privacy Policy). I can suspend or terminate your access for breach of these terms, with notice where practical. Sections 2, 5, 9, and 10 survive termination.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent the law allows:

• My total liability to you for anything arising out of the service is capped at the fees you paid me in the 12 months before the claim (if you paid nothing, the cap is zero).
• I'm not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages — including, to be explicit, the outcome of your defense, lost opportunities, or lost data beyond what the cap covers.

Nothing here excludes liability that can't legally be excluded (e.g., for fraud or gross negligence where applicable law forbids exclusion).

10. Changes to these terms

I may update these terms. For material changes I'll email you at your account address at least 14 days before they take effect. Continuing to use the service after that date means you accept the new terms; if you don't, delete your account before they take effect.

11. General

• Governing law: these terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
• Severability: if any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies.
• Entire agreement: these terms, the Privacy Policy, and any signed tester agreement are the whole deal between us.
• Contact: mbidun@gmail.com.