Ask HN: Wanted, non-technical co-founder
8 comments
Update: Co-founder found. Thanks, HN!
[deleted]
I can see getting a court system hooked with a long, free trial to do YoY comparison - for the first half dozen forming the core of the snowball.
How will you protect the personal information of defendants, both technically and by policy?
What's your pricing model, and does it differ for a court vs. attorneys (I could see public defenders wanting to load up their portfolio into this service)?
What's your plan to deal with the various data formats in each state/county system?
What happens if you miss a date and the defendant gets a warrant anyway?
How will you protect the personal information of defendants, both technically and by policy?
What's your pricing model, and does it differ for a court vs. attorneys (I could see public defenders wanting to load up their portfolio into this service)?
What's your plan to deal with the various data formats in each state/county system?
What happens if you miss a date and the defendant gets a warrant anyway?
> I can see getting a court system hooked with a long, free trial to do YoY comparison - for the first half dozen forming the core of the snowball.
Definitely. But I want to keep this particular product at essentially cost. There are other products (e.g. for attorneys) where the pricing model would be seen as fairly inelastic.
> How will you protect the personal information of defendants, both technically and by policy?
Policy: DUA; Technically: long answer but TLS, IP range whitelist (it's one server replicating per customer) and application-level logic. The PII is limited to party email & phone.
> What's your pricing model, and does it differ for a court vs. attorneys (I could see public defenders wanting to load up their portfolio into this service)?
For this, cost. And this service is for case parties, not really attorneys. That's a different (and huge) market that is deeply under-served. It's actually a huge pain point for most of them. One thing I would like to do right away, as this rolls out, is to expand this to an app that would be more robust and tailored specifically for attorneys, requiring bar verification to use.
> What's your plan to deal with the various data formats in each state/county system?
Pareto's Law. There are really only a handful of vendors, such as Tyler Technologies, covering most courts, which makes things easier. One of the four applications developed is a Configuration Manager which allows the court employee to manage this aspect with presets for major vendors.
> What happens if you miss a date and the defendant gets a warrant anyway?
Lots of clear legal language. This is an opt-in courtesy service. To opt-in requires acknowledgement of terms.
Definitely. But I want to keep this particular product at essentially cost. There are other products (e.g. for attorneys) where the pricing model would be seen as fairly inelastic.
> How will you protect the personal information of defendants, both technically and by policy?
Policy: DUA; Technically: long answer but TLS, IP range whitelist (it's one server replicating per customer) and application-level logic. The PII is limited to party email & phone.
> What's your pricing model, and does it differ for a court vs. attorneys (I could see public defenders wanting to load up their portfolio into this service)?
For this, cost. And this service is for case parties, not really attorneys. That's a different (and huge) market that is deeply under-served. It's actually a huge pain point for most of them. One thing I would like to do right away, as this rolls out, is to expand this to an app that would be more robust and tailored specifically for attorneys, requiring bar verification to use.
> What's your plan to deal with the various data formats in each state/county system?
Pareto's Law. There are really only a handful of vendors, such as Tyler Technologies, covering most courts, which makes things easier. One of the four applications developed is a Configuration Manager which allows the court employee to manage this aspect with presets for major vendors.
> What happens if you miss a date and the defendant gets a warrant anyway?
Lots of clear legal language. This is an opt-in courtesy service. To opt-in requires acknowledgement of terms.
You can’t offer free things to the government in the United States. I think that’s the case in most countries.
You're embarrassingly confused; my best guess is that you're thinking of gifts.
We're talking about licensing, and MIT-licensed open source projects as well trial periods are both absolutely fine and used.
We're talking about licensing, and MIT-licensed open source projects as well trial periods are both absolutely fine and used.
I’m using a throw away account. I will contact you via email as well.
You’re offering 50% of a nonprofit and open source project. So 50% equity has no value. I like the mission but as a non-technical co-founder I think my value will be building a sustainable business as quickly as possible…so I think you should make it clear, you’re looking for someone that can build the business side of things for you?
Did you develop this software yourself?
What is to prevent a company like Tyler Technologies from using their existing relationships to offer this service?
You’re offering 50% of a nonprofit and open source project. So 50% equity has no value. I like the mission but as a non-technical co-founder I think my value will be building a sustainable business as quickly as possible…so I think you should make it clear, you’re looking for someone that can build the business side of things for you?
Did you develop this software yourself?
What is to prevent a company like Tyler Technologies from using their existing relationships to offer this service?
> You’re offering 50% of a nonprofit and open source project. So 50% equity has no value.
Not if this was the only project; it's the first project.
> you’re looking for someone that can build the business side of things for you?
In a nutshell, yes. There's a lot of clamoring for something like this from within the courts but also a lot of feet dragging. I need someone who is relentless and can "close."
> Did you develop this software yourself?
Yes, all four applications (Data Replication Service, Configuration Manager, Notification App, and the web lookup app).
Tyler Tech does offer this as part of their Tyler Notify product but, like all of their products, it's very expensive and complex to implement -- and is missing features this has. This is vendor-agnostic, simple, at-cost and national.
Not if this was the only project; it's the first project.
> you’re looking for someone that can build the business side of things for you?
In a nutshell, yes. There's a lot of clamoring for something like this from within the courts but also a lot of feet dragging. I need someone who is relentless and can "close."
> Did you develop this software yourself?
Yes, all four applications (Data Replication Service, Configuration Manager, Notification App, and the web lookup app).
Tyler Tech does offer this as part of their Tyler Notify product but, like all of their products, it's very expensive and complex to implement -- and is missing features this has. This is vendor-agnostic, simple, at-cost and national.
I'm the head of data and application development for a state supreme court. The National Center for State Courts loves this product but the problem is that getting it into each state/county nationally requires a lot of communication. Courts have the money and this saves them more than it costs. The code will be open sourced (MIT) and the organization non-profit, but that doesn't mean you can't "do well by doing good." Let me know your salary expectations and we'll factor that into the pricing.
Let me know your questions. My email is in my profile. Thanks.
[1] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/10/07/science.abb6591