Ask HN: Please review my niche startup: noticekeeper.com | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Please review my niche startup: noticekeeper.com

6 pointsrobflynn9 comments

Hi All,

I have, in my spare time over the past 8 months or so, been working on a web application. It's a niche application that scratches an itch for US Bankruptcy Attorneys. There are some desktop applications that do something similar, though their handling of events tends to be not as nice.

The problem that I solve: 1) Attorneys receive automated e-mails via the US Bankruptcy Court via the Pacer (CM/ECF) System. These emails contain a reference to the case name and number, some docket text containing various bits of information about the specific notice that triggered the email (each notice triggers one) and various dates of events (approaching court dates, last dates to file, etc.).

* NoticeKeeper parses through this information and organizes it in an easily accessible/searchable away. Creditor information is also automatically imported as well as various claims and amounts filed by a debtor.

2) The biggest headache of these notices, however, is a link contained within each email. This link can only be clicked once. Once clicked, the attorney or paralegal is taken to a location where they can download a PDF copy of the paperwork that has been filed for that notice. They get one shot at this. If they click the link but forget to save the document then they must pay the US Bankruptcy Court ~10 cents PER PAGE (not per document) to receive another copy (some of these PDFs are 50 pages in length.)

* NoticeKeeper finds all "one-time-click" links within a notice and visits the page for the attorney. Each PDF is downloaded and stored locally on our server(s). We then convert the image into a web readable form as well as archiving the PDF for later download ability should the attorney wish to do so.

Business Model: NK is set up as a SaaS company. We sell directly to the attorney and/or law firm. We're currently looking at pricing the basic plan at around $30/mo for 1 or 2 attorneys with a few paralegals. Plans would increase based on how many attorneys want to be in on the plan.

Anyway, while most (all?) here would not find this site useful, I believe it certainly scratches an itch. I'm looking for feedback on the idea, design, and market speak.

Thank you, Rob

A few thoughts, based on your description and the front page of the site:

How did you arrive at the price? You might want to do some price analysis to find out if you've under-priced your service significantly.

You describe the one-time-click thing as one of the biggest headaches your clients deal with, but it appears as a small item in the bottom-right corner of your front page, in the row with no accompanying pictures. Meanwhile, you prominently talk about features like calendaring that come across like features available from Google Apps or similar. Talk more prominently about your unique features: saving one-time-access PDFs for future access, automatically adding court dates to your calendar, automatically filing documents by client... (Your text at the top does some of this, but doesn't mention that it solves the one-time-access problem. Your individual items below the fold definitely don't reflect your most important features.)

Your calendar image shows a bunch of colored dates, but no appointment information; to make the benefit more obvious from the picture, consider showing an example of what pops up when you hover over a date, or otherwise showing an example appointment rather than just a calendar.

And finally, you have a typo "Tedius" on the front page. :)

Honestly, the $30 is my initial thought from the price analysis based on initial customers. They are paying about $250/+yr service fees for the desktop software, so based on experience it seemed like a good place to start. I am most definitely open to charging more and have entertained $50/mo/etc.

You are most definitely right about what I highlight about the project. I have difficulty, honestly, deciding if the "one time click" or the "we organize everything for you" is the most beneficial feature. I personally know some offices that pay two people $50/hr to sort the notices, and not only handle saving the "one-time-clicks" but also inputting the information into an application.

This web app handles all of that. I guess I need to re-think my focus.

As far as the typo goes, thank you. I shall take care of that once I get back into the office. Slightly embarrassed that I missed that one. :)

Two people at $50/hour x 40 hours x 50 weeks = $100 000/year. Law firms have quite a bit of money; don't you think $30/month is low? (Note that you can give essentially no support for that price, too.)

After thinking about it for a bit, it is definitely too low. I'll be starting higher and will adjust the price downward as necessary.

I am talking with a friend about writing software to market to people in the law market so your post caught my eye. It sounds like a lawyer would find your service really useful and could save money by cutting back personnel whose job it is to currently do this. Nice job. Few thoughts/suggestions:

- I think $30/mo is too low

- Are the documents sensitive in nature (hence the one-time-link)? If yes, what kind of security do you have to protect these documents from unauthorized access? Highlight this on the site.

- Can they export their meeting schedule from your site to google calendar? outlook? iCal? etc? They probably already have a calendaring program in use and may not want to check multiple places for their meeting schedule. If I were them, I would definitely consolidate my meetings into a calendaring solution that was already working for me instead of using yet another calendaring application.

- I am beginning to think $30/mo is way too low as well. As a programmer, I've always had a tough time selecting prices. I'm going to start high and see how it goes. I can always lower the price later. This has been the most commonly echoed piece of advice that I have received since the posting (both in thread and out.)

- Re: the documents. All of the documents are of public record. (SSN, full account numbers, etc. are all censored by both the debtor's attorney and by the creditor's attorneys.)

- re: Calendar consolidation. One client is currently testing a desktop app that downloads all of his PDFs and organizes them on his local share and also syncs his calendar entries with Exchange. I plan on allowing syncing with Exchange, Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCal after I see how this test goes.

I appreciate your comments. I'd love to hear more about your marketing software idea as well.

I discussed this with a friend who is a lawyer here in NYC.

His paraphrased comments:

- I use a Mac, and whenever I click on the link, Safari automatically saves PDFs into my download folder. So I always know where to look. In other situations where I haven't been on my Mac, I've gone through my browser's cache to find the PDF.

- If someone does forget, I can make sure they remember using non-technical ways, that result in no recurring billing: "If you don't save it, you buy bagels for the office for the next week".

- If we make it past the first two points, the amount of money we receive [in fees] is usually significant, so paying $30-50 one-time to re-download a large filing is minor in the grand scheme of things.

What does he do with regards to organizing his various dates that are found within the e-mail notices?

Our aim is to get everything in one place and organized, so we import lists of creditors, dates, and names as well as the PDFs. Shortly after launch we will be rolling out the mobile web version (for tablets/phones) as well as releasing desktop sync clients (mac and windows) to download all new PDFs onto your workstation(s) as well as importing the dates into exchange/icalendar/etc.

Based on some feedback, we're also working on some basic work flow things such as leaving comments on people/cases/notices, passing off assignment, etc.

If your attorney friend is open to it, I'd love to speak with him sometime regarding his thoughts. E-mail is fine. I love all the feed back I can get.

The system is currently tailored for bankruptcy law, so if he's a bankruptcy attorney I'd love to hook him up with an account at no charge.

edit I apologize for the delay on getting back to you. Notifo was not letting me know about the reply, but I have since straightened the problem out.

Clickable: http://noticekeeper.com

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