New startup ideas · Direct giving, without the middlemen · Proof of need as infrastructure
startup concept
Goodstand
Continuous good-standing and deepfake screening for regulated fundraising platforms
Monitoring software for state charity regulators, with platforms as the second seat: it continuously cross-checks every charity a platform solicits for against the state registry, the Franchise Tax Board and the IRS, watches filing history and domain age to catch Form 1023-EZ shells, and runs a deepfake test on solicitation media.
- Software subscription
- Government and public sector
- California enforces its fundraising-platform law
14
similar startups, last 2 years (76 all-time)
yes
8 matching federal grants and programs
Direction supported by government programs and grants
Test it before you build it
$500 · 5 weeks · 20 prospects
For $500 and 5 weeks, learn whether California-registered fundraising platforms will pay $1,500 for the five-business-day cutoff check and whether one drafting-state bureau signs an MOU.
Riskiest assumption · A California-registered fundraising platform will pay to automate the five-business-day good-standing cutoff rather than keep assigning it to a paralegal with the free public registries.
1Focus group: who and where
The compliance or legal lead at a charitable fundraising platform registered with the California Attorney General under AB 488 - since California's November 2025 cease-and-desist they must drop non-compliant charities within five business days, and today that means a paralegal manually checking the AG registry, FTB suspensions, and IRS revocations for every charity they solicit for; second seat, the charity bureau counsel in a state currently drafting platform rules.
where to find 20 · The California DOJ Registry of Charities and Fundraisers public list of registered charitable fundraising platforms, which names every buyer and its filing contact (directory); the National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO), whose membership and annual conference reach the drafting-state bureaus (association); NTEN's online community, where platform trust, compliance, and operations staff are active (community).
2Sell first, build later
A one-time compliance screening sold before any product exists: the platform's full solicited-charity list checked against the California AG registry, FTB suspension list, and IRS auto-revocation file, with domain-age and 1023-EZ shell flags, delivered as an actionable removal report within 10 business days of receiving the list.
the ask · $1,500 per one-time screening, credited against $750 per month continuous monitoring if the platform continues
a real yes · A real yes is the $1,500 invoice paid before delivery, or a state bureau MOU with named staff and a dated evaluation start; 'send us the report and we'll see', unpaid trials, and regulator enthusiasm without a signature count as no.
3Small experiments
The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.
1. Platform manual-pain calls
$150 · 12 days
Pull 15 compliance and legal contacts straight off the California AB 488 registrant list and book calls. Ask exactly how the five-business-day removal check runs today, how many charities are on their solicited list, and what a miss would cost them. One founder runs all 15.
keep going if · 8 of 15 confirm the check is manual today and 5 of 15 book a scoped screening session
2. Paid batch screening
$250 · 14 days
Sell the scoped 5 a $1,500 one-time screening: their full solicited-charity list cross-checked against the CA AG registry, the FTB suspended list, the IRS auto-revocation file, plus domain age and Form 1023-EZ shell flags, delivered as a report in 10 business days. The team runs it with scripts over public data - no product needed.
keep going if · 3 of 5 scoped platforms pay the $1,500 invoice up front
3. Regulator MOU probe
$100 · 21 days
Through NASCO membership contacts, email and call the charity bureaus of the 6 states drafting platform rules as of December 2025, offering a no-cost 90-day evaluation of the screening feed behind their registry in exchange for a signed MOU naming staff and data access. Track which bureaus raise budget, not which say interesting.
keep going if · 1 signed MOU plus 1 bureau conversation about a FY2027 budget line
4Collect a deposit up front
Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.
$1,500
per prospect, refundable
how · The screening fee invoiced 100% up front against one-page terms signed by the platform's compliance lead - prepaying for a deliverable report is how these buyers already purchase compliance work, and it clears without procurement; the state bureau cannot credibly pay before procurement, so from regulators collect a signed MOU with named staff and a dated evaluation start instead of money. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗
what it reserves · A delivery slot for the 10-business-day report and the $750 per month monitoring price locked for year one
refund · Refunded in full if the report is not delivered within 10 business days of receiving the charity list.
target · 3 paid $1,500 screenings from 15 platform conversations within 35 days, plus 1 bureau MOU
before taking money · Selling to a state charity bureau is government procurement, so keep the free evaluation clearly outside any future solicitation and take money only from platforms until procurement counsel clears the state side.
Go: build it if
3 paid $1,500 screenings ($4,500 in, triple the test budget) and 1 state bureau MOU within 5 weeks - build the continuous feed for those platforms while the bureau evaluation runs.
Kill: stop if
0 paid screenings after 15 platform conversations - platforms are satisfying the law with paralegal checks, and the state seat alone moves too slowly to carry a small team, so stop.
5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open
outreach message
California's five-business-day removal rule means someone at your platform is checking the AG registry, FTB suspensions, and IRS revocations by hand for every charity you solicit for. I run that as a batch: your full solicited list screened against all three, plus domain-age and 1023-EZ shell flags, report in 10 business days for $1,500, full refund if we're late. If it saves your team a week a month, we can talk about continuous monitoring after. Do you have 20 minutes this week?
landing page
Automate California's five-day charity cutoff before it costs you $1,500 screens your full solicited list against the AG registry, FTB, and IRS in 10 business days Order your screening - pay nothing if we miss the date
deposit terms
The $1,500 screening fee is invoiced up front and reserves your delivery slot: your full solicited-charity list checked against the California AG registry, the FTB suspension list, the IRS auto-revocation file, and domain-age shell flags. Your report is delivered within 10 business days of receiving the list, with a full refund if we miss the date. The fee is credited against your first quarter if you continue to monthly monitoring.
Would you run this test?
One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.
Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.
Scorecard
Ranked against every idea in the catalog: trend, demand and 100x potential from the corpus, competition relative to the other ideas. A generated concept has no judges or swipes yet, so its pillars use the data signals only.
59
Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 36.1 x 1.64
Crowded
competition: more crowded than 85% of ideas · headwind x0.57
+4.6
government priorities, secondary (89 matching grants)
Trend
47
Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.
- Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)59
- Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector33
- Sector direction (live batch)50
Demand
65
Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.
- YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)30
- Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)100
100x potential
54
Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.
- Neighbours still alive54
Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 382 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were continuous, good-standing, deepfake, screening, regulated, fundraising, platforms, monitoring.
The concept in full
- What
- Monitoring software for state charity regulators, with platforms as the second seat: it continuously cross-checks every charity a platform solicits for against the state registry, the Franchise Tax Board and the IRS, watches filing history and domain age to catch Form 1023-EZ shells, and runs a deepfake test on solicitation media. It stops fraud before money moves; the signals are regulator standing, filing history, domain age, organizer identity and the appeal itself, because the 501(c)(3) letter alone proves little.
- Grounded in (2025-2026 signals)
- Under AB 488, first annual platform reports were due July 15, 2025; in November 2025 the California Attorney General issued a cease-and-desist to a platform, and other states are drafting platform rules of their own (Charity Lawyer Blog, December 22, 2025). TIGTA obtained exemption for four of five fictitious organizations through Form 1023-EZ, and under 1% of exempt organizations are examined in a year. YC's Fall 2026 RFS includes 'AI-Native Compliance Infrastructure'.
- What it rides
- California enforces its fundraising-platform law. AB 488 requires soliciting only for charities in good standing and cutting one off within five business days when it falls out; Goodstand is the feed that makes both the rule and its enforcement operable.
- Why now
- California moved from registration to enforcement with a cease-and-desist in November 2025, other states are drafting platform rules as of December 2025, and neither regulators nor platforms have tooling for the five-business-day cutoff or for AI-generated solicitations.
- Wedge: first customer and entry point
- The charity bureau of one state currently drafting platform rules, sold as the screening layer behind its registry; the same good-standing feed then sells to California-registered platforms that must automate the five-day cutoff.
- Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
- none tracked
- Main risk
- State procurement moves slower than a 1-3 person team can survive, and platforms may satisfy the law with manual checks.
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Public money in this direction
US federal grants and open opportunities matched to the concept's terms.
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of Privacy Preserving Semantic Artificial Intelligence (AI) Cameraaward
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K
NIH / NIMHD · SBIR phase I · $307K
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K
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Fictional concept generated 2026-08-26 by claude-fable-5 from the collection's brief and MarkosWeb data. Treat it as a research prompt, not a plan.