Startup Idea: Automated System for Tracking and Requesting Missing Documents

Startup idea to develop a software solution that automates the process of comparing two lists of documents, identifying missing records, and sending requests to the relevant Clerks of Courts to obtain the missing documents. The system would replace the current manual process, providing a competitive advantage in the public records reselling industry.

At my previous place of employment, we cataloged enormous amounts of documents from the Clerks of the Courts of approximately 5,000 counties across the country. They were deeds, mortgages, liens, and other documents related to property.

They started as a small company but were acquired by a larger company. Literally overnight this company went from tracking 200-or-so local(ish) counties to the 5,000 that were handled by the bigger company.

What ensued was a Stupid Computer Problem that actually led to me getting the job in the first place (and the same is true for my friend who got me the job).

The documents need to be a contiguous list.

There are some documents that are recorded with the Clerk that are more esoteric, and are sealed. For instance, marriage licenses and military discharges are filed in the same books as property documents in some counties. These documents often have SSNs and other sensitive info and are therefore sealed.

The problem/idea I'm submitting to you: I - along with a team of a half dozen people or so - had only one responsibility: compare one list of documents to another.

That is, we were essentially "filling in the blanks." As we were essentially a data store, we had a lot of documents on physical media (e.g., CDs) but more and more Clerk of Courts offices across the nation are offering their documents online.

So, if we had document 123456789123456789 but then the next document we had was 123456789123456791, we needed to find out what 123456789123456790 was. In almost all cases, this was clearly a sealed record.

But then there are counties that number by physical page numbers (yes, this stuff is all still stored on paper, everywhere in the US, in addition to computer files), but others number them by document.

We'd have to identify the missing documents and pages and notify the clerk's contact.

To the Average Human, this seemed like something that needed the intervention of a person.

However . . . 1- The list of known documents is known and stored in a SQL database. 2- The list of clerk contacts is known ... Not stored in SQL because nobody listens to me :) ...

Our process was to manually go through and find the missing doc numbers or pages - yes, manually - and ... A bunch of other nonsense later, someone would send a request to the Clerk of Courts of that county requesting the documents.

This can absolutely be automated.

And the person who does it will eat up absolutely ALL the competitors, because everybody in the industry does it by hand.

Did I mention that this company makes half a billion dollars a year essentially re-selling public records?

Best 75 cents you ever spent.