• News & Announcements
    • linkedin.svgFollow us on LinkedIn
    Back to Blog

    100 Days into Building Sunlight

    Published by Ryan O'Donnell on
    100 Days into Building Sunlight

    Hey there! 

    Alrighty folks, my latest startup, Sunlight, officially launched 100 days ago. Here’s our first update to our supporters, friends, family, plus my original EmployUs supporter/investor list. If you’d prefer not to receive these, just let me know :)

    The Highlights:

    • Shipped our first product, Your Case Plan, to improve attorney/client engagement in child welfare cases & reduce the time kids spend in foster care
    • Signed and launched first customer (State of Oklahoma) with their Office of Family Representation
    • Provided expert testimony in the US Congressional Commission on Civil Rights investigation into NC's child welfare system
    • Semi-finalist for NC IDEA Grant ($50k)
    • Stayed profitable & 100% founder owned
    Our Mission:

    Strengthen America’s Social Safety Net.

    The Big Problem:

    Too many children end up and get stuck in foster care because of communication breakdowns between all of the people involved in their case: their parents, kinship/foster caregivers, and all of the various attorneys and caseworkers too. I saw this firsthand while being a foster parent for almost three years. Want the full origin story, read on here (5 min).

    Our Solution:

    Our first product is called Your Case Plan. What started off as a simple way to send text reminders to my foster son’s dad about upcoming appointments is now being referred to as “MyChart for Foster Care." We believe anyone involved in the child welfare system deserves a simple and secure way to navigate it. We’ve built a HIPPA compliant app to allow parents to securely communicate with attorneys, caseworkers, and others while logging their own case notes/documentation and staying on top of upcoming tasks and events. You can see it in action here (5 min)

     

    Our Customers:

    Our first customer is the State of Oklahoma's Office of Family Representation. These statewide offices want to improve the quality of legal representation for their clients (parents and/or children with child welfare cases). They pay an annual subscription fee based on the number of cases managed on the platform. We've received interest from smaller legal clinics/community organiations, state Court Improvement Programs, Medicaid plan providers, and CASA programs too which we will continue to explore as potential partners too.

    Top Problems to Solve / Priorities:

    1. Does it work well in Oklahoma?
    2. Can this model be replicated outside of Oklahoma?

    Problem #1: Does it work?

    Our goal when Oklahoma signed was to launch before the end of September. We spent July/August turning our MVP into a robust platform that could handle the scale that comes with bringing on our first statewide customer. We launched right on time on 9/16. We had weekly calls with our customer’s executive director, her team, and many of the various user groups (attorneys, social workers, peer mentors, and clients). We even met with several judges and district attorneys who said what we built is revolutionary. These judges don’t usually talk like that! But I’m cautiously optimistic. It is great to see usage metrics from the app but I’ll feel better once we start hearing more real stories from attorneys and their clients using it in the field. 

    Problem #1 Success Metric: Onboard our first 100 cases and maintain >90% satisfaction among attorneys/clients.

    Problem #2: Is it repeatable?

    There is a movement growing across the country to improve access to high quality legal representation and improve transparnecy/information sharing in child welfare cases. Oklahoma is the latest example of states creating centralized offices to accomplish this goal. There are a handful of others. After our public announcement, we received inbound interest or got connected to leaders in 12 states. We worked with various state/federal child welfare leaders to ensure states can access federal funding streams to pay for the product too. We’re working those opportunities now and hope to close our second state by January 2025.

    Problem #2 Success Metric: $500k in ARR across 2-3 states with 250-500 cases each

    How you can help?

    Procurement Advice: I’m doing a deep dive on the various contract vehicles / cooperative contracts used by government agencies. If you’re knowledgeable about this or know someone at Carasoft or similar groups, I’d love to learn more / get connected.

    Pitch feedback: We’re semi-finalists for NC IDEA. If we advance, then we will be pitching for a $50k grant. I’d love to do a practice run since I’ve never done this type of pitch with Sunlight before. Likely 60 min in Cary or Durham or Zoom in early Nov.

    Referrals: If you know anyone with experience in Legal/GovTech, Medicaid, or child welfare, I’d love to meet them, especially if they are in the Raleigh-Durham area. This goes for potential employees, funders, or advisers. If you happen to know any attorneys working in family law or public defense, those are much appreciated too!

    Sunlight in the News:

    Shoutouts: Thank you for all the help in the first 100 days!

    • CED / 2ndF paid for us to go to the Business of Software Conference. It really helped us tighten up our messaging and user onboarding flows. 
    • Jennifer at Connect Our Kids for making the original introduction to OK DHS at the CarePortal conference and a ton of advice along the way.
    • Kathleen at CLS introduced me to several great people in family well-being world
    • Gwen, Judge Fransein and everyone at OK OFR for the feedback, support and advocacy across the country! Together, we look forward building the blue-print for high-quality legal rep for families :)
    That's all folks! Thanks for making it to the end :)
     
    -Ryan
    Back to Blog