The past 10 days have been incredible since announcing I’ve launched my third start-up, Sunlight, and our first product Your Case Plan. I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has reached out in support of our work.
Our announcement on LinkedIn reached over 40,000 people. Over 100 people sent in their resumes and asked to be the first to know when we start hiring. Most importantly (and I can't believe I'm writing this), due to overwhelming interest following our public launch, we had to implement a waiting list to ensure each customer and their users receives a high-quality onboarding experience.
Before things get too busy (or I should say even busier), I wanted to take a few moments to document what led to the creation of Sunlight. Given our name, I'll be as transparent as possible about the journey. To do that, let's turn the clocks back a few years.
Back in 2019, my wife and I became foster parents. Like many foster parents, we heard about a system that was full of abused kids who needed a safe and loving home. Several community groups came to our church to share that there are far too many kids in foster care compared to how many foster parents are licensed in our county. After a few months of training, a homestudy, and background checks, we welcomed a little boy into our home. He lived with us for nearly three years. He is incredible and I love him so much.
Unfortunately, we got a front row seat to see how broken the system is for the very children it claims to protect and their families. If you're interested in hearing that story, it has been widely covered in multiple outlets (linked here).
Being a foster parent in North Carolina was eye-opening. Our foster son's father actually was a non-offending parent, meaning he never was found guilty of abusing or neglecting his son, yet was still prevented from raising his son. After many nights of tucking our foster son into bed and hearing his cries to be reunited with his dad, I knew something needed to be done.
After all, contrary to popular belief, 90% of the children in North Carolina's foster care system actually aren't victims of physical or sexual abuse. These kids were deemed "neglected" which is vaguely defined in our laws but often associated with poverty (ex: lack of adequeate housing, clothing, food, childcare etc). Their parents may be struggling with their own issues, but both their children and them fell through the gaping holes in our social safety net.
This is what Bobby Kennedy referred to in his "Mindless Menance of Violence" speech which he gave the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter."
Unfortunately, we live in a society where just because you are living in poverty, you are more likely to be investigated by child protective services. The same goes if you are a minority or disabled or a single parent. If you lose your job and are unable to afford to go to the doctor, you're at risk of CPS involvement. If you're fleeing domestic violence and the homeless shelters are full, you're at risk of CPS involvement. If you're a single young African African mother who takes your kids to the ER, you're at risk of CPS involvement. I could go on for days sharing stories I've heard from families. While I know there are terrible people out there who abuse kids (and they should be punished to the fullest extent possible), I haven't met a single parent who was found to have "neglected" their children who didn't profoundly love their chilren.
But the systems we have to support them weren't working. Walking into your local department of social services is like entering an alternative universe. I've often described it as a world of snail mail and fax machines. If this was the backbone of our country’s social safety net, then it needed a major upgrade.
Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Was:
Fast forward to Summer 2021, my last start-up, EmployUs, got acquired. The Docusign authorizing the transaction came through while our foster son's dad was over at our home for his weekly visitation with his son. At 28, I went from making $42K / year to being a millionaire who was making over $300K / year.
Honestly, this was a surreal and unsettling experience. All around me, I was seeing parents, especially our foster son's dad, struggling to make ends meet and falling through the cracks of our country's broken social safety net.
My wife and I decided to take our time and resources to figure out how we could make a difference. We spent over two years and invested over $200,000 through RPO Ventures into various solutions. We supported projects related to prevention and reunification as well as incubated new products to support families and improve transparency. We built alongside over hundred people included families impacted, advocates, and leaders inside and outside of the system.
Each investment made an impact, which was our primary goal. We secured stable housing for three different families. We organized a group of people across the country working to end the foster care to homelessness pipeline. We paid for a lot of Uber rides. We helped a girl who aged out of foster care get her first car. We funded the first convening of the Imagination Factory in Washington D.C.
In the grand scheme of things, our money was a drop in the bucket. But admittedly, it opened doors. It advanced and elevated conversations that were already happening thanks to the work of many people who have been doing this work for much longer than us. Most importantly, it allowed us to be patient. We sat with a lot of big questions. What was the right problem to solve? What could we do to make a difference? How could we use my time and resources to create the change we wanted to see in the world?
One consistent theme we saw was a lack of innovation in the child welfare system. However, more importantly, we saw a system that was seemingly immune to oversight and accountability. We saw a system that operates under the guise of protecting children but at times fails to protect children and it seemed all too often needlessly tears and keeps families apart.
Caseworkers, CASA/GAL volunteers, and foster parents were often burnt out and overworked. Judges were tasked with making life altering decisions with very little high quality information. Most importantly, their decisions impacted children and their families. Those children and parents often were the least invested in. They lacked high quality legal representation to defend their rights and present their side of the story.
One of the products we incubated was called Your Case Plan. Originally, I built it just to help our foster son’s dad navigate the complex child welfare system. It was simple at first, sending text reminders for court and other important appointments. Over time, it became more robust. It started helping him draft emails to request services and share documentation. It could track communications with his social worker, service providers, and more.
It seemed like it might be commercially viable as well. I emailed all 100 county directors of social services if they would want to use it. Over 30 of them responded within just a few days with a resounding yes! Even though I was concerned about how our product could be weaponized against families, it seemed like we were onto something.
One NC DSS Director, Robby Hall of Richmond County, shared this about the product:
“Social Workers and parents need better ways to communicate and keep track of the ever-expanding paperwork in cases, and tasks to complete. Cases often extend beyond timeframes due to miscommunication and opportunities for intervention or improvement are lost. It will be a step in simplifying the currently overly complex child welfare system.”
Sometimes things happen that change everything. You don’t have a choice but to get in the arena. It was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work. While I can’t get into specifics, the system had failed our foster son and Durham County moved to put him up for adoption even though his dad had never abused or neglected him. As I shared after the case was made public in December 2024:
“His dad was presumed guilty on day one and had to prove he was innocent. That’s not how it works in this country. That is not justice”
Our foster son’s dad did everything he had to do. Your Case Plan just helped him get credit along the way. It shared everything with his attorney so he could receive the type of high quality legal representation he deserved. It allowed the judge to see what was really going on in their case. In short, it shined a spotlight on what he was doing right and how the system was failing to protect his son. While their case is on-going and I'm unable to share more, it showed me that there is a huge opportunity to improve the quality of legal representation for families and break down communication barriers for everyone involved.
After seeing the potential for Your Case Plan in action, it was time to go all in. I said goodbye to Hireology in April 2024 and began laying the foundation for my third start-up. Leaving behind the stability of a six-figure job wasn’t easy – but it was absolutely essential to making this happen. After taking the leap, we began building alongside more families.
Your Case Plan was the best option to use my unique set of skills as a tech entrepreneur to keep kids safe and invest in high-quality legal representation. I started telling everyone I had met in the child welfare system that I was going all-in on this project and I needed their help. Fortunately, I had spent the past ~18 months building a community in large part thanks to the help of Matt Anderson and the Imagination Factory. People working across the system, impacted by the system, or working outside of the system -- but all committed to create something that actually helps families and keeps kids safe. Also, there were so many people I've met along the way while building my last two start-ups who just believe in supporting entrepreneurs who want to make a difference.
Special thanks to Matt Anderson, Sarah Winograd-Babayeuski, Jennifer Jacobs, Mary O'Donnell, Jacob Sillis, Kathleen Creamer, Adam Ballout, Clare Anderson, Daniel Hiempel, Carol King, Corey Best, Cheri Williams, Sixto Cancel, Ben Rose, Toia Potts, Elizabeth Simpson, Keith Howard, Wendy Sotolongo, Lindsay Harrison, Sheila Donaldson, Amanda Wallace, Dan Martin, Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Chantel Sherman, Sharon Hirsch, John-Paul Smith, Janice Odom, Chris Gergen, Alisha Brice, Jordan Bowman, Amber Smith, Michael Thompson, Joe Colopy, and Kevin Miller.
I decided to give myself 100 days to see if I could turn this product into a viable start-up. I knew the first step was securing a key customer and partner who needed our product and wanted to see it become a reality. I had several conversations with leaders across North Carolina and other states. Multiple child welfare leaders were interested and I even received a call from one state’s DHS secretary who was interested in tools to support birth families because she knew I what learned, there is very little investment in families. I received a series of emails about court reforms in West Virginia and national legislation about improving parent representation. The momentum was building.
Eventually, I got connected with Gwen Clegg, Executive Director of Oklahoma’s Office of Family Representation. Their office had just been created to provide high quality legal representation to parents and children involved in the child welfare system. The product I built for our foster son’s dad struck a nerve with Gwen. She was used to meeting her clients in person in court for the first time just a few minutes before their case. She would give them a folder with her business card and tell them to take it everywhere they went. If they put everything they were doing in that folder and stayed in touch with her, then they would have the best shot at helping them bring their kids home. When Gwen’s office officially launched, they signed on as our first state-wide customer providing critical funding to make Your Case Plan a reality.
She put it best when she posted on LinkedIn the day before I flew out to Tulsa, Oklahoma for our kickoff:
“To say I am excited about my work day tomorrow is an UNDERSTATEMENT! Big things are happening! Tools to assist parents reunify with their children safely and securely! Tools to keep the goal posts in place and hold everyone accountable! I hope I can sleep tonight!”
With our product built and tested in the field plus our first customer secured and ready to go, it was time to make things official. While we were incubating Your Case Plan inside of RPO Ventures, it was time to spin it out as its own company. When I thought about what to call the company, I landed on Sunlight because as the saying goes, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Also, I figured that who wants to say they aren’t in favor of more sunlight!
While getting ready to spin it out, representatives from the US Commission on Civil Rights reached out to me. They must have seen press coverage of our foster son’s case because they asked me to provide testimony during their inquiry into North Carolina’s child welfare system. They were looking for experts who could shed light on our state’s system following the passage of Rylan’s Law and the Family First Act. If you are interested in watching that testimony, it is linked here. The stories shared are powerful and another example of the importance of transparency and accountability -- the importance of sunlight.
I’m beyond grateful to be at a point in life where I can place this bet. While it may not work out, anyone who knows me from my past 10+ years building start-ups knows that I don't quit. Unlike my first start-up, this one is a real business that can create a big social impact at scale. Unlike my second start-up, I’m not building this one to just raise some money and get acquired. This one will be built to last. Thankfully, Sunlight is profitable from day one so we control our own destiny. We will remain committed to building with families while we’re committed to building a good business: one that maximizes our impact alongside our profits.
Sunlight’s mission is to upgrade our social safety net’s operating system. We are starting with our broken child welfare system because we believe our first product, Your Case Plan, will reduce the number of days kids are stuck in foster care.
I’m so excited about what the future holds. It’s a new day. It is time to get to work.
