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We are Matt and Danny, the founders of Kodex (https://www.kodex.us https://www.kodex.us). Kodex makes it easy for companies to process and respond to subpoenas

We are Matt and Danny, the founders of Kodex (https://www.kodex.us https://www.kodex.us). Kodex makes it easy for companies to process and respond to subpoenas from governments around the world. Agencies, like the FBI, subpoena user data from thousands of companies around the world, and companies largely rely on email, fax, and spreadsheets to manage them. When I (Matt) was in the FBI, I would frequently see companies struggle to comply with legal orders, because they lacked the internal resources or expertise to automate the process of working with government agencies. Even multi-billion dollar companies had this problem. At scale, it is enormously burdensome. Somewhat surprisingly, companies have all independently learned to comply with these requests in almost the exact same way. Regular ticketing systems don't work for this, so companies have adopted a web of Zendesk tickets, spreadsheets, and emails just to manage the intake of requests. To respond to requests, they typically send unsecured emails. The fact that this inefficient and insecure setup is so common suggests that these companies' needs can be met with one product, rather than custom solutions for each company. Kodex automates the entire process of parsing, analyzing, and responding to subpoenas by providing companies with their own online Government Request Portal. It is similar to the Law Enforcement Portal that Facebook made for themselves, but it is a resource for every other company to use. We've got a demo video up at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw-hd9ZyQmk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw-hd9ZyQmk. I think most people who haven't lived this problem assume it is only an issue for big tech, when in reality big tech are the only ones who can afford to build their own internal tools to alleviate their pain. If any of you have felt this pain, we'd love to speak with you! And your comments and questions are welcome.

anaskar 5y ago
love this! needed this at the last company I worked out. Was always surprised how manual and generally not secure the whole process seemed to me.
- mldonahue 5y ago
  Thanks! So surprising how hard it is for companies to handle these requests. Love to learn more about your experience with it!
sergiotapia 5y ago
keeping this company in my library of saas's to use.
- mldonahue 5y ago
  Great way of looking at it - good to have on deck even if you haven't yet gotten a data request, because you never know when the "flood gates" might open and bog your company down.
mathackernews 5y ago
Congrats on the launch. What's the hardest thing you have found getting Kodex to this point? How many government bodies are you connected to? Can you use your platform even if they do not use it? Do you use a subscription pricing model?
- mldonahue 5y ago
  Great questions! The hardest part was probably getting our initial customer. This is inherently sensitive company info, and getting the initial social proof & trust from a big name opened a lot of doors for others to trust us. We have about 60 agencies verified with us so far. What's interesting about this problem is that the company dictates how government agencies contact them. As a result, the moment our customers adopt Kodex, they automatically pull in any government agency that wants to contact them. We have new government agents signing up everyday to send our customers requests. We do use an annual subscription pricing model. Happy to connect offline!
  - greyface- 5y ago
    > the company dictates how government agencies contact them What mechanism governs this? Are you standing in as their registered agent? Politely asking agencies to follow your process and finding that they tend to be willing to do so? Something else?
    - mldonahue 5y ago
      Companies provide points of contact for these types of legal process to be served on them - it is akin to the registered agent process. The FBI and other govt agencies do not have the authority to dictate how a company accepts this legal process, only that they comply with the legal order itself. As a result, govt agencies follow the methods of contact that a company provides, whether its a fax number, email address, mailing address, etc. Agencies are willing to follow the process that a company lays out because it makes engaging with that company easier. It is not in an agency's interest to make the process difficult (i.e. FBI demanding to use fax machines when a company already has a lawenforcment@company.com email set up).
wizwit999 5y ago
How big is the market? It seems people who really need this and see it frequently have the resources to build their own and its otherwise rare enough to not be worth a whole product.
- mldonahue 5y ago
  I'm glad you brought that up! I think that is the most common misconception with this problem, and that is why it has gone so long without a solution. You are correct in that the biggest players (i.e. big tech) are the ones who have the resources to solve their own problems. However, this problem spreads much further and wider than just big tech. There are thousands of companies in the US alone that get these requests (from ISPs, banks, insurance, fintechs, crypto, tech, etc.). "Big tech" typically gets all the focus because of the volume they get (FB gets 300k+ per year). What goes unnoticed is that even at 100+, or 1000+ per year, these requests are very overwhelming for companies to manage. These are also the companies that don't have the internal resources to fix their pain like FB and Google.
  - mldonahue 5y ago
    To answer your question about the market, there are ~30k companies that are vulnerable to data requests in the US alone. At $100k price point, that is roughly a $3B market
mike_d 5y ago
I think this is really great. Do you have a public transparency report feature on the roadmap?
- mldonahue 5y ago
  We do already offer company specific transparency reports, so they can analyze the threats on their platform and the agencies investigating them! We have also been thinking more generically about offering a public transparency report that doesn't give away any customer specific details. Love to know your thoughts!

anaskar 5y ago

love this! needed this at the last company I worked out. Was always surprised how manual and generally not secure the whole process seemed to me.

mldonahue 5y ago
Thanks! So surprising how hard it is for companies to handle these requests. Love to learn more about your experience with it!

sergiotapia 5y ago

keeping this company in my library of saas's to use.

mldonahue 5y ago
Great way of looking at it - good to have on deck even if you haven't yet gotten a data request, because you never know when the "flood gates" might open and bog your company down.

mathackernews 5y ago

Congrats on the launch. What's the hardest thing you have found getting Kodex to this point? How many government bodies are you connected to? Can you use your platform even if they do not use it? Do you use a subscription pricing model?

mldonahue 5y ago
Great questions! The hardest part was probably getting our initial customer. This is inherently sensitive company info, and getting the initial social proof & trust from a big name opened a lot of doors for others to trust us. We have about 60 agencies verified with us so far. What's interesting about this problem is that the company dictates how government agencies contact them. As a result, the moment our customers adopt Kodex, they automatically pull in any government agency that wants to contact them. We have new government agents signing up everyday to send our customers requests. We do use an annual subscription pricing model. Happy to connect offline!
- greyface- 5y ago
  > the company dictates how government agencies contact them What mechanism governs this? Are you standing in as their registered agent? Politely asking agencies to follow your process and finding that they tend to be willing to do so? Something else?
  - mldonahue 5y ago
    Companies provide points of contact for these types of legal process to be served on them - it is akin to the registered agent process. The FBI and other govt agencies do not have the authority to dictate how a company accepts this legal process, only that they comply with the legal order itself. As a result, govt agencies follow the methods of contact that a company provides, whether its a fax number, email address, mailing address, etc. Agencies are willing to follow the process that a company lays out because it makes engaging with that company easier. It is not in an agency's interest to make the process difficult (i.e. FBI demanding to use fax machines when a company already has a lawenforcment@company.com email set up).

wizwit999 5y ago

How big is the market? It seems people who really need this and see it frequently have the resources to build their own and its otherwise rare enough to not be worth a whole product.

mldonahue 5y ago
I'm glad you brought that up! I think that is the most common misconception with this problem, and that is why it has gone so long without a solution. You are correct in that the biggest players (i.e. big tech) are the ones who have the resources to solve their own problems. However, this problem spreads much further and wider than just big tech. There are thousands of companies in the US alone that get these requests (from ISPs, banks, insurance, fintechs, crypto, tech, etc.). "Big tech" typically gets all the focus because of the volume they get (FB gets 300k+ per year). What goes unnoticed is that even at 100+, or 1000+ per year, these requests are very overwhelming for companies to manage. These are also the companies that don't have the internal resources to fix their pain like FB and Google.
- mldonahue 5y ago
  To answer your question about the market, there are ~30k companies that are vulnerable to data requests in the US alone. At $100k price point, that is roughly a $3B market

mike_d 5y ago

I think this is really great. Do you have a public transparency report feature on the roadmap?

mldonahue 5y ago
We do already offer company specific transparency reports, so they can analyze the threats on their platform and the agencies investigating them! We have also been thinking more generically about offering a public transparency report that doesn't give away any customer specific details. Love to know your thoughts!