echend

Yeah, I'm using Claude to help me write responses. English is my second language and I'm nervous as hell about this thread.

I'm reading the comments, figuring out what to say, then using AI to help phrase it properly. The thoughts are mine but the wording is AI-assisted.

Should've been upfront about this from the start. My bad.

The product is real (test it at neoclerks.com/en if you can access it), but I get if the AI responses kill the credibility.

when AI is talking better than why shouldn't I use it?

I understand the skepticism completely.

How about this: I'll do a live Zoom session where I: - Deploy the entire stack locally - Walk through the code - Show the admin panel, monitoring, databases - Answer any technical questions - Prove this is real

Schedule: [pick a time in next 24 hours] Zoom link: [create one]

Anyone who's skeptical is welcome to join and grill me.

If it's a scam, this should expose it quickly.

This is my website — you might recognize my name from the titles of some movies, too! https://echend.github.io/website/

UPDATE: I'm pulling back from seeking Western partnerships.

Multiple commenters have explained that even the "contractor + equity" structure violates sanctions and is illegal. I genuinely didn't understand this - I thought it was a gray area. It's not.

I'm not asking anyone to break the law or take legal risk. That was naive on my part.

Based on helpful suggestions in this thread, I'm now focusing on: - India (no sanctions, large tech industry) - UAE/Dubai (open to Iranian nationals) - Turkey (regional tech hub) - Singapore (need to research legality)

If you're from one of these countries and interested in partnership, feel free to reach out: EchenDeligani@gmail.com

To everyone who took the time to explain sanctions compliance: thank you. This thread educated me on things I clearly didn't understand.

The technology still works. The market still exists. I just need to find it in the right geography.

You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion.

The demo is a single-session system (designed for hotel lobby kiosks where one person uses it at a time). If someone else is talking to the avatar when you visit, you won't see a QR code.

Here's a direct link you can try: https://ps.neoclerks.com:8451/player.html?ss=7591aecb-72d2-4...

If that's busy too, I'm happy to schedule a 15-min private demo. Email: EchenDeligani@gmail.com

This single-user limitation is product design (kiosk model) not technical - production handles 10-50 concurrent users per GPU. I should have explained this upfront and provided multiple demo instances for HN traffic.

My mistake - learning as I go here.

You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion.

The demo is a single-session system (designed for hotel lobby kiosks where one person uses it at a time). If someone else is talking to the avatar when you visit, you won't see a QR code.

Here's a direct link you can try: https://ps.neoclerks.com:8451/player.html?ss=f2ee51d8-2ea3-4...

If that's busy too, I'm happy to schedule a 15-min private demo. Email: EchenDeligani@gmail.com

This single-user limitation is product design (kiosk model) not technical - production handles 10-50 concurrent users per GPU. I should have explained this upfront and provided multiple demo instances for HN traffic.

My mistake - learning as I go here.

Thank you for this thoughtful response. You're raising legitimate concerns I may not fully understand.

Let me clarify my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong):

My assumption was that a structure like this would be legal: - Partner in US/UK registers their own company - Opens Stripe under their company name - Hires me as a remote contractor (like any distributed team) - I hold equity as a foreign shareholder (which I thought was legal for non-US persons)

Is your point that even this structure violates sanctions because I'm Iranian? Or that the risk/complexity makes it impractical for anyone without massive legal resources?

I genuinely don't want anyone to break the law. If what I'm proposing is illegal even in the structure above, I need to understand that.

Re: Russia/China/India - that's solid advice I hadn't seriously considered. Russia and China have their own complexities, but India makes a lot of sense. Do you know if Indian tech companies face similar restrictions when working with Iranians, or is it more open?

I appreciate you taking the time to explain this clearly rather than just dismissing it. If the Western partnership path is genuinely impossible (not just hard), I need to know that.

Ha, fair.

Yeah, the skills mismatch is real. I can build distributed systems with 4-server architecture, but I can't open a Stripe account.

That's literally the post. "I'm good at X, terrible at Y (geography), need someone who has Y."

If you know anyone who's great at sales but wishes they had a technical co-founder, send them my way :)

Great question.

Why enterprise: B2B customers pay $500-5000/month. Consumer would be $10-50/month. I need fewer customers to survive.

Why not crypto: Tried that. B2B accounting departments won't pay recurring subscriptions in Bitcoin. Too volatile, compliance issues. Consumer crypto payments might work but harder to scale.

The honest answer: I built what I knew how to build (enterprise infrastructure) without validating the market first. Classic founder mistake (see avandekleut's comment above - they're right).

You're right, that's a risk. GitHub has deleted Iranian accounts before under OFAC compliance.

My calculus: Being transparent about my situation is better than hiding it. If they delete my account, at least I tried.

The alternative is pretending I'm somewhere else, which feels worse and creates legal risk for anyone who partners with me.

Open to suggestions on better approaches.

No, I'm not asking anyone to bypass sanctions.

I'm looking for a partner/co-founder OUTSIDE Iran who would: - Register a US/UK company (legally) - Open their own Stripe account (under their name/company) - I work as a remote contractor/technical co-founder (legal, like any distributed team)

This is the same model as any international startup with founders in different countries. I'm not hiding my location - I'm openly saying "I'm in Iran, need a partner elsewhere."

If this violates HN guidelines, mods can remove it. Not trying to do anything illegal.

You're 100% right. This is a classic mistake.

I should have validated with 5-10 customers before building the full enterprise stack. The monitoring, analytics, multi-tenant architecture - all premature.

My reasoning (wrong in hindsight): I thought the barrier was "enterprise features" not "can anyone actually sell this." I'm a better builder than salesperson, and it shows.

If I could redo it: MVP in 3 months, get 10 paying customers, THEN build the infrastructure.

Lesson learned the expensive way.

Fair point - I should have made it clearer. The demo is at

https://ps.neoclerks.com:8451/player.html?ss=f2ee51d8-2ea3-4...

scan the QR code with your phone, and your phone becomes the microphone. The avatar responds on screen.

Known limitation: Running on my GTX 1060 in Iran with 4G internet, so international latency might be rough. The code itself handles 100-300ms on proper infrastructure.

I get the scam concern given the circumstances. Happy to do a live Zoom walkthrough if you're seriously interested in verifying this is real.