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Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

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Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#21

Post by jakestein »

darthvader2000 wrote: post #17

Great interface. Questions: > The process for creating and revising the contracts is modeled after an open-source software project Which Open Source Project? Could you link it please? What do you mean by Open Source Contracts? Do you mean community edits & maintains contract templates? Do you have APIs to integrate? Do you have your own way of signing contracts or use third party tools like DocuSign?

Thanks for these questions, taking each in turn:

> The process for creating and revising the contracts is modeled after an open-source software project Which Open Source Project? Could you link it please?

We didn't model it after a particular open-source project. Rather, we tried to take lessons learned from open-source software projects in general and apply those lessons to the creation and maintenance of the standard contracts.

> What do you mean by Open Source Contracts? Do you mean community edits & maintains contract templates?

There's a few elements of what we mean by this: - The contracts are released under the Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license. It shares a lot of principals and goals with the OSI licenses for software (eg Apache and GPL) but is built for things other than software - Yes, the community edits and creates the agreements. The community members are largely attorneys rather than software developers, and you can see a list of some of the most active members here: https://commonpaper.com/committee/ - We have an amazing attorney on our team who is analogous to the maintainer of an open-source project. She solicits and collects feedback from the community and makes the final decision about what does and doesn't get into any particular release.

>Do you have APIs to integrate?

Yes, and you can see the docs here: https://api.commonpaper.com/docs

>Do you have your own way of signing contracts or use third party tools like DocuSign?

We embed Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign) within our product for this step

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#22

Post by gnicholas »

What’s the business model here? The agreements are free, so I’m guessing you make money on contract management? But small startups don’t really need this (not enough to pay, at any rate), and larger startups do business with big entities that won’t sign hyper-standardized contracts like these, for the most part.

So assuming you’re charging for the contract management piece, who is the target customer (and how much do you charge)? Or do you provide some other value that I’m not seeing?

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#23

Post by bengarvey »

darthvader2000 wrote: post #17

Great interface. Questions: > The process for creating and revising the contracts is modeled after an open-source software project Which Open Source Project? Could you link it please? What do you mean by Open Source Contracts? Do you mean community edits & maintains contract templates? Do you have APIs to integrate? Do you have your own way of signing contracts or use third party tools like DocuSign?

Hi, one of the co-founders here!

1. We didn't model it after a specific open source project, but Jake worked on https://www.singer.io. We do take inspiration from Open Source licenses like Apache 2, GPL, MIT, etc.

2. Open source in the sense that the terms of the contract are open source and released under a CCBY license. Terms are available via versioned URLs, github markdown source control, and maintained by a committee of contributors (attorneys).

2. Yes! You can find our REST API docs here: https://api.commonpaper.com/docs. It uses the JSONAPI spec.

3. We're currently integrated with Dropbox Sign.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#25

Post by jagged-chisel »

melvinmelih wrote: post #20

> The breaking point came when one of our customers was acquired by Oracle. They wanted to keep using our product, but had to move from our original contract to the one that Oracle uses. In exchange for this, they were willing to increase the price they were paying from $6,000 to $24,000 per year. This is a cool idea, but the irony here is that Oracle probably still wouldn't use the Common Paper contract and insist o…

Today, no. But if the industry can standardize, it might get the behemoths to consider similar frameworks for the reduced expense and increased predictability. Maybe it won’t solve that particular problem today, but it stands a chance of improving things in the future … IFF someone is willing to start something now.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#26

Post by bengarvey »

gnicholas wrote: post #22

What’s the business model here? The agreements are free, so I’m guessing you make money on contract management? But small startups don’t really need this (not enough to pay, at any rate), and larger startups do business with big entities that won’t sign hyper-standardized contracts like these, for the most part. So assuming you’re charging for the contract management piece, who is the target customer (and how much do…

Pricing page is here: https://commonpaper.com/pricing

Small startups don't need contract management until they reach a point and then they wish they started doing it from day 1. :)

"hyper-standardized contracts" I suggest you take a look at the app! While our terms are immutable, the contracts can be heavily customized. So instead of hunting down a random word in a PDF you can focus on the things the material changes from agreement to agreement.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#27

Post by jakestein »

gnicholas wrote: post #22

What’s the business model here? The agreements are free, so I’m guessing you make money on contract management? But small startups don’t really need this (not enough to pay, at any rate), and larger startups do business with big entities that won’t sign hyper-standardized contracts like these, for the most part. So assuming you’re charging for the contract management piece, who is the target customer (and how much do…

You're correct that we make money by charging for our software. It's free until you use it to close deals with more than 5 customers, and free forever if you're just using it for NDAs.

Full details on pricing here: https://commonpaper.com/pricing/

Our target customers are B2B SaaS companies, and our goal is to have them start using us when they are small on the free version and grow with them.

I agree that the bigger entities are the hardest ones to get onboard with this, but our users have signed contracts with Fortune 500 companies and large universities, including deals for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's actually in the cases where there's a big mismatch in size that we can provide the most help, although there are plenty of cases where the big company draws a hard line and won't use anything but their in-house contract.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#28

Post by bengarvey »

eterm wrote: post #24

What would you say to someone who is wondering if this is an attempt at a technical solution to a social problem?

CTO and Co-founder here.

While we certainly are using technology to help solve the problem, it's more about creating contracts in a way that helps you focus on the key changes from contract to contract. When you build on immutable terms, and the only changes are in the contract's cover sheet, you can focus on the changes and not hunt down for words inside of an inscrutable PDF.

Re: Launch HN: Common Paper (YC W23) – SAFEs for Commercial Contracts

#29

Post by gnicholas »

bengarvey wrote: post #26
gnicholas wrote: post #22

What’s the business model here? The agreements are free, so I’m guessing you make money on contract management? But small startups don’t really need this (not enough to pay, at any rate), and larger startups do business with big entities that won’t sign hyper-standardized contracts like these, for the most part. So assuming you’re charging for the contract management piece, who is the target customer (and how much do…

Pricing page is here: https://commonpaper.com/pricing Small startups don't need contract management until they reach a point and then they wish they started doing it from day 1. :) "hyper-standardized contracts" I suggest you take a look at the app! While our terms are immutable, the contracts can be heavily customized. So instead of hunting down a random word in a PDF you can focus on the things the material changes…

Whoa, that’s pricey! If I have a handful of customers, I’d definitely not want to be paying $600/yr for contract management. I’m not sure what “support” entails (you aren’t offering legal services, I imagine), but this strikes me as really pricey. Good luck though!
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