Permit Notification started with a manager session and a day of deciding what it is not.
What it is
A service that watches public permit records in a county and tells a contractor when a permit matching their trade and area is filed. A roofer in one county wants to know about roofing permits in that county, once a day, and nothing else.
The locks
- Contractors first. Not realtors, not neighbours, not journalists. One audience with one clear reason to pay.
- Building and trade permits. Not zoning, not code enforcement, not business licences.
- Daily delivery. One digest a day, not real-time alerts. Permits are not urgent on an hourly scale, and a daily message is easier to read and cheaper to send.
- Email and SMS. SMS because the audience is in a truck, email because SMS cannot hold a list.
- Passwordless. Sign in with a code sent to the phone or address already on file. No passwords for an audience that will not keep them.
- A real map, and a list. “Customers can pick from counties/cities, but the map can work, too.” So the alert builder gets both.
- A free tier. “I think the free tier is nice.” It stays.
- Mockups before code. The whole flow is designed as static pages and reviewed before anything runs.
In the owner’s words
Most of the locks were one-line answers to a batch of questions. “Contractors first.” “Let’s start with daily and see how it goes.” “Let’s go email and SMS to start.” “No passwords sounds good.” The geography came with a horizon attached: a few North Carolina counties first, then the state, then other states, in the owner’s phrasing in the pull quote. Homeowners, realtors, and suppliers were parked, not refused. The name is a placeholder until there is something to name.
One messaging product the owner asked the team to look at was evaluated and turned down as unsuitable for this audience.
Why so strict
The research the same day showed self-serve permit-alert services exist and that coverage of the target region is thin. The gap is not features; it is a product a contractor can set up in two minutes on a phone. Every lock above serves that.