Scope says what the product is. These say what it must never do, and they came from the owner in the same sitting.
Free and legal data
“We need to go free and legal.” Official open-data feeds and North Carolina public-records requests are the only sources. A site that forbids automated access is off limits, however easy it would be. The owner went further and named a feature out of it: a semi-automated public-records-request tool in the back end, so asking a county for its data becomes routine rather than a chore. That feature is in the admin mockups as a request tracker.
Never touch a card number
“Never store credit card numbers ourselves, ever.” Payments go through a hosted checkout and billing portal, so no card data passes through the product and the product never enters PCI scope.
Nearly free until there are customers
“Low as in nearly free until we have some customers.” Every provider chosen has to cost close to nothing at zero subscribers. This ruled out at least one hosting tier whose terms forbid commercial use on the free plan.
No deadline
The pull quote. There is no launch date, and no plan is sequenced around one.
And one deferral
Pricing was not set. The owner asked for a look at the competition and some market research first. The research came back the next day with a proposed model; the decision is still open and the figures stay out of this history until it is made.