I built a 2-min demo for my SME compliance tool — tell me where it loses you
I'm Gopi, a solo founder building RenewDesk with AI tooling. I do have small dev team works on other real projects.
The problem: every small business runs on a stack of licences, permits and renewals scattered across different agencies and deadlines. Most owners track it in their head, a WhatsApp thread, or a spreadsheet they've stopped opening — and only find out something's lapsed when it's too late. The cost isn't just the fine; it's the downtime and stress for someone already stretched thin.
RenewDesk turns that into a living system of record — not a reminder app. You describe your business, it maps the compliance requirements that actually apply to you, and a single Compliance Health Score shows where you stand. There's a Document Vault for every licence and certificate, plain-language next steps for each gap, and AI agents watching for new regulations so you hear about what affects you instead of finding out the hard way.
We're starting with SMEs in Malaysia — where the burden is real and underserved — but the problem exists in every market.
Here's the honest part: I don't want to spend six months building the wrong thing. So before I scale, I'm validating with real owners and the consultants who serve them. I'd genuinely rather hear "this doesn't solve my problem" now.
That's where you come in. I put together a short interactive demo — no signup, ~2 minutes. Play with it and tell me where it loses you, what's confusing, or what's missing. There's a quick feedback form built right in.
👉 Try the demo: https://renewdesk.ai/demo/index.html
Brutal honesty welcome. What would make you (or an SME you know) actually use this?
The part that stayed with me wasn't the demo.
It was the phrase "building the wrong thing."
Reading this, I found myself wondering whether the difficult question is actually what SMEs need, or which interpretation of the problem deserves to become the center of the product.
A missed renewal, compliance uncertainty, document management, regulatory change, operational stress — they can all appear connected while still pointing to very different explanations for why someone adopts a system like this in the first place.
You've put your finger on exactly the thing I'm wrestling with.
You're right — a missed renewal, compliance uncertainty, document chaos, regulatory change, operational stress all look like one problem, but each one points to a different reason someone would actually adopt a system. And the "why" is where it gets decided. Someone burned by a lapsed licence wants a safety net. Someone drowning in paperwork wants order. Someone anxious about new regulations wants a watchdog. Same surface, very different centre of gravity — and trying to serve all of them at once is probably exactly how you end up building the wrong thing.
That centre is genuinely what I'm validating right now, not something I've already decided. The open questions I'm sitting with:
- Is "I missed a renewal and got fined" a sharp enough pain on its own to make someone adopt a system — or is it too occasional to change behaviour?
- Does keeping up with government and regulatory changes actually keep owners awake at night, or is that a worry I'm projecting onto them because it's an interesting thing to build?
- Is the real job peace of mind (a single score that says "you're fine"), or concrete task completion (do this, by this date)?
Which of those interpretations feels like the one with real urgency behind it?
I don't think I'd try to answer that in the thread because I suspect the next product decision changes depending on which interpretation deserves to become the center.
Happy to share the fuller thought.
What's the best email to reach you on?
Cool — drop me a line at gopi@digitumlabs .io (remove the space). Much appreciated and thank you.
Sent over the fuller thought by email.