-- Better Safe than Sued --

Inspiration

Better Safe Than Sued was inspired by a problem we experienced ourselves. While still in high school, some members of our team ran an e-commerce brand called Sharkiez. As sales grew, we received a wave of unusually large orders and fulfilled them without hesitation. Months later, we discovered that many had been placed using stolen credit cards, resulting in chargebacks and difficult negotiations with Shopify and the banks involved. What surprised us most was how difficult it was to find clear, relevant guidance before the problem occurred. That experience revealed a challenge faced by many first-time entrepreneurs across Europe, and motivated us to build the solution we wish we had.

What it does

Better Safe Than Sued helps entrepreneurs identify regulatory risks before they become costly mistakes. Users describe their business, and our AI analyzes its characteristics against relevant EU regulations. The platform then generates a personalized risk map, ranking risks by severity, explaining them in plain language, and linking every recommendation back to its source. Rather than replacing lawyers, the platform helps founders understand risks early and know when professional advice may be needed.

How we built it

We built Better Safe Than Sued using Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. To accelerate development, we used AI-assisted coding tools such as Claude Code and OpenCode, while focusing our efforts on designing the user experience, structuring the regulatory framework, and refining the risk analysis process.

Challenges we ran into

One of our biggest challenges was ensuring that the platform provided guidance without acting as a lawyer. We wanted users to understand potential risks, not treat the AI’s output as legal advice. To address this, we designed the platform around a human-in-the-loop approach: the AI identifies and explains risks, but the final judgment remains with the user. We also implemented clear disclaimers and prompts that restrict the model to providing guidance rather than legal conclusions. Another major challenge was ensuring that the system generated relevant, business-specific results rather than generic responses. Early versions of the platform were overly influenced by our own Sharkiez experience. As a result, the model sometimes projected fraud and chargeback risks onto businesses that had completely different characteristics.

To solve this, we rebuilt the reasoning process to start from the user’s business rather than our own story. The system now analyzes each business independently, respects the information explicitly provided by the user, distinguishes between assumptions and confirmed facts, and adjusts risk severity based on the actual context rather than defaulting to worst-case scenarios. We also introduced a “What we assumed about your business” section, allowing users to review and correct any assumptions made by the model. Finally, this was our first time collaborating on a software project through GitHub. Learning how to coordinate development, manage code changes, and work efficiently as a team under time pressure was a challenge in itself, but it ultimately helped us become more effective collaborators.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that we transformed a real problem we experienced into a tool that can help other entrepreneurs avoid similar mistakes. We’re also proud that every risk is linked to its source, making the platform more transparent and trustworthy than a generic AI chatbot.

What we learned

We learned that many entrepreneurs struggle not because information is unavailable, but because it is difficult to find, understand, and apply. We also learned the importance of building responsible AI systems with clear limitations, transparent sources, and a focus on user trust.

What's next for -- Better Safe than Sued --

We plan to improve the personalization and accuracy of our risk assessments, making regulatory guidance more accessible, affordable, and tailored to each entrepreneur’s specific situation. Our long-term goal is to become the first place entrepreneurs go to understand the risks behind a business idea before launching it.

Built With

• claude
• claudeapi
• claudecode
• next.js
• taillwind
• typescript
• vercel