As a technical founder I empathize with the authors situation and approach, but honestly spending that much time and energy on a product before even getting one sign up is a known failure mode.
Is this the best idea you could've put your time on? Maybe I don't see the vision, but I have no idea who would by this or for what. AI/slop is cheap and luxury brands will only lean further away from it.
I am not a lawyer or diplomat or expert on trade, but I can make some general observations from an American/Western perspective:
First, the sanctions on Iran are such that any partnership with an Iranian person for business reasons is effectively impossible in the West, without the resources of a multi-million or billion-dollar company to circumvent them. The author says "I am not looking for anyone to bypass sanctions" but that is very obviously exactly what they are asking for.
Second, circumventing sanctions is illegal, and people regularly go to prison or are given massive monetary fines for this. OP, I don't question your motives, but you need to understand that people have literally gone to prison and lost their whole livelihoods for doing exactly what you are asking.
Therefore, posting this on a Western platform (Github) and advertising it on a Western message board (HN) is unlikely to help. I don't think the author's intentions are poor; I think they may simply not understand the intensity of the legal regime that makes working with them impossible.
There is also the matter of Westerners' general opinions on Iran, which - general attitudes of multiculturalism and tolerance nonwithstanding - is typically quite negative. The sanctions didn't come from nowhere.
I would recommend the author look into partnerships with persons from countries that are more sympathetic to their situation. The ones with strong tech industries would be Russia, China, and India. Vietnam is another example of a country with some tech industry which also has mostly positive relationships with Western countries, these days. I realize this is not as attractive as the West, but there are good people even in places whose governments I may as a Westerner may not particularly like, and English is a lingua franca the world over. I'd strongly recommend those places as a starting point.
> Go ahead. Talk to the avatar for 2 minutes. Ask it anything in English. Watch how it responds in real-time with synchronized lip movements and natural conversation.
> Go ahead. Talk to the avatar for 2 minutes. Ask it anything in English. Watch how it responds in real-time with synchronized lip movements and natural conversation.
> I'll be here when you get back.
As far as I can tell, there is no live demo. There is a button to "book a private demo", but I can't find anything to try.
Second: Unfortunately, this is a request to partner with someone who will violate sanctions for this person. Anyone considering entertaining this offer should be very clear on that fact. Acting as a proxy to monetize a business in a sanctioned country is not a position you want to be in. You take the legal risk, the other party gets the proceeds (until sanctions catch up). Any investors looking at this arrangement would nope right out of the conversation as soon as any of this was discovered. Thoughts and feelings about sanctions aside, this is not a position you want to put yourself in.
If this is real then I feel sorry for the person, but given that this entire post is a direct ask for someone to violate international sanctions and the content of the website doesn't even match the description (no live demo) I think it's best to flag it. Would be sad if someone on HN felt guilty and got tricked into violating international sanctions over this post.
I see comments like "is this a request to bypass sanctions" OR "he's iranian"
Let's remind ourselves of the following:
- First understand that he didn't choose to be born and raised in Iran.
- Second people grow up have families become attached to where they're born it's not easy to just 'pick up and leave' moving to a new country is expensive and extremely difficult especially from countries like Iran.
- Third he's building something he believes in which is probably better than most people who live in privileged countries who sit around and do nothing.
To me this reads like a plea for help.
He's built something and showing it to the world, if someone likes it and wants to fund him / get him out of Iran, so he can pursue his dreams AND have the people who help him benefit along with him. I'm sure he'll be all for that.
I see a lot of negativity in this thread and I’m not sure why… There are a LOT of folks who prowl HN and some of them obviously have incredible access to resources and connections to figure out a way to accomplish if they were so inclined.
Yes there are obvious hurdles for people in “the west,” but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I think the most obvious question is, would the OP relocate to another country if they were able to get a work visa? If yes, then sufficiently connected people, could absolutely make that happen. It would also immediately fix the issues around export sanctions. That’s in no way saying anyone could make it happen, but I have zero doubt that someone who could prowls HN.
There are many ways to having this occur legally, and I think it’s a bit unfair to immediately say this is completely and utterly illegal with no possible way to make it work. If anything, I’d expect the folks who prowl HN to be the exact kind of people to find a way to do it (without violating sanctions or facing jail time).
Addendum: I personally think this is cool, but I lack the resources to tackle the immediate problems or help bring it to market. I’d encourage the rest of you to offer meaningfully critiques or advice. Simply shouting “sanctions!” into the ether is neither of those. Those are a given and based on the replies from the OP thus far (which have all been downvoted to hell for no reason) they seem incredibly sincere. They’re just trying to figure out what they even can do and/or what possibilities even exist.
Good luck to the OP. This seems like a labor of love and I hope you find a way to make it work.
> can't monetize this from Iran:
> Stripe, PayPal, Western payment processors (sanctioned)
> AWS, GCP, Azure (sanctioned)
> Western bank account (sanctioned)
> Credit card payments from customers (no processor works here)
Good. That's the whole point of economic sanctions.
This is an obvious scam, I don't know why I wasted this time double checking.
Makes me sad that this it the top HN post. Also got me thinking if the technique is so effective here (among more-than-average-scam aware community), I don't want to imagine the success rate on other social media.
> Go ahead. Talk to the avatar for 2 minutes. Ask it anything in English. Watch how it responds in real-time with synchronized lip movements and natural conversation. I'll be here when you get back.
Okay, but you linked to a generic landing page with a "Book a private demo" button. So what exactly does your product do? And why should anyone here be interested if you can't as much as post a video of it working?
49 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 48.6 ms ] threadEven if this were legal it feels like a pitch for a scam…
You: Can bypass US Treasury sanctions and open a Stripe account
Weird to just announce that publicly.
First, the sanctions on Iran are such that any partnership with an Iranian person for business reasons is effectively impossible in the West, without the resources of a multi-million or billion-dollar company to circumvent them. The author says "I am not looking for anyone to bypass sanctions" but that is very obviously exactly what they are asking for.
Second, circumventing sanctions is illegal, and people regularly go to prison or are given massive monetary fines for this. OP, I don't question your motives, but you need to understand that people have literally gone to prison and lost their whole livelihoods for doing exactly what you are asking.
Therefore, posting this on a Western platform (Github) and advertising it on a Western message board (HN) is unlikely to help. I don't think the author's intentions are poor; I think they may simply not understand the intensity of the legal regime that makes working with them impossible.
There is also the matter of Westerners' general opinions on Iran, which - general attitudes of multiculturalism and tolerance nonwithstanding - is typically quite negative. The sanctions didn't come from nowhere.
I would recommend the author look into partnerships with persons from countries that are more sympathetic to their situation. The ones with strong tech industries would be Russia, China, and India. Vietnam is another example of a country with some tech industry which also has mostly positive relationships with Western countries, these days. I realize this is not as attractive as the West, but there are good people even in places whose governments I may as a Westerner may not particularly like, and English is a lingua franca the world over. I'd strongly recommend those places as a starting point.
There's nothing.
> The product works. You just tested it.
I didn't, there's nothing to try.
> Go ahead. Talk to the avatar for 2 minutes. Ask it anything in English. Watch how it responds in real-time with synchronized lip movements and natural conversation.
> I'll be here when you get back.
As far as I can tell, there is no live demo. There is a button to "book a private demo", but I can't find anything to try.
Second: Unfortunately, this is a request to partner with someone who will violate sanctions for this person. Anyone considering entertaining this offer should be very clear on that fact. Acting as a proxy to monetize a business in a sanctioned country is not a position you want to be in. You take the legal risk, the other party gets the proceeds (until sanctions catch up). Any investors looking at this arrangement would nope right out of the conversation as soon as any of this was discovered. Thoughts and feelings about sanctions aside, this is not a position you want to put yourself in.
If this is real then I feel sorry for the person, but given that this entire post is a direct ask for someone to violate international sanctions and the content of the website doesn't even match the description (no live demo) I think it's best to flag it. Would be sad if someone on HN felt guilty and got tricked into violating international sanctions over this post.
I see comments like "is this a request to bypass sanctions" OR "he's iranian"
Let's remind ourselves of the following:
- First understand that he didn't choose to be born and raised in Iran.
- Second people grow up have families become attached to where they're born it's not easy to just 'pick up and leave' moving to a new country is expensive and extremely difficult especially from countries like Iran.
- Third he's building something he believes in which is probably better than most people who live in privileged countries who sit around and do nothing.
To me this reads like a plea for help.
He's built something and showing it to the world, if someone likes it and wants to fund him / get him out of Iran, so he can pursue his dreams AND have the people who help him benefit along with him. I'm sure he'll be all for that.
Yes there are obvious hurdles for people in “the west,” but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I think the most obvious question is, would the OP relocate to another country if they were able to get a work visa? If yes, then sufficiently connected people, could absolutely make that happen. It would also immediately fix the issues around export sanctions. That’s in no way saying anyone could make it happen, but I have zero doubt that someone who could prowls HN.
There are many ways to having this occur legally, and I think it’s a bit unfair to immediately say this is completely and utterly illegal with no possible way to make it work. If anything, I’d expect the folks who prowl HN to be the exact kind of people to find a way to do it (without violating sanctions or facing jail time).
Addendum: I personally think this is cool, but I lack the resources to tackle the immediate problems or help bring it to market. I’d encourage the rest of you to offer meaningfully critiques or advice. Simply shouting “sanctions!” into the ether is neither of those. Those are a given and based on the replies from the OP thus far (which have all been downvoted to hell for no reason) they seem incredibly sincere. They’re just trying to figure out what they even can do and/or what possibilities even exist.
Good luck to the OP. This seems like a labor of love and I hope you find a way to make it work.
Good. That's the whole point of economic sanctions.
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=echend
This is an obvious scam, I don't know why I wasted this time double checking.
Makes me sad that this it the top HN post. Also got me thinking if the technique is so effective here (among more-than-average-scam aware community), I don't want to imagine the success rate on other social media.
I have a ton of respect for Iranian folks and I hope the relations between our two countries can get better. Best of luck to you.
Okay, but you linked to a generic landing page with a "Book a private demo" button. So what exactly does your product do? And why should anyone here be interested if you can't as much as post a video of it working?
youll be all set