Also, I've not really explored this avenue much, but any information brought up in this investigation or given to attorneys becomes a matter of public record. It seems like there would be a great deal you could do with that, but I'm not really into the personal data selling thing.
Realistically, you might need to create a MVP with lots of manual processing to test the market. Or, find a VC who will believe your projections.
And this is just the States, there are other countries that use similar systems for jury selection.
I agree I won't make that until there is a mature product, but the question was addressable market, not expected year 1 revenue.
The mvp I'm working on now allows the sharing of information about jurors. This should allow me to gather data on how jurors vote tat can be marketed while still making profit off the sharing app alone.
Since it is such a huge potential market, it might be a good idea to work on getting VC funding. The only caveat being, avoid "free" anything. Very hard to convert to paying down the track. You could give early users the option of investing and getting a chunk of discounted juror research for their money as well as equity. Since you are already in contact with lawyers you should be able to find some professional advice, etc.
On the flip side, where I'm located the 120k from yc seed money would be a year's runway for me and a cofounder or two. That and there is more talent here than people think, or at least more good devs looking for work than hiring.
If anyone has some contacts or VCs want to get in contact with me take my username at Gmail to talk.
Request the Startup Ecosystem Report from here:
http://startup-ecosystem.compass.co/ser2015/
Great research. Interesting notes about Chicago in there.
A sample of information, just what I remember, I'm not looking at the list.
Name
age
education
limited previous legal experiences
Address
Employer and length of time with employer
members of household with relation and age
Criminal history, down to parking records, doesn't come with the juror info sheet, but is usually easily accessible by attorneys.
Even simple things that can be grabbed from facebook/twitter/anything would be useful. Often the halo effect or a person trying to get out of jury duty cause some degree of deception. Anything that can verify what they said in court is valuable. A jury could consist of as few as 6 people, finding that one of them is biased against you and you can strike them is great. The smallest thing can mean a great deal. Say under their favorite books they list civil disobedience, you could easily strike them from a case where one side may be some sort of conscientious objector.
True, if there are millions on the line the attorney would probably hire a consultant, but in that case I think a consultants job would still be easier with my tool than without it and should result in a sale for me, just from the consultant instead of the attorney.
As far as market, not much like this exists, but it is being asked for. There are roughly 80,000 trials per year in the US, a prosecution and defense for each, so 160,000 opportunities. This also makes it such that there are 800,000 potential jurors per year. Some pricing structures I think are reasonable could result in a revenue of under one billion per year.
I'll be honest I've not talked with many people, > 10, but the reactions I received from those I've talked to has convinced me. I've talked to a few civil and criminal lawyers, both public servants and private firms and the feedback is usually ecstatic. "incredible value" might be my words, but "invaluable" was what one lawyer kept saying. Further validation comes from a rudimentary and necessary building block of this, note taking electronically during jury selection, is immature to the point it almost doesn't exist was something I was approached by attorneys to create. The data mining and giving suggestions just seemed like a natural evolution, which so far has been received well.
I know I won't be able to provide everything on every potential juror, but if I'm consistently striking one I'm showing value. And with a pool of > 200 people I'm sure there's someone that I can dig up dirt on.