Honest House Promise
How we work through the pledge launch.
A shared operating page for dividing the work: Daniel owns the conversations and decisions, Codex builds the infrastructure and drafts, and outside experts sanity-check the legal/compliance boundaries.
Positioning guardrail
Pledge first. Not certification.
Honest House Promise should be positioned as a public pledge and participation initiative for legal household employment. It should not present itself as a legal, payroll, tax, accounting, compliance, auditing, approval, verification, or certification body.
Use Supporter, Participating Agency, Founding Agency, Founding Partner, pledge, participation, annual attestation, and public commitment. Avoid certified, verified, approved, reviewed, compliance certification, or legal compliance seal language.
Divide and conquer
Who owns what.
Market signal and decisions
- Choose the final mission and pledge language.
- Decide Founding 50 vs Founding 100.
- Pick pricing and founding-member positioning.
- Run agency-owner conversations.
- Run payroll/provider conversations.
- Decide what feels credible in the actual agency world.
Infrastructure and drafts
- Keep the checklist and website copy aligned.
- Draft participation agreements and badge rules for lawyer review.
- Build contact lists and tracking sheets.
- Create outreach emails, call scripts, and partner one-sheets.
- Update HHP and DanielButcher.com pages as decisions change.
- Turn conversations into next-step docs.
Boundaries and credibility
- Attorney review for Terms, Privacy, disclosures, badge rules, and participation agreement.
- Payroll providers confirm partner value and provider-neutral language.
- Agency critics pressure-test pricing, badge value, and renewal logic.
- Compliance educators flag overclaiming risk.
Immediate next steps
The next ten moves.
- Finalize the 1-sentence mission.
- Finalize the pledge language.
- Decide Founding 50 vs Founding 100.
- Decide whether $495/year is the founding agency price.
- Decide whether Supporters are publicly listed.
- Draft Participation Agreement.
- Draft Badge Usage Rules.
- Draft Terms, Privacy, and Disclosures.
- Build Top 50 Agency list.
- Start 10 agency-owner validation conversations.
Workplan
The working roadmap.
Lock the core decisions
- Mission, payroll pledge, campaign name, founding target, partner target, pricing, and whether “Promise Partner” is used or retired for now.
Define participation without becoming a certifier
- Supporter: free listing only, no badge or profile.
- Participating Agency: paid annual participation, public listing, profile, badge rights, annual attestation.
- Founding Partner: partner recognition, disclosure language, provider-neutral policy.
Create the minimum legal/admin foundation
- Entity path, HHP emails, bank/accounting separation, CRM, manual invoicing, Terms, Privacy, Participation Agreement, Badge Usage Rules, Sponsor Agreement, Disclosures, Refund/Cancellation Policy.
Validate before overbuilding
- Build contact lists, rank contacts, speak with agencies, payroll providers, legal/compliance experts, friendly critics, and adjacent service providers.
Website MVP
- Home, pledge, participation, Founding Agencies, Founding Partners, Resources, Join, Contact, Terms, Privacy, Disclosures, and visual momentum pieces.
Application and tracking flow
- Interest form, internal tracking sheet, status pipeline, and profile intake forms for agencies and partners.
Offer materials
- Agency one-sheet, invite email, call script, partner deck, sponsorship options, family payroll guide, legal payroll FAQ, and payroll comparison page.
Founding campaign launch
- Privately invite first agencies and partners, publish campaign page, founder post, group post, email campaign, and first spotlights.
Operating rule
Do not overbuild before signal.
The first useful milestone is not a perfect governance system. It is enough market signal to prove that agencies understand the pledge, partners understand the value, and nobody credible thinks the structure creates a fatal legal/compliance issue.
Success threshold
- 10+ people say they would join or support.
- 3+ ask about pricing.
- 2+ partners want to be involved.
- 1+ legal/compliance expert does not flag a fatal issue.
- Agency owners understand this is participation, not certification.