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.
Thank you for this thoughtful response. You're raising legitimate concerns I may not fully understand.
Let me clarify my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong):
My assumption was that a structure like this would be legal:
- Partner in US/UK registers their own company
- Opens Stripe under their company name
- Hires me as a remote contractor (like any distributed team)
- I hold equity as a foreign shareholder (which I thought was legal for non-US persons)
Is your point that even this structure violates sanctions because I'm Iranian? Or that the risk/complexity makes it impractical for anyone without massive legal resources?
I genuinely don't want anyone to break the law. If what I'm proposing is illegal even in the structure above, I need to understand that.
Re: Russia/China/India - that's solid advice I hadn't seriously considered. Russia and China have their own complexities, but India makes a lot of sense. Do you know if Indian tech companies face similar restrictions when working with Iranians, or is it more open?
I appreciate you taking the time to explain this clearly rather than just dismissing it. If the Western partnership path is genuinely impossible (not just hard), I need to know that.
> My assumption was that a structure like this would be legal: - Partner in US/UK registers their own company - Opens Stripe under their company name - Hires me as a remote contractor (like any distributed team) - I hold equity as a foreign shareholder (which I thought was legal for non-US persons)
> Is your point that even this structure violates sanctions because I'm Iranian?
Yes.
> Or that the risk/complexity makes it impractical for anyone without massive legal resources?
Companies on the scale of Toyota or Huawei try to circumvent these sanctions. They are regularly found out and caught and prosecuted:
> Do you know if Indian tech companies face similar restrictions when working with Iranians, or is it more open?
Sorry, I'm not Indian and have no knowledge of Indian laws. I would strongly advise you seek legal counsel from a person familiar with them, preferably a barrister/solicitor (in Indian terms).
> If the Western partnership path is genuinely impossible (not just hard), I need to know that.
For all intents and purposes, for you, it is. I'm sorry, genuinely, that our countries are in this position with regards to each other. It isn't your fault, but it is how it is.
Editing to add: the ONLY exception I can think of to this would be if you flee Iran, plead for and are granted asylum in the United States or a third country with better relationships to it. This is extraordinarily hard, and possibly a violation of Iranian law for me to even suggest to you.
UPDATE: I'm pulling back from seeking Western partnerships.
Multiple commenters have explained that even the "contractor + equity" structure violates sanctions and is illegal. I genuinely didn't understand this - I thought it was a gray area. It's not.
I'm not asking anyone to break the law or take legal risk. That was naive on my part.
Based on helpful suggestions in this thread, I'm now focusing on:
- India (no sanctions, large tech industry)
- UAE/Dubai (open to Iranian nationals)
- Turkey (regional tech hub)
- Singapore (need to research legality)
If you're from one of these countries and interested in partnership, feel free to reach out: EchenDeligani@gmail.com
To everyone who took the time to explain sanctions compliance: thank you. This thread educated me on things I clearly didn't understand.
The technology still works. The market still exists. I just need to find it in the right geography.
> Editing to add: the ONLY exception I can think of to this would be if you flee Iran, plead for and are granted asylum in the United States or a third country with better relationships to it. This is extraordinarily hard, and possibly a violation of Iranian law for me to even suggest to you.
Couldnt they just immigrate normally? I dont know how this all works, but there is a reasonably large size group of Iranian expats in my country (canada), many of them with jobs in the tech sector. I think they are just normal immigrants and not asylum seekers. I imagine its hard (especially with the current gov taking an anti-immigration tone), but probably a lot easier than getting asylum in usa.
Canada is a different matter and certainly, if the OP immigrated to Canada and was living there as an Iranian national with legal Canadian residency, the situation would be different.
> Partner in US/UK registers their own company - Opens Stripe under their company name - Hires me as a remote contractor (like any distributed team) - I hold equity as a foreign shareholder (which I thought was legal for non-US persons)
This structure clearly violates sanctions, yes.
The person opening the Stripe account in this case would be breaking the law and would be taking on the legal consequences of violating those sanctions.
Having another person act as a proxy for a business in a sanctioned country is unquestionably illegal, regardless of how you structure it. Equity agreements, remote contractor, handshake agreements, crypto payments, doesn't matter. Any arrangement like this is designed to avoid sanctions and violating sanctions is a big deal.
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of sanctions is that the entire point is to prevent exactly these partnerships from forming, as well as their much larger cousins. Western governments want to pressure your government to change its behavior because of the damage to people like you.
Most of commenters in this thread are overcomplicating things and have no experience with gray area industries. What you need is Turkey, the UAE and Dubai. The payment stack however can be Chinese/middle eastern/eastern European. This is a fairly standard play for people of your background, from there you can bootstrap and then ultimately leverage yourself into a new citizenship (most commonly Canadian and Australian, or other places with easier citizenship by investment routes).
You are asking technologists in an English speaking forum targeting the American centric world. You should be enquiring with friends in the nearby Islamic countries. None of the problems you have encountered are new or have no solutions for. As a suggestion, look up the payment providers used by Pornhub (they are blacklisted by Visa and Mastercard) and that is a good starting point for you. Also look at where a lot of crypto platforms incorporate. There is a whole world outside of the Delaware Corp + Stripe Atlas game, but you certainly won't learn that from silicon valley forums.
I strongly suggest you don't let desperation drive you into a poor deal or enter yourself into a disadvantageous partnership. Take some time off to clear your head, and talk to people. Don't let the whole "product led growth" US centric sales strategy cloud your business decisions. In the rest of the world, B2B is not limited to MasterCard/Visa and most of the notion/stripe style credit card driven SaaS don't necessarily exist in the same way. For your type of product, you should be charging more too.
Also most importantly, make sure your bank account is in the middle east and avoid dealing with USD under any circumstance. If you have a foreign bank account in a less friendly jurisdiction, an overzealous compliance department can easily shut down your entire business.
Don't confuse the greater geopolitics with business when it comes to the middle east. They are perfectly happy to work with small business people like OP.
I think, due to the seriousness and potential consequences of even inadvertently violating international sanctions, you are going to want to (somehow, I have no idea how) obtain legal advice on this subject from an attorney, not from random HN commenters.
I don't think - though I am not sure - that it is illegal for an American attorney to advise an Iranian national on what American laws are. There is an Iranian-American Bar Association at https://iaba.us/ which might be able to help.
Legality set aside (I agree on your points on the repercussions), "the West" isn't that unified when it comes to middle east and other areas where the US meddled a lot. In particular, EU countries can have a way more nuanced view on it and be quite pissed at US' positions.
Which can make the author's perception of it more complex. They'll find people who are genuinely sympathetic, but still absolutely refusing to cross the bridge.
If you are a rich crypto founder you can literally admit[0] to funneling money to Islamic State[1] and get yourself a pardon for it though[2].
[0] "Binance failed to file a SAR on transactions related to an individual designated by OFAC for support of a terrorist group. The individual was allowed to
keep an account for several years in withdrawal-only status after designation and withdraw their balance" https://www.fincen.gov/system/files/enforcement_action/2023-...
[1] "The violations include failure to implement programs to prevent and report suspicious transactions with terrorists — including Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) " https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1925
When I was interested in the semantic web I found that there was demand for it in the whole EMEA area: not just in the EU which funds it but also on a grassroots level in the Middle East and Africa where there are people using many different languages and better communications means more and better commerce.
I was talking with people in Iraq about a project and found it wasn't necessarily sanctioned but I was supposed to go through channels and I couldn't find anyone at State to respond to my questions.
>The ones with strong tech industries would be Russia, China, and India
As a side note, I wouldn't put it past a company of any of these countries to effectively resell the software to US companies, effectively bypassing the sanctions in a similar partnership fashion.
On another note, how do you distinguish between a well meaning iranian asking you to do something illegal for money, and an iranian that is just trying to scam you. I'm not saying that this is the case, but the very intense regime would force anyone participating in this to forego the legal mechanisms that would make doing business somewhat safe to begin with. How do you bring a dispute to court if it arises? You would have to confess to a federal crime?
Sorry man, I wish you luck, but nothing we can do here.
> 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.
You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion.
The demo is a single-session system (designed for hotel lobby kiosks where one person uses it at a time). If someone else is talking to the avatar when you visit, you won't see a QR code.
If that's busy too, I'm happy to schedule a 15-min private demo. Email: EchenDeligani@gmail.com
This single-user limitation is product design (kiosk model) not technical - production handles 10-50 concurrent users per GPU. I should have explained this upfront and provided multiple demo instances for HN traffic.
The whole original pitch was written with AI quite obviously, besides admitting to having written the whole project with the help of Claude; I would assume that OP has been using it for more than just a translator.
This whole thing is most likely just be a scam with a sob story.
The urgency is the sob story: OP threw his life away to develop an AI avatar platform [1] and is supposedly in dire need urgent financial assistance. Better help him quick before you discover it’s a scam!
OP is almost certainly exaggerating the amount of effort put into this platform. It’s an AI wrapper. Period.
Scam.
[1] Who needs an AI avatar? It is not a bazillion dollar market like OP claims.
please go to the website if you want to test the avatar
https://neoclerks.com/en/
book a demo and as soon as it frees up you see the product by yourself
I really have no idea why a lots of people are saying about scam
is that happening a lot here?
lol, “book a demo” isn’t going to convince me you’re not scamming.
Your whole marketing page is all about fake luxury.
It’s like this guy I met at a bar in Miami who said he was going to start a company that was like Uber and Airbnb except more luxurious, and he showed me his website that was slapped together with stock images of mansions and Lamborghinis.
The AI concierge example is hilarious. Someone who is looking to book a Michelin starred restaurant at 3AM is rich enough to be staying at a hotel with 24/7 staff. If I go stay at a cheap motel it has 24/7 staff at the front desk. AI isn’t solving a problem there. Rich people never want to interact with an AI, they’re too rich for that. They hire a real person to do mundane and simple tasks for them.
It seems like at best you have a deep misunderstanding of your ideal customer and at worst you’re just looking for a get rich quick scheme.
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.
Letting that empathy lead you into violating international sanctions to funnel money to a sanctioned country is decidedly not a good idea.
Requesting that other people sign up for Stripe accounts and send you the money in violation of sanctions is bad. The other person risks extreme legal consequences including prison sentences for deliberately and openly violating sanctions.
The comments are a warning to anyone who might feel compelled to do what is being asked, without realizing the specific request is a serious legal matter that can come with prison terms measured in decades.
> I see comments like "is this a request to bypass sanctions"
Did you read the Gist he posted? It was a direct request for someone to help him bypass sanctions.
Immigrating to a new country isn't something you do on a whim. It takes a very long time (years) and it's not really cheap. It's not a solution to the OP's problem.
The OP wasn't asking for help leaving their country. They were making a specific ask to violate 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.
How about this: I'll do a live Zoom session where I:
- Deploy the entire stack locally
- Walk through the code
- Show the admin panel, monitoring, databases
- Answer any technical questions
- Prove this is real
Schedule: [pick a time in next 24 hours]
Zoom link: [create one]
Anyone who's skeptical is welcome to join and grill me.
> 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.
You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion.
The demo is a single-session system (designed for hotel lobby kiosks where one person uses it at a time). If someone else is talking to the avatar when you visit, you won't see a QR code.
If that's busy too, I'm happy to schedule a 15-min private demo. Email: EchenDeligani@gmail.com
This single-user limitation is product design (kiosk model) not technical - production handles 10-50 concurrent users per GPU. I should have explained this upfront and provided multiple demo instances for HN traffic.
That's exactly the use case I would go too (since I'm not native English) and while we have a technology now for this, people will straight away reject because LLM. Funny how we always wanted to connect the world and know it is just not compatible with the situation.
Are you even allowed to have github or Gmail accounts? From my understanding those are US companies and not allowed to provide any services to Iranian nationals.
He does have a LinkedIn, and his GH user has a real looking GitHub pages site associated with it.
Please don't violate US Treasury dep sanctions just to be a founder for a business with 0 customer validation, you might as well be helping a Nigerian prince.
Seek counsel with a lawyer versed on this first, rather than the HN comments section or your own exuberance.
A better analogy would be the "Trade Offer" meme where someone offers a share of the profits, but your offer is that you are willing to violate serious international sanctions.
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.
In his own words he all-ready got early feedback from his family.
"I tried the local Iranian market. I showed it to friends, family, and potential clients. Their response: "Nobody in Iran will pay $500/month for this. The Persian language quality isn't perfect. We'll use free ChatGPT instead.""
Which should of been free feed-back on the risk vs reward.
scan the QR code with your phone, and your phone becomes the microphone. The avatar responds on screen.
Known limitation: Running on my GTX 1060 in Iran with 4G internet, so international latency might be rough. The code itself handles 100-300ms on proper infrastructure.
I get the scam concern given the circumstances. Happy to do a live Zoom walkthrough if you're seriously interested in verifying this is real.
I don't think I need to tell hacker news this, but don't scan that qr code with phone.
The only way HN is going to do that is by opening that link with either a js disabled browser and then opening the qr with a sandboxed android emulator.
you can also open a URL with another tab
press F12 and open the STT page URL and you have both the avatar and the STT page (where you use it as microphone) on the same computer without the need of phone, this design was to eliminate the need of microphone and setup user base sessions and control it in kiosk like environments
I should have validated with 5-10 customers before building the full enterprise stack. The monitoring, analytics, multi-tenant architecture - all premature.
My reasoning (wrong in hindsight): I thought the barrier was "enterprise features" not "can anyone actually sell this." I'm a better builder than salesperson, and it shows.
If I could redo it: MVP in 3 months, get 10 paying customers, THEN build the infrastructure.
> 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?
I'm looking for a partner/co-founder OUTSIDE Iran who would:
- Register a US/UK company (legally)
- Open their own Stripe account (under their name/company)
- I work as a remote contractor/technical co-founder (legal, like any distributed team)
This is the same model as any international startup with founders in different countries. I'm not hiding my location - I'm openly saying "I'm in Iran, need a partner elsewhere."
If this violates HN guidelines, mods can remove it. Not trying to do anything illegal.
> I'm looking for a partner/co-founder OUTSIDE Iran who would: - Register a US/UK company (legally) - Open their own Stripe account (under their name/company) - I work as a remote contractor/technical co-founder (legal, like any distributed team)
This is a clear and direct sanctions violation. What you are requesting is very illegal.
The EU seem to have less strict sanctions against Iran, specifically for specific entities, people, and services. Telecommunication is one of those services.
In theory you could get hired in an EU company that doesn't deal with an US company (for example an EU-only payment provider. If such a thing exists. (One can only hope GNU Taler will be it some day)). Though the compliance requirements might not be easy and cost you a bit to get some layers involved and fill out paperwork together with someone you'd convenie as your partner.
I'd pursue this avenue of research further if I'd where you, or another country wherein the US sanctions aren't a real factor. Best of all would be if you'd be able to emigrate and become a resident of a non sanctioned country.
I think this is good that I should prove it, I now about 80 percent of anything in internet now days is fake, but can you find any scam project that offers real test demo (send me email and I send you a link pixelstreaming front-end in which you see real-time streaming and can talk to avatar EchenDeligani@gmail.com) or any zoom call so I can walk you through the project, or any one which specialy focuces on persain language
I feel for the person, but there's a part of me that also wonders why they spent 18 months on this without first doing a small bit of preparatory due diligence to see what the endgame was going to be.
100-120 hour working weeks sound implausible and very exaggerated. If you are actually working for that long, you should probably stop.
Zero customers after 18 months is also not a very good look.
"""
This is AI-validated, production-grade code.
You can verify this yourself: open Claude Code, point it at the repository, ask it to audit for production readiness. It will confirm.
"""
I'm sorry, but you should seriously reconsider putting up statements like this. If anything, people will be put off by you claiming that the code is production ready because it's been "AI validated" by Claude (which in reality is often extremely shallow, something like GPT-5 in Codex is way more thorough).
Also, the project cost estimates of $150k-$220k are also way off because Claude cannot make realistic estimations, and because it wrote most of that code anyway.
P.S: We can't 'verify' anything with Claude Code because the repo is closed source.
P.P.S: I asked Claude to analyze this blog post, since you wrote the blog post with Claude, and it said:
> This is a technical demo looking for a business, not a business looking for a partner.
Plus
> The entire narrative structure (war, bombs, wife working, mother asking about jobs, crypto hack) is designed to generate sympathy and urgency. This is a sales technique, not business due diligence.
you might also know that LLM works on probability so if you ask it again it might reponce something else. but use claude for coding its amazing, I started to code 22 years ago, belive me not using AI for coding its like going back to when poeple used horses instead of cars.
but if you are interested send me an email (echendeligani@gmail.com) and I will share you the link to talk to the avatar and test it. or book a private demo at website NeoClerks.com/en with proper email so I can send you the link
Thank you very much for booking,
this way I can manage and share the demo with everyone, as the gpu server is my own local computer.
and I have more that 50 request now so please bare with me
Pivot and find a means to re-purpose the core stack towards a use case that solves problems at an acceptable price point for your local market? Iran has lots of problems to solve...
I really thought about it too, but I'm a developer, and most of my life was working with a computer, this is the start for something bigger I hope in future will help my people too.
noted, I think I'm missing that the real people in US are not what is in the news, imagine just being in tech news and AI 24/7, but again that was a test, mainly for my local areas, and definitly now I know not for the US
I agree to some degree but I started learning about ai 16 years ago in university, there is just two things, it really helps now days for coding and the tech is getting better, about 3 years ago I could not create anything like this about 3 years ago.
I think OP is sitting on some other product here that he hasn't figured out yet. It definitely isn't in the high-end luxury retail space, but it might be in B2C, think Home assistant or something akin.
the web site was just a test, this product could be really usefull in some places, I'm still trying to find it, do you guys really have any opinion where such product would be usefull?
I thought a lot, I tested with luxury for tech companies or hotels, hospitals, this could be really usefull when it comes to languages
People will pay more money specifically to _not_ interact with AI, just as they do now when they avoid phone or offshore support. It is already the hallmark of luxury to have a large staff of actual people willing to help you.
Considering this all to be truthful, it seems you have fallen for the startup mythology - I know because I have been there too.
Maybe you can make it work, who knows, but the chances are slim - even more because of your nationality.
Don't all-in in this, protect yourself and your family.
Don't believe those hard-working startup stories, most of them in reality are really luck or contacts, nothing to do with hardwork, quality, strategy, etc. And there's people profiteering over believers like you...
I won't even comment on the irony of an iranian citizen asking for help from the Silicon Valley - when did these people help you or your country, ever????????
Hi gverrilla,
Thank you very much for your advice, living where I live is survival, I will try to do anything I can, but I made this and put a lots of times and effort, I really want to try to get is somewhere, I never thought of out side of Iran, but again paying for LLM in dollar and getting paid in the worse currency in the world will not work
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.
Could you move to UAE and incorporate there? Your wife’s medical qualifications are likely valid, you’ll be close to home, and there are places there it’s possible to live cheaply. As long as it’s a genuine Emirati company rather than a front for an Iranian one, you should be fine?
this is exactly one of the best options, but man, Iran is like that kid in school that nobody likes haha, and again I should get visa sponser, but no matter what I'm really carefull moving step by step, I made this and any chance to help me ship this for real clients I will jump on it
Tough. But I suppose it means the sanctions are working.
The shortest way out is island nation golden passport plus renunciation of Iranian citizenship plus incorporation in Dubai and then get going. Rough because startup cost is $250k. Well, you have a story to tell a VC. It'll be tough, though. None of the A listers will risk this.
> 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.
Why enterprise: B2B customers pay $500-5000/month. Consumer would be $10-50/month. I need fewer customers to survive.
Why not crypto: Tried that. B2B accounting departments won't pay recurring subscriptions in Bitcoin. Too volatile, compliance issues. Consumer crypto payments might work but harder to scale.
The honest answer: I built what I knew how to build (enterprise infrastructure) without validating the market first. Classic founder mistake (see avandekleut's comment above - they're right).
Yes? Isn't it the purpose of crypto to avoid centralized restrictions? The person can still pay taxes by declaring it. Either way, when he turns crypto into fiat, he will have to explain its origin to his government and eventually pay taxes.
the question is what this product is and what it can do!
you should more think of future, maybe at current time is not as good as human but it will get there, and all I'm doing is trying to find the best fit for this.
Look to the PRC, unfortunately your country exists in a separate world economy from the American hegemony one.
Nobody here can help you and in fact I think GitHub and YC may be required to ban your account once they become aware you're Iranian. It's so flagrantly stupid and imo a violation of human rights to so utterly restrict the citizens of both our countries from freely doing business with each other but that's how it is right now.
I don't know what to say really but I always said loudly I'm from Iran, and to be honest everything I do is with tech that is out side of Iran, probably Iran never could get any near to such techs in hundred years the way the current goverment is acting. but I like the tech a lot and I'm Iranian :D
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.
> I see a lot of negativity in this thread and I’m not sure why…
Because it's a request for someone to violate sanctions for them. They are specifically asking for someone to set up Stripe, take on the legal risk of violating international sanctions, and forward the money to them.
> Yes there are obvious hurdles for people in “the west,” but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
The "it" that is being requested is not about relocation, though. It's a direct ask to violate sanctions to sign up for services that must enforce sanctions.
Ya, I kind of see this as one of those "can you make me a bomb" or "will you kill X for me for money" setups on the internet. You have no idea if this is a spook at a TLA trying to set you up to make a quota. Because the user is asking to do something illegal this post should be taken down.
I’ve known many talented engineers who know nothing about business, what’s legal or not, and I politely think this is likely one of those cases. The person put in a ridiculous amount of work, and is trying to think of anything that could work. Maybe those seemed like the simplest possible solutions, and so they listed them. I think it’s worth it to give them a little bit of slack, and assume their intentions are wholesome, until there’s evidence otherwise.
Additionally, there may be people from countries where this partnership would be, or could be, made legal— but the OP probably doesn’t know the name of the specific “Stripe” equivalent is… I certainly wouldn’t.
> I’ve known many talented engineers who know nothing about business, what’s legal or not, and I politely think this is likely one of those cases.
Imagine for a second if Civil, Mechanical, or Electrical engineers had this complete lack of responsibility, accountability, and liability in the work they do. The fact that people here are even offering serious advice that this guy stop what he's doing and seek legal help is going above and beyond
no lie my brother
I do not now how to prove it, the story is not for empathy, but again if it was not the truce and it was real scam I think couldnt gain this much attention
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.
Thank you for this thoughtful response. You're raising legitimate concerns I may not fully understand.
Let me clarify my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong):
My assumption was that a structure like this would be legal: - Partner in US/UK registers their own company - Opens Stripe under their company name - Hires me as a remote contractor (like any distributed team) - I hold equity as a foreign shareholder (which I thought was legal for non-US persons)
Is your point that even this structure violates sanctions because I'm Iranian? Or that the risk/complexity makes it impractical for anyone without massive legal resources?
I genuinely don't want anyone to break the law. If what I'm proposing is illegal even in the structure above, I need to understand that.
Re: Russia/China/India - that's solid advice I hadn't seriously considered. Russia and China have their own complexities, but India makes a lot of sense. Do you know if Indian tech companies face similar restrictions when working with Iranians, or is it more open?
I appreciate you taking the time to explain this clearly rather than just dismissing it. If the Western partnership path is genuinely impossible (not just hard), I need to know that.
> My assumption was that a structure like this would be legal: - Partner in US/UK registers their own company - Opens Stripe under their company name - Hires me as a remote contractor (like any distributed team) - I hold equity as a foreign shareholder (which I thought was legal for non-US persons)
That structure is explicitly illegal because you are an Iranian national. It does not matter whether you are a contractor: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/560.419
US business entities may not ever do business with Iran for any reason: https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2012/10/iran-...
See also: https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/56536/can-a-us-compa...
> Is your point that even this structure violates sanctions because I'm Iranian?
Yes.
> Or that the risk/complexity makes it impractical for anyone without massive legal resources?
Companies on the scale of Toyota or Huawei try to circumvent these sanctions. They are regularly found out and caught and prosecuted:
> Do you know if Indian tech companies face similar restrictions when working with Iranians, or is it more open?
Sorry, I'm not Indian and have no knowledge of Indian laws. I would strongly advise you seek legal counsel from a person familiar with them, preferably a barrister/solicitor (in Indian terms).
> If the Western partnership path is genuinely impossible (not just hard), I need to know that.
For all intents and purposes, for you, it is. I'm sorry, genuinely, that our countries are in this position with regards to each other. It isn't your fault, but it is how it is.
Editing to add: the ONLY exception I can think of to this would be if you flee Iran, plead for and are granted asylum in the United States or a third country with better relationships to it. This is extraordinarily hard, and possibly a violation of Iranian law for me to even suggest to you.
UPDATE: I'm pulling back from seeking Western partnerships.
Multiple commenters have explained that even the "contractor + equity" structure violates sanctions and is illegal. I genuinely didn't understand this - I thought it was a gray area. It's not.
I'm not asking anyone to break the law or take legal risk. That was naive on my part.
Based on helpful suggestions in this thread, I'm now focusing on: - India (no sanctions, large tech industry) - UAE/Dubai (open to Iranian nationals) - Turkey (regional tech hub) - Singapore (need to research legality)
If you're from one of these countries and interested in partnership, feel free to reach out: EchenDeligani@gmail.com
To everyone who took the time to explain sanctions compliance: thank you. This thread educated me on things I clearly didn't understand.
The technology still works. The market still exists. I just need to find it in the right geography.
You seem like a good person, wishing you all the best!
thank you very much
Best of luck, the product seems pretty cool.
thank you very much, I appreciate it
> Editing to add: the ONLY exception I can think of to this would be if you flee Iran, plead for and are granted asylum in the United States or a third country with better relationships to it. This is extraordinarily hard, and possibly a violation of Iranian law for me to even suggest to you.
Couldnt they just immigrate normally? I dont know how this all works, but there is a reasonably large size group of Iranian expats in my country (canada), many of them with jobs in the tech sector. I think they are just normal immigrants and not asylum seekers. I imagine its hard (especially with the current gov taking an anti-immigration tone), but probably a lot easier than getting asylum in usa.
The United States has effectively halted immigration from Iran: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/rest...
Canada is a different matter and certainly, if the OP immigrated to Canada and was living there as an Iranian national with legal Canadian residency, the situation would be different.
They’d need an Iranian exit visa first, if I’m not mistaken.
I've never heard of Iranian exit visas being particularly difficult to get.
IANAL, but my understanding is that the asylum seeking status is required to avoid sanctions laws?
> Partner in US/UK registers their own company - Opens Stripe under their company name - Hires me as a remote contractor (like any distributed team) - I hold equity as a foreign shareholder (which I thought was legal for non-US persons)
This structure clearly violates sanctions, yes.
The person opening the Stripe account in this case would be breaking the law and would be taking on the legal consequences of violating those sanctions.
Having another person act as a proxy for a business in a sanctioned country is unquestionably illegal, regardless of how you structure it. Equity agreements, remote contractor, handshake agreements, crypto payments, doesn't matter. Any arrangement like this is designed to avoid sanctions and violating sanctions is a big deal.
How will you get paid from a western US/UK bank if you want to receive the money in Iran?
Thats the issue: Most banks do not allow transactions to some countries, and if at all, under very timeconsuming checks&KYC stuff etc
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of sanctions is that the entire point is to prevent exactly these partnerships from forming, as well as their much larger cousins. Western governments want to pressure your government to change its behavior because of the damage to people like you.
Most of commenters in this thread are overcomplicating things and have no experience with gray area industries. What you need is Turkey, the UAE and Dubai. The payment stack however can be Chinese/middle eastern/eastern European. This is a fairly standard play for people of your background, from there you can bootstrap and then ultimately leverage yourself into a new citizenship (most commonly Canadian and Australian, or other places with easier citizenship by investment routes).
You are asking technologists in an English speaking forum targeting the American centric world. You should be enquiring with friends in the nearby Islamic countries. None of the problems you have encountered are new or have no solutions for. As a suggestion, look up the payment providers used by Pornhub (they are blacklisted by Visa and Mastercard) and that is a good starting point for you. Also look at where a lot of crypto platforms incorporate. There is a whole world outside of the Delaware Corp + Stripe Atlas game, but you certainly won't learn that from silicon valley forums.
I strongly suggest you don't let desperation drive you into a poor deal or enter yourself into a disadvantageous partnership. Take some time off to clear your head, and talk to people. Don't let the whole "product led growth" US centric sales strategy cloud your business decisions. In the rest of the world, B2B is not limited to MasterCard/Visa and most of the notion/stripe style credit card driven SaaS don't necessarily exist in the same way. For your type of product, you should be charging more too.
Also most importantly, make sure your bank account is in the middle east and avoid dealing with USD under any circumstance. If you have a foreign bank account in a less friendly jurisdiction, an overzealous compliance department can easily shut down your entire business.
Turkey is not the biggest fan of Iran: https://www.worldecr.com/news/turkey-freezes-assets-of-irani...
but relations are certainly warmer than with e. g. the US.
Iran is not beloved by much of the Arabic-speaking world for cultural reasons, shared religion nonwithstanding.
Don't confuse the greater geopolitics with business when it comes to the middle east. They are perfectly happy to work with small business people like OP.
turkey and iran are about to become unlikely friends though, as israel starts to push to the west that turkey and iran are the same ultra-evil.
they already have some alignment on being anti-kurd
Can confirm there are reasonable numbers of Persian engineers with Australian residency.
I think, due to the seriousness and potential consequences of even inadvertently violating international sanctions, you are going to want to (somehow, I have no idea how) obtain legal advice on this subject from an attorney, not from random HN commenters.
I don't think - though I am not sure - that it is illegal for an American attorney to advise an Iranian national on what American laws are. There is an Iranian-American Bar Association at https://iaba.us/ which might be able to help.
> The sanctions didn't come from nowhere.
Legality set aside (I agree on your points on the repercussions), "the West" isn't that unified when it comes to middle east and other areas where the US meddled a lot. In particular, EU countries can have a way more nuanced view on it and be quite pissed at US' positions.
Which can make the author's perception of it more complex. They'll find people who are genuinely sympathetic, but still absolutely refusing to cross the bridge.
If you are a rich crypto founder you can literally admit[0] to funneling money to Islamic State[1] and get yourself a pardon for it though[2].
[0] "Binance failed to file a SAR on transactions related to an individual designated by OFAC for support of a terrorist group. The individual was allowed to keep an account for several years in withdrawal-only status after designation and withdraw their balance" https://www.fincen.gov/system/files/enforcement_action/2023-...
[1] "The violations include failure to implement programs to prevent and report suspicious transactions with terrorists — including Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Al Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) " https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1925
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1qrl9l1qo
When I was interested in the semantic web I found that there was demand for it in the whole EMEA area: not just in the EU which funds it but also on a grassroots level in the Middle East and Africa where there are people using many different languages and better communications means more and better commerce.
I was talking with people in Iraq about a project and found it wasn't necessarily sanctioned but I was supposed to go through channels and I couldn't find anyone at State to respond to my questions.
> The sanctions didn't come from nowhere.
I doubt most americans know where Iran is, let alone why we're sanctioning them.
What difference does that make? A lot of Americans are literally children. Some are household pets. What do you expect?
This country is run by a government. They know where Iran is.
Re last sentence: not always.
Would Singapore work? English is quite widely spoken there and the tech scene is quite good.
I'm not sure. I can really only speak to the US and Canada.
If so, the first step would be to find a competent attorney in Singapore to advise.
The US embassy, for example, maintains a list of English-speaking attorneys in Singapore who may have relevant experience: https://sg.usembassy.gov/list-of-attorneys/
>The ones with strong tech industries would be Russia, China, and India
As a side note, I wouldn't put it past a company of any of these countries to effectively resell the software to US companies, effectively bypassing the sanctions in a similar partnership fashion.
On another note, how do you distinguish between a well meaning iranian asking you to do something illegal for money, and an iranian that is just trying to scam you. I'm not saying that this is the case, but the very intense regime would force anyone participating in this to forego the legal mechanisms that would make doing business somewhat safe to begin with. How do you bring a dispute to court if it arises? You would have to confess to a federal crime?
Sorry man, I wish you luck, but nothing we can do here.
> Test it first: neoclerks.com/en
> 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.
You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion.
The demo is a single-session system (designed for hotel lobby kiosks where one person uses it at a time). If someone else is talking to the avatar when you visit, you won't see a QR code.
Here's a direct link you can try: https://ps.neoclerks.com:8451/player.html?ss=7591aecb-72d2-4...
If that's busy too, I'm happy to schedule a 15-min private demo. Email: EchenDeligani@gmail.com
This single-user limitation is product design (kiosk model) not technical - production handles 10-50 concurrent users per GPU. I should have explained this upfront and provided multiple demo instances for HN traffic.
My mistake - learning as I go here.
"You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion."
For an AI-centric product, this has my spidey senses tingling. Are you using AI to help with translations or something?
The whole original pitch was written with AI quite obviously, besides admitting to having written the whole project with the help of Claude; I would assume that OP has been using it for more than just a translator.
This link doesn't work. I have to say the way you're using Claude to respond to questions here is not a great look.
the entire git page is also clearly generated by Claude or ChatGPT. The headers and the emojis in tables give it away.
AI assistant are great for coding and translations, okay I try to answer myself
This whole thing is most likely just be a scam with a sob story.
The urgency is the sob story: OP threw his life away to develop an AI avatar platform [1] and is supposedly in dire need urgent financial assistance. Better help him quick before you discover it’s a scam!
OP is almost certainly exaggerating the amount of effort put into this platform. It’s an AI wrapper. Period.
Scam.
[1] Who needs an AI avatar? It is not a bazillion dollar market like OP claims.
please go to the website if you want to test the avatar https://neoclerks.com/en/ book a demo and as soon as it frees up you see the product by yourself I really have no idea why a lots of people are saying about scam is that happening a lot here?
lol, “book a demo” isn’t going to convince me you’re not scamming.
Your whole marketing page is all about fake luxury.
It’s like this guy I met at a bar in Miami who said he was going to start a company that was like Uber and Airbnb except more luxurious, and he showed me his website that was slapped together with stock images of mansions and Lamborghinis.
The AI concierge example is hilarious. Someone who is looking to book a Michelin starred restaurant at 3AM is rich enough to be staying at a hotel with 24/7 staff. If I go stay at a cheap motel it has 24/7 staff at the front desk. AI isn’t solving a problem there. Rich people never want to interact with an AI, they’re too rich for that. They hire a real person to do mundane and simple tasks for them.
It seems like at best you have a deep misunderstanding of your ideal customer and at worst you’re just looking for a get rich quick scheme.
I feel for this guy, I really do.
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.
That might all be true, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation.
Through no fault of his own, he's in a shitty situation. Failing to acknowledge that helps nobody.
No one is failing to acknowledge that he's in a shitty situation. That's precisely the point of my post. It also doesn't mean he cannot be helped.
Having empathy for people is good.
Letting that empathy lead you into violating international sanctions to funnel money to a sanctioned country is decidedly not a good idea.
Requesting that other people sign up for Stripe accounts and send you the money in violation of sanctions is bad. The other person risks extreme legal consequences including prison sentences for deliberately and openly violating sanctions.
The comments are a warning to anyone who might feel compelled to do what is being asked, without realizing the specific request is a serious legal matter that can come with prison terms measured in decades.
> I see comments like "is this a request to bypass sanctions"
Did you read the Gist he posted? It was a direct request for someone to help him bypass sanctions.
You obviously didn't read my comment about someone helping him get out of Iran.
IF he's out of Iran, works in a company with a founder or investor he's not violating any laws.
I read your comment.
Immigrating to a new country isn't something you do on a whim. It takes a very long time (years) and it's not really cheap. It's not a solution to the OP's problem.
The OP wasn't asking for help leaving their country. They were making a specific ask to violate sanctions.
OP's account was made an hour ago and comments from it are suspiciously fast (and unnecessarily verbose).
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.
The whole Github page feels AI generated too. Working 120 hours per week for 9 months? Give me a break.
This is my website — you might recognize my name from the titles of some movies, too! https://echend.github.io/website/
I understand the skepticism completely.
How about this: I'll do a live Zoom session where I: - Deploy the entire stack locally - Walk through the code - Show the admin panel, monitoring, databases - Answer any technical questions - Prove this is real
Schedule: [pick a time in next 24 hours] Zoom link: [create one]
Anyone who's skeptical is welcome to join and grill me.
If it's a scam, this should expose it quickly.
[flagged]
> 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.
There's nothing.
> The product works. You just tested it.
I didn't, there's nothing to try.
You're absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion.
The demo is a single-session system (designed for hotel lobby kiosks where one person uses it at a time). If someone else is talking to the avatar when you visit, you won't see a QR code.
Here's a direct link you can try: https://ps.neoclerks.com:8451/player.html?ss=f2ee51d8-2ea3-4...
If that's busy too, I'm happy to schedule a 15-min private demo. Email: EchenDeligani@gmail.com
This single-user limitation is product design (kiosk model) not technical - production handles 10-50 concurrent users per GPU. I should have explained this upfront and provided multiple demo instances for HN traffic.
My mistake - learning as I go here.
Not trying to "gotcha" here, but are you using AI to converse?
They might be using Claude as a translation app and not realizing that the AI style stands out in English.
when AI is talking better than why shouldn't I use it?
People will think it's fake. Also, it hard to know what is real and what is AI hallucination.
Let's try a weird question: Can you reply in Persian which are your 2 favorite icecream flavors and why?
That's exactly the use case I would go too (since I'm not native English) and while we have a technology now for this, people will straight away reject because LLM. Funny how we always wanted to connect the world and know it is just not compatible with the situation.
> You're absolutely right
Is this botspam?
Yeah, I'm using Claude to help me write responses. English is my second language and I'm nervous as hell about this thread.
I'm reading the comments, figuring out what to say, then using AI to help phrase it properly. The thoughts are mine but the wording is AI-assisted.
Should've been upfront about this from the start. My bad.
The product is real (test it at neoclerks.com/en if you can access it), but I get if the AI responses kill the credibility.
This one also comes up from foreign language speakers using ChatGPT or Claude to translate their point, and then not trimming the GPTisms.
Me: I built this insane 3D multilingual AI avatar platform with real-time conversation, full enterprise stack, 47 languages, and Unreal Engine
You: Can bypass US Treasury sanctions and open a Stripe account
Ha, fair.
Yeah, the skills mismatch is real. I can build distributed systems with 4-server architecture, but I can't open a Stripe account.
That's literally the post. "I'm good at X, terrible at Y (geography), need someone who has Y."
If you know anyone who's great at sales but wishes they had a technical co-founder, send them my way :)
Are you even allowed to have github or Gmail accounts? From my understanding those are US companies and not allowed to provide any services to Iranian nationals.
It's a very unique cofounder pitch! I hope you bootstrap this idea as far as you can.
You should encourage any potential founder to talk with a lawyer, though, too!
It does pattern match to the Spanish Prisoner scam, with extra FinCEN violations thrown in.
He does have a LinkedIn, and his GH user has a real looking GitHub pages site associated with it.
Please don't violate US Treasury dep sanctions just to be a founder for a business with 0 customer validation, you might as well be helping a Nigerian prince.
Seek counsel with a lawyer versed on this first, rather than the HN comments section or your own exuberance.
An extra reason for the victim not to go to the cops!
A better analogy would be the "Trade Offer" meme where someone offers a share of the profits, but your offer is that you are willing to violate serious international sanctions.
Honestly I would, but I’m already helping this Nigerian prince.
I don’t get it. I clicked the demo link but there’s nothing to try, only a home page with some AI generated images?
Even if this were legal it feels like a pitch for a scam…
https://ps.neoclerks.com:8451/player.html?ss=f2ee51d8-2ea3-4...
AI generated home page. AI generated images. No demo. Comments full of AI-translated English.
Either this is a scam or an FBI honeypot.
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.
In his own words he all-ready got early feedback from his family.
"I tried the local Iranian market. I showed it to friends, family, and potential clients. Their response: "Nobody in Iran will pay $500/month for this. The Persian language quality isn't perfect. We'll use free ChatGPT instead.""
Which should of been free feed-back on the risk vs reward.
Fair point - I should have made it clearer. The demo is at
https://ps.neoclerks.com:8451/player.html?ss=f2ee51d8-2ea3-4...
scan the QR code with your phone, and your phone becomes the microphone. The avatar responds on screen.
Known limitation: Running on my GTX 1060 in Iran with 4G internet, so international latency might be rough. The code itself handles 100-300ms on proper infrastructure.
I get the scam concern given the circumstances. Happy to do a live Zoom walkthrough if you're seriously interested in verifying this is real.
I don't think I need to tell hacker news this, but don't scan that qr code with phone.
The only way HN is going to do that is by opening that link with either a js disabled browser and then opening the qr with a sandboxed android emulator.
you can also open a URL with another tab press F12 and open the STT page URL and you have both the avatar and the STT page (where you use it as microphone) on the same computer without the need of phone, this design was to eliminate the need of microphone and setup user base sessions and control it in kiosk like environments
You're 100% right. This is a classic mistake.
I should have validated with 5-10 customers before building the full enterprise stack. The monitoring, analytics, multi-tenant architecture - all premature.
My reasoning (wrong in hindsight): I thought the barrier was "enterprise features" not "can anyone actually sell this." I'm a better builder than salesperson, and it shows.
If I could redo it: MVP in 3 months, get 10 paying customers, THEN build the infrastructure.
Lesson learned the expensive way.
> 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?
Interesting definition of "photorealistic". Link to the site in question: https://neoclerks.com/en/
Seems realistic to me
Is this a request to bypass the sanctions?
No, I'm not asking anyone to bypass sanctions.
I'm looking for a partner/co-founder OUTSIDE Iran who would: - Register a US/UK company (legally) - Open their own Stripe account (under their name/company) - I work as a remote contractor/technical co-founder (legal, like any distributed team)
This is the same model as any international startup with founders in different countries. I'm not hiding my location - I'm openly saying "I'm in Iran, need a partner elsewhere."
If this violates HN guidelines, mods can remove it. Not trying to do anything illegal.
> No, I'm not asking anyone to bypass sanctions.
> I'm looking for a partner/co-founder OUTSIDE Iran who would: - Register a US/UK company (legally) - Open their own Stripe account (under their name/company) - I work as a remote contractor/technical co-founder (legal, like any distributed team)
This is a clear and direct sanctions violation. What you are requesting is very illegal.
ChatGPT does not offer a clear indication that it is blatantly illegal, though the amount of legal risk is high enough that it might as well be.
ChatGPT isn't even a search engine, let alone a lawyer.
Yes.
Good.
From some brief research.
The EU seem to have less strict sanctions against Iran, specifically for specific entities, people, and services. Telecommunication is one of those services.
In theory you could get hired in an EU company that doesn't deal with an US company (for example an EU-only payment provider. If such a thing exists. (One can only hope GNU Taler will be it some day)). Though the compliance requirements might not be easy and cost you a bit to get some layers involved and fill out paperwork together with someone you'd convenie as your partner.
I'd pursue this avenue of research further if I'd where you, or another country wherein the US sanctions aren't a real factor. Best of all would be if you'd be able to emigrate and become a resident of a non sanctioned country.
[flagged]
I think this is good that I should prove it, I now about 80 percent of anything in internet now days is fake, but can you find any scam project that offers real test demo (send me email and I send you a link pixelstreaming front-end in which you see real-time streaming and can talk to avatar EchenDeligani@gmail.com) or any zoom call so I can walk you through the project, or any one which specialy focuces on persain language
Thanks for sharing this. I can’t legally help you either but your story was meaningful for me.
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.
Thank you very much, I appreciate it.
I feel for the person, but there's a part of me that also wonders why they spent 18 months on this without first doing a small bit of preparatory due diligence to see what the endgame was going to be.
100-120 hour working weeks sound implausible and very exaggerated. If you are actually working for that long, you should probably stop.
Zero customers after 18 months is also not a very good look.
"""
This is AI-validated, production-grade code.
You can verify this yourself: open Claude Code, point it at the repository, ask it to audit for production readiness. It will confirm.
"""
I'm sorry, but you should seriously reconsider putting up statements like this. If anything, people will be put off by you claiming that the code is production ready because it's been "AI validated" by Claude (which in reality is often extremely shallow, something like GPT-5 in Codex is way more thorough).
Also, the project cost estimates of $150k-$220k are also way off because Claude cannot make realistic estimations, and because it wrote most of that code anyway.
P.S: We can't 'verify' anything with Claude Code because the repo is closed source.
P.P.S: I asked Claude to analyze this blog post, since you wrote the blog post with Claude, and it said:
> This is a technical demo looking for a business, not a business looking for a partner.
Plus
> The entire narrative structure (war, bombs, wife working, mother asking about jobs, crypto hack) is designed to generate sympathy and urgency. This is a sales technique, not business due diligence.
you might also know that LLM works on probability so if you ask it again it might reponce something else. but use claude for coding its amazing, I started to code 22 years ago, belive me not using AI for coding its like going back to when poeple used horses instead of cars. but if you are interested send me an email (echendeligani@gmail.com) and I will share you the link to talk to the avatar and test it. or book a private demo at website NeoClerks.com/en with proper email so I can send you the link
the facts all are true, the way AI helped me compose it to make it like movie I really see it not as manipulation, just a good story telling.
Thank you very much for booking, this way I can manage and share the demo with everyone, as the gpu server is my own local computer. and I have more that 50 request now so please bare with me
Pivot and find a means to re-purpose the core stack towards a use case that solves problems at an acceptable price point for your local market? Iran has lots of problems to solve...
I really thought about it too, but I'm a developer, and most of my life was working with a computer, this is the start for something bigger I hope in future will help my people too.
>from luxury hotels to flagship boutiques and fine art institutions.
Also if I'm going to a luxury hotel, I sure as heck want to speak to a real damn person.
noted, I think I'm missing that the real people in US are not what is in the news, imagine just being in tech news and AI 24/7, but again that was a test, mainly for my local areas, and definitly now I know not for the US
Man thats a lot of hard work and an impressive peoduct that is in my opinion very competitive in b2b. I wish it works out with the difficult situation
means a lot thank you very much
Not sure if this raises trust.
„Final months: Claude consistently said "deploy immediately, production-ready"“
The AI scene is oversaturated. Every last huckster and shill is all AI this and AI that. Just standing out and getting noticed is a problem.
I agree to some degree but I started learning about ai 16 years ago in university, there is just two things, it really helps now days for coding and the tech is getting better, about 3 years ago I could not create anything like this about 3 years ago.
Do people actually want such a service? What part of interacting with a touch screen displaying an animated character, high end or luxury?
I think OP is sitting on some other product here that he hasn't figured out yet. It definitely isn't in the high-end luxury retail space, but it might be in B2C, think Home assistant or something akin.
the web site was just a test, this product could be really usefull in some places, I'm still trying to find it, do you guys really have any opinion where such product would be usefull? I thought a lot, I tested with luxury for tech companies or hotels, hospitals, this could be really usefull when it comes to languages
Yeah, this type of blatant corner-cutting seems like the exact opposite of what luxury brands would want to represent them.
People will pay more money specifically to _not_ interact with AI, just as they do now when they avoid phone or offshore support. It is already the hallmark of luxury to have a large staff of actual people willing to help you.
use USD denominated stablecoins on a permissionless blockchain (any layer 2 ethereum network like arbritrum) or a ZK L2 ...
Thank you, noted
Anyone can build anything, it’s the selling that is hard. You need runways for momentum to even begin.
Agreed
He's Iranian. Github is most likely going to delete his account due to sanctions.
Weird to just announce that publicly.
You're right, that's a risk. GitHub has deleted Iranian accounts before under OFAC compliance.
My calculus: Being transparent about my situation is better than hiding it. If they delete my account, at least I tried.
The alternative is pretending I'm somewhere else, which feels worse and creates legal risk for anyone who partners with me.
Open to suggestions on better approaches.
From what I can tell looking at the website they are hoping to have made enough returns by the time it's taken down
Wonder if that is enough to get you a visa to a country where you can then launch?
that is a good option :D
For starters, don't generate your pitch, brother.
All good, brother
Hello friend,
Considering this all to be truthful, it seems you have fallen for the startup mythology - I know because I have been there too.
Maybe you can make it work, who knows, but the chances are slim - even more because of your nationality.
Don't all-in in this, protect yourself and your family.
Don't believe those hard-working startup stories, most of them in reality are really luck or contacts, nothing to do with hardwork, quality, strategy, etc. And there's people profiteering over believers like you...
I won't even comment on the irony of an iranian citizen asking for help from the Silicon Valley - when did these people help you or your country, ever????????
Best of luck
Hi gverrilla, Thank you very much for your advice, living where I live is survival, I will try to do anything I can, but I made this and put a lots of times and effort, I really want to try to get is somewhere, I never thought of out side of Iran, but again paying for LLM in dollar and getting paid in the worse currency in the world will not work
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.
okay imagine a holographic avatar like in sci-fi movies, do you have the same feelings about that too?
move to canada; drop the iranian citizenship, and become active in anti-IRG groups.
youll be all set
hahaha, that is an idea! but I rather stay and get back my contry
Could you move to UAE and incorporate there? Your wife’s medical qualifications are likely valid, you’ll be close to home, and there are places there it’s possible to live cheaply. As long as it’s a genuine Emirati company rather than a front for an Iranian one, you should be fine?
this is exactly one of the best options, but man, Iran is like that kid in school that nobody likes haha, and again I should get visa sponser, but no matter what I'm really carefull moving step by step, I made this and any chance to help me ship this for real clients I will jump on it
You don’t explain your test strategy. “188 automated tests” means absolutely nothing.
but if the email is not valid I can not share the link
Tough. But I suppose it means the sanctions are working.
The shortest way out is island nation golden passport plus renunciation of Iranian citizenship plus incorporation in Dubai and then get going. Rough because startup cost is $250k. Well, you have a story to tell a VC. It'll be tough, though. None of the A listers will risk this.
Off topic, but I've been wondering for years about people pricing things with a 7 in the end (497$, 597$, 197$...)
Every "web marketing" person I ran into does it, it comes from that environment?
It's something considered to result in more sales, or maybe a way to signal that you're connected to some web marketing guru?
I don't now ask claude :D
> 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.
why enterprise? why not consumer? can you monetize via crypto?
Great question.
Why enterprise: B2B customers pay $500-5000/month. Consumer would be $10-50/month. I need fewer customers to survive.
Why not crypto: Tried that. B2B accounting departments won't pay recurring subscriptions in Bitcoin. Too volatile, compliance issues. Consumer crypto payments might work but harder to scale.
The honest answer: I built what I knew how to build (enterprise infrastructure) without validating the market first. Classic founder mistake (see avandekleut's comment above - they're right).
Are you really suggesting crypto so people can bypass sanctions?
Isn't evading pesky legal restrictions pretty much the entire point of cryptocoins? Sanctions, capital controls, banned substances, ransoms ...
Yes? Isn't it the purpose of crypto to avoid centralized restrictions? The person can still pay taxes by declaring it. Either way, when he turns crypto into fiat, he will have to explain its origin to his government and eventually pay taxes.
dont ask dont tell
a major crypto usecase is terrorist financing/sanctions avoidance
It's only natural that someone promoting an AI-slop-as-a-service should be suspected to be AI-slop itself.
"Meet HAVVA. The new face of luxury brand"
1. The AI couldn't even grammat-check a half-sentence.
2. Who wants to buy from a "luxury brand" that's uncanny valley AI slop?
Why are all 3 options, "pay this person $30K+" ?
Option 1: Co-Founder Partnership: You invest: $50-80k + handle sales/operations/Stripe access
Option 2: Outright Sale + Long-Term Contract: You pay: $60-80k upfront (full code ownership, all IP rights)
Option 3: Revenue Share Partnership: You invest: $30-50k upfront + Stripe access + sales/marketing
Where's the option "You run my system, and send me X% of the revenue" ?
the question is what this product is and what it can do! you should more think of future, maybe at current time is not as good as human but it will get there, and all I'm doing is trying to find the best fit for this.
scam. weaponized empathy.
That’s not my intention. I’d like to understand where this is coming from.
OP should try to move to another country. Maybe Dubai.
Look to the PRC, unfortunately your country exists in a separate world economy from the American hegemony one.
Nobody here can help you and in fact I think GitHub and YC may be required to ban your account once they become aware you're Iranian. It's so flagrantly stupid and imo a violation of human rights to so utterly restrict the citizens of both our countries from freely doing business with each other but that's how it is right now.
I don't know what to say really but I always said loudly I'm from Iran, and to be honest everything I do is with tech that is out side of Iran, probably Iran never could get any near to such techs in hundred years the way the current goverment is acting. but I like the tech a lot and I'm Iranian :D
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.
> I see a lot of negativity in this thread and I’m not sure why…
Because it's a request for someone to violate sanctions for them. They are specifically asking for someone to set up Stripe, take on the legal risk of violating international sanctions, and forward the money to them.
> Yes there are obvious hurdles for people in “the west,” but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
The "it" that is being requested is not about relocation, though. It's a direct ask to violate sanctions to sign up for services that must enforce sanctions.
Ya, I kind of see this as one of those "can you make me a bomb" or "will you kill X for me for money" setups on the internet. You have no idea if this is a spook at a TLA trying to set you up to make a quota. Because the user is asking to do something illegal this post should be taken down.
I’ve known many talented engineers who know nothing about business, what’s legal or not, and I politely think this is likely one of those cases. The person put in a ridiculous amount of work, and is trying to think of anything that could work. Maybe those seemed like the simplest possible solutions, and so they listed them. I think it’s worth it to give them a little bit of slack, and assume their intentions are wholesome, until there’s evidence otherwise.
Additionally, there may be people from countries where this partnership would be, or could be, made legal— but the OP probably doesn’t know the name of the specific “Stripe” equivalent is… I certainly wouldn’t.
> I’ve known many talented engineers who know nothing about business, what’s legal or not, and I politely think this is likely one of those cases.
Imagine for a second if Civil, Mechanical, or Electrical engineers had this complete lack of responsibility, accountability, and liability in the work they do. The fact that people here are even offering serious advice that this guy stop what he's doing and seek legal help is going above and beyond
And it’s an obvious social engineering scam.
Urgency, pleading for empathy, having the most destitute-sounding story of all time.
Did he really lose all his life savings to this project? How do we know that?
no lie my brother I do not now how to prove it, the story is not for empathy, but again if it was not the truce and it was real scam I think couldnt gain this much attention
Lots of scams gain attention. Sorry, I’m not convinced.
You can go sell your product to Russia, some Middle Eastern countries, and maybe even China.
If you want to do business with the West you literally need to defect and get political asylum.
It’s weird (and scammy) that in this entire thread you seem to be in denial of this reality.
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https://echend.github.io/website https://www.linkedin.com/in/echen-deligani/ https://echen.artstation.com/resume https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9062356/
If you ever post again, I recommend to add:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9062356/ (It looks difficult to fake. You are a human!)
https://echend.github.io/website/#works (A few nice old projects! People like to see a few real projects.)
Sorry I can't help. Good luck!
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