DocuExpert

• 

  AI-Driven Contract Assistance

Inspiration

The DocuExpert team is made up of friends who have known each other for over 10 years. Despite working in different companies or startups now, we are united by our shared passion for creating a more accessible world for visually impaired individuals. Starting a business is hard work, but social impact ventures are naturally even more challenging. Through this journey, we’ve learned that the best collaborations and sustainable business models come from sharing our story with the world.

One of the most critical aspects of these sustainable business models is contracts. Early in our entrepreneurial journey, we understood the hard way just how important contracts are. With no money to hire lawyers at the beginning, we realized the value of a well-negotiated agreement after facing some less-than-ideal outcomes. While we don’t aim to completely replace lawyers, our goal is to reduce the effort and stress entrepreneurs face by empowering them with AI. With DocuExpert, entrepreneurs can navigate negotiations with clients and lawyers more effectively, using the power of AI as their guide.

In our video, you’ll meet Jeff, played by our team member Atakan. Atakan, who was born blind, earned his first paycheck at the age of 10 by designing website frontends. Two years ago, he quit his corporate job to pursue his mission of making all websites worldwide accessible for the visually impaired. That’s why the stories in our film aren’t just fictional; they’re inspired by real-life experiences.

DocuExpert is a reflection of our collective journey—combining innovative solutions, personal resilience, and the drive to make an impact. Join us in empowering entrepreneurs and building a brighter future for all.

What it does

DocuExpert simplifies contract management for entrepreneurs by leveraging AI to analyze meeting transcripts, provide actionable suggestions, and guide users through revisions. It integrates seamlessly with DocuSign to finalize contracts efficiently. With features like AI-powered contract suggestions, expert analysis tools, and dynamic to-do lists, it helps entrepreneurs navigate negotiations and agreements with confidence.

How we built it

We, as a group of entrepreneurs and indie developers, have been using meeting assistants and LLM applications in our daily operations. However, we encountered integration and pipeline challenges. Additionally, dealing with a variety of agreements on a daily basis highlighted the potential of DocuSign CLM as a valuable solution. Our idea was to bridge DocuSign CLM with our favorite meeting assistants to seamlessly manage revision items discussed during meetings.

We built DocuExpert on top of an LLM (currently using Anthropic’s Claude). Recognizing the importance of interoperability in an AI-driven world, we designed our tool as a hot-swappable solution. It features a webhook capable of receiving transcript text from any meeting assistant tool.

To support our backend infrastructure, we utilized Supabase for its fast deployment features, scalability, and reliability. Supabase's flexibility allows us to use it for both proof-of-concept and production-ready projects.

Our LLM layer goes beyond using transcripts to offer generic suggestions. It provides predefined expert roles (AI agents) and persona selection options, enabling users to customize outputs to suit their needs.

Key features include:

AI suggestions displayed in a sidebar view alongside the agreement body. A clickable suggestion that jumps directly to the relevant section in the document. One-click options to apply suggestions or send agreements for signature. Due to limited access to DocuSign CLM, we used Google Docs as our source of truth for agreement text during development.

Challenges we ran into

No sandbox access for Docusign CLM; so we decided to prototype on Google Docs. (We really considered purchasing CLM but because it’s not being sold as a SAAS solution, we didn’t proceed easily, and we don’t represent an enterprise-scale)

Google Apps Script Restrictions; we faced with Google’s restrictions as below;

Difficulties of managing a lifecycle inside a web app Requirement to bundle app into a minified source; used Svelte regarding its minified & efficient output builds. (Developing an app for embedding into another web app became harder than developing a standalone SPA.) varied origin sources to manage CORS; we utilized some edge functions to not lose time to manage CORS on client side Google’s well-known bugs on compatibility; we needed to utilize some workarounds.

Docusign’s API References to seem complicated at first glance, some pages were causing infinite reference loop to each other. We spent some time to get used to the APIs and reference documents, now we can proceed faster. (Thanks for offering video sessions, we generally prefer learning by reading instead with instructor.)

Getting structured data from LLM; as LLMs are trying to guess the next word basically; we spent a significant portion of time to get a structured response. It’s not unusual to have unformated tables or unclosed JSON delimiters. So we repeated system prompts to be sure about the output and tried different methods like fuzzy structurization of lacking delimiters / characters. Then we found a simple way to force LLM to provide a good enough output and manage lacking aspects with a few simple functions.

Extracting Structured Data from LLMs

Working with LLMs to generate structured data presented its own set of difficulties:

LLMs, designed to predict the next word, often produced unstructured or incomplete outputs, such as malformed tables or JSON with missing delimiters. We spent considerable time refining system prompts to improve output accuracy. Ultimately, we found a simple and effective solution: forcing the LLM to generate better-structured data and handling any missing elements with lightweight functions. This approach significantly improved the efficiency of our pipeline.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We take immense pride in creating a solution that addresses a challenge we and countless entrepreneurs face: navigating contracts with limited resources. Contracts are daunting, but they are essential to sustainable business growth. By developing DocuExpert, we’ve provided a guiding light in an area that is often a pain point for new businesses.

Our biggest accomplishment is creating a tool that not only solves the problem but does so in an intuitive and practical way. DocuExpert may not be perfect yet, but it offers a reliable starting point that simplifies the process and empowers entrepreneurs. For social impact ventures like ours, the stakes are higher, and knowing that DocuExpert can reduce stress and save valuable time for others is a win in itself.

What makes us prouder still is how we’ve shared this journey. Through storytelling—rooted in our real, everyday challenges—we’ve connected with our users. Our video reflects genuine experiences and struggles, brought to life by our team’s collective history. For example, Atakan’s story—a visually impaired entrepreneur who has been breaking barriers since the age of 10—isn’t just inspiring; it’s the heart of why we do what we do.

Through DocuExpert, we have proven that innovation is born from personal challenges and a desire to help others. This journey has reminded us that a meaningful solution doesn’t need to be perfect to make an impact—it needs to be honest, thoughtful, and focused on the people it serves.

What we learned

Our journey with DocuExpert has been as much about learning as it has been about building. Here are the key lessons we’ve taken away:

The Importance of Contracts in Sustainability: Contracts aren’t just documents—they’re the backbone of trust and sustainable business models. For startups with limited resources, understanding and managing contracts effectively is critical for growth and survival.

User-Centered Design Matters: Listening to user feedback was pivotal in refining our product. Entrepreneurs shared their struggles with time management, complex legal jargon, and negotiation. These insights shaped the features we built.

Storytelling Builds Connections: Sharing our own challenges and triumphs, particularly through relatable stories like Atakan’s, has been invaluable. Storytelling not only resonates with users but also drives adoption and loyalty.

AI’s Potential as a Support Tool: AI isn’t here to replace professionals but to complement and amplify their efforts. DocuExpert has shown us how technology can be a guide, simplifying complex processes without taking away human judgment.

Trust Is Non-Negotiable: Building user trust through transparent communication, robust data security practices, and ethical AI implementation has been a cornerstone of our success.

Iteration Fuels Innovation: The first version of DocuExpert wasn’t perfect, but it set the stage for continuous improvement. Every iteration brought us closer to a solution that truly serves entrepreneurs.

These lessons remind us that creating impactful tools requires empathy, adaptability, and a focus on real-world needs. They’ve also reinforced our belief that even basic solutions, when executed thoughtfully, can create meaningful change.

Rather than developing a plugin, we realized the importance of standalone applications. Plugins often come with significant restrictions and challenges, especially when porting the solution to other projects.

What's next for DocuExpert

DocuExpert is currently a foundational solution, addressing the immediate challenges of contract management for entrepreneurs. However, we see its potential to grow into a comprehensive platform that revolutionizes how businesses handle agreements.

Broadening Accessibility: Adding the ability to import audio and video recordings, allowing entrepreneurs to analyze past meetings or agreements and extend the tool’s usage to non-real-time scenarios.

Personalization at Scale: Building personalized user profiles that learn preferences and provide tailored recommendations for future contracts, creating a truly bespoke experience.

Supporting Larger Enterprises: Scaling the platform to accommodate the complex needs of larger organizations, legal teams, and freelancers, while maintaining simplicity for smaller businesses.

Globalization and Localization: Adding multi-language support and adapting features to meet the legal standards and cultural nuances of different countries, broadening our impact worldwide.

We now have a project with the potential to evolve into a micro-SaaS solution. As meeting assistant tools gain traction and penetrate the market, we are excited to explore new opportunities. Instead of merely listening to sales presentations from these tools, we aim to create our own, showcasing what can be achieved and highlighting areas for improvement.

We recognize that DocuExpert is just the beginning. With its solid foundation, the platform holds immense potential to evolve into an indispensable tool for businesses of all sizes. By continuing to refine and expand, we aim to empower more entrepreneurs, improve efficiency in legal processes, and ultimately, make contracts less of a burden and more of an opportunity.

Built With

• ai
• google-apps-script
• llm
• supabase