The owner's guide

How to read this guide

Words in bold have definitions: tap or hover to read them. The same is true everywhere on the platform, including your reviews.

Data privacy - What we keep, what we delete, and when

• Your original files - Only the few people at Spakari who need to see your original files can open them, and we delete the files on a set schedule. Before a human opens your files, you are told why they need to, and you give approval.
• Identifying numbers are removed the moment a file is read and never carried into any record.
• Names live in the vault. Spakari staff see a name only when a task needs it, and every access is logged. When your package is complete the names are removed from our systems. Only a fingerprint remains so that records about the same person stay linked without a name anywhere.
• Your account details (name, email, phone) are kept for the contract and the payout, under our privacy notice, and never enter the package. Your identity, tax, and bank details are collected and held by Stripe, not by Spakari.
• The anonymized data and the redacted text of your interviews are what Spakari keeps and owns. You own your original documents and files. Think of it like this. Spakari takes a picture of your business and pays you for it. All we own is the picture.

How redaction works, with an example

Our system reads a file and finds two kinds of identifying information. Numbers (Social Security, employer ID, account and loan numbers) are dropped entirely. Names of people, businesses, and places are held in a digital vault and replaced everywhere else by a tag with a plain description. You confirm the tags for each set of documents as it is read.

A fictional example. Your own tags carry the descriptions you confirmed.

Account setup

Create your account with your name, your title at the business, the business's name, an email, a phone number, and how you'd like to hear from us: email, text, or both. Your account opens with every step listed in the sidebar.

Then add your business details under Account details. Your tax information and payout account are collected through Stripe. Your personal details, business details, and verification must be complete before you receive your contract. Your signed documents and your payout amount fill in on their own as you go.

Business details end with three quick checks, answered once by the primary owner. Is the business, or any company that owns it, publicly traded? Does the business provide healthcare services or handle patients' health information? And an acknowledgment that your customers' and clients' own records are never included in anything you upload. A yes to either of the first two means Spakari isn't a fit for your business, and nothing is saved. The checks come before the NDA.

Estimate

The estimator is in your account, at step 2. You enter the documents you can provide, where each one's records come from and for which years, whether the business is operating or closed, the number of employees, annual revenue, and the number of representatives that will be participating in the interviews, and you are given an estimated value of your redacted business data and interviews based on the information you provide. You can make changes to the document list later.

This is just an estimate. However, if the information you provide is accurate, the estimate will reflect the final payout amount. The final payout amount will be provided at the contract stage, which you will be able to accept or deny.

In some cases you may be prompted to schedule a conversation with a client specialist.

If a document's records moved from one system to another, list each system with its years. In the example below, payroll was run in QuickBooks Desktop for 2018–2020 and in Gusto from 2021.

An example of the estimator:

The NDA

Before you upload anything, Spakari signs a one-way NDA to you. It binds Spakari and asks nothing of you. It covers your raw files, your identity and the business's identity, the transcript of your interviews, the name-to-tag mapping, and anything you decline to include. It carves out only the anonymized package described in your contract. You sign it, Brian Benchek, CEO, countersigns, and a copy is saved under Account details.

Owner identity & business verification

Confirming who we're working with protects the integrity of every business on the platform. Verification is done once, through Stripe, the payments company that sends your payout. Your identity, your business identity, and the tax and bank details for your payout, all verified and collected through the Stripe platform. It takes about five to ten minutes. Spakari never sees your Social Security number or your full bank account number, and never sees your ID document. Stripe usually finishes in minutes, sometimes a day.

Why Stripe? Stripe has to confirm who it's paying, by law. We use that same check rather than asking you twice.

You can also add up to two representatives, three people in all including you. These include people from your business who have agreed to take part in the interviews. Representatives take part in the interviews only. They don't sign the contract or receive the payout. Each confirms their own identity and accepts their own participation terms. An invitation link expires after 48 hours, and representatives must be added before the contract is signed.

The contract and the standards acknowledgment

Your personalized contract lists every document you agree to provide, with the years each one covers, and your payout amount. In plain language, you own your original documents and records and Spakari owns the anonymized data and the anonymized interviews collected on the platform. Signing it gives you seven days to complete the documents step. The contract also restates your three checks as representations - the business is privately owned, it is not a healthcare business, and you won't upload your customers' or clients' own records. A false representation is a breach resulting in account removal, deletion of records, and no payout.

With the contract you sign a separate standards acknowledgment: your answers are your own, with no answers written by an AI tool or pasted from elsewhere. Your interview answers meet the standard described under Owner interviews and a violation of either ends the contract and deletes all records, with no partial compensation.

The contract in plain language · The standards acknowledgment

Documents

You have seven days from the day the contract is signed to upload the documents, as agreed to in your contract, and you'll get reminders in Messages. Upload each document on your list. Each file is checked for the required format as it's uploaded. If one isn't in the right format, you'll be asked for another copy. The last part of the step is a checkbox certifying that you have the right to provide these documents on behalf of your business. When you confirm, we'll give you a date, and you'll have a message from us by then letting you know your first conversation is ready.

Documents that belong to your customers or clients (their tax returns, bank statements, applications, medical forms, IDs) can't be included. If one is uploaded, it is not kept.

As each set of documents is read by our system, identifying numbers come out and you get a short review to confirm the people, places, and roles it mentions. That review is where names become tags.

Documents we can read

We read digital originals. A digital original is the file the software made, not a picture of paper.

• Business Tax returns: the PDF your preparer's software produced, one file per year, with all schedules.
• Bookkeeping exports: the general ledger and trial balance for each year, exported from your bookkeeping software as a spreadsheet or CSV.
• Payroll: a register export by employee and pay period, as a spreadsheet or CSV, without Social Security numbers or addresses. Our model double checks that Social Security numbers and addresses are removed.
• Sales or job records: an export from your point-of-sale, invoicing, or job-costing system, as a spreadsheet or CSV.
• Invoices: an invoice register exported from your invoicing software, as a spreadsheet or CSV.
• Presentations and strategy documents: the files as you saved them, such as PowerPoint, Word, or PDF.
• Email threads you choose to forward: When you describe a decision that had an email trail, such as a lease negotiation, a loan, or a supplier you dropped, the interviewer may ask whether the emails still exist and, if so, if you are able to forward that thread to your Spakari address. You choose the thread and each thread is one document. We never connect to your mailbox or ask for an export of it. If these are additional documents that were not included in your contract you will be paid for including them. You will be shown the amount prior to providing any additional documents so that you can accept or reject the offer.

If you don't have the documents in the required format send your accountant this sentence: "Please send me the PDF of each return as your software produced it, with all schedules, for [years]." And your payroll provider: "Please export a payroll register by employee and pay period as a spreadsheet for [years], without Social Security numbers or addresses."

Send these sentences to my email

For now we need digital files from the source; scans and photos aren't supported yet.

Why each document matters

• Business Tax Returns are the timeline under your story. They date and size what you tell us, year by year. They are never the subject of a question.
• Payroll shows the people - how roles appeared and changed, how the team grew or shrank. Names come out and roles stay.
• Sales or job records show what you sell and how that changed. High-value items and the lines that moved the trend are what our interviewer asks about.
• Presentations, strategy documents, and the email threads you forward were written while decisions were being made. They record what you were weighing at the time, which is different evidence from a story told years later.

The most valuable aspect to the Spakari platform is not collecting any one specific document. Linking the data in the documents to the decisions (the why's, what else you considered, and what came of it) you made through the interview process is what differentiates a Spakari data package.

Before you upload

Remove identifiers where you can: Social Security numbers, employer ID numbers, account and loan numbers. Whatever you miss is removed by Spakari the moment the file is read and never carried into any record.

Keep the names. Names are how the same person or place is recognized across your documents and your conversations, so that "the assistant manager" in payroll is the same "assistant manager" in your story. Names stay inside Spakari and are removed from our systems when your package is complete.

Owner interviews - Given by our AI interviewer

Your interviews are built from the documents you provide (the money over the years, the people, what you sell), several interviews that cover your general experience as a business owner covering topics like day-to-day operations, the big picture and where the business is heading. Each interview opens by saying what it's about and asking whether you have any questions or comments before you begin. Questions come one at a time with follow-ups based on your answers. There is no fixed number of questions. Stop whenever you like and pick it up within three days. You may pause once, for up to fourteen days, by telling us before a deadline passes. If a deadline is missed and the three-day extension also runs out, your contract will be terminated and all files and documents related to your business will be deleted, with no partial payout. Following the schedule, described under The pace below, is necessary to ensure the integrity of the process.

During each interview, any word we don't recognize is highlighted. If it is a typo, correct the spelling. If you confirm the word is correct, it won't be flagged again.

When you describe a decision that had an email trail, such as a lease negotiation, a loan, or a supplier you dropped, the interviewer may ask whether the emails still exist and, if so, you can choose to forward that thread to your Spakari address. You choose the thread and each thread is one document. We never connect to your mailbox or ask for an export of it. If these are additional documents that were not included in your contract you will be paid for including them. You will be shown the amount prior to providing any additional documents so that you can accept or reject the offer.

The standard for answers

Answer the way you'd answer a new owner who asked how you did it. Detail is the point. If your answers are insufficient you will be asked to elaborate. If your answers continue to fall short of the requirements agreed to in the contract, you will be reminded of the importance of detailed answers, given a final warning and if the issue continues your account will be removed and all documents and information collected up to that point will be deleted with no partial payout.

Two examples of the depth we're after:

Both examples are from a fictional business.

Use of AI tools

Your answers must be your own, spoken or typed by you. Answers written by an AI tool or pasted from elsewhere do not meet the standard. If our built in AI checker finds with high confidence that documents or answers were generated rather than genuine, the engagement ends: the records are deleted and you are told why. No warnings are given. You may then ask for a manual review. If you do you will be asked to acknowledge that a person at Spakari will read your documents. For the same reason, the answer box does not accept pasted text. Answers must be typed or spoken. We have zero tolerance for inauthentic documents or interview responses.

The pace

Once your documents are in and the interviews begin, we ask that each interview be completed within five days of being told it is ready. If that slips, you get a three-day extension with a daily reminder. If the step is still not done, the contract ends, your records are deleted, and there is no partial payout. You may pause once, for up to fourteen days, by telling us before a deadline passes. Each deadline arrives in the Messages section of your account page as a date.

Reviews

Owner review

This review is completed by you, the owner. It is your final review to confirm the information is correct and your last opportunity to remove or change any of the information you have provided. You go through one list of the few things only you can settle, such as whether the shape of the business is described fairly, one question at a time. A read-through of your answers is available on request. Then you approve it with one sentence: "I have reviewed the text and approve the redactions and content accuracy."

Spakari's review

Once you have completed all the required steps, Spakari reviews the completed package. If there is missing or inadequate information, you will be notified and asked to make the necessary corrections. Once the package has been confirmed by Spakari, the payment is distributed via your chosen method and all names are deleted from our system.

Payout

The payout is the full amount in your contract. It is paid to the bank account you linked through Stripe during the account setup, right after Spakari's review of the package you approved. The payout is for a complete package. That means every listed document read, every interview completed to the standard, every review approved by you.

Getting help

Anything you send through Messages reaches a person at Spakari. Spakari staff who read your messages are bound by confidentiality. During an interview, ask the interviewer anything about the process and it will answer plainly, then continue.