---
title: RateRight — project context
created: 2026-05-01
updated: 2026-05-02
type: project-context
project: RateRight
related:
  - "[[Active]]"
  - "[[Projects]]"
  - "[[10_RateRight/_Brain/README]]"
---

# RateRight

## What this is
Australian construction labour marketplace. Flat $50 per hire, no ongoing commission. Jobs board with ratings — companies pay $50 to hire a worker and keep them as long as they want. Success = worker hired and stays.

## Current state
- v2 platform (`the-50-dollar-app/`) live on VPS port 3000
- Marketing site (`rateright-main-site/`) semi-static
- Growth engine (Hermes gateway + Clawdbot OpsMan + PM2 services) running on Sydney VPS
- Worker supply remains the existential gap. Real user counts currently unknown — Supabase service-role key in env is 41 chars, not a valid JWT. Needs fixing before anyone can answer "how many workers do we have."
- Hunt infrastructure built and partially running. Pipes open, taps off — see below.
- SMS disabled platform-wide (`DISABLE_ALL_SMS=set`) due to prior over-sending. Holds until Rocky says otherwise.

## Acquisition strategy
Two channels, complementary not exclusive:

1. **Hostel campaign** — physical posters + plain-text emails to Sydney/Melbourne hostels targeting backpackers on working holiday visas. Stalled on physical mailing only.
2. **The Hunt** — scrape both sides:
   - `hunt-contractors` and `hunt-workers` scrape Gumtree etc. for leads
   - `hunt-aggregator` populates an aggregated_jobs table — Seek-style listing aggregation to make the platform look populated and convert scraped employers into customers
   - `hunt-outreach` sends approved leads (daily budget 20)
   - `hunt-monitor` checks for replies
   - **Hunt matchmaker** — the conversion engine that turns scraped leads into actual matches. Designed, not built.

## Hot right now
- 359 leads scraped, only 1 approved and sent — approval bottleneck somewhere, manual or broken
- Scrapers stopped, queue not growing
- `hostel-campaign` PM2 service is a zombie (4,465 restarts) — needs killing
- Last 4 days of work: Gumtree scraper reliability, outreach template tweak

## Stack
- Platform: Next.js, Supabase, Stripe (in `the-50-dollar-app/`)
- Infra: DigitalOcean Sydney VPS
- Agents: hermes-gateway (systemd), clawdbot-opsman (systemd), PM2 fleet for hunt + growth-engine + cc bridge
- Voice: `rateright-phone-ai/` (VAPI + OpenAI Realtime + Twilio) — built, dormant, candidate for revival

## Key people
- Rocky (sole operator)
- Liam (LFCS, day-job partner — RateRight is Rocky's, but Liam is in the picture)
- No human RateRight team

## How to be useful here
- Worker supply is the priority. If a proposal doesn't move worker numbers, deprioritise it.
- The platform exists. Don't propose rebuilds. Propose fixes, growth tactics, or new acquisition channels.
- Hunt infra exists. Don't propose new scrapers — fix the approval bottleneck and turn the scrapers back on first.
- Listing aggregation (scrape-and-republish from Seek/Gumtree) is in play. Treat scraped employers as warm leads, not just inventory padding.
- McElligott labour-co partnership is parked at 5-10 year horizon. Not the current frame.

## Hard rules
- Never re-enable SMS without explicit Rocky approval. Reputational damage from prior spam.
- Never propose deletions of legacy repos (`rateright-v2/`, `the-50-dollar-app-backup/`, etc.) without flagging to Rocky first.
- Never pretend to know user counts until the Supabase service-role key is fixed — say "unknown, key needs replacing."
- The $50 flat fee is the model. No percentage, no ongoing commission. Don't draft anything that contradicts this.