The Problem

DOCNET's founders had previously run Irish Black Owned — a popular business directory that became expensive to scale and was undermined by legitimacy challenges as it grew. When they relaunched under a new name with a new mission, they needed a platform that could enforce standards, control infrastructure costs, and serve their community properly. They also wanted to add education and IRL events like pop-ups and trade shows alongside the directory.

What We Built

Three connected deliverables. A sign-up form at signup.docnet.ie where businesses apply with mandatory fields — logo, description, location, contact. AI embeddings are applied to content-heavy fields at the point of submission, improving searchability on the directory. An AI-powered admin dashboard that pulls a summary of each applicant business from the web, assigns a legitimacy score, and gives the DOCNET team a clear accept/reject workflow — with rejection reasons sent back to the business so they can reapply. A public-facing directory at docnet.ie where verified businesses are searchable by name, category, and location, each with a link-tree style profile page they can share anywhere. The full stack runs on Cloudflare infrastructure — D1 for core data, Vectorise for AI embeddings — keeping running costs effectively zero at current scale.

Key Features

• AI-powered admin dashboard with legitimacy scoring and accept/reject workflow
• Vector search (Cloudflare Vectorise) for improved business discovery
• Sign-up form with mandatory legitimacy fields
• Link-tree style business profile pages
• Cloudflare D1 + Vectorise infrastructure — near-zero running cost at current scale
• Live handover session at DOCNET trade show, November 2025

What We Learned

Legitimacy is a product feature, not just a moderation problem. By making verification AI-assisted and transparent, DOCNET's team could make faster, more defensible decisions — and the community trusted the directory more because of it. We also validated that infrastructure cost can be a competitive moat: the platform runs at near-zero cost and is designed to scale cheaply as usage grows.

The Opportunity

The combination of AI-assisted verification, vector search, and Cloudflare infrastructure is directly applicable to any community, trade body, or sector that needs a directory they can trust and sustain over time — without the cost spiralling as membership grows.