Female Founders Conference - Mountain View

Ellis-Lamkins connects her childhood experiences with poverty to her work supporting labor and working families. Meeting criminal defense lawyer Diana Frappier helped her see people in the justice system as individuals shaped by their circumstances. Her work with Prince and at Honor showed her how technology could affect workers, artists, and people outside Silicon Valley.

After Prince died, Ellis-Lamkins decided to build a company focused on social change. She and Frappier wanted Promise to be a sustainable, adult workplace that made room for family life. Their goal was to build a criminal justice company without assuming founders had to work around the clock or fit a narrow startup mold.

Ellis-Lamkins says 74% of people in jail are awaiting trial, and describes counties holding many people over bail amounts below $500. She argues that even short jail stays can cost people their jobs, housing, and time with their children, while pressure to get out can lead them to accept plea deals. Promise aims to bring evidence-based decision-making to criminal justice, with attention to equity and bias in the data.

Promise joined YC without a technical co-founder, prototype, or funding, and raised a seed round before Demo Day. Ellis-Lamkins advises founders to choose investors whose values fit the company and to remember that a strong deck and useful feedback matter more than investor brands. She says government sales are difficult, but relationship-based outreach, understanding insurance requirements, and learning alternatives to lengthy RFP processes helped Promise move faster.

Ellis-Lamkins says founders do not need to know how to code if they believe they can hire people with the skills they lack. She describes Promise reaching six government clients before leaving YC and says early growth required believing in the product, working out what to charge, and selling it. In the Q&A, she explains that early founders can test pricing with a simple cash-flow spreadsheet and that warm introductions can help with fundraising.