Rowan Baird · AI Practicum Session 5 Deliverable · Owen Graduate School of Management
A portable reputation and compliance graph for equestrian labor that protects identity while proving competence.
"Building the rails before the train arrives." Financial triage and liability protection masquerading as a hiring tool.
The FLSA timebomb is ticking. 30–50% of the workforce is undocumented. The industry needs compliance without exposure.
The ecosystem runs on the whisper network. Stride digitizes the whisper via trusted nodes (Trainers).
Top-down pressure (Insurance/Federal Policy) meets center-out validation (Elite Trainers issuing vouches).
"Shielded Vouches" — Compliance for the barn, anonymity and portable reputation for the worker.
The 3-Barn Concierge Beta. No app required. Text-based vouch generation, camera-native QR scanning.
The trust anchor (The Trainer) and the liability anchor (The Insurance Provider/Federal Regulator) currently exist in entirely separate ecosystems. The trainer operates on handshake trust; the regulator operates on paper trails. Stride translates the handshake into a compliant paper trail without forcing the worker to expose their legal identity. The real sale is not to the barn manager — it's FLSA/liability protection sold to the barn owner, with the hiring tool as the Trojan horse.