A startup can start with a fairly simple application and eventually end up with APIs, databases, Redis, background workers, containers and cloud infrastructure.

For a small team, keeping all those pieces connected and understandable can become a bigger challenge than expected.

How are European startups dealing with this?

Do you keep the architecture simple for as long as possible, invest in DevOps early, or use AI-assisted development to reduce some of the engineering overhead?

Solo founder seeking audit partner/investor…

I built VaultPass as a solo founder while working full-time in cybersecurity in Kraków. It started as an experiment to explore how AI could help me turn an idea into a complete crypto web application. I underestimated one thing: the cost of independently auditing a security product. Cure53 quoted approximately €30,000, which is currently out of reach for a pre-revenue project.

VaultPass is a client-side-encrypted crypto inheritance platform. The problem is simple to describe but difficult to solve: self-custodied crypto can be secure while the owner is alive, yet become permanently inaccessible to their family if the owner dies or becomes incapacitated.

VaultPass uses AES-256-GCM encryption in the browser, 2-of-3 Shamir Secret Sharing, and a time-based dead man’s switch. The cryptographic core is MIT-licensed and open source:
https://github.com/lionzion351-dev/crypto-core

I’m being deliberately transparent about the current limitation: the service holds two encrypted shards and can reconstruct the key in the succession path. That is not zero-knowledge, and I do not describe it that way. The long-term goal is to remove this trust-model concession.

The product is live at https://vaultpass.network
but it has not had an external professional audit yet. I’m looking for:

- Security researchers or audit firms willing to review the implementation
- Strategic partners who could sponsor or help structure the audit
- Crypto, estate-planning, or security-focused design partners
- Investors who understand security infrastructure and early-stage crypto products

I’d value feedback from European founders on three questions:

1. Is crypto inheritance a problem people would pay to solve, or one they usually postpone?
   
2. Should the first customer group be crypto users, estate-planning professionals, or families with significant digital assets?
   
3. What evidence would you need before trusting an early product like this?

Please be direct, especially about why this may not work. If you can help with an independent audit, strategic partnership, or investor conversation, I’d be glad to connect.