The founder story
A $194M Domestic Violence & Civil Rights App‑ortunity. The app that turns your phone into an indestructible body camera.
By Kevin Hanson · Founder, Time Release Corporation
On December 19, 2025, I was one of the 13,000 people impacted by Verizon's layoff. I understood the business logic — the company needed to retool for the AI era. I'd spent two years there guiding a team of extremely talented Designers on personal security features and working alongside some of the sharpest Product Owners and Engineers I've had the pleasure to meet. My Senior Director was incredibly talented and an amazing human being — a quality that ran up the chain to the VPs above him. Parting was sweet sorrow, but no love lost with the brand.
Five days before I was set to leave for our family Christmas trip — and two days before I stopped being on Verizon's payroll — I was staring down money I had no plan to earn back. On that trip, between rounds of family, I kept asking myself the question I always ask when a chapter closes: where do I want to point my creative talent next?
The answer was the same one it's always been. I want to be in a role where I get to share my intrinsic hidden superpower — solving complex problems with elegant simplicity — in a way that positively impacts the world.
Over the next month, I pursued only opportunities that met that bar. I was shortlisted for one in particular: Principal Designer at Mercedes‑Benz's Infotainment Division, leading AI implementation across every qualified product line in North America. Anyone who knows me knows Benz would have been a dream job. My love for cars runs deep — not in the fast‑car way, but in the creature‑comforts way. Massaging seats, lane departure, heads‑up display. It's a hobby of mine to know all the features and which brands deliver the best experience. In my head, I was already on my way to Stuttgart with ideas that would shape Benz's global AI strategy.
I got eliminated after the second round.
That one knocked the gravy out my biscuit. Took me a day and a half to get up off the couch. Friends and family said what everyone says when you don't get the thing you wanted: "The reason you didn't get it is because there's something better out there for you." They meant well, but in my head I was thinking — that's a silly cliché. What could possibly be better than shaping empathic voice AI inside a Mercedes‑Benz?
Turns out, giving 100% of my attention to Time Release Safes. To make room for that focus, I converted $65,000 from my 401(k) and stocks — the runway I needed to build without asking anyone else for permission. I'm committed.
"Adversity breathes opportunity" is my personal mission statement — the credo that helps me navigate life as a Person of Color, both in the world and in corporate America. I know what it is to feel powerless in a moment — even when you're not. I've long concluded that not everyone is going to respect or like everyone else — but the prospect of accountability can dramatically curb unwanted behavior. Cell phone cameras have delivered more justice and accountability than every reform Congress has passed in the last 50 years. But what about the videos that never made it out of those dark moments — the ones that "accidentally" got broken, dropped, confiscated, or deleted? What if I could make it so that evidence could survive the most vicious attacks on it? That's what Time Release Safes is. Leverage when the world puts you in a disadvantageous position.
The $194M in the subtitle is our Year 5 revenue projection — Safety Pro, panic‑capture Safes as a distinct entity class, the Federated Recovery SDK licensing stream, and the Personal Safety wedge all fully in market. It's what TRS becomes when we've built out the five‑year plan.
The pivot
The first ambitious thing I did after that Mercedes rejection was download PyCharm and write my first real Python code. I embedded a ChatGPT‑powered LLM into my portfolio site, trained it to answer only questions about my resume and background, and taught it to politely pivot back to me if you asked about the weather. I never shipped it publicly — but the exercise sent my neurons into the stratosphere. For the first time I understood exactly what I could build, how I could build it, where I'd need help, and how fast I could get to market.
I'm a UX/UI Designer, not an engineer. Six months later, I've got a mobile app live on the App Store (Google Play releases September 14), an encrypted backend deployed on AWS, 14 provisional patent applications on file with the USPTO, a marketing site live, a Business Plan investors have taken meetings on, and an entirely new architectural pattern for how personal data survives and reaches the people who need it — even if your master keys are gone, your device is gone, or you are.
I'll say the quiet part out loud: I got to know Claude more intimately than I cared to admit. Co‑working with Claude is the closest I've come to cloning myself. The design instincts, architecture, schema and ideas stayed mine, but the code, some of the schema, refining the patent disclosure language, and the 3am review passes I couldn't do alone — Claude carried the other side of the desk. If you're building something hard right now and you're not pair‑working with an AI, I'd re‑run the math. The floor moved.
What is Time Release Safes?
TRS protects you from the digital world, while keeping you safe in the real one.
At its simplest, it's an app that lets you seal a message, a file, a video, or a whole life's worth of documents inside an encrypted "Safe" — and set the exact conditions under which it releases. To specific people. At a specific time. Under a specific trigger. Sometimes never.
But that base capability is the foundation for what TRS actually is: a personal safety platform designed for the moments when the digital world stops protecting you and the real world starts hurting you.
Three buttons on your home screen. Check‑in, Record, and Panic.
Check‑in is for the moments when you just want someone who cares to know where you are and who you're with. A 30‑second recording, done openly or discreetly. A small trusted circle gets a heads‑up with eyes — and your location. Not a broadcast. Not a location beacon that never turns off. Just the people you chose, only for this moment.
Record is the backbone — encrypted, evidence‑grade video that saves to your Vault. It's also for the moments when something just feels off: a ride taking a wrong turn, a first date escalating, a parking garage that got quiet. Start a recording — and if it stops being a feeling, escalate to a Panic with a single tap, without missing a second. Someone watching? The screen cloaks behind a working clock or a photo cover you've chosen — a glance at your phone shows a clock or a picture, not a viewfinder — while the recording keeps going underneath. The moment you escalate, the first 30–60 seconds ships immediately to the people you named, along with your location — and keeps tracking for one hour or twenty-four, your choice. The rest of the recording ships when it finishes, into the same Safe your circle already received. Even if an aggressor takes your phone or breaks it, they can't stop or delete what's already been captured.
Panic is for when it isn't a feeling anymore. Evidence starts recording — video, audio, location, time — encrypted end‑to‑end on your device. Your Safe releases to the people you named, either directly or routed through a Trusted Friend (a Releasee you designated in advance). The Releasee has zero knowledge of what they're delivering — and neither does TRS.
And above Panic sits Full Panic — for when you have to lock everything down: your keys wipe from the phone in your hand, so whoever took it can't get into your account, delete the evidence you just captured, or open the important life documents you've stored in TRS — your kids' school info, copies of your family's passports, Social Security numbers, life insurance, and more.
Underneath all three, there's a Panic Phrase — a word or sentence only you know, recognized on your device by TRS itself. Say it during a Check‑in or a recording and it escalates silently to a Panic, without the person next to you knowing.
That's the entire product surface. Three buttons and a phrase. Everything else is architecture underneath.
Platform resilience — why now
I built TRS in the middle of an inflection point I don't think most people are looking directly at.
AI worms and AI‑powered attacks are no longer academic — they're being demonstrated in the wild. Meanwhile, the federal government is stepping back from consumer data protection, not stepping forward. Companies are scrambling to protect themselves from AI‑enabled attackers. Nobody is scrambling to protect you.
TRS is scrambling to empower you to protect yourself.
The encryption is XChaCha20‑Poly1305, end‑to‑end, keys on your device. The panic‑capture pipeline is designed to be evidence‑grade — hardware attestation, server nonces, trust‑circle corroboration, screen‑recording detection — so what you capture can stand up in a proceeding. And the whole architecture is deliberately anti‑tracking: owner‑initiated, event‑scoped, expiring. Nothing runs in the background. Nothing tells anyone where you are unless you told the app to tell them, right now, for this moment.
That is not the Life360 model. That is not the Verizon Family model. Those apps are tracking‑first with a safety veneer. TRS is safety‑first with a hard privacy floor. If you grew up hating tracking apps, TRS was built for the version of you that got here.
Who's ever said "I'm not gonna attack her, she's got location sharing"? Nobody. But they might think twice about having their face in a Time Release Safe. Location sharing has its place — there are real benefits, and lots of options for it. However, it contradicts our brand essence, which is user privacy. Video recording of incidents doesn't always tell the full story, and it doesn't always serve the person who captured it. That's why our users always keep the choice — whether to introduce what they captured as evidence, or not.
Location sharing with SOS features sends coordinates and a help signal. TRS sends context and location. When a trusted contact opens what a Safe released, they see and hear what's actually happening — possibly how many people are present, whether a weapon is visible, what the immediate threat looks like. The call they make to 911 isn't "something's wrong, please go there," it's "there are two men at this address, one is armed with a handgun, my sister is inside." Officers arriving at that call know what they're walking into. They can stage properly, choose the right response, protect themselves and the victim. That's not a marketing point — it's just what the product does when a moment turns into evidence.
Who is it for?
Anyone leaving a dangerous domestic situation. TRS ships with Stealth Mode — the app disguises itself as a working clock, decoy launch screen and all, with a hidden hold gesture as the only way back in, so an abuser flipping through the phone sees nothing that looks like a safety app. Even a live recording can hide behind the clock face. When it fires, evidence releases through a Trusted Friend to a lawyer, a shelter, a family member, or a court.
Civil rights defenders, journalists, and organizers who need capture‑and‑deliver that outlives confiscation, and who cannot rely on any single cloud provider to stay neutral.
Everyday users: a single woman living alone who wants to feel safer using dating apps; a father with a daughter or son in college; a parent who wants to leave a message or documents for their kids or others, "if anything ever happens to me"; or someone who needs to send a document to a lawyer that opens only on a specific date, or hand a Safe to a caregiver that unlocks only if they don't hear from you for a week. A place to save a copy of all important documents in your life, so if a fire or natural disaster destroys your home, starting over is a lot easier.
Families and people who want effective safety features without feeling surveilled.
What's shipped
Mobile app live on the App Store for iPhone users; Google Play releasing September 14, 2026.
Encrypted backend on AWS.
14 provisional patents on file — including Panic Trigger, Federated Recovery SDK, Duress Voice Authentication, Forensic Capture Authentication, Peekaboo tamper capture (filed as Vault Integrity Monitor), and the Covert‑Capture Cloak — the filing that lets a live recording hide behind a working clock.
Solved IB‑PRE (Identity‑Based Proxy Re‑Encryption) in a zero‑knowledge environment — time‑locked delivery through a Trusted Friend to recipients who don't even have accounts yet, without our servers ever seeing your key.
Solved end‑user encryption‑key recovery — a Recoveree quorum that restores your encryption master keys on a new device, with no single party or server ever holding a copy.
Marketing site and Business Plan.
Anti‑tracking architecture codified end‑to‑end.
The three‑button safety model implemented, tested, and shipped.
The launch offer
For our first 25,000 Founding Members, I'm offering 50% off our Plus paid tier — and locking that rate in for two years after our first SOC 2 audit closes. This is how I say thank you to the people who show up for a product built by one designer with a laptop and a lot of borrowed courage. Try it free. And if you can afford a paid tier, please pick one — that's what keeps the Free tier open for the people who need it most, and what keeps me building. Founding‑member pricing never resets while you stay on.
The Outcry Fund
The people who need TRS most can't always pay for it. So the commitment is built into the model, not bolted on later.
For every 1,000 paying subscribers TRS reaches, we sponsor a full year of Plus for someone who couldn't otherwise afford protection — nominated by a credentialed advocate. The first channel is Outcry, focused on domestic‑violence survivors. Advocates submit a signed request as an encrypted Safe to Outcry@TimeReleaseSafes.com. Our in‑house DV specialist reviews it and we activate the account. Nobody at TRS engineering ever sees the letter — the workflow dogfoods our own zero‑knowledge stack.
Outcry is the first channel. A parallel channel for civil rights, journalism, and organizing is next. When the infrastructure is in place, we'll open a public donation channel so anyone can sponsor a specific person for a year. Until then, the commitment scales with the business — every thousand of you means one more person gets a year of protection they couldn't have paid for.
What I'm looking for
If you've read this far, you're one of the people I built this for. Three ways to show up:
Download it today from the App Store. Try it. Break it. Tell me what needs to be better.
Introduce me to the mission — the people you know at domestic violence coalitions, ACLU state affiliates, civil rights organizations, and family safety nonprofits. TRS is a tool. Their work is the mission. I want to be useful to them.
Introduce me to investors — VCs, angels, or mission‑aligned family offices who care about digital safety, civil rights, or the DV space. I'm raising $5M for specialty insurance for three AI‑assisted product lines (LLM‑assisted 911 on mobile, Cabin Security for vehicle‑OEM partner engagements, and Home Security via Night Mode); the Federated Recovery SDK build; and the travel budget to put TRS in front of the organizations serving the people who need it most. On the 911 side: the LLM handles the emergency call — your footage never leaves the device unless you send it. If you know someone I should be talking to, please make the intro.
I don't know if this is the "something better" my family kept saying was out there for me when Mercedes said no. I do know I'm building the thing I wish I'd built ten years ago, for people I care about, with the strongest privacy architecture I know how to design.
The adversity of AI breathes opportunity. This is mine. I hope it becomes ours.
Kevin Hanson
Founder, Time Release Corporation
Info@TimeReleaseSafes.com
Time Release Corporation on LinkedIn
