Preinspection
Mobile Vehicle Inspection Platform
Creating information parity in an asymmetric market. A complete platform for buyer and seller inspections: custom Android app, cloud video processing, automated YouTube delivery, and QR-coded seller certificates that nobody else offers.
Information asymmetry kills deals
Used car buyers face a fundamental problem: the seller knows everything about the vehicle, the buyer knows almost nothing. "Clean title" and "runs great" mean nothing when you're about to wire $20,000 to a stranger.
The options are limited. Fly to see it yourself—expensive and still no guarantee. Trust the seller's photos—easily staged. Hire a local mechanic—they don't document what they find.
Preinspection exists to create information parity. An independent inspector with a camera, following a standardized process, uploading directly to YouTube where nothing can be hidden or edited.
The asymmetry problem
- + Sellers control the narrative and the photos
- + Long-distance buyers can't verify claims
- + Timestamps and locations can be faked
- + No standardized inspection process
- + Fraud costs buyers thousands
Three systems, one workflow
Android Inspector App
Custom tablet app for field inspectors capturing video and photos with robust background uploads
Cloud Video Processor
Automated assembly of inspection footage with branding and metadata
YouTube Integration
Direct upload to customer channels with SEO-optimized titles and descriptions
Customer Portal
Order management, video access, and inspection history
Inspector Dashboard
Assignment queue, upload status, and performance tracking
Admin Backend
Fleet management, billing, and platform analytics
How it works
Order comes in. Customer books online, provides vehicle location and seller contact. Inspector gets assigned based on coverage area.
Inspector arrives. Opens the Android app, starts the inspection workflow. Guided through exterior, interior, mechanical, and test drive sequences.
Videos upload. As each segment completes, footage uploads to DigitalOcean Spaces. The app handles retries, resumption, and verification.
Cloud processing triggers. When all segments arrive, Cloud Run assembles the final video with intro, outro, and metadata. Uploads directly to YouTube.
Customer notified. Within hours of inspection completion, the buyer has a permanent, uneditable YouTube video documenting exactly what they're buying.
Tech stack
Mobile
Video Processing
Backend
Infrastructure
Payments
Uploads from moving vehicles
I spent more time on uploads than everything else combined. This is a mobile service—inspectors often start their next upload while driving to the next appointment. Tower handoffs, dead zones, signal drops. 1.5-2 GB of video over 5G data connections.
AWS Transfer Utility with aggressive chunking, exponential backoffs, and unlimited retries. All uploads happen in the background—survives dead batteries, app closures, tablet restarts. The inspector focuses on inspections. Everything else is automatic.
When the upload completes, processing triggers automatically. When processing finishes, customer delivery happens automatically. Three systems, unified into one seamless workflow.
The QR code nobody else offers
We don't just help buyers. Sellers can order inspections too—and get something nobody else provides: a seller certificate with a QR code that links directly to their inspection report and video.
It's a 97-point inspection with findings broken down by severity. Any potential buyer can scan the code and view the full report while standing next to the vehicle. Trust is established before the conversation starts.
We provide two versions: an image for online listings (Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, anywhere) and a PDF to print and tape to an interior window. The inspection travels with the vehicle.
What sellers get
- + 97-point inspection with severity ratings
- + Video walkthrough uploaded to YouTube
- + Seller certificate with scannable QR code
- + Image version for online listings
- + PDF version to print or share
$100K+ in fraud prevented
Real case: A buyer was about to wire $27,000 for a truck 400 miles away. The seller's photos looked perfect. Our inspector found frame damage, mismatched VINs, and a salvage title that had been "washed" through out-of-state registration.
The video evidence is permanent. The buyer walked away. The platform paid for itself many times over in a single inspection.
How it was built
We capture both photos and video, but video comes first. It instantly instills trust—buyers see exactly what the inspector is talking about, explained in context. No taking anyone's word for it. Photos can be staged. Video shows reality in real-time with audio commentary. When $25,000 is on the line, that transparency matters.
Every inspection is timestamped, GPS-tagged, and uploaded directly to YouTube. The video can't be edited. The location can't be faked. We've already prevented over $100K in fraud by catching misrepresented vehicles before buyers drove across state lines.
Consumer video apps aren't designed for structured inspections. We needed specific shot sequences, automatic file naming, robust upload retry logic for spotty field connectivity, and integration with our processing pipeline. Off-the-shelf wasn't an option.
Uploads from moving vehicles. Inspectors often start uploading 1.5-2 GB of video while driving to their next appointment—tower handoffs, dead zones, signal drops. I spent more time on the upload system than everything else combined: AWS Transfer Utility with chunking, exponential backoffs, background processing that survives app closures and device restarts. Zero data loss.
See it live
Have a platform idea?
I build multi-component platforms for founders. Mobile apps, cloud processing, backend systems—whatever the problem requires.
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