Severly

Handle difficult exits with consistency, privacy, and legal guardrails.

Severly is a workplace offboarding platform for HR leaders, founders, and employment law firms that need to manage involuntary terminations with less risk and less chaos. It guides teams through decision prep, compliant documentation, live termination coordination, and post-termination follow-up so each exit is handled consistently, respectfully, and with an auditable trail.

Business Goals

  • Reduce average offboarding preparation time by 60% within 6 months.
  • Increase qualified B2B demo-to-trial conversion to 25% within 90 days.
  • Achieve 40% month-3 retention among customers running at least 10 terminations per quarter.
  • Cut support tickets related to offboarding checklists and process confusion by 50% within 4 months.
  • Reach $50k ARR from HR and legal teams within 9 months of launch.

User Goals

  • Create a consistent termination plan in under 15 minutes.
  • Coordinate documentation, equipment return, and access revocation without missed steps.
  • Produce an auditable record of who approved each step and when.
  • Reduce awkward manual coordination across HR, IT, payroll, and managers.
  • Give managers a script and checklist that keeps the conversation professional and compliant.

Non-Goals

  • We will not replace a company’s HRIS, payroll system, or legal counsel.
  • We will not automate termination decisions or performance management judgments.
  • We will not support on-site physical security operations beyond basic visitor and access notifications.
  • We will not provide country-specific legal advice without jurisdiction selection and review by counsel.

HR Director Elena, 41 - Elena manages people operations at a 350-employee SaaS company. She needs a repeatable, low-risk way to coordinate involuntary exits across HR, IT, payroll, and managers.

HR Director Elena, 41

  • As an HR director, I want a termination workflow with approvals and checklists, so that every exit follows the same process.
  • As an HR director, I want jurisdiction-aware templates and required notices, so that we reduce compliance gaps.
  • As an HR director, I want an audit log of actions and decisions, so that I can defend the process if challenged.

Founder Marcus, 34 - Marcus runs a 25-person startup with no dedicated HR team. He handles difficult exits himself and needs help being fast, clear, and respectful.

Founder Marcus, 34

  • As a founder, I want a guided termination script and checklist, so that I do not miss important steps under pressure.
  • As a founder, I want to notify IT, payroll, and finance from one place, so that the employee loses access and final pay is handled correctly.
  • As a founder, I want a secure record of the offboarding plan, so that I can revisit what was done later.

Employment Counsel Priya, 52 - Priya advises multiple SMB clients. She wants a controlled workspace to review plans, confirm compliance, and reduce back-and-forth with operators.

Employment Counsel Priya, 52

  • As counsel, I want to review a proposed termination packet, so that I can approve or flag issues before action is taken.
  • As counsel, I want version history on documents and scripts, so that I can see what changed.
  • As counsel, I want role-based access controls, so that sensitive details are only visible to authorized people.

Workflow Builder · High priority

  • Create a guided termination plan from employee details, reason, jurisdiction, and timing. The product should orchestrate approvals, tasks, and notifications across stakeholders.
  • Support a step-by-step wizard that captures employee profile, manager, location, termination type, and effective date.
  • Generate a required task list based on country/state and termination reason, with missing-field validation before submission.
  • Allow approval routing to HR, legal, and finance before the plan can be executed.
  • Provide editable templates for scripts, letters, and checklists.
  • Lock the execution timeline once the termination is marked ready, with controlled edits requiring re-approval.

Document and Script Generation · High priority

  • Generate manager scripts, termination letters, benefits notices, and handoff notes using approved templates and stored company policies.
  • Use template variables populated from employee and company data.
  • Flag incomplete or conflicting inputs before generating documents.
  • Track document versioning with timestamps and editor identity.
  • Support PDF export, secure link sharing, and e-signature handoff where needed.
  • Allow counsel-approved template libraries by jurisdiction or company policy.

Stakeholder Coordination · High priority

  • Coordinate actions for HR, IT, payroll, security, and the manager from one offboarding record.
  • Create tasks for account disablement, laptop return, badge deactivation, final payroll, and benefits closure.
  • Send role-based notifications through email and Slack.
  • Support due dates, reminders, and escalation if a task is overdue.
  • Show a real-time status dashboard for all termination tasks.
  • Allow partial completion if a task is blocked, with reason capture.

Audit and Compliance Controls · High priority

  • Maintain an immutable history of who approved, viewed, changed, or executed each part of the termination plan.
  • Record every action with actor, timestamp, and before/after values.
  • Restrict sensitive fields using role-based access controls.
  • Provide jurisdiction-specific checklist prompts and warnings.
  • Offer retention rules for logs and documents by customer policy.
  • Support legal hold export for a single case.

Reporting and Insights · Medium priority

  • Provide operational reporting so teams can see completion rates, cycle times, and process bottlenecks across terminations.
  • Show average time from plan creation to execution.
  • Break down overdue tasks by department and owner.
  • Track template usage and completion rates.
  • Allow CSV export and scheduled summary emails.
  • Filter reports by location, termination type, and reviewer.

Fast Onboarding to First Termination Plan

  • Sign up with work email and choose company size, operating countries, and team roles.
  • Connect Slack and email for stakeholder notifications.
  • Import employee basics from CSV or HRIS integration.
  • Select a jurisdiction and termination type to load the right checklist.
  • Review generated plan and send for approval; target time-to-value is under 12 minutes from signup to first ready-to-execute plan.

1. Create Case

  • The user starts a termination case by entering employee, manager, location, and reason details.
  • Validate required fields before moving forward.
  • Warn when jurisdiction or employment type is missing.
  • Allow saving as draft without sending notifications.

2. Generate Plan

  • The system assembles required tasks, documents, and approvers based on the case.
  • Show jurisdiction-specific items clearly marked as required or optional.
  • Surface conflicts such as future-dated access revocation before termination time.
  • Allow the user to adjust task owners while preserving the default template.

3. Approve and Prepare

  • HR, legal, and finance review the packet and approve execution.
  • Block execution until required approvals are complete.
  • Capture comments and requested edits in-thread.
  • Notify the case owner when a reviewer requests changes.

4. Execute Termination

  • At the scheduled time, the manager uses the script and the system triggers coordinated actions.
  • Provide a clean manager-facing view with talking points and step order.
  • Trigger Slack and email reminders at configurable intervals.
  • Handle late changes by requiring a justification and re-approval if critical fields changed.

5. Close Out

  • After the meeting, the system tracks asset return, final pay, access removal, and completion status.
  • Escalate overdue tasks to owners and their managers.
  • Generate a completion summary and exportable audit packet.
  • Allow the case to be marked closed only when mandatory tasks are done or explicitly waived.

Power Tools for High-Volume Teams

  • Bulk offboarding for multiple employees with shared tasks and individualized approvals.
  • Country and state-specific template packs managed by legal admins.
  • Webhook support for HRIS and ITSM systems.
  • Legal hold and case export for disputes or audits.
  • Scheduled reporting and retention policy automation.

Trustworthy, Calm, and Fast UI

  • Use a restrained, high-contrast design that minimizes anxiety during stressful workflows.
  • Keep the primary action visible and avoid clutter on manager-facing screens.
  • Support keyboard navigation, screen readers, and clear focus states throughout.
  • Display status chips and progress bars so users can see exactly what remains.
  • Optimize case loading and document generation with skeleton states and sub-2 second interactions for common actions.

Elena is the HR director at a growing SaaS company, and every involuntary exit has been a scramble of spreadsheets, emails, and last-minute questions from legal and IT. One bad handoff can mean missed access revocation, incomplete paperwork, or a messy manager experience.

With Severly, Elena opens a case, selects the employee’s location and termination type, and gets a complete plan in minutes. Legal reviews the packet, IT gets automated tasks, and the manager receives a simple script at the right time. The result is a safer process, fewer mistakes, and a team that can handle difficult exits with confidence instead of chaos.

User-Centric Metrics

  • 80% of cases created in under 15 minutes.
  • 90% of required offboarding tasks completed on time.
  • Less than 5% of cases require manual rework after approval.
  • Customer-reported process confidence score of 4.5 out of 5 or higher.
  • Reduce average manager preparation time by 50%.

Business Metrics

  • 25% demo-to-trial conversion within 90 days.
  • 40% month-3 retention among active customers.
  • 10% monthly expansion revenue from added seats or case volume.
  • Fewer than 8% trial-to-paid churn within the first 60 days.
  • 3x increase in monthly active accounts by the end of year one.

Technical Metrics

  • 99.9% monthly uptime.
  • P95 API response time under 300 ms for core reads.
  • Document generation completed in under 10 seconds for 95% of cases.
  • Zero critical security incidents and annual penetration test completion.

Tracking Plan

  • case_created
  • template_selected
  • approval_requested
  • approval_completed
  • document_generated
  • task_completed
  • case_closed

Technical Needs

  • Frontend in Next.js with TypeScript and server components for fast workflows.
  • Backend API in Node.js with NestJS or Fastify for structured workflows and integrations.
  • PostgreSQL for case data, templates, audit logs, and reporting.
  • Redis for queues, rate limiting, and reminder scheduling.
  • Object storage such as AWS S3 for generated PDFs and exports.
  • Workflow/jobs engine such as Temporal or BullMQ for reminders and step orchestration.
  • Role-based access control and organization isolation at the application layer.

Integration Points

  • Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 for email and identity.
  • Slack for stakeholder notifications and approvals.
  • HiBob, BambooHR, or Workday as HRIS sources.
  • BambooHR, Gusto, or ADP for employee and payroll context.
  • DocuSign or Dropbox Sign for signature workflows where required.

Data Storage & Privacy

  • Encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit using industry-standard encryption.
  • Support tenant-level data isolation and strict RBAC for HR, legal, and manager roles.
  • Provide configurable data retention and deletion policies aligned to GDPR and CCPA.
  • Store audit logs separately from editable case data to preserve integrity.
  • Minimize PII in notifications and redact sensitive details by default.

Scalability & Performance

  • Support bursty usage when many terminations are processed at month-end or during reorganizations.
  • Pre-generate or cache template variants to keep document creation fast.
  • Use async jobs for notifications and exports to keep the UI responsive.
  • Design the audit log and reporting pipeline to handle high write volume without slowing case updates.

Potential Challenges

  • Jurisdiction-specific compliance complexity, mitigated by scoped template packs and legal review workflows.
  • Risk of sensitive data exposure, mitigated by RBAC, redaction, and secure defaults.
  • Users may mistrust automation for high-stakes actions, mitigated by clear previews, approvals, and audit trails.
  • Integration failures with HRIS or email systems, mitigated by retries, sync status, and manual fallback paths.
  • Misconfiguration of termination timing or tasks, mitigated by validation rules and critical-change re-approval.

Team & resourcing - Small cross-functional team - 2 backend engineers, 1 frontend engineer, 1 product designer, part-time PM, and shared legal advisor

Phase 1: MVP Case Workflow · Weeks 1-4

  • Create case wizard
  • Basic task checklist
  • Manual approval flow
  • Audit log for case actions
  • PDF export of termination packet

Phase 2: Notifications and Integrations · Weeks 5-8

  • Slack and email notifications
  • HRIS import via CSV and one HRIS connector
  • Reminder engine and overdue escalation
  • Role-based dashboards for HR and managers

Phase 3: Compliance and Template Packs · Weeks 9-12

  • Jurisdiction-aware templates
  • Counsel review mode
  • Template versioning and lock/reapproval rules
  • Retention policy controls and legal hold export

Phase 4: Reporting and Scale · Weeks 13-16

  • Operational analytics dashboard
  • CSV exports and scheduled reports
  • Bulk offboarding support
  • Performance hardening and security review

Paste this into Cursor, Bolt, Lovable, or v0 to start building.

Build a web app called Severly for managing involuntary employee offboarding workflows. The app is for HR leaders, founders, and employment counsel. It should guide users through creating a termination case, generating a jurisdiction-aware checklist and document packet, routing approvals, coordinating notifications to HR/IT/payroll/managers via Slack and email, tracking execution tasks, and producing an audit trail and exportable PDF packet.

Use Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, Postgres, and a job queue like BullMQ or Temporal. Include authentication, organization-level multi-tenancy, role-based access control, and secure file storage. Build these primary screens: dashboard of active cases, create case wizard, case detail page with checklist/status timeline, approval review screen, document packet viewer, settings for templates/integrations/roles, and reports page.

Core flows: create a case with employee, manager, location, jurisdiction, termination reason, and effective date; auto-generate required tasks and documents; request approvals; send reminders; execute offboarding; close the case when mandatory tasks are complete. Include edge handling for missing fields, late edits that require re-approval, overdue tasks, and partial completion with waiver reasons.

Data model should include Organization, User, Role, Employee, Case, Template, Approval, Task, Notification, AuditEvent, Document, Integration, and ReportSnapshot. Add seeded demo data and a clean UI optimized for stressful workflows, with high-contrast accessibility, keyboard navigation, and fast loading states. Implement basic analytics events for case creation, approval requested/completed, document generated, task completed, and case closed.

Business Idea

Agency that I hire to fire my employees

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