Startup offers to replace US-Canada trade deal with a freemium app

As talks go down to the wire, one founder says tariffs are just a paywall with bad UX.

Chad Stockworth III22 Aug 20261 min readShorts

US-Canada trade talks are going to the wire, so a founder emailed both governments a fourteen-slide deck. His app puts dairy behind a Premium tier. Neither capital has responded, which he calls warm interest.

"—because at the end of the day, a tariff is just a paywall with bad UX," said Brayden Voss, founder of TarifFly, minutes after emailing both governments a fourteen-slide deck. Voss wants to move the entire US-Canada trading relationship onto his app before the deadline hits.

The model is clean. Lumber and autos ship free at the basic tier. Dairy sits behind Premium. Softwood dispute resolution is an in-app purchase. This is the most bullish cross-border play since someone tried to dropship the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Actual negotiators are still doing it the legacy way. Canada's team says there is more work to do, which is founder-speak for zero product-market fit. Neither capital has replied to Voss. He logged that as "warm interest" and raised his valuation.

Until Wednesday, TarifFly was a dog-walking app called WoofRoute.

"We're not pivoting, we're iterating aggressively. Dogs, dairy quotas, it's all logistics."

Voss is unbothered by the deadline itself. Deadlines, he says, are a scarcity mindset, and scarcity is what tariffs are for. His term sheet, meanwhile, never expires. It just keeps compounding, like conviction, or softwood.