Launch HN: Upsolve (YC Nonprofit W19) – TurboTax for Bankruptcy

149 点作者 rpavuluri超过 6 年前

Hi HN! I’m Rohan Pavuluri, co-founder of Upsolve (<a href="https://upsolve.org/" rel="nofollow">https://upsolve.org/</a>), a nonprofit in YC’s W19 batch. We provide software for low-income people in America that makes filing for bankruptcy less painful and expensive, just like what TurboTax did for filing taxes. Bankruptcy is a lifeline for low-income people in the United States who fall into debt from job loss, medical emergencies, and payday lenders. It allows them to get a fresh start. Unfortunately, it’s impossible for most people to file for bankruptcy because they cannot afford $2,000 for a bankruptcy lawyer. Our average user erases ~$40,000 in debt.I started Upsolve when I was a law school research assistant in college. We were testing out the effectiveness of legal self-help packets for people who could not afford attorneys. I set out to turn these paper packets into a digital product. My co-founder Jonathan Petts spent ten years doing pro bono bankruptcies in his spare time as a corporate attorney. This is where he saw people turned down by brick and mortar legal nonprofits because demand for attorneys far exceeded supply. A judge introduced us in 2016 when she saw we were working on the same idea.Here’s how it works. A user comes to our website and takes a screener to see if they’re a good fit for our service. If they are, they answer a series of questions about their personal finances, upload their tax returns/pay stubs, and take a pre-bankruptcy education course. Our software then generates their forms, and one of our in-house attorneys reviews their forms for accuracy and completeness. If there are any issues, we follow up. When the forms are ready to file, we send them to the user. We track the user’s court notices so that we can fix any issues that may arise after filing. In 2018, we erased over $16,000,000 in debt for 400+ users.We believe that 20M Americans would benefit from filing for bankruptcy. We currently allow our users to donate what they think is fair to us after they complete the process. While we’re mostly funded by foundations and the federal government now, we hope to be sustainable through donations that we receive from our users in the future. Regulations around bankruptcy only permit attorneys providing full-representation to charge clients.We’re looking for any feedback you have on our product or how to reach new users.User stories: <a href="https://upsolve.org/fresh-starts/" rel="nofollow">https://upsolve.org/fresh-starts/</a>TC: <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/16/upsolve-bankruptcy/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/16/upsolve-bankruptcy/</a>If interested in donating: <a href="https://upsolve.org/donate/" rel="nofollow">https://upsolve.org/donate/</a> or email rohan@upsolve.org.

14 条评论

mchannon超过 6 年前

The catch-22 in the bankruptcy business is how your clients pay you if you help them prove they're broke. So this is a huge need.You need to put FREE in big red letters at the top of your webpage. It's on there a few times but buried so it doesn't stand out. The word "non-profit" also needs to be more prominently mentioned.Whether it's sneaky medical billing or identity fraud, the about-to-be-bankrupt are _really_ gun-shy about being scammed and this additional marketing effort would pay huge dividends.Most people don't realize how crooked the whole "education course" thing is. Congress in its infinite ignorance decided that bankruptcies were due to lack of education (easily debunked) but that doesn't stop them from making every single chapter 7 applicant take hours of compulsory courses. Do you offer the courses as a free standalone product (one that's accredited)? That'd be a huge selling point by itself."Turbotax for Bankruptcy" carries a lot of negative connotations, because you're not rent-seeking regulatory captors. Should make it "free turbotax for bankruptcy".Just as a small percentage of turbotax filers have to deal with audits, hearings, and the occasional fraud trial, would be interesting to hear how you all deal with the bankruptcy court analogs.

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mark212超过 6 年前

I would strongly urge you to create a white label version of this and sell it to consumer BK lawyers. I used to practice in this area and the biggest pain-point by far was handling the documents from the clients and turning that into PDFs of the petition and schedules to upload to ECF.Sounds like your tech stack is already worked out on that, so why not white label it to debtors firms? The typical SaaS billing levels (Starter / Pro / Enterprise) would work, and you could offer a paid-by-the-filing level, too. Roll in the pre-filing counseling and the electronic filing and you've got a really good and attractive solution.Especially as this is built for self-service. If a lawyer could have an in-person counseling session with a prospective client, then point him/her at a webpage to fill out the details and upload docs, that would save an enormous amount of time.It's been a couple of years since I look at the filing software, but the industry was dominated by a couple of big players and the client-facing solutions were minimal and sketchy. The big advantage was being able to file electronically. But it still needed a couple of dedicated paralegals / clerks to track down all the papers and enter all the details.Good luck to you!

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elektor超过 6 年前

Wonderful work, Rohan! I love it when tech and charity come together like this.My questions:1) Is there any assistance that your service can provide to students who have student loan debt, particularly those from predatory private institutions?2) Have you had any conversations with the group, RIP Medical Debt? They have a similar goal of helping those in need, they've abolished $120 million in medical debt for about 60,000 Americans(<a href="https://www.ripmedicaldebt.org/about/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ripmedicaldebt.org/about/</a>). I think it would be great for you to connect, even if it's just to be on each other's radar.

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asdf333超过 6 年前

An awesome service for helping people navigate bankruptcy! congrats on a great idea. clearing debt is an important function of capital markets and is one thing that makes the US economic system so robust.congrats and:1. I hope you guys find some good revenue streams to keep it going.2. I hope you can prevent people from scamming the system and hiding assets, etc. Otherwise you can be the farmer that killed the golden egg laying goose.

ramarkable超过 6 年前

Perhaps I am in the minority here, but I think Turbotax for Bankruptcy is a helpful analogy. You should also look at the Free File Program Turbotax runs - while it's gotten some heat for not being 'Free For All' it is a free (and useful) service for lower income individuals who do bring in an income. They partner heavily with libraries to ensure that people who may not have internet/computer access at home, are aware of this offering. Probably some overlap in demographics here.As for the funding model: are there any businesses that stand to benefit from people being able to file for bankruptcy more easily? Collection agencies? Hospitals? There is a certain cost associated with tracking down a non-payer. Who could stand from this cost being eliminated? Non-profit is well and good, but it's even better if a business will stand up a foundation to specifically fund your product because it supports their revenue generating business.

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gyaniv超过 6 年前

To find new clients I think that by introducing yourselves and your product to those "brick and mortar non profits" you said turned people away, you should be able to convince them to send your way some of the people that they can't handle.But I have to say that the idea you had about the money source sounds a bit strange to me. Your whole idea is helping people that don't have any money, so it just seems weird that you would then ask for or even want their money, because that somewhat defies the point of helping them save money (I'm sure that you probably take only small amounts, but still...). I think that working from outside donations and federal grants just makes more sense. Or maybe even excepting some money from some of the people you help after a while if they manage to get back on their feet.

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toomuchtodo超过 6 年前

This is work worth doing. Wishing your team much success.To find new users, I'd start partnering with non-profit financial counseling groups that are most likely providing this service with human effort, but are stretched thin.

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froindt超过 6 年前

Neat idea, thanks for sharing!Are attorneys licensed in all the states they're reviewing documents to?Playing devils advocate here. Do you have a vetting policy for whether filing for bankruptcy is a good idea, or encourage other steps to be taken by someone considering bankruptcy? Someone who is $2,000 behind on bills may be hurt more by the bad mark on their credit in the upcoming ~7 years. If they had some counseling on budgeting, debt payback could be realistic by digging in, taking on some marginal work, and reducing spending.

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cenal超过 6 年前

How do you handle security with such sensitive information being uploaded?

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sytelus超过 6 年前

Just love how so many startups coming from YC are becoming force of disruption! The impact of this extends far beyond entrepreneurship and making few people rich. I hope more YC companies goes after monopolies.

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mlucy超过 6 年前

Really cool idea. I hope you manage to get into a sustainable cycle of people you've helped with bankruptcy getting back on their feet and donating to help others in the same position.

aurelius83超过 6 年前

Cool idea. There's a little error on the where you agree to terms. The 3rd bullet point is not broken out into it's own line item.

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spaceracer9超过 6 年前

Most libraries run free legal help programs, that should be a great way to find and help more people in need.

josinalvo超过 6 年前

do you have/could you share population data for your users?like median earnings, median debt, nature of debt and such?I am just curious and have no particular reason for asking, but it would be interesting

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