[HN Gopher] Launch HN: YSplit (YC W19) - Automatically split and...
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Launch HN: YSplit (YC W19) - Automatically split and pay any bill
We're Tunde, Boateng, and Landon, the founders of YSplit
(https://www.ysplit.com). We make it easy to share the cost of
utility bills, subscriptions, phone plans & more. When your bill is
due, we charge everyone their portion, and then we pay for it.
While sharing an apartment with my co-founders during an
internship, I was responsible for paying the gas, wifi & rent bills
upfront and having everyone Venmo me back. Tracking how much I was
owed and getting everyone to pay me back took up a fair amount of
time, and I didn't particularly like talking about money with my
friends. Fronting the bill also messed up with the budgeting I've
set up with my bank, and often I would have to front thousands for
our rent payment. We released the first version of the YSplit app
a year and a half ago to fix these problems. On the YSplit app, you
can link your bill accounts (e.g. Power, Internet, Streaming
services, etc..) and invite the people you split the bills with. We
use our bill pay partners (Finovera) and in-house scrappers to
verify the details, establish a connection then add a YSplit
virtual card to the account. When you have a due bill, we charge
everyone their share the bills in the app, and then we pay the bill
with the YSplit virtual card. We've also added the ability to see a
PDF copy of your bill in the app and an in-app balance that you can
use to set money aside for future bills. Since releasing the app,
we've grown the no. of billers we support to 5,000, covering every
major utility provider in each state and the most popular
subscriptions (e.g. Netflix, Spotify, HBO). Apart from automating
recurring bill splitting & paying, we are developing features like
the YSplit card, a Visa virtual/physical card that automatically
splits one-time payments, e.g. groceries, takeout, house supplies,
night out and more. The card can also be used for splitting
recurring bills and is a good option for people who'd rather not
share their bill account credentials. The hard part of developing
this product has been making sure we are always synced to your
latest bills and that they are always paid on time. Luckily, bills
have very predictable patterns, so we've been able to build a
system that can identify and alert us of bills that are likely to
become overdue. It was also tough designing a UX that clearly shows
how the app works at every stage since most people are used to P2P
payments. We make money from interchange fees and premium options
we offer in the app. YSplit premium enables cashback, rent payment
splitting via check, and the ability to make multiple YSplit cards.
YSplit is live and being used to pay & split bills by thousands of
roommates and friends. Head over to https://www.ysplit.com to
download the app and try it out. We are looking forward to hearing
your feedback & ideas.
Author : tonikami
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-05-20 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
| Radeo wrote:
| I guess a lot of people have been using Revolut's split bill.
| blobbers wrote:
| I'm sure these are solid founders, but I have to ask: how on
| earth did this idea get into YC? What was the rationale for
| thinking this would be a great portfolio company; splitting
| bills? I'm sure it was a lot of work to set up 5,000 major
| providers but... why???
|
| https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/
| carbocation wrote:
| Why not? There is already an established company in this space,
| so surely the market is not zero.
|
| https://www.splitwise.com/
| pedalpete wrote:
| Part of the reasoning "could/should" be that not everything
| is can be a venture backed business.
|
| The question often asked is "assuming this takes off, how big
| can it get"? The 2nd question should be "is this an important
| problem to solve".
|
| Understanding that we don't have all the information at this
| early stage. Remember, we were asking ourselves how
| ridiculous AirBnB seemed at the beginning, or Twitter, etc
| etc.
|
| I will admit, my initial reaction was "why"? The US has
| Venmo. Why haven't they done this, or do they, or if they
| don't, why not?
|
| Is this an important problem to solve? I'm not sure why it
| is. I've managed this sort of bill splitting back in my early
| 20s where we had a house of 8 people. We set-up a bank
| acount, and when a bill came due, I posted the bill, and a
| spreadsheet of what everyone owed. They then put money into
| the account, and I would pay the bill.
|
| How big was the pain? Minor. The founder states they "don't
| like talking to friends about money"... harden up! Your
| friends are living in the house, they can't expect you to pay
| for their living expenses.
|
| Do I trust this company? No, AND I don't trust the providers
| either.
|
| Do I think there is an opportunity for them to pivot into
| something better but stay along the same problem space? Yes.
| No idea what that is...
| rognjen wrote:
| My main issue with apps like these is that I don't trust you.
|
| The convenience that you provide is not sufficient for me to give
| you not only access to a significant part of my financial
| information but nearly unrestricted access to my money. In
| addition to that, not only do you have access to it but any of
| the services that you might use. And I probably don't trust them
| either.
|
| Furthermore, I'm also deeply skeptical of services that require
| you to top up an account and then use that balance. This is
| mainly because of the way these types of accounts are (ab)used in
| South East Asia. (eg. if you top up that account and use that
| balance to buy something, you wont ever be able to get a refund
| in money, it'll only ever be refunded to that account) Besides
| the fact that in many cases you have limited access to your own
| money.
|
| With that said, given that I'm probably a bit more privacy
| conscious than an average user given I'm in tech I'm probably not
| your target market so my feedback might be nearly irrelevant.
|
| Btw when I shared a house, I had an Excel sheet where I put the
| bills and rent as they came in. A few days before rent was due
| I'd remind everyone that the sheet has been updated and when
| everyone paid their share I'd pay all the bills. I definitely
| understand how your solution could be a selling point if you live
| with people you don't trust or are unreliable.
| Dyac wrote:
| Agree completely. When I was a student there were a bunch of
| these companies. One of my friends used one for he and his
| housemates to split their bills.
|
| After a year, the company stopped paying the gas and electrical
| companies but didn't stop taking money from the students. The
| company then folded, closing their offices. My friends were
| left with bailiffs and debt collectors chasing them for the
| unpaid gas and electricity bills (about PS2500 iirc) which they
| had to pay.
|
| I would never recommend anyone insert middlemen in financial
| transactions if at all possible.
| tonikami wrote:
| Appreciate the feedback! You are not required to top up your
| YSplit balance. You can link a debit/credit card to the app,
| and when your share is due, you can pay your share through
| that. The in-app balance is simply a budgeting feature that you
| can use to set money aside for your future bills.
|
| In terms of your privacy concerns, while we've worked really
| hard to make our service secure and leverage trusted security
| storage providers, we know there'll still be some people who
| are not ok with sharing their bill account credentials. This is
| why we are very excited to be developing the YSplit card. You
| can essentially get a card and use it to split & pay the bills
| without handing over any account details. There'll be some
| limitations, most notably not seeing all your bill data in one
| place, but the splitting feature will work the same.
| rognjen wrote:
| I didn't mean privacy and security as in "you're gonna get
| hacked" but "you'll sell my data and know things you don't
| need to know".
|
| You (and your providers) will not only know my spending but
| who I share a house/utilities/services with. And personally I
| place quite a high value on that data (as do others who trade
| it)
| chrischen wrote:
| I don't see how this is a serious concern, even if they do
| it. I would just consider it part of the price of the
| service.
| choward wrote:
| That's the entire point. I don't want to "pay" with my
| data and have no idea how it's being used. It's why I
| pretty much don't use any online services unless forced
| to.
| chrischen wrote:
| My point exactly: if that was a serious concern, Facebook
| would have no users.
| tonikami wrote:
| Oh I see! From my experience, the companies that I've seen
| selling user data have no alternative revenue stream
| substantial enough to stop them from hemorrhaging money.
| They may also be giving most of their revenue back to their
| users or losing money every time their service is used.
| While building YSplit, we made sure it would make money
| every time it's used and that we would be able to upsell
| users on more features in the future. And the app is
| successfully achieving both at the moment.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| If I were to parse this comment in a lawyerly way, I'd
| conclude you didn't actually say whether your service
| does or does not sell users' financial data (or whether
| it plans to do so). Can you confirm for us your company's
| practices?
| tonikami wrote:
| We do not sell any financial data and we do not intend on
| doing so in the future.
| crumbshot wrote:
| The fact that this is a VC-backed startup pretty much
| guarantees it will be doing nefarious things with its
| users' data somewhere down the line. Even if not intended
| right now.
| rabidonrails wrote:
| This is an unfair comment because it's stated as a
| "pretty much" fact when it's simply your opinion.
|
| Additionally, the fact that it's a "VC-backed startup" is
| irrelevant. Any company with any structure could be doing
| this.
| tannedNerd wrote:
| Eh not really. Having VC backing means you have an extra
| incentive to do things that a bootstrapped company
| wouldn't, mainly to please your investors.
| foobarian wrote:
| Well, either it's in the TOS or it's not. Simple. And if
| it is now, and it vanishes, well, you know what to do.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| If you truly intend to monetize that way, make a legally
| binding statement to never sell your users' data to
| anyone else. Otherwise I personally would never trust
| you, and honestly even then I'd be skeptical because I
| assume that legal contract would become void during an
| acquisition.
| bingdig wrote:
| Can confirm, as someone who works in the alternative data
| industry this service, if widely used, will create a
| dataset that can easily be sold for >$1M/year to hedge
| funds, credit agencies, etc.
|
| I've seen quite a few companies that operate in this
| financial intermediary space and start off with strong
| privacy ideals, and then when they're getting traction and
| are raising a Series A/B can't resist adding a cool $5-10M
| ARR with near zero marginal cost by selling out.
| dheera wrote:
| An interesting side use case you might want to consider:
|
| My previous 2 apartments I lived in required paying rent by
| _paper check_ , delivered to their office, which was very
| annoying. They didn't take any forms of electronic payment,
| and mailing a check is a pain for millenials like me who
| don't usually stock envelopes or stamps. However, they also
| didn't take checks written by anyone other than the leasee,
| so that could be something that might need to be negotiated.
| landon_vh wrote:
| So this isn't a feature we have advertised on our site yet
| but we do support check payments on YSplit. We collect the
| funds before and auto send the check to the landlord to
| arrive 1 day before the due date. Landlords are currently
| not complaining that the checks are sent from us but thanks
| for bringing up this edge case. Super helpful to know as we
| grow.
| feifan wrote:
| IME paying for rent and some utilities via cards (including
| debit) come with 3-5% additional fees -- are you passing those
| costs directly to users?
| tonikami wrote:
| Great question! For rent payments, we do not make the payments
| with a YSplit card. We either send a check to the landlord or
| pay with an FBO account. Most utility providers don't charge
| that fee, but we don't pass the fee onto the user when they do.
| pranavtad wrote:
| How do you plan to make money? I'm assuming by fronting the
| payment, YSplit accumulates rewards/points?
| tonikami wrote:
| That's right! We also have premium options in the app that
| costs $6.99/mo. We actually don't front bill payments since we
| charge everyone their portion before the bill is due.
| jonathanberger wrote:
| I tried a couple of searches and skimmed through your
| homepage and blog, but I couldn't find any information about
| the premium options. Could you share a link?
| tonikami wrote:
| Hey, here's a screenshot of the premium options in the app:
| https://imgur.com/oRusB3M
|
| To summarize, it's up to 5% cashback, make multiple YSplit
| virtual cards and splitting rent via check. Paying &
| splitting recurring bills is completely free.
| siddhartpai wrote:
| What happens when somebody doesn't pay their share of the
| bill?
| landon_vh wrote:
| So we don't pay the bill unless everyone has paid their
| share however we try to make it really easy for everyone to
| do so i.e through notifications and multiple reminders.
| ipaddr wrote:
| No rent payment is made and emails go out.
| Axsuul wrote:
| It looks they charge providers. The incentive makes sense since
| providers will probably have to do less dunning/collections for
| money if it's been pooled from multiple people.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| You didn't mention keeping customers' personal financial data
| private during your pitch, so I'm guessing that's not a big
| selling point of your service?
| jfengel wrote:
| To me, "splitting the bill" occurs mostly in restaurants, which
| (as far as I can tell) isn't what this does. It would certainly
| be a pain in the butt problem ("Steve had the lasagna, and we
| agreed to go halfsies on the apps"). Tie it into the restaurant's
| billing?
|
| This kind of thing is what I'd call "sharing expenses". And it's
| surely a fine thing to have an app for: less hard than trying to
| account for the details of a restaurant bill, but still an
| impressive achievement.
|
| I know I'm just (ahem) splitting hairs here, but to me "splitting
| the bill" that doesn't cover what I think of as the most common
| case seems like it's going to confuse people.
| landon_vh wrote:
| Hey, our thought exactly! Not sure if you saw in the post, but
| we are also developing a YSplit card that can split one-time
| payments e.g, restaurant bills, takeout, vacation & more. When
| the card is used, it charges everyone their portion. It's a
| physical or virtual card and is currently in beta. Let me know
| if you are interested in trying it out!
| jedberg wrote:
| What happens if one of four roommates doesn't pay their portion
| of the rent? Do you still make the payment?
|
| I ask because the City of Berkeley for example tells their
| landlords to never accept multiple rent checks because it makes
| things complicated if only part of the rent is paid.
| tonikami wrote:
| We wait for everyone to pay their portion before making the
| payments to the merchant/landlord. I hadn't heard about the
| City of Berkeley doing that, thanks for sharing!
| onion2k wrote:
| _We wait for everyone to pay their portion before making the
| payments to the merchant /landlord._
|
| That seems very high risk. Back when I lived in shared houses
| I'd prefer to pay and then be reimbursed by whoever missed
| their share than have the rent paid late. Could users set up
| a discretionary fund that's used to cover missed payments
| from their friends?
| tonikami wrote:
| That's a great idea! We could maybe set up an optional
| deposit in the app to be used if someone forgets to pay
| their share. To deal with this in the app at the moment, we
| have a tonne of useful notifications reminding everyone to
| pay their share and an autopay option. But I definitely
| think your suggestion will come in handy as we scale.
| jedberg wrote:
| Or allow me to pay extra to cover someone else and then
| get refunded or get a credit towards my next bill or
| something. So I get a notification the day before rent is
| due telling me someone didn't pay yet, and then I can
| just pay for them so the bill isn't late.
|
| Or you can get into the credit business and just pay the
| bill and charge that person a fee or interest. :)
| johncessna wrote:
| It's more than just Berkeley.
|
| The risk, on the landlord's part, of accepting a partial amount
| of rent is that you're altering the terms of the lease on the
| fly. If it persists you wave your ability to enforce the
| original agreement as you now have a history of acceptance of
| an alternative agreement.
|
| There's also the discrimination aspect of it. If a landlord
| accepts partials from one tenant but not another, there's
| potential they'll have to explain themselves in court.
| jedberg wrote:
| Yeah, many cities do it, Berkeley just happens to be one I
| know of because I manage a property there.
|
| The biggest risk is legal -- if you cash two of three checks
| for example, have you accepted partial rent? Can you evict
| for non-payment or did you just accept payment? Will the two
| people who paid fight the eviction? Can you evict just one
| tenant?
|
| So many thorny issues you just don't want to deal with. So
| much simpler to say, "give me one check, it's either on time
| or not".
| imperialdrive wrote:
| Must be getting hugged... the site loads a blank page at the
| moment.
| [deleted]
| tonikami wrote:
| Hey, I've resolved this issue. Try again :) There was something
| wrong with the way I posted the link.
| sidcool wrote:
| How does it compare to SplitWise?
| tonikami wrote:
| Splitwise is great for keeping track of how much people owe
| you. We developed YSplit to stop people from owing you money in
| the first place. The app charges everyone their portion then
| pays for the bill.
| langitbiru wrote:
| Congratulations! By coincidence, your startup reminds me of the
| use case of smart contracts. I always tell people that smart
| contracts are cool because you can program money however you
| like. One of the examples is payment splitter.
|
| Recently, I coded up the payment splitter smart contract.
|
| https://mamba.black/documentation/payment-splitter/
|
| Yours is bill splitter. But technically, you can code up the bill
| splitter as a smart contract too.
|
| That's all. I wish you success. Who knows my story is useful for
| you. I don't know. Maybe a few years later, you want to expand
| your service to cryptocurrencies. :)
| tonikami wrote:
| That's great, thanks for sharing!
| chrischen wrote:
| I used Ysplit before they launched and it was a great experience.
| While they do ask for a lot of account permissions it was
| probably necessary to execute on the automatic payment split
| features and not having to venmo request my roommates every month
| was totally worth it.
| tonikami wrote:
| Hey! Great to see a YSplit user here :D
| pedalpete wrote:
| Why on earth would this comment be downvoted?
| capiki wrote:
| Lovely fonts! Don't have anything very constructive to say, just
| that the site looks super crisp and clean. Congrats on your
| launch, and good luck:)
| landon_vh wrote:
| Hey, we are constantly improving our landing page so any
| feedback on it very constructive. Thanks for the affirmation
| there.
| unixhero wrote:
| I for one use Splitwise. Worked for me for 5 years and counting!
| tonikami wrote:
| That's awesome, I used Splitwise in the past, and it was great
| for keeping track of how much everyone owed me! YSplit,
| however, removes the need of ever tracking 'I Owe Yous'. We
| charge everyone their portion when the bill is due, then pay
| for the bill automatically every month.
| jerrygoyal wrote:
| been using splitwise for last 5 years or so. For me, issue
| was not auto-debit but to stick to a mutual app which other
| people also use and familiar with. I am nomadic and often
| meet new people so when it comes to tracking bills others
| already have used or atleast heard about splitwise app and we
| always find the common ground.. splitwise. I guess network
| effects does play a crucial role here in bill-splitting apps
| (social factor).
| capitalbreeze wrote:
| Yeah I'm curious what the differentiation is from Splitwise?
| [deleted]
| disgrunt wrote:
| I think WePay started with this model. Wonder why they pivoted.
|
| Wish you luck, though, sounds like you already have traction.
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's shocking to me that PayPal/Venmo/cash app can't do this
| trivially already.
|
| Good to see another solution here
| theshadowmonkey wrote:
| I believe Mint used to have this and they discontinued for some
| reason -- re paying utility bills
| lostlogin wrote:
| It does sound simple, but as soon as I think about situations
| where bills get split, it becomes immediately horrible.
| mrrv wrote:
| I haven't tried it yet, but Venmo allows you to split certain
| payments, like ones made on Seamless for example.
|
| https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/217532327-Splitting...
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