Launch HN: YSplit (YC W19) – Automatically split and pay any bill
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.
89 comments
[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadTo summarize, it's up to 5% cashback, make multiple YSplit virtual cards and splitting rent via check. Paying & splitting recurring bills is completely free.
Good to see another solution here
https://help.venmo.com/hc/en-us/articles/217532327-Splitting...
https://www.americanexpress.com/us/services/amex-peer-to-pee...
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.
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.
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)
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.
Which would make the service too expensive for me.
> Facebook
I don't use Facebook for the same reason.
But as I mentioned in the top level comment, this is a concern for me because I'm probably more privacy-conscious then an average user so I might not be exactly the type of user they're building for.
Additionally, the fact that it's a "VC-backed startup" is irrelevant. Any company with any structure could be doing this.
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.
I would drop that whole page, honestly. It’s written in a pretty technical way and didn’t make me feel any safer, and on top of that made me feel like you all were deflecting from the bigger and more immediate threat, data selling.
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 £2500 iirc) which they had to pay.
I would never recommend anyone insert middlemen in financial transactions if at all possible.
Good for them if they find people paying for their service but same as you, I don't see how this can't be solved with a spreadsheet.
I find services like these bothersome for a different reason. A major selling point is catering to people that have difficulty getting the cash together to front a utility bill or rent. For every app that exploits people's inability to manage their finances I wish we'd see an app that teaches financial literacy and responsibility.
I agree with you 100%. I'm not sure how feasible it is to build a business around it, though, since monetization techniques are likely to turn people off or harm the product. Bogleheads is an awesome existing resource, in case anyone's interested
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.
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?
Or you can get into the credit business and just pay the bill and charge that person a fee or interest. :)
This. I'm not in the category of sharing bills with roommates anymore, but do remember it well and it was a pain.
I'd rather deal with a tech company that can provide better customer service and float for me than a utility bill that loses my info or doesn't do auto-pay correctly.
So if your value proposition is:
- never miss a bill again (Ysplit pays up front for it)[0]
- never deal with customer service for a utility again
Then I think people would pay for that convenience.
[0] - you could do the reverse and have people pay up front and give a discount, then use that float for finances. See -> Venmo.
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.
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".
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. :)
Wish you luck, though, sounds like you already have traction.
https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/
https://www.splitwise.com/
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...
> The 2nd question should be "is this an important problem to solve".
This is an idealist point of view that I used to share for a long time while I very much bought into the overarching vision that startups change the world.
In fact, that question is completely unimportant. The only important question is: "Can we profit from this?"
Building new things is unimportant. Building important things is unimportant. Building things that work exceedingly well is unimportant. Building things that generate a return on investment is the only thing that matters.
Startups are businesses that have accepted money from others. That money has to be returned. At the very least the company has to work towards trying to return it. Startups that have a higher likelihood of returning that money (preferably in multiples) get funded. It's as simple as that.
It doesn’t seem like a good look when the more important question to a company is “can we profit” rather than “can we make the world a better place”.
For example, I can see a business going without profit for some time if they are trying to align incentives with their consumers. I cannot see that happening indefinitely though.
I think (but could be wrong) that given the choice to sell cigarettes and make a profit or run another type of business and _maybe_ make a profit, most entrepreneurs would choose the path that is more likely to benefit the world than the one that will generate the most profit.
That's why there are so many of those micro-savings apps that round up your purchases or whatever. They can keep nudging you to give them more and more.
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.
I'll be sure to install it on my Palm Pilot
If I understand it correctly, this could eventually help with that, since all parties register a card once, then you just request the money every time it's necessary.
When I was house sharing (uk) the 'head tenant' would have a second bank account used only for the house. All tenants set a standing order into that account for rent+bills+house items, plus an initial float. After a few months adjust if overspending/underspending. So long as everything is split equally, or those that aren't (ie bigger rooms) are fixed month to month, this is the lowest hassle.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/paydivvy