USC alumna co-founds platform for simple and affordable wills

After experiencing both her friend’s mother and her uncle pass away without wills and witnessing the challenges that come with that, alumna Emma Reynolds began investigating the reason why some people do not have wills. Upon learning that, for many people, the decision to not have a will came from high costs and the process posing a burden, Reynolds co-founded Heirloom — a platform that makes it simpler and more affordable to create wills that are reviewed for error by attorneys.

Reynolds graduated with a master’s degree from Iovine and Young Academy in 2020 where she met one of her co-founders, alumni Ben Carpel. After meeting and aligning interests in their technology foundations class, Reynolds and Carpel decided to turn their school project into reality. Starting their project by first scheduling meetings as a team of three co-founders to develop their idea in March 2020, Heirloom officially launched in February. 

The name Heirloom comes from the varying preferences of what people would like to do with their body and belongings following their death, Carpel said. Some people want to designate care for certain people or pets, so their name and belongings are cherished and live on in their will.

“This [Heirloom] is something we want to be living, breathing, updated in real time with you, but it lives on beyond you,” Carpel said. “It becomes an heirloom for your loved ones to kind of be part of and see.”

Before the project’s official launch, Reynolds said she went into her master’s program with a broad idea about what she wanted her unnamed company to be at the time. She pitched her idea, prototyped her product and received input from classmates and professors throughout her two years at USC. 

Three of the professors that stood out to Reynolds were Jay Clewis, Chris Swain and Michael Crowley. These professors provided feedback and provocative questions that pushed Reynolds.

Currently, the start-up has had three customers complete the whole process of creating a will on the Heirloom website — each of which costs $299 to make.

A customer starts by filling out a questionnaire that takes five to 10 minutes. Your answers are then reviewed by a lawyer. Part of Heirloom’s value proposition is that every will gets reviewed by a licensed attorney. 

Reynolds said that while DIY wills are easy to do online for a cheaper price, they’re not all reviewed by a licensed attorney. In contrast, if you go to a traditional law firm, you can pay around $1000. If a will is not looked over by a lawyer, there is room for error.

“A lot of people make mistakes, even a comma. If you put a comma in the wrong place, that can change your intent, and then your will becomes contestable,” Reynolds said.

Since each state has different laws, Heirloom has a contract with individual lawyers from various states to review a customer’s will. On the Heirloom website, customers get assigned an attorney to review their will and are able to message them through their Heirloom profile. Since the company was founded in California, the company is currently only focusing on California.

“All the advertising we’re doing [is] focused on California because our license attorneys are set up [here] and the templates and everything [are] for California,” Reynolds said. “We’re quickly building for the other states … We’ve been doing Facebook advertising and various targeting on Google, but we’ve had our first few customers and we’re getting good feedback.”

As the start-up grew from the ground up, the Heirloom team faced many challenges when creating their business model, Reynolds said. She contemplated if they should charge people a subscription fee, a one time fee or if any fees would be too expensive for people. The team also debated if they should work with lawyers or work without them, and mimic a DIY style will.

“Our biggest challenge is getting people to do something they do not want to do because no one wants to think about their death,” Reynolds said. “And so we’ve got a real uphill battle to get people to say, ‘This is important. I’m going to do it and I’m going to sit down and do it now.’”

Carpel said that currently, one of the challenges Heirloom will face is with customer security. Since storing people’s personal information these days is common, the Heirloom team is trying to figure out a way for customers to not feel wary about sharing their information.

“It’s [asking], how do we make the journeys so simple and easy that no one feels any trepidation about putting their email in or putting their information in,” Carpel said. “This is the act of document that every single human being needs. But how do we make that so easy that no one feels fearful about signing up?”

Carpel said Heirloom received beta testing feedback from attorneys who tested the process of being in a customer’s shoes before the application was launched to test user experience.

“Us having the humility to say we don’t know what we don’t know [was important]. And ‘Let’s talk to some experts and some real people to design a product and service with their needs in mind,’” Carpel said. “It was built in a way where we can evolve it and change it if those needs need to be changed in the future.”

When Carpel met with Reynolds at IYA, Carpel also brought Justin Hicks, a graduate from Mississippi State University, onto the team as a co-founder to handle the technology side of Heirloom. Hicks said that while he has seen the success of prior startups, Heirloom is different as he feels there is an emotional connection to wills.

“This is something that affects people’s lives pretty directly,” Hicks said. “[I] signed on not having a will, but knowing I needed one. And what better way to do that than to build it and actually use the product myself.”

The Heirloom team has operated completely online and through Zoom. Hicks said the three team members have yet to all meet in person.

Prior to Heirloom, Reynolds had no prior knowledge of the legal matters to create a will. Through research, asking classmates about their knowledge, talking to estate lawyers across the country and speaking with estate planning firms, Reynolds found ways to educate herself.

“This is now my third business in the inner space in legal tech that I don’t have any prior experience in,” Reynolds said. “I can prove that you don’t need to have experience in the sector you can learn it. And if you’re passionate about solving a problem, you can come in and be a disruptor.”