She's Building TurboTax For Prenups

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• Prenuptial agreements are a mainstream financial tool for ambitious individuals, not just the wealthy, and are increasingly being initiated by women to protect assets like businesses, student loan debt, and intellectual property.  Copied to clipboard!
• Founders building disruptive services in regulated industries, like Libby Leffler with First, must deeply engage with industry professionals (e.g., family law attorneys) early on to understand friction points and shape a legally sound, user-friendly product.  Copied to clipboard!
• Growth for a consumer tech platform like First relies on a flywheel combining content/education (especially on platforms like LinkedIn), paid marketing (Meta/Google), and leveraging customer advocacy through word-of-mouth referrals.  Copied to clipboard!

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Introducing First Platform

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(00:00:12)

• Key Takeaway: First is an online prenuptial agreement platform that incorporates real lawyer review.
• Summary: First provides an online platform for creating prenuptial agreements, ensuring they include real lawyer review. The platform was brought to the host’s attention via an investor who recognized the need for this conversation. The core mission is to help ambitious entrepreneurial women protect themselves within partnerships.

Libby’s Tech Background

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(00:01:00)

• Key Takeaway: Libby Leffler built a nearly 20-year career at major tech firms before founding First.
• Summary: Libby started her career at Google after graduating from UC Berkeley, seeking global scale companies with massive impact. She subsequently worked at Facebook and fintech companies SoFi and Compass. This extensive experience in building new teams and initiatives fueled her desire to found her own company.

Prenups as Mainstream Tool

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(00:02:20)

• Key Takeaway: Prenups are a mainstream financial tool essential for protecting value created by starting a business.
• Summary: Prenuptial agreements are framed as mainstream financial tools, not just for the wealthy, especially important for founders protecting their startup value. Everyone has a prenup; it is either one they actively create or the default rules set by the state of residence. First aims to make the process faster, easier, and legally sound.

Misconceptions and Collaboration

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(00:04:35)

• Key Takeaway: Prenups are optimistic planning for investment in the future, and over 50% of First’s initiators are women.
• Summary: A common misconception is that prenups plan for divorce; Libby views them as optimistic planning for future investment in oneself and the partnership. More than 50% of customers initiating agreements at First are women, contrary to older trends. The process is designed to be collaborative, strengthening the relationship by facilitating difficult money conversations beforehand.

First Platform Process

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(00:06:27)

• Key Takeaway: First functions like ‘TurboTax for prenups’ by collecting all necessary data before lawyer engagement.
• Summary: Customers create an account, purchase the service, and answer detailed questions about premarital and postmarital assets and liabilities. This upfront collection of key information allows customers to connect with a chosen lawyer on the platform quickly, potentially finalizing a draft the same day. This infrastructure removes heavy lifting for lawyers, allowing them to focus on drafting.

Customer Acquisition Strategy

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(00:07:52)

• Key Takeaway: First employs a flywheel marketing strategy relying heavily on content, social media engagement, and organic LinkedIn reach.
• Summary: Marketing efforts include content creation, community building, and investing in paid advertising on Meta and Google. LinkedIn has proven surprisingly effective, with many founders and executives reaching out directly for prenups. Organic content and social channels (Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn) are crucial for educating users craving information on this topic.

Team Structure and Design Focus

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(00:10:46)

• Key Takeaway: The early team is scrappy, relying on engineers and design to streamline the complex legal process.
• Summary: The team is nimble, including operations, marketing, engineers, and a prenup concierge to assist customers. Great design is a cornerstone, achieved by studying family law attorneys’ processes to identify and remove friction points. Collecting all information upfront streamlines the process for the custom-tailored agreement.

Learning from Industry Experts

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(00:12:18)

• Key Takeaway: Disruptors should actively seek guidance from established professionals to understand and improve industry processes.
• Summary: Libby cold-called a well-known family law attorney with only an idea and wireframe to learn about the process breakdown. This collaboration revealed pain points like billing and drafting time, informing how First could remove heavy lifting for lawyers. Professionals in the industry are often willing to advise and help shape the product if approached correctly.

Alignment Module Insights

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(00:15:30)

• Key Takeaway: The patent-pending ‘Alignment’ module instantly shows partners where their property wishes align or conflict.
• Summary: The Alignment module requires partners to share their wishes for premarital and postmarital property separately. The platform instantly visualizes areas of misalignment, prompting necessary conversations before proceeding. This focus on partner alignment is considered the heart and soul of any contract between two people.

Modern Prenup Inclusions

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(00:17:35)

• Key Takeaway: Millennials and Gen Z commonly include student loan debt, inheritance protection, and even pets in their prenups.
• Summary: Due to the accessibility of starting businesses, founders should assume they will have something valuable to protect. Common modern inclusions are provisions for student loan debt, especially future debt incurred post-marriage. Pets are frequently included, with nearly 50% of customers making provisions for care or custody, as pets are legally considered property.

Planning for Tomorrow

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(00:21:08)

• Key Takeaway: The value of a prenup conversation lies in betting on one’s future success and having necessary financial discussions before stakes are high.
• Summary: Prenups are agreements for tomorrow, reflecting belief in one’s future success and building. The downside of the conversation is minimal compared to the benefit of discussing money before financial disaster or massive success occurs. The core question is whether one believes they are worth planning out and betting on for the future.

Legal Residency and Timing

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(00:24:13)

• Key Takeaway: If no prenup exists, the agreement defaults to the rules of the state where the couple currently resides.
• Summary: The state dictating the default agreement is generally where the couple resides when seeking the agreement. Post-marriage agreements are called postnuptial agreements, which First does not currently offer, though they receive many inquiries about them. A prenuptial agreement must be signed before the marriage occurs.

Seed Funding and Expenses

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(00:26:39)

• Key Takeaway: First raised over $4 million in seed funding, primarily allocating capital to personnel costs and product development.
• Summary: First raised just over $4 million in a seed round led by Expa and Clio Capital, supported by consumer technology investors. The biggest early expenses were personnel costs, involving cash and equity packages to attract top talent for building the platform. Subsequent expenses included investing in paid marketing once organic growth validated the product-market fit.

Founder Resource Recommendation

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(00:29:16)

• Key Takeaway: Libby recommends laser-focusing on one high-value resource at a time, citing Emma Grede’s podcast for tactical advice.
• Summary: Libby prefers to deeply focus on one favorite podcast or resource when she is in a zone of intense work on First. She recommends the Emma Grede podcast for its willingness to get tactical and provide actionable advice. Founders should feel empowered to learn anything necessary to correct their course and build their business.