How a Pile of Student Debt Inspired a Venture-Backed Startup
Rod Ebrahimi watched his girlfriend finish graduate school with a hefty amount of debt. The two created a spreadsheet to help plot how to tackle repaying her student loans and the other debts they had accrued. As they worked, it occurred to Ebrahimi that this was a widespread problem that technology could solve--the perfect opportunity for a Silicon Valley startup.
His own personal finance hurdle was the catalyst for ReadyForZero.com, a San Francisco-based company that helps consumers manage debt. At the time of his light-bulb moment, Ebrahimi had been accepted to Y Combinator, a Mountain View, Calif., incubator that helped launch social news site reddit and document-sharing service Scribd. Ebrahimi and Ignacio Thayer, a former senior software engineer at Google, decided to ditch their idea for a news-aggregating service and instead use their time at the incubator to develop the debt-relief concept.
Continue reading this article - and everything on Entrepreneur!
Become a member to get unlimited access and support the voices you want to hear more from. Get full access to Entrepreneur for just $5.
Entrepreneur Editors' Picks
-
These Co-Founders Are Using 'Quiet Confidence' to Flip the Script on Cutthroat Startup Culture and Make Their Mark on a $46 Billion Industry
-
My 7-Year-Old Daughter Started Selling Eggs. Here's What She Taught Me About Running a Startup.
-
Why You Need to Become an Inclusive Leader (and How to Do It)
-
Career Transitions You Can Make in Your 40s and 50s
-
Billionaire Naveen Jain Is an Expert at Disrupting Fields He Has No Experience In. His Secret Sauce for Building Multi-Million Dollar Companies? 'You Have to Come as Naive.'
-
4 Principles to Develop Next-Level Leadership at Your Company
-
This Filipino American Founder Is Disrupting the Beverage Aisle by Introducing New Flavors to the Crowded Bubbly Water Market