Venture Everywhere Podcast: Jason Saltzman with Jenny Fielding
Jason Saltzman, co-founder and CEO of Relief chats with Jenny Fielding, Managing Partner of Everywhere Ventures on episode 79: What a Relief!
In episode 79 of Venture Everywhere, Jenny Fielding talks with Jason Saltzman, founder and CEO of Relief — a mission-driven fintech company transforming how Americans navigate consumer debt. Jason shares Relief’s origin story, sparked by a deep frustration with predatory industry practices and a desire to build accessible, tech-driven alternatives. Jason also discusses how Relief automates debt settlement through a mobile-first platform, making it faster, cheaper, and less intimidating for users to resolve what they owe.
In this episode, you will hear:
The pitfalls of traditional debt relief and how Relief provides a smarter, fairer solution
Automating debt settlement via the app, helping users save around 50% on delinquent accounts
How AI and APIs are tailoring solutions to individual financial needs
Offering in-app tools for student loan refinancing and debt consolidation
Challenging stigmas around debt by normalizing financial struggles and promoting transparency
If you liked this episode, please give us a rating wherever you found us. To learn more about our work, visit Everywhere.vc and subscribe to our Founders Everywhere Substack. You can also follow us on YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter for regular updates and news.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:10 VO: Everywhere Podcast Network
00:00:14 Jenny: Hi, and welcome to the Everywhere Podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that, founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. Hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:34 Jenny: Today, I am very excited to have my old friend, Jason Saltzman. Jason and I go back to the Alley, but we'll get into that. Welcome to Venture Everywhere, where we talk to some of the best companies we know out there in our portfolio doing incredible things, changing the world. Jason's going to talk a little bit about his very mission-driven company called Relief.
00:00:59 Jenny: But I want to start a little more at the beginning. We just talked about how you grew up in Long Island, but how did you open a co-working space? Not sure I ever heard the story, but I think I met you in 2012 or '13.
00:01:15 Jason: For sure. It feels like yesterday, but my story is weird because I listened to all these business stories and people that created businesses. I know a story is what you make of it. You could recreate it and have some revisionist history.
00:01:29 Jason: But I hear these stories that everything seems so purposeful. Everything was done on purpose. I feel like I just been floating around doing things that I felt passionate about. Actually Alley was a byproduct of another business that was in the debt space, but we were looking for venture capital at the time and I was living in Florida and we were pitching.
00:01:50 Jason: And I built a debt business that turned into paperwork automation company that went into the GovTech space. We were looking for venture capital and we started pitching in New York. It was either San Francisco or New York. I'm from New York.
00:02:03 Jason: We went to New York and we started pitching venture capitalists. A lot of the people that were writing checks were working out of co-working spaces or going to pitch competitions at these co-working spaces. WeWork at one or two locations at the time.
00:02:18 Jason: And I walked into this space because I had built businesses before. A lot of the younger people that were working out of these spaces were on their first business. They started asking me advice. And before you know it, all this useless information I thought was useless was gold to some people. I really loved talking to people about business and helping them with their business.
00:02:41 Jason: I fell in love with the community aspect of you could build something with a bunch of people around you that were like-minded. Building a business and creating something from scratch is one of the hardest things in the world to do. To have like-minded people around you while you're doing that, it was an amazing feeling. I have to get more into this.
00:02:57 Jason: I saw that there was no cool spaces in Midtown. WeWork was all the way downtown. There was Newark City, if you remember. Shout out to those guys, Newark City, all the way downtown and in Brooklyn and all the cool places to work. But there was nothing for the Bridge and Tunnel crowd, which I am from Long Island. I am Bridge and Tunnel.
00:03:19 Jason: The thesis was basically to open something that was more centrally located for people that were coming from the outer boroughs and Long Island and give them the same community feeling that WeWork and Newark City was a huge inspiration back then.
00:03:35 Jason: We opened our first location on Seventh Avenue between 37th and 38th, two blocks away from Penn Station. I met the most amazing people in my career. I met you and we've developed this long-term relationship where now we're here.
00:03:49 Jason: There are so many others that I could just point back in my mind's memory that just changed the course of my life. I went full in, I left the other business and I went all in on Alley and we grew that.
00:04:02 Jason: And through actually a relationship that you connected me with Verizon to their innovation team, we did this major regional partnership and we built spaces across the country. And then we were rocking and rolling and COVID hit.
00:04:18 Jenny: I knew you started a business before, but I didn't realize that it had that debt angle. What a great story. You say people set out to have these careers, but honestly, I've interviewed now hundreds of founders and I think a lot of them are what we call empaths.
00:04:35 Jenny: They're following something that they feel internally. They see something wrong in the world and they want to fix it. They didn't necessarily start out to solve that problem. The two companies I built were very empath oriented. I just wanted to see a change in the world in this way.
00:04:53 Jenny: And all the work that I do with Everywhere, I was on that vein. I don't like to call it random. I like to call it manufactured serendipity. You do good things, put yourself out there in the flow and you stay open to possibilities and then things happen and unfold.
00:05:08 Jenny: Yes, I loved hanging out at Alley. I loved seeing the evolution of it. I remember when it was small and then you started growing in that building and then you needed a new building and there was always lots going on whenever I would visit you. There'd be the dog and there'd be some great story about something that was happening.
00:05:26 Jenny: Those were fun days and it was also the days where New York tech scene didn't start, but it really catalyzed. I think New York from an okay place to build a company, but you should really be out in Silicon Valley, the second biggest tech ecosystem in the world.
00:05:40 Jenny: And me at Techstars was a very small part of that. And you at Alley Corp were a part of it. And I feel we were all back in the day doing small parts that all accumulated into something big. I love remembering those days and people who were part of it.
00:05:55 Jenny: Tell us about Relief. COVID hits. Alley, as a co-working physical space, has some bumps. Where does the inspiration for Relief come? It sounds like it's full circle.
00:06:05 Jason: For sure. I was introduced to the debt space right out of high school. I joined a call center that was touting debt products to people that were very vulnerable that needed help with their debt. I liked the ability to help people. I hated the form of function of the business.
00:06:23 Jason: You're selling things to people that are extremely vulnerable. In most cases, they're extremely overpriced products. They help people, but they were way too expensive and people just can't afford this.
00:06:34 Jason: But I got a theoretical PhD in how debt works and how consumer debt could be helped on multiple levels, all the different structure, the logistics. Because I was hellbent on creating a better way for people to get these products, I eventually opened up my own company. That was my first time raising capital.
00:06:57 Jason: It was my first time opening my own business. It was around the 2007, 2008-ish era. And then the recession hit. As the housing market collapsed, more people needed help with their debt. I expanded that business actually in South Florida because my lead investors were in South Florida.
00:07:16 Jason: They're like, "I'll do this business, but you have to move to Florida." At the time I was like, "Okay, Florida sounds great." I was introduced to the business. I took on a partner to run the business with me. He was much more on technical side because we started to get thousands and thousands of clients that needed all this paperwork to be organized.
00:07:35 Jason: We built flows to organize the paperwork. As most startups do, you start out as one thing and product market fit turns you into a different thing. We got really good at organizing paperwork and we did it out of these government compliance factors that were part of the Obama administration.
00:07:54 Jason: Anyway, that quickly became a GovTech business and I wasn't enamored by that. I really loved helping people, but I was introduced to the problem. And then after Alley, when I was rethinking my life, as many of us did, as a consequence of being alone in quarantine or with one or two people, what am I going to do with my life?
00:08:18 Jason: I really wanted to do something big. My father got sick. I was looking at mortality a little bit different. I could do something simple and make money, but I really want to leave a positive impact in the universe. And what better way to do that than to help people when they're most vulnerable?
00:08:36 Jason: Because when you take a look back at the debt space, nothing's changed for consumers in the past 25 years. It's the same exact type of business. It's four o'clock in the morning infomercials that scare people into joining these services that cost a tremendous amount of money to join.
00:08:55 Jason: The most vulnerable people are being preyed upon by a ton of companies. Some are good, but there's some that are really bad because the business model is pretty simple and there's a lot of money to be made.
00:09:06 Jason: I thought to myself, if you can inject modern technology and you get really great people to build services and make them much more transparent and simple for people in a digital way, what would that look like? That was the journey we took almost four years ago. That's leapfrogged into where we are today.
00:09:28 Jason: We just closed the deal with the largest debt company in the U.S. We've raised significant amounts of capital, which isn't a metric of success. It's just to get us in the right direction. But now we're on pace to help millions of people with their consumer debt.
00:09:43 Jenny: Love that story, Jason. It very much resonates. Can you just very quickly tell us how the product works though? A lot of debt out there. Where was the white space that you saw and how does it actually work?
00:09:54 Jason: Everybody's situation is different when it comes to debt. There's a difference between student loan debt and credit card debt and obviously mortgage debt and things of that nature. We wanted to start with something very impactful.
00:10:06 Jason: The first feature we built is for people that are behind on their bills, which is a very specific situation because the net present value of the debt actually goes down when you fall behind on a bill because it gets sold to third parties.
00:10:21 Jason: And people have no idea this is happening, but those companies that are calling you and hounding you and writing you legal letters have purchased the debt for pennies on the dollar in that transaction. There's a savings that consumers have no idea that they can tap into.
00:10:36 Jason: The first feature that we built does that automatically for consumers, that deal that you could potentially get. Typically you can get this deal by calling up the creditor, negotiating with them, responding to letters, hiring a law firm, hiring one of these big expensive outfits to do this for you.
00:10:54 Jason: We've made that all accessible through an app. For people that are behind, you put in some information, it pulls your credit. We could track your debt, see who it's with, and provide you a potential solution that we're saving users approximately 50% of the total debt. And that's the first feature.
00:11:13 Jason: We just launched a student loan feature that refinances your student loan in-app that takes away all the complexities of refinancing it through all the programs that exist that are out today. Those two features are live in-app. That's what we built so far.
00:11:31 Jenny: That's amazing. How has technology and technology innovation enabled what you do at Relief? If you had tried to start this in 2007, there were probably some technical hurdles. Maybe a company like this starts with a spreadsheet. You guys have built some really interesting tech. Tell us a little bit about that.
00:11:50 Jason: APIs and modern day AI systems have completely changed the game. Maybe even in the past year. We've been able to cut our burden by 50% from a customer service perspective and from an engineering perspective, which is absolutely huge. But most importantly, forget about company unit economics and what that does to our bottom line.
00:12:13 Jason: It gives the consumer more information in a faster and more intelligent fashion that used to take an extremely trained individual to talk to people on the telephone or live. On top of answering questions and the LLMs that you could build through AI, you have access to a smarter system that can get to know you and grow as your situation expands.
00:12:41 Jason: It can do it pretty much instantly. For instance, every person's debt has a different situation tied to it, whether it's credit card debt or whether it's student loan debt or whether it's housing debt. But then there goes into who is the debt actually with. What state are you in? How far are you behind? Are you married? Are you divorced? Do you own a home?
00:13:01 Jason: All these things now with the advent of AI, you could build smarter solution-based systems that specifically speak to your specific situation, which the output is greater on both ends. It's better for the consumer because they know exactly what's going on with their situation.
00:13:21 Jason: It's also better for whoever owns the debt to understand exactly how much people would get paid because you could wrap this all in to understanding your finances better as well because almost instantly we could pull cashflow models with the use of things like Plaid and building proprietary systems out of the data that we get back from Plaid, which would take hours with spreadsheets and accounting systems in 2007.
00:13:49 Jason: When you tie this all into a handheld tool, via your app, your iPhone, and making it simple for people. Because that's the bottom line here. Nobody really cares. Other than us and people that geek out on technology, they just want the output to be right. They want it to be simple for them to use.
00:14:05 Jason: All the tracking systems and the spreadsheets they would have had to do in an office or over the telephone or make phone call after phone call to negotiate, that's all done within seconds through an app now. That's what people care about. That was never accessible until now.
00:14:18 Jenny: I love it. No one cares how the sausage is made though, huh?
00:14:23 Jason: They definitely don't. I thought they would. I always think that.
00:14:27 Jenny: Now you have service for your clients billions in debt. What are some of the insights that you've gained about some of the struggles of these everyday Americans? Are there any patterns or things that you've seen amongst your customer base that was maybe a surprise or interesting to you?
00:14:44 Jason: Not to me, but mostly to my team who didn't really have experience in this industry and also to venture capital and to investors. Look, we live in a bubble. One out of three Americans have an accountant collections right now. The numbers are staggering. When you couple that with inflationary climate that we've ran into, you have a major problem.
00:15:06 Jason: Consumer debt has never been this high. We're seeing delinquencies that we haven't seen since the 2008 recession. The biggest thing with all those statistics is that when you are outside that bubble, you live in New York, you have a little bit of a higher income, you're not behind on your debt. You took out the money, this is your responsibility. You were just irresponsible.
00:15:27 Jason: That's the way I see it. But in fact, when you start to peel the onion back to look at what got people into the situation in the first place, 9 times out of 10, it was completely outside their control. The cost of eggs has gone up 5X in the past three, four years. Inflation has set people back and inflation has outpaced wages.
00:15:48 Jason: The byproduct of that for many people is they just can't afford their lifestyle. More than ever, people are putting everyday goods on their credit cards. In the '80s, they introduced credit card machines in Burger King. And there's just this video that's circulating that people are like, why the hell would I put a cheeseburger on a credit card? That's crazy.
00:16:08 Jason: Now it's standard operating procedure. And now Klarna, to some fanfare, these buy-now-pay-later programs have struck deals with grocery store apps like Instacart. Although that seems like a great business move, but think about what triggered that to happen. People are putting everyday goods that they can't afford on credit like never before.
00:16:32 Jason: The result of that is that when you're living paycheck to paycheck, not YOLO-ing life away, and going to the bar and going on vacation and you can't afford it, you're literally a flat tire away from falling behind on your bills. That's what's happening with millions of people right now.
00:16:48 Jason: That's a pretty big insight. I know if you're not behind on your bills, it might seem people are bad people because they're not paying their bills. They're regular people facing extraordinary circumstances that they just haven't seen. The cost of living has gone up significantly. That's a huge insight that we're learning.
00:17:05 Jenny: Just sticking on that thread, there's obviously a lot of stigma and misinformation about debt. How do we shift that conversation? What do you think needs to happen for us to have more empathy and understanding of who these people really are, not the people that are late on payments for their Ferrari, the everyday person?
00:17:25 Jason: It's a great question. It's really hard because our whole culture is predicated on keeping up with the Joneses and looking rich and overspending. Look at the commercials for MasterCard. It's priceless. Just put it on credit and it's becoming normalized. I think for us, that's what our advertising is predicated in.
00:17:46 Jason: It's normalizing the situation. It's letting people know you're not alone. It's letting people know that's why millions of people are in this situation in the first place. That's why an app like ours in a very short amount of time can have over a hundred thousand people downloading it and using it.
00:18:03 Jason: Most importantly, just letting people know you're more than just a credit score. I know that our social system has been gamified around the credit score, but just because you got yourself into debt doesn't mean you're a bad person. It's really spreading that message and be openly talking about it.
00:18:19 Jason: This is something that people hide from the world. People are living multiple realities, dual lifestyles, they're keeping it from their significant others. Financial health and financial well-being is one of the leadest causing issues when it comes to divorce and suicide in the country today. How do you break that down?
00:18:38 Jason: Ultimately, I think that having more tools that are extremely accessible, what Relief is doing, is a solution. That's why we're hellbent on building it. I love the name Relief. I think it's a visceral reaction you have to knowing something can help you that's so accessible. We see it all the time. It's a great name.
00:18:58 Jason: But my original thought was to name it after somebody who killed themselves over debt, because that's literally our mission is to stop this from happening and to remember why we're doing this every single day. We hope to be that outlet, but it's a really big problem to solve because it doesn't just start with the problem, it starts early on.
00:19:18 Jason: They teach you how to dissect a frog in high school, but they don't teach you how to use a credit card, as I often say. It's almost like you're built for this problem. It's a cultural issue. It's a logistical issue. It's an educational issue. So many facets tied into it.
00:19:33 Jenny: There are obviously some huge tailwinds in this business, especially right now, everything that's happening, but what are some of the headwinds that you've had? You've been working on this for a number of years, what have been some of the challenges that you can speak to?
00:19:49 Jenny: It's always interesting for audiences to listen to not just the successes, which you've had many and you just raised this amazing round and things are going great, but what have been some of the challenges that you're comfortable talking about?
00:20:00 Jason: When you're building something different and you're trying to evolve an industry, you're the only one that wants that. Because in an industry, the status quo, they become complacent. Sometimes you need help. For instance, we had to set up deals with creditors so that we can develop those types to offer users solutions to their issues.
00:20:25 Jason: That took us over a year to even establish the first relationship because frankly speaking, Jenny, they don't want to help. They're making a ton of money. In the debt space specifically, they're allergic to innovation. It's a complete red flag. They get audited by banks. They're okay with their business model, especially when on a debt buying side. We've spoken to debt buyers and it's, we'll do everything for you. And they're like, "What can you do for me? Get you paid faster? Well, prove it.”
00:20:56 Jason: We're a startup. We don't have anybody using it yet. It's a chicken and egg issue in an industry that really is not poised for that type of innovation. You got to toughen up. Most importantly, it's not just the thick skin that you need to have as founders. We all need to have that.
00:21:13 Jason: One thing I learned in this business, particularly, is building your cap table the right way. Get vested partners. Cause once you have vested partners that know the industry, strategic partners, the doors start to open up much easier. We've been blessed with some amazing investors.
00:21:30 Jason: Not only you who's been super helpful introducing me to new investors and interesting people at our cap table as well. But people that have experience in the industry that can make a phone call, that can get you that meeting that you wouldn't normally get on your own no matter how many times you tried.
00:21:48 Jason: Our first relationship started because we have the former CEO of American Express on our cap table. He made a phone call to a board member that was a chairman of the company that owns the debt buying company. They told us, "No, we're never going to speak to you." It's okay. I would love to have been in the room when the guy got the phone call. “No, you should speak to Jason.”
00:22:09 Jason: The guy called me humbly. It was like, "Oh, I didn't know you knew these people." I was like, “What difference does that make?" But that's so needed. You got to get the right people on your cap table that feel the vision and mission of the company that can help you plow through. Cause that has helped us significantly.
00:22:24 Jenny: What's next for Relief? Where are things going and what are you excited about? Seems you've had some big announcements, some great partnerships. What should we hear about next?
00:22:34 Jason: We're building three new features. We're leaning out to the student loan feature, which I'm really excited about. We just launched it a couple of weeks ago. We already have a ton of people that are using it and they're literally to refinance your student debt in an app in minutes. It's crazy.
00:22:48 Jason: If you have a student loan debt, which pretty much everybody does because just the cost of doing business these days, go on the app and see what it could do for you because it makes it really simple. Leaning into that, we're building a consolidation loan feature.
00:23:02 Jason: Right now we're helping people that are behind in their debt. Consolidation loans are people that are on time that just want a lower monthly payment. It turns a complex compounding interest loan into a simple interest loan, which could save people thousands of dollars.
00:23:18 Jason: We haven't launched the partnership yet, but we closed the partnership because they led our round of funding with national debt relief. And they have infrastructure that they're allowing us to attach ourselves to that make helping people so much more efficient. We're ridiculously excited to launch this partnership and build it out because now the app is going to be poised to help millions and millions of people.
00:23:39 Jenny: That's awesome. What keeps you up at night then, that things are going really well?
00:23:43 Jason: Come on. That's the good stuff. Look, everything keeps me up at night. I think we shared this a little bit, you and I, we really care about the things that we're doing so much where stress is the byproduct of caring. I try to do everything I could do to meditate and get a good night's sleep, but I'm up late at night. It's really hard to raise money right now.
00:24:02 Jason: We did, but it's not like we're profitable yet. We need to get profitable. That's the goal. The goal isn't to raise infinite amounts of money. It's to build a really great business that helps a ton of people. And the only way to really keep it going without that worry of raising your next round is to become profitable.
00:24:22 Jason: This is our time to become profitable. That's what we need to do. We really have to execute on a fine line of getting things done to become profitable. That keeps me up at night all the time, but we're blessed with a really great team with really great partners. I'm excited about it, but when you're burning money, that's what keeps me up at night. Burn keeps me up at night.
00:24:43 Jenny: I like it. Good fire under your butt. Always helps. All right. Speed round. This has been great. What's a book, newsletter, podcast that you've been enjoying?
00:24:53 Jason: Revisionist History is one of my favorite podcasts, Malcolm Gladwell. I love him. I love how he can deconstruct social constructs and have a different lens on historic events that help us understand things that we should be looking forward in the future.
00:25:08 Jason: I read three books at a time. I like nonfiction. I like fiction. I like it all. I'm actually reading a really good book right now. I try to read a chapter every morning. How To Make A Few Billion Dollars by this guy, Brad Jacobs. It seems like a book that's, oh, here's what you do. But it's all mindset. The whole book is a mindset shift on somebody who's created several public companies.
00:25:32 Jason: I love mindset books because it makes things accessible. It's not you're talking about the network that you need to tap into to get to the next level. It's about the way you look at things and the mindset that you bring into things.
00:25:46 Jenny: If you could live anywhere in the world for one year, where would it be?
00:25:49 Jason: New York with a lot of money.
00:25:51 Jenny: Great answer. Favorite productivity hack?
00:25:54 Jason: Working out in the morning.
00:25:55 Jenny: Love it. How do you unwind when you're stressed?
00:25:59 Jason: Reading.
00:26:00 Jenny: Reading about how to become a billionaire. I love it. All right. Where can listeners find you?
00:26:05 Jason: I'm on Instagram @jasonsaltzman and Twitter @saltzman_jason. And feel free to hit me up anytime. I love speaking to people. I love helping people with their businesses and anything I could do to help you personally. I love to do that stuff.
00:26:18 Jenny: Okay. And Relief. People should go check out the website, download the app, set the call to action here.
00:26:24 Jason: Yes. If debt is a thing, which it is for everyone and many of us, you could download it in the Google store or the App Store, Relief.
00:26:34 Jenny: Amazing. Jason, this was so fun. Thanks for joining us on Venture Everywhere and we will catch up with you very soon.
00:26:41 Jason: Thanks for having me.
00:26:43 Scott Hartley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about Everywhere. We're a first-check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invests everywhere. We're community of 500 founders and operators and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, everywhere.vc, on LinkedIn, and through our regular founder spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe, and we'll catch you on the next episode.
Read more from Jason Saltzman in Founders Everywhere.