Founders Everywhere: Michelle Winterfield
Michelle Winterfield is the co-founder and CEO of Tandem, a finance app for couples to achieve their money milestones together.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Couples are getting married later in life (if at all) and of those who do, only about 40% fully combine their assets. For many, there’s an inherent unwillingness to utilize two balance sheets to pay down debt, invest in larger assets together and really take advantage of all that the financial services industry has to offer the legality behind marriage. Tandem is a new financial operating system providing couples with the easiest way to share expenses. Say goodbye to endless payment requests, mental math, and money fights.
Tandem co-founders Michelle Winterfield and Daniel Couvreur were in the same finance group at Michigan State University. They became great friends and Daniel even lived with Michelle’s now-husband and stood up in their wedding. They are both Fintech enthusiasts and want to help modern households grow wealth.
Why Tandem and why now?
We started Tandem out of a personal pain point that our entire team has experienced. Managing joint expenses before marriage is challenging, and we saw an opportunity to help modern couples build their financial lives together from day one.
What is Tandem's North Star?
Our North Star is to be the platform that guides couples through each of their financial milestones. Finances are a leading cause of divorce and break-ups and we believe by putting couples on transparent and equitable footing from the start, we can help to change that.
Tell us about some recent milestones Tandem crushed.
We just announced our $3.7M seed round and a new feature set that assists couples in the next step of their journey -- planning and saving for future Goals with Tandem. You can read more in TechCrunch.
What sets Tandem apart from competitors?
Tandem stands out by focusing on building experiences around financial products for couples. Unlike other splitting apps, we target a more automated and quick solution tailored to the frequent expense-sharing and the financial planning needs of couples.
How does Tandem inspire “customer love”?
Tandem is open to any couple, married or not, and we help strengthen relationships by providing tools for transparent financial planning. We also help eliminate the stigma and emotion that can be associated with money. Users have reported decreased money-related conflicts because they don't feel this awkward sense of penny pinching and sending Venmo requests all the time. Customers are excited to use our product to achieve their financial goals together.
Fun fact: I played soccer at Michigan State and I also love singing. I used to sing the national anthem before games. Once I got asked to sing the national anthem at the Final Four basketball tournament, which was in front of an audience of 70,000 attendees and around 16 million TV viewers!
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