Comment by chowdown627 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chowdown627 | Hacker News Reader

Hi Tim,

Congratulations on your launch. I checked out your site and did some reading - nice to run into a fellow Deloitte alum. I worked in their Private Client Tax division. So hopefully I can share the perspective both as a preparer and reluctant payer.

I like the concept, but I'm just a skeptic who's cynical about all of the on-demand, Uber-for startups. With that being said, it's obviously being done and at least capital is flowing to them for now.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I either want 100% control (prepare my own taxes) or I need to completely trust the preparer. I need to meet this individual and know he/she is qualified; I have to know who physically receives my docs, completes the return, and sends it out. Taxes are just about the most stressful topic for people and nobody wants to even think about the risk of facing the IRS. So I imagine the assurance of the face-to-face relationship (at least on the onset) with a preparer outweighs the inconvenience of simply hopping in the car to drive to H&R Block. Because apples to apples, it's the same amount of effort otherwise: receive forms, scan/e-mail/deliver documents, sign off and send.

That's just my opinion.

Obviously, online financial services is a hugely successful industry. However, I think of the contrast with a company like Betterment, for example. It's easy to automate the number-crunching from a customer investment questionnaire, and prepare a cookie-cutter asset allocation and investment plan. But taxes are even more specific to each individual's finances; then it's made much more complex by the deadlines, laws, IRS.

I'm also curious: who is your target market? I'm just trying to gauge the effectiveness of the pitch (i.e. save $100, convenience).

I hope you enjoyed my rambling - I promise you I'm offering my opinion as a potential user or preparer, versus any kind of expert. Grain of salt :)

Thanks so much for your well thought-out response!

I think your perspective is one that many people share, though fortunately for us, not everyone does! My co-founder is a CPA with his own tax firm, and they handle ~1000 clients/year without meeting anyone in person. The demand there is what ultimately led us to giving this model a try in the first place.

As you described, it all comes down to trust, and we're working on building that up right now. I think our messaging, as it stands today, doesn't do enough to build trust. So far we've gotten a fair number of early users that will hopefully help build up credibility in the process, and we'll do a better job explaining how we vet our preparers.

Looking specifically at H&R Block, our value proposition is actually more than just convenience. They typically will hire people each year off the street with little to no tax prep experience, and give them a crash course in just a few hours. Compare that to our CPAs and EAs that average over 15 years of experience, and I think we have a strong value proposition in terms of expertise as well. We're not a true "Uber" model either, where the assignment of work is a black box. We let clients select their preparer from a set of compatible tax pros, and they are free to research which one makes them most comfortable. We encourage preparers to write about their experience, and to provide LinkedIn profile URLs to make it a little easier to find their background.

Obviously we're not in a position to convince someone with an existing relationship with their accountant to switch to using us, but we're targeting someone who otherwise would walk into a big-box tax store to get their taxes done.

As for target market, we're still struggling a bit to narrow it down. It's a little more complicated than just picking one at random, but we're testing hypotheses. We're looking in two directions right now - either on-demand economy workers who are working as independent contractors, and/or early career business travelers. Independent contractors because they are comfortable with the "gig economy" model and may have complicated tax situations, and business travelers because I know that world and know that they are busy and can have complex tax situations as well.

Hopefully some day in the future we can convince you to give us a try!

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