When Evin Ollinger enrolled in the Envestnet | Yodlee® Incubator, he had a brilliant idea for a family collaboration app born from personal experience. Ollinger had stepped in to help his parents manage their finances, and in the process, discovered his 84-year-old father hadn't made a mortgage payment for three months. He began to unravel his parents' finances, finding different areas where they were overpaying or needlessly paying, and saved them $18,000 per year in unnecessary expenditures. Ultimately, this led to his creation of Golden, an app that lets adult children help manage their parents' finances. Ollinger learned firsthand that when adult children suddenly take charge of their parents' finances due to hospitalization, dementia, Alzheimer's or other causes, they often don't have a clue about their parents' financial state. With Golden, Ollinger hoped to make it easier for Baby Boomers to manage — and even improve — their parents' finances. But to do that, Ollinger needed access to their data and to make the right financial connections. Ollinger heard about the Envestnet | Yodlee Incubator and realized that this might be the best way to get what he needed, he applied for it. Incubator director Jeff Cain saw Golden's potential and invited the company to join the 2018 incubator class. Cain believed that Golden could tap an underserved market: the 50 million senior parents who were facing the rising costs of healthcare and other services, and the 75 million Baby Boomer children caring for those senior parents. In order to serve this market and manage parents' money on a daily basis, Golden needed seamless linking to mom's and dad's different financial accounts. And Golden could get all of that through the Incubator and the Envestnet | Yodlee Financial Data API. "As a startup, it would be impossible to do what our customers require of us without Envestnet | Yodlee — seamless account aggregation to over 18,000 financial data sources in a secure, robust, easily implemented, API," said Ollinger. "Envestnet | Yodlee allows Golden to connect adult children with their parents' finances in a secure, online, view-only way. For many adult children, this may be the first time they have ever seen their parents' financial picture — where they bank, their investments, and more," he said.
"As soon as we knew we needed data, we knew we needed Yodlee. It was a day one decision." – Evin Ollinger, CEO and founder of Golden.
Through the Incubator, Golden was able to get the data, the nurturing, the support, and the connections needed to tackle the market, win accounts, and deliver their family collaboration platform and services. With access to transactional data through the Envestnet | Yodlee Financial Data API and data analytics, Golden enables families to review and reduce bills and expenses and identify whether seniors qualify for government assistance. Through a wide range of partnerships, Golden is also able to provide related services such as fraud protection, legal assistance, and healthcare management. And because empathy is a core value for Golden, Ollinger made the app free to seniors whose income is less than the median senior income of $22,877. He knew that the families who stood to benefit from Golden most were the ones who could least afford it. Over the six-month Incubator program, Golden received help with running their marketing funnel, intellectual property protection, customer research, design thinking, public speaking practice, venture fundraising hacks, network connections, technical tools, and more. The Incubator also helped Golden refine their pitch to financial institutions and advisors and started connecting them with this audience. Today, Ollinger is successfully showing institutions and advisors how Golden can help retain assets during the largest generational wealth transfer in history. "Envestnet | Yodlee empowers Golden to connect with the largest financial institutions to solve their largest accounts under management threat, a $40 trillion wealth transfer where less than 10 percent of the wealth stays with the bank," said Ollinger. "Yodlee enables Golden to walk into the boardroom already linked to our target financial partners' accounts, showing data-driven impact and value, from the first demo keystroke to closing the deal." Golden also received a massive amount of attention from the FinTech community. A few months after graduating from the Incubator, Golden won Best of Show at FinovateFall 2018. "The Envestnet | Yodlee Incubator prepared us for the moment we walked on stage," said Ollinger. "Golden brought its market opportunity, the Incubator added the core Envestnet | Yodlee API, built our confidence, and connected us to their financial institution network. More importantly, the Incubator provided us with a lifeline to meet the technical and data-driven challenges of growing our startup." "With Golden, the Incubator did what we always do," said Cain. "We recognized a great entrepreneur and concept, introduced them to the right people, helped clarify their strategy and value proposition, connected them to the financial data they needed, and drove them forward."
"Golden is financial care for our 50M senior parents. Yodlee is financial care for us." – Evin Ollinger
Are you building something cool with financial data but looking for a way to accelerate your growth? Check out the Envestnet | Yodlee Incubator.
