How SoloSuit Grew to 400 Paying Customers a Month at $197 Per Case Fighting Debt Collectors (Interview with Founder George Simons)

Introduction and What SoloSuit Does

Nathan Latka

00:00Hey, folks. My guest today is George Simons. He started solosuit in his first year of law school, and he needed an attorney but couldn't find one. He graduated with his JD and MBA from BYU in his spare time, and he loves to cook because he loves to eat. Now helping people fight debt collectors, again, at solosuit.com. George, you're ready take us to the top?

George Simons

00:17>> Yeah. Happy to be So

Nathan Latka

00:19what does this look like? Like, who is the main sort of consumer you're supporting to help fight debt collectors?

Who SoloSuit Helps and How

George Simons

00:25>> Yeah. The main person that we help are people that are being sued for debt lawsuit, right? So when somebody gets sued for debt, they get on Google or YouTube and they search how do I respond to debt collection lawsuit, and then they find solosuit in those search results, then we walk them through the process and give them the help they need.

Nathan Latka

00:45But is this a particular kind of debt, like a home mortgage they're laid on or credit card debt or something else or what?

Scale of Debt Lawsuits in the US

George Simons

00:52>> Yeah. Ten million people are sued for debt every year in The US. Nine million of them automatically lose their case because they can't figure out how to respond. So we're targeting those nine million people and make it easier to respond.

01:04>> That said, usually most people that are coming to us, they're in credit card debt.

Nathan Latka

01:10So I guess how do you help them?

George Simons

01:14>> Yeah. Let's say somebody's being sued for like $3,700 in debt. Our average is actually $4,700

01:26>> They'll come to our site, they walk through our process, they can generate their response documents, respond to the lawsuit for free on our website, then they pay us to have an attorney review the document and then to file the document for them. So

01:44>> before solosuit, they're just being sued. They're going to lose their lawsuit automatically because they can't figure out how to respond. Then when they find solosuit, they're able to respond properly within their deadline and block the lawsuit. And then usually

60% of Cases Dismissed by Filing an Answer

George Simons

02:01>> around 60%, even more of the time, customers cases get dismissed, and they they actually win their case just by filing an answer.

Pricing: $197 Flat Per Case

Nathan Latka

02:10And so what does what what do I have to pay you to file that and review it?

George Simons

02:15>> A $197.

Nathan Latka

02:16Okay. No matter what. If it's a $100 in debt versus a $100 in debt, it's still Yeah.

George Simons

02:20>> That's right. We just have a currently, we just have a flat flat rate business model. Price is subject to change, but right now, it's they pay us a $197.

Nathan Latka

02:29Fair disclosure. I like that. That's creative. Okay. When did you when did you start cranking on this thing? When did write the first line of code?

Founding Story and Launch Timeline

George Simons

02:35>> We officially launched in 2018 when I was a law student, and then solosuit was just a free service

Nathan Latka

02:45Until what year?

George Simons

02:48>> 2019, it was totally free. And then in 2019, still when I was in school, we found that filing a legal document is insanely difficult. People, even once they generated their document on our site, a lot of people didn't file because it was just too hard to file a document in court. So we offered a filing service, paid filing service in 2019, and then I went full time on the project once I graduated in April 2020, right

03:22>> after the COVID shutdowns.

Nathan Latka

03:23Mhmm.

03:24And then, so, I mean, give me a sense of scale. Right? How many, I guess, lawsuits did you process in 2020?

George Simons

03:32>> Lawsuits processed in 2020,

03:37>> Good you question. I'm not super sure. Right now, we let me see. At the moment, we've done over we've helped over 22,000 people, and we've helped protect over a $100,000,000 from predatory debt lawsuits.

Nathan Latka

03:53Mhmm. So what does that mean? You've helped twenty two twenty two thousand or 2,200?

George Simons

03:57>> Yeah. It's 22,000 people have made accounts with solosuit.

Nathan Latka

04:02Got it. I imagine everyone who makes an account, though, doesn't actually file paperwork. How many have you actually, like, filed and saved a 100,000,000 for?

George Simons

04:13>> I don't have that number top of mind.

Nathan Latka

04:15Why don't you I mean, isn't that, like, the number one thing you're tracking in terms of success rate?

George Simons

04:18>> How do not have that number? I have the accounts that we've, people have made with our service and then

04:29>> how much money we're saving them on each debt lawsuit.

Nathan Latka

04:33But don't save them money unless they actually file, like, have you review, pay you the fee, and you help them file. Correct?

Current Customer Volume: 400 Paying Customers a Month

George Simons

04:39>> Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Like, currently, we help, like, 400 paying customers a month. That's what we're doing.

Nathan Latka

04:46Oh, wow. That's a lot. Okay. So you have, like so, I mean, can I take 400 times 12 last year? I mean, you helped, what, 4,000 or so during COVID, you know, fight back against debt lawsuits?

George Simons

04:56>> Yep. Yep. I don't have the aggregate number top of mind.

Nathan Latka

05:00Okay. But right now, your run rate is, you know, like, 400, 4,100 in October.

George Simons

05:04>> That's right.

Nathan Latka

05:05Interesting. Now is there a model here where you can go from mean, obviously, getting one know, a $197, 400 times a month is what? $80,000 in revenue. But it's really hard for you to, like, hire people and build a real company unless you have revenue you can sort of plan on. So is there a model here where it can turn into recurring or no, not really?

Predictable Revenue Without Subscriptions

George Simons

05:23>> This might sound absolutely bonkers these days. We think recurring revenue is a little bit overrated, and our revenue, I think, is very predictable. People are getting sued at the same rate every month. They have been for decades. So we consider our revenue to be very predictable, even though it isn't technically monthly recurring revenue.

Nathan Latka

05:47Okay, got it. Feel like I mean, look, by the way, the only reason SaaS is a popular business model is because it's predictable revenue, so you can make investments. I don't care if it's called SaaS or not, but point being is you can't build solosuit and build other products you want to build without knowing where your money's coming from next month. Your argument is it might be a different 400 people, but you're always going to have

06:04400, 500, 600 people coming to you every month.

George Simons

06:06>> That's exactly right. Interesting.

SEO as the Primary Growth Channel

Nathan Latka

06:08How are you getting those 400 to you?

George Simons

06:09>> Is it

Nathan Latka

06:10all an SEO play?

George Simons

06:12>> Yeah. Pretty much. Yep. Nearly a 100% of our customers come to us from SEO. We focus on ranking first on Google search and YouTube search.

Nathan Latka

06:22Mhmm. And what are some of the like, your top keyword that brings you the most new customers?

George Simons

06:28>> You know, pretty predictably, it's, like, how to respond to a debt collection lawsuit.

Nathan Latka

06:33So, like, if I go well, that's a long start. What do people actually type in to Google?

George Simons

06:37>> Sometimes they type in, like, just that, you know, like, the respond to debt collection lawsuit or or, like, debt collection lawsuit or how to respond. We focus on, like, the long tail keywords as a lot of people do because it's people that are further along in their decision making process that will search, like, the longer tail keywords.

Nathan Latka

06:55Yeah. That's great. And I just typed I just typed in debt collection lawsuit response, and under all the ads, you guys come up. Number first, how to answer a summons for debt collection.

George Simons

07:02>> Yep. Not paying anything for it. Underneath all the ads. It's where we wanna be.

Nathan Latka

07:06Yeah. Exactly. How did you get so good at SEO? I mean, you were, like, a a lawyer.

George Simons

07:11>> Yeah. I actually

Nathan Latka

07:15How did I get good at SEO?

George Simons

07:16>> You know, it or else did you hire someone? We do it. Yeah. Kind of a crazy story. Then one summer before law school, I figured, I'm just going to take crazy Craigslist jobs and see what kind of crazy job I can get off of Craigslist. And I sifted through a lot of scams, lot of bizarre jobs. There's this one lady who wanted help moving her trampoline. And then I found

07:42>> a lot of people were searching for content writers on Craigslist, pretty bottom of the barrel content writing gigs. Took some of those and got interested in writing content. And then from there, I worked with another Y Combinator company doing content for them. And I think that's probably where I got most of my

08:03>> training. They had a great SEO marketing channel and really learned how they were doing it. And then from there, applied that

Nathan Latka

08:11to Which channel is that so my listeners can go learn too?

George Simons

08:16>> The the company I was working for was Simple Citizen. They they just have a they used SEO very well to drive revenue.

Nathan Latka

08:23Okay. Got it. But you I thought you said there was a channel you watched where you learned?

George Simons

08:27>> I mean no. I mean, Simple Citizens, one of their channels for acquiring customers was SEO.

Nathan Latka

08:33Oh, I see.

George Simons

08:34>> Got it. One of the marketing channels. Yeah. Don't provide, like, tutorials or anything.

Team Size and Engineering

Nathan Latka

08:37So what how many folks are on your team today?

George Simons

08:40>> We're just a team of six.

Nathan Latka

08:43Oh, I love that. That's very cool. Okay. And so what's the split? Like, what's the how many engineers?

George Simons

08:48>> We have two engineers, and then we have a few people on operations. So people that are doing,

08:58>> like, actually, like, file the orders that come in. And then I'm doing

Nathan Latka

09:02So it's not all automated. There's some manual work.

George Simons

09:05>> Yep, cool.

Growth Rate Year Over Year

Nathan Latka

09:06Yeah, interesting. Okay, and in terms of growth rate, mean, you're doing like 400 new customers a month today, do you remember where you were a year ago?

George Simons

09:14>> What was a year ago? November 2020?

09:19>> Yeah, I think we were publicly doing We

09:24>> were on TechCrunch, startup Battlefield last year around that time, and we were doing 15,000 revenue.

Nathan Latka

09:32No, No. I mean, how many do you remember how many customers that you were well, I mean, I guess I can take 15,000 divided by one seventy nine. So what is that? You were doing, like, eighty, ninety responses per month?

George Simons

09:40>> Yeah. I don't remember exactly how many customers we were doing, but that sounds about right.

Y Combinator and Fundraising

Nathan Latka

09:43Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've it sounds like more than four x, which is great. So so it sounds like you've mentioned YC. You mentioned disrupt. So have you raised capital?

George Simons

09:52>> Yeah. We raised money. Yep. We went through Y Combinator beginning of this year, and we've done what we call a seed round.

Nathan Latka

10:01And how much did you raise?

George Simons

10:03>> We've raised less than 1,000,000 so far.

Why Raise at All: Capital as Derisking

Nathan Latka

10:05Okay. Why'd you need the capital? Mean, why do need to raise for something like this? Why not just keep it, print money for yourself, get rich?

George Simons

10:10>> Yeah. Yeah. Certainly could have done that. I think raising money in my mind is a form of derisking venture. I think some people think that it increases the risk, but for us, I see it as a form of derisking.

Nathan Latka

10:25Why is that?

George Simons

10:26>> Because

10:27>> it allows for more of a cushion for the team. It it increases our runway and also allows us to grow faster as well. So think it's both of you But doesn't

Nathan Latka

10:38it doesn't mean you actually you have to grow faster? I mean, doesn't it make you just go faster either up or faster down? It actually decreases your ability to do something long term.

George Simons

10:46>> I don't think so. No, I don't believe that is what happens necessarily. I think a lot of people raise money and then they feel like they have to spend that money quickly. I think that's oftentimes a pressure that people put on themselves, unless it's like a later stage raise where they're giving up

11:08>> control of the company with a board seat or something like that. I think in early stage fundraising, I think that the founder is maintaining control of the company. If they want to spend that money really fast, then they can, or otherwise they can

11:25>> spend it slower to do more controlled growth.

Nathan Latka

11:30We certainly like controlled growth, but the second you take a dollar, you are, like, officially on the VC track. And so if you're not raising every twelve to eighteen months, the market's going, what the hell is wrong with these people? What's going on? There must be something wrong with them.

George Simons

11:42>> Sure. And, you know, I think there's companies out there that have raised money and then gone silent for years.

Nathan Latka

11:48Name name a couple or name one.

George Simons

11:52>> I think

11:55>> Zapier comes to mind. I'm not super familiar with their background, but I believe Zapier followed a path, like, where they raised the series a. And then I think they were kind of quiet for a while, and they have a multibillion dollar valuation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm fact checking myself, but I think that's the situation.

Nathan Latka

12:14That that that is one good model. It's just this one in 10,000. So, like, the likelihood like, one one thing I always wonder getting in the heads of founders like you is, like, the likelihood of building, like, a 5 to $10,000,000 business. That's a great lifestyle for you where you can, like, print money, get rich, do what you want. It's way easier to do that than it is to go build the next Zapier. Right? Or the

12:34flip side of Zapier is to go build the like, a company that raises 200,000,000 in IPOs for, you know, 2,000,000,000. Right? It's just there's less likelihood you can execute that.

George Simons

12:43>> Interesting. Yeah. That's a fair point. I think on the other hand, I think raising money has also been great for, at the same time, allowing to grow faster than we would have thought. Mhmm. Allowing us to make, like, preemptive hires.

Nathan Latka

12:55Yep. Yep. No. That's fair. That's fair. So sit okay. Six folks on the team today, a million bucks raised, pre seed round. What what's who's the next hire gonna make?

George Simons

13:04>> Next hire is more engineers. And

Automating Court Filing at Scale

Nathan Latka

13:08what kind of code will you be building? I mean, can you automate some of this filing stuff?

George Simons

13:12>> Yeah. Yeah. Most of the filing stuff's already automated. What we're doing is we are,

13:22>> according to my knowledge, the first and only company that is compiling a software stack that allows us to calculate the filing information for different courts and then to file on those courts. There's thousands of courts. Nobody actually knows how many courts there are in The US. Our estimate is there's, like, 10 to 30,000 courts in The US, and we are quickly becoming the company that can file all of those courts.

The Ethics of Fighting Debt Collectors

Nathan Latka

13:52How do you feel about this? And this might be slightly controversial, but, I mean, if someone went out and spent unrealistically and put $5 on their credit card that they cannot afford and they're getting sued, I mean, shouldn't don't they owe that money? Why would you wanna help them get out of that? Shouldn't they pay that back? They spent the money.

George Simons

14:07>> Yeah. For for a few reasons. So one, we aren't necessarily we aren't the judge, right? Solosuit is not the judge. We are empowering consumers to get access to justice in courts. And it's still up to the court to decide what justice is, but there's a huge power asymmetry, just mind blowing power asymmetry in the debt collection lawsuits currently, and we are seeking to even the playing fields. In the news, I think we oftentimes think of lawsuits

14:40>> that we hear about where an individual is going and suing a multi billion dollar corporation. You have a customer that sues McDonald's. But what we don't oftentimes hear about as much is where these multi billion dollar corporations are actually suing a lone consumer. Right? It's like we have customers that are being sued by Discover Bank. Right? It's like Nancy Smith

Nathan Latka

15:03is going to a loan. Get I get all of that. I get my point is if Nancy Smith spent money she knew she didn't have, she's contractually signed a credit card agreement, why don't these these people should the people should pay what they spent? I mean, that's like, why shouldn't they be sued?

George Simons

15:18>> I'm totally fine with them being sued. They have a right to fight back. And I think regardless of whether or not she owes that money, we are very happy to provide her the support that she needs to get access to justice in court and to, like, fight for her own rights in court.

Nathan Latka

15:36I I'm just trying to understand what what grounds would anyone have to stand on if they spent money they can't pay back to the bank. To me, that feels like what you're doing is effectively empowering. There is a power imbalance. You're empowering consumers, but it's something just feels wrong to me. If someone signed and basically said, yes. I'll pay this money back. They buy whatever they buy, and then they don't. Banks should sue them all day

15:54long.

George Simons

15:55>> Yep. So, I mean, what what happens here oftentimes that we see is because of the power asymmetry, there's a lot of underhanded moves from the debt collectors. There's a lot of ways that they throw in additional money that the customer doesn't actually owe.

Nathan Latka

16:11Oh, see.

George Simons

16:12>> I see. For starters, according to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, about fifty percent of people that are sued for debt say they're being sued for debt they don't owe. So they legit say, I don't even owe this debt at all. 0% of this debt do I owe? They're suing the wrong person or the debt's fabricated, anything along those lines. And then on top of that, so that's for starters, fifty percent of people are being sued for debt

16:35>> at all.

Nathan Latka

16:36Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense to me.

George Simons

16:37>> And then on top of that, debt collectors will add on attorney's fees that oftentimes can be overly expensive. So these attorney's fees range from $300 up to, I've seen administrative attorney's fees in the range of $9,000 a just to file a complaint in court. Mhmm. That's charging too much in these attorney's fees. Mhmm. And then I found necessarily that

Nathan Latka

17:09This this isn't necessarily in the bank. And the bank is pacing like, handing off this bad debt to a debt collector who's trying to get 10¢ on the dollar, and they keep x, and the bank gets, something lower. It's really the person in between the bank and the consumer.

George Simons

17:19>> Yeah. Yeah. They might do that. The bank the bank can add on attorney's fees as well. The either the debt collector or the original creditor can add on these attorney's fees and bring the lawsuit.

Nathan Latka

17:28Okay.

George Simons

17:28>> Interesting. So that's added on. And then also, there's, like, huge amounts of post judgment interest. So if you lose the lawsuit, then you have to pay post judgment interest, which is, like, super high. Oftentimes, like, five to 10% as far as I as far as I know.

Nathan Latka

17:43Well, I love fighting back against all those things. That that makes sense.

George Simons

17:46>> Yep. So those fees those fees add up add up quickly.

Famous Five Rapid Fire Questions

Nathan Latka

17:51Yep. Yep. Very cool, man. Alright. Well, this is good stuff. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?

George Simons

17:58>> Favorite business book.

18:03>> Well, I'd probably go back to classics. Go go to seven habits, Stephen Covey.

Nathan Latka

18:08Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?

George Simons

18:14>> CEO that I'm following or studying?

18:22>> Yes, there definitely is. I mean, I think about Ryan Smith at Qualtrics quite a bit. He's here from Utah as well. Yep. Definitely like what he did with Qualtrics.

Nathan Latka

18:33Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building solosuit?

George Simons

18:38>> Probably Ahrefs is what I come to the most. Big fan of Ahrefs for, like, SEO research.

Nathan Latka

18:45Number four. How many hours of sleep do get every night?

George Simons

18:48>> I get lots of sleep. I definitely believe How many hours, George? I get eight to nine.

Nathan Latka

18:54Okay. Fair. And situation, married, single kids?

George Simons

18:59>> Married with one child. Just turned one this week.

Nathan Latka

19:02Oh, that's super exciting. Congratulations, man.

George Simons

19:04>> Yeah.

Nathan Latka

19:05How old are you?

George Simons

19:07>> You know, I'm I'm old enough that I kinda forget how old I am. I think I'm 32.

Nathan Latka

19:1132. What do mean? That's not old. Come on. 32. Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20.

George Simons

19:16>> Wow. The entrepreneurship wasn't lame. I was not into entrepreneurship when I was born.

Nathan Latka

19:24Coming from a lawyer, he's much cooler now that he's building his own thing. Guys, there we have it, solosuit.com, helping consumers fight back, you know, really evening the power imbalance between banks and credit card owners who are being sued for, call it debt that they may or may not actually owe. They're processing on average 400 of these cases per month. They charge 197 per case of, call it $80,000 a month in revenue, up from 15,000 a

19:46month just a year ago. More importantly though, again, have a vision for sort of continuing to empower these folks, the number one growth channel, SEO and inbound. We'll see where they go next after they've raised they just raised here $1,000,000 pre seed round to hire more people team of six today. George, thanks for taking us to the top.

George Simons

20:00>> Thanks, Nathan.

Nathan Latka

20:03One more thing before you go. We have a brand new show every Thursday at 1PM Central. It's called Shark Tank for SaaS. We call it deal or bust. One founder comes on, three hungry buyers, they try and do a deal live and the founder shares back end dashboards, their expenses, their revenue, ARPU CAC, LTV, you name it, they share it and the buyers try and make a deal live. It is fun to watch every Thursday, 1PM

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