Simplifying Estate Settlement with AI with Dan Stickel

Russ Fordyce 🏆 (00:00.949) Welcome back to the Winner Circle. I am here today with Dan. He is the CEO of Estate Exec. And this is a problem all of us are going to face. How do you deal with estate taxes and what's going on, or not estate taxes, with an estate? And how do you deal with it? And this is something personal to me because we're kind of in the middle of it now. So Dan, welcome and congratulations on the award. Dan Stickel (00:21.602) Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (00:22.945) So for those of us that don't know a state exec, give us a little elevator pitch and a little background on you. Dan Stickel (00:29.934) So, EstateExec is online software that helps estate executors settle the estates. You know, whenever somebody dies, their estate has to be settled by law. Lots of people talk about estate planning and wills and trusts and all the rest of that, but all of that is optional. What's not optional is that your estate must be settled. And so for centuries, nothing has really changed in this industry. And Charles Dickens wrote a famous book about it, in fact. where the lawyers took all the gigantic estate over time. But now with modern technology, we can help. so, a state exec provides step-by-step detailed instructions for your particular state and your jurisdiction, dealing with your content and your situation. And then it helps you organize the estate and keep track of all the accounting and generate the required financial reports and that sort of thing. So that's what a state exec is. We're really the pioneer and the leader in this space. And sometimes we work with lawyers, sometimes we don't. Now you asked me to introduce myself a little bit. I got into this space when my own parents passed away separately, individually. But I was the executor for each of their states. And when I first got involved, I thought, listen, I have an undergraduate and a graduate degree from Harvard University. I've been the CEO of large software companies. I'm pretty competent. I think I can handle this. But as I got into it, I realized it was so disorganized and so convoluted and so complicated. It was not straightforward at all. It's a lot of work. And I thought, well, I'll just build some online, I'll build some Google Dan Stickel (02:18.968) and we'll pull it, no. And over time I realized this is a mess. And given my background of starting software companies and being in Silicon Valley, I'm in a really good position to actually do something about this and help the world get through this kind of thing. So we started the company over 10 years ago now. And when we started, there really wasn't a lot of AI going on at all. And so for me to have been able to ride this wave as AI came to the fore, it's really unlocked and unleashed so much power, so much capability that we can do so much more than I ever envisioned when we started. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (03:05.107) It's so enabling AI. I found the same thing in this business. It really allows you just to take on new roles and to do things you never thought you could. Dan Stickel (03:16.002) Well, you know, I'll give you one stupid quick example. Everybody's familiar with chat bots at this point. Maybe they loathe them or love them, whatever it is. But when we started, it was very, we wrote tons of documentation on a state settlement, how to do it, what your duties are, how to use the software. But for people to find the relevant documentation, virtually impossible. And Most people don't remember back then, text search was difficult. You know, it was a lot of work to try to build some sort of index or something that you could do and to understand what the user's context was and what they were really looking for. Forget it. You know, at best you were looking for like keyword searches. And so we had all this content that was just locked up and hardly anyone could find it. Other than the dedicated users who wanted to read every page of the guide and become an expert. And just directing these chat bots to our particular content, know, setting up our own vector databases and so forth, unlocked all of that. Suddenly, everybody had their own private personal tutor. It was groundbreaking for us because if you think about it, when people become an executor, most of them have never done it before. They have no idea what to do. We could build the best software. We could build the Microsoft Word of estate settlement or TurboTax of estate settlement, whatever you want to call it. But people only do it once or twice. They don't come in here and everyday practice and learn more about the software and become expert users at it and look forward to logging in everyday. No, for almost everybody it's their first time. How difficult is that? We can make the software as easy to use as possible and it's still gonna be challenging for some people because everybody comes at these things with their own mental models of how things should work. Dan Stickel (05:15.35) And so just that alone unlocked amazing things for us because we're always dealing with neophytes. Well, not always, we do have law offices that use us too. They do become experts in practice over time. But still, that and that is just the tip of the iceberg. And then, you know, as we go through this conversation, I'll talk more about the use of AI in other ways. But that alone was earth shattering for us. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (05:42.815) Well, you start from a very real truth that everybody dies and somebody has to deal with the aftermath. You know, if somebody is not using the state exec, and again, I've been through this recently, my brother as the executor, what does that kind of experience look like today? All I've seen is delays and confusion and everything else. Dan Stickel (06:03.938) Well, you know, there are gonna be some delays no matter what you want or do because there are built-in delays into the legal system. Typically, it takes about a year and a half to settle an average estate. You can accelerate that a little bit, but not a lot, and it can extend for many, many years if you have a complicated estate or things go wrong or something like that. So typically when someone passes away, their next of kin steps up to settle the estate. And maybe they were nominated in the will, maybe they weren't. Most people don't even have a will, so that's frequently not the case. But they step up and there's all sorts of things you have to do. You have to secure the house so well-meaning neighbors or untrusty caregivers or even family members don't help themselves to things. You have to notify the IRS that you are going to be handling this. You have to submit the last year's tax return of this person. You have to figure out what their assets even were. You have to figure out what their debts are. Part of this process is, and these rules vary. by state to state, part of the process is you have to publish what's known oftentimes as a notice to creditors so that people who the deceased owed money to are aware of the death and have a chance to contact you and get that resolved. You have to notify the heirs. There's so much to do. It's not that bad, but there's a lot to do. If you've never done it before, it can get very confusing. So in the old days, what people would have to do is they would find a local probate lawyer and that person would kind of guide them through this process. But you know, hiring a probate lawyer for a state settlement is like hiring in some ways an accountant for income taxes. You know, you don't just hire the tax accountant and then walk away, okay, I'm playing golf. Dan Stickel (08:05.484) No, the first thing that happens is that tax account says, all right, here's what I need you to do. I need all this information. Go through your records, collect it all, put it in the format that I can understand and that I want. Then I'll do some things. I have some more questions for you. tight. Estate settlements like that only on steroids. So just hiring this probate attorney, that's great, but it doesn't even do everything. And the probate attorney is pretty much usually focused on the court interactions. but you have to do things like clean out the house, maybe hold an estate sale. There's so many other things that you have to do. So anyway, in the old days, you would go to the probate attorney and there would be a little bit of natural tension there between who's gonna do what and you can have the best probate attorney in the world and still. the clients are gonna have some issues. They're gonna be confused and wonder what's going on and the pro-aid attorney isn't gonna drop everything every time they have a question and call them back. you know, so there's some difficulty there, some built-in difficulties. And so now with software like the State Exec, you can potentially just do this all on your own. The software is always there for you any time of night or day. It does all sorts of amazing things. And you can do this at your own pace. If you are a user of TurboTax, this is definitely something that you would want to do. Not that it's submitting tax forms, but I'm just giving you an analogy here. But. Many people still do want a lawyer involved for good reason and they don't want to be involved with going to court or submitting the forms. That's a part of the process. It's not the whole thing, but it's an important part oftentimes. Dan Stickel (09:54.049) And so we have an online sharing capability so that users can coordinate and cooperate with other team members, whether it's an accountant or a lawyer or a co-executor or whatever it is that you want to cooperate with. So nowadays there's really four ways to settle in a state. Number one, hire a probate attorney, do it the old fashioned way. it's the most expensive, but you get the most handholding. Number two, there are a few, what I would call managed services that are available nowadays where companies have hired in-house lawyers. And so you go to them. It's kind of like the first example where you hire a probate attorney, that's like hiring your own personal tax accountant in the income tax analogy. Number two, you could go to a managed service. That's like H &R Block. So there are a couple of companies out there that have their in-house lawyers and they'll help you with this. Maybe they're a little less expensive. One of them I'm thinking of as a minimum $9,000 fee. you know, maybe you can save a little bit of money because lawyers, probate lawyers could be $20,000 or you whatever the situations vary. But anyway, so there's managed services. Number three, you can do this with online software like a state exec. Or supplement the other two with online software so that when you have a question of the lawyer, you don't have to bother that lawyer and run up another $300 bill. Every time you have a question and want an answer, you can get your answers that way. Or you want to supplement things where you're keeping track of the estate expenses and they're keeping track of the court forms. And you can divvy it up however makes sense for you. The fourth option. Dan Stickel (11:46.497) is just old fashioned, hardcore, do it yourself, I'm going to the library, I'm gonna sit in on some court cases, I'm gonna figure this out. You know, if you value your time at all, it's not a good way to go. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (12:00.147) That does not sound appealing. Dan Stickel (12:03.628) No, no. So those are the four ways states are settled. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (12:08.618) Excuse me. Now, you're talking about a time when most of us are dealing with grief. Maybe your judgment isn't as clear as it should be. So something like your tool would be really helpful. What do you find are kind of the most common mistakes people are making when they're trying to handle an estate? Dan Stickel (12:31.086) You know what's funny? I'm going to say that one of the most common things is to try to jump right into it and get to it. it's like, oh, I know I need to get this distributed or I know I need to apply for a probate. And when you jump into those things that you know about, you're going out of sequence. You don't know what you're supposed to have done before. You haven't been gradually building up your knowledge. So we have this series of tasks that gradually lead people through how to be an executor, how to use the tool, how to get things done. And applying for probate might be like step 27. I don't really know, but it's not the first thing that you do. yet people try to jump in all the time and then they get confused by things. The thing that's funny is conversely the second most common mistake is just not to do it. You know, just not to deal with it. I'm so distraught and this is so complicated. I'll do it tomorrow. And that goes on and on. And you know, sometimes people think they can do it themselves and you know, they struggle through it and eventually they come and they find a state exec and they're all, thank God you can help me. I have to submit this accounting report and I have no idea what that means or how to do it. And haven't been keeping the proper records. I wish I had. I think the record we had for that, the person had been trying to probate the estate for 20 years. and came to us with like stacks of records like, help me. You know, obviously that's an extreme example, but it is ironic that the two most common things are to jump into things that you don't know about or to just not do it. We need the kind of Goldilocks middle solution here. Let's just do things in order and realize that there are some deadlines, but for the most part, you got to just sit back, take stock of the situation. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (14:03.936) Ugh. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (14:12.192) or to put it off. Dan Stickel (14:28.972) grieve, there's not an urgent reason that you're going to distribute everything in the first week and you can't. And so just take your time a little bit and then gradually go through this process. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (14:41.354) Well, so how does a state exec actually move beyond kind of that answering questions almost that chat GPT? What am I going to do? How do I do this to actually kind of managing the process? Dan Stickel (14:50.508) Well, I would say that it's almost the reverse where chat GPT is a backstop for us, where somebody has a question or they're confused about something and they can ask it. Not chat GPT, but our own AI, Lenore. And really the central thing that we have is this list of customized tasks. that are specifically for you and your estate. It depends on where you live. It depends on where the estate is domiciled. It depends on if there's real property. It depends on the value of the property. It depends on a variety of different, what's in the will. It depends on all sorts of circumstances. And these tasks will do everything from trying to calm you down, to introduce you to the fact that you should lock up the house and notify the housekeeper or the caregiver to, it's time to notify the IRS. that you're going to be handling this estate and now it's time to decide if you need to apply for a probate or not because a large number of states never have to go through probate. Every state has their own rules about what's considered small estate. And you say small, but it could be a million dollar estate and still qualify. And so there's all these steps and you just go through these steps one by one. And just like TurboTax, we have a wizard mode. where it leads you by the nose, okay, now let's do this, lots of pictures, or we have an expert mode where there's just a list and you can work on whatever you want. Within that context, then when you're like, don't really understand something or I know there should be a task on this, there's not. That's when you can ask the questions of our AI bot, but we're not dependent on that at all. And we use AI, I mean, that is very helpful use of AI, but we use AI for other things too. For example, in the early stages, if you have a will, we'll read that will and analyze it. And then we will automatically populate your estate. Dan Stickel (16:57.788) the heirs that are mentioned in the will? How much of the residual estate are they supposed to get? Who's named the executor? Are there any bequests in the will? Are there any assets that we can extract all this information and pull it in so you don't have to? And you know, that's a time saver. but also it's a good analysis for people who aren't really familiar with reading Wells. you know, I remember personally being involved in one where the guy totally misinterpreted what the will was saying. And he had, it had all these contingent beneficiaries, but there was one little sentence at the top that said everything goes to this trust or something. And he missed that. So he's busy trying to give everybody all the estate. No, no, that's totally wrong. And so, That's the beginning use of AI, is to pull everything out of the will if there happens to be one. And then there's other uses of AI throughout the product too. For example, while you're administering the estate, there are financial transactions that occur. There's bills that you're paying, there's checks that you're writing to resolve debts, there's income that may be being generated through interest or capital gains from sales that you make, all sorts of things. And we provide a simple checkbook-like register where you can keep track of all that, but we also will automatically link to your bank. And so it can download those transactions for you automatically and categorize them. Now, when you, everybody's used to getting their credit card statements. Here's what you spent on travel. Here's what you spent on eating out. Here's what you spent on other things. Dan Stickel (18:46.338) But that's not what a state accounting cares about. A state accounting cares about other types of categories that we have to figure out. And it's another use of AI for us, which is we believe this is a payment of a debt that the estate had. Or we believe this is an estate administration expense. Or we believe this is the distribution that you're making to somebody. And so we pull that down and we suggest it. And then usually people just say, it looks good, and they accept it. If they disagree or we've misinterpreted something, then they just override it with what it actually is and go on from there. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (19:23.53) Well, you guys have done something pretty amazing, which is you've tipped your toe into this process. And that process is really different in every state, every province that you go to. How did you manage the complexity of all the different laws? Dan Stickel (19:37.539) Well, you're right, it is complicated. There are areas of the law that are completely different in each state. There's maybe some similarities in some states, but one area is executor compensation. So it's a lot of work to administer and settle in a state. And because of that, every state has laws that say you are entitled to a share of the estate because of the work you're doing. The way they calculate that though varies dramatically from state to state. In California, there's these tiers and it goes by the value of the estate. In some state, it goes by how many hours of work you put into it. In other states, the real estate counts as the value only if it's sold and only if you had to sell it to satisfy debts. And so it just goes on and on. And so every state has different rules. And so we had to program that in so that we understand what the state is, and then we can automatically analyze all your transactions in the state and figure out what your compensation should likely be. We don't use AI for that. You know, it's probably possible to do that, but you know, you can't really get it wrong. We can't make a mistake on that kind of a thing. There's other things that vary from state to state, like what are the family entitlements? If there's a surviving family, are they entitled to an allowance from the estate while it's being settled? Does that allowance get deducted from their share or is it just off the top for everybody? So there's all sorts of these custom rules. And we had to go through and get the practices from the lawyers, read the statutes. We talked about AI Lenore before. There's a lot of problems with these AI bots with hallucinations. Dan Stickel (21:33.935) And so we only have her analyzing the human generated content that we've created. And then we always link back to the source just in case, because even our bot is not always right. But you know what? Neither are people. Is she perfect? No. But no human I could hire would be perfect either. So it links to the underlying sources and you can go and check and read those things yourself. So that applies to the tasks for the most part. We talked a little bit about the accounting with the executive compensation, but most of the accounting, thankfully, is uniform across all the states. There's very little that differs from the basics of the accounting. And so that gave us courage and belief that we could extend into other countries. So we went into Canada because Canadians kept asking us to do that. And we had been telling everybody for years, well, know, the steps are different, obviously, from province to province, but you could use the accountant because that's pretty much the same. And then when we started to get into it, we realized, my God, it sounds the same, but it's the complete opposite. I think you. Well, I will say they actually have better instructional materials than the U.S. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (22:48.704) It's just nicer up in Canada. Dan Stickel (23:00.152) But what I'm gonna talk about with this accounting is cost basis. Are you familiar with cost basis? So when you sell a stock, for example, you owe taxes on the income you've generated between the price you sold it for and the price you paid to keep it super simple. And in the US, there's this really cool thing called step up in cost basis. When you die, most of your capital assets get a step up in cost basis to the value they were at the time of death. So if your parent bought a house for 60,000 and it's now worth 500,000, you inherit that house with a cost basis of 500,000. So you like skip all those taxes that you might've had to pay. It's great. That doesn't apply to every type of asset. And so a state exec will automatically Russ Fordyce 🏆 (23:27.584) Wow. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (23:40.18) That's huge. Dan Stickel (23:46.873) apply its knowledge and step up the things it should or shouldn't and you can override any of this of course but we'll do that for you. In Canada there's also a step up in cost basis. What? The that it works is they have this thing called deemed disposition, which means when you die, their version of the IRS, the CRA, says, well, let's assume that you sold everything on that day of death. Let's just say, how much taxes would you have owed? Oh, good, that's what you owe. And so these people, and it has to be on the last income tax return of the decedent. So all of a sudden these people owe tons of taxes. There's no inheriting that house with a new cost basis. You got to pay the taxes on the gain from 60,000 to 500,000 right now before anything gets inherited. So you might not have wanted to sell the house. Now you have to. And so there's all sorts of complicated rules about deemed position and spousal exceptions and all the rest of that. But when we got into it, like, yeah, we know, step up on cost basis. no, it's completely, it's almost the opposite. So yeah, we had to program in some of those differences in the accounting too. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (25:02.976) Now, you had mentioned that it can take a year and a half to 20 years, and that other example of somebody dealing with being an executor and going through that estate. And I think you mentioned $9,000. What is the typical estate without estate exec? How much time and money are you generally spending? Dan Stickel (25:24.194) Well, you we did sort of a seminal study in this field and surveyed a bunch of people who had served as executors to try to get a feel for this. And it's been a while since I looked at those numbers. So I don't recall exactly what they are, but I would say I think on average they were spending about $12,000 on those sorts of fees and accounting fees. But, you know, it's been a few years since we did that study and a lot of inflation in the meantime. So it's probably, you 15, 16,000 by now. And that's for just a typical estate. The bigger estates, they're going to cost more likely. Now, there is this small estate carve out for many people. And what saves a lot of them is that things that are in IRAs or trusts or whatever with named beneficiaries don't have to go through the probate process. So if you are within the small estate limit not looking at those sorts of things, then you don't actually have to go through probate. And there's a small state process you can follow that limits your court interactions. Sometimes it eliminates your court interactions, sometimes it just reduces it. But, you know, it doesn't always work. In fact, I was talking to someone this morning who... was in a situation where they were exactly in that situation. The state was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but most of it were in assets that were gonna be automatically dispersed. And so the remainder would fit within the small estate process. But he went to one of the asset holders and they said, no, we're not doing anything unless you come back with the legal documents. And well, this small state affidavit is illegal. No, no, you need to be officially be appointed as executor. That's very common for banks to do that. And what are you going to do? It's the law. They're supposed to accept it. But are you going to personally sue Wells Fargo and go after them? No. And so they just force you to. So it's nice in theory to be able to skip probate. But sometimes even if you could have, you are forced to actually go through it. And it's not the end of the world either. It's not that hard. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (27:25.343) Right. Dan Stickel (27:40.417) you know, this person has had their whole life to collect up all sorts of entanglements and things and obligations. And so of course, it's going to be a little bit of work to untangle all that. But, you know, sometimes we see people lose themselves in it. You know, I had a relative who just became her obsession for a couple of years where she was just living to make sure the dead person's estate was perfectly handled. She forgot she was still the one that was alive. You know, she needs to live her life. And so we try to provide practical advice in this software that says, you could do more, but you don't have to. Live your own life. You know, the standard is not that you be superhuman. The standard is that you be a reasonably competent person with good intentions. And, you know, there is a lot of judgment that's involved in the process. It's not like a math equation where two plus two equals four. There's a lot of things that you have to apply your judgment to. And then the judge applies his or her judgment. And then the decision gruntles, heirs apply their judgment. And so, you know, it can be a stressful time. And it's common, unfortunately, for these situations to tear families apart, you know, because they think the other person's cheating or stealing or whatnot. And sometimes they are. But most of the time, it's just that the process takes so long and so complicated, the people who are expecting, well, just give me my $50,000. It's been a year. Why can't I have it? What are you doing with it? What's going on? so keeping the people informed is critical. And so a state exec is nice that it... Russ Fordyce 🏆 (29:08.126) I can't. Dan Stickel (29:19.21) makes everything elegantly clear what's happening and you could share access they can even log in and see or you know that's not always a good idea but we have our own special heirs guide so they can go in and look say now I understand what's happening or the executor can generate a financial accounting report and say here's where we are you know at the push of a button. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (29:39.264) Well, the $12,000 to $16,000 number you threw out seems to me like, you know, I don't know what the average size of an estate is, but I would imagine that's a sizable piece of it. And if you're spending that much, how does the state exact kind of reducing the hours and reducing the costs? Dan Stickel (29:57.603) Well, I would say that that number that I gave you is the professional fees. There are other fees too. So there's more than just that that gets involved in all of this. There could be court fees if you're going through probate, which aren't huge, they are something. There's the executor fee who takes stuff off the top. There are... you know, expenses you're gonna have to continue keeping the house maintained or to pay off the debts or I don't know, there's just, you know, when you hold an estate sale, If you don't do it all yourself, they're gonna take some fraction of the gains from all that. So it's more than just the number that you set. And in some cases, it's more than the estate is worth. And that's not good. But in most cases, if you're going through a probate, the estate is worth more than that. And it's... It's not enjoyable to spend that money, but it doesn't completely suck all the value out of the estate. So most of the time, if you are gonna go through a probate, even if you are paying that $14,000, $16,000, whatever it is, you're still gonna have money left over. But who wants to spend that much if you don't have to? So a state exec can help you in a lot of ways. First of all, if you decide to do it on your own, you're not gonna have any of those legal fees, right? You're gonna, you you're done. Well, you paid $199 for a state exec. That's a one-time fee. That's it. You you don't even notice. Or if you have hired a lawyer, Dan Stickel (31:50.401) you won't have to ask them as many questions. You you can look up things yourself and those asking questions aren't free. You know, the lawyer is like, spent one minute and 42 seconds answering this question, you know, 30 bucks. Yeah. So, you know, it's very helpful that way. And plus the lawyer appreciates it too, because they just want to get it done. They don't want to be bombarded with all your stupid questions, they think, and you know, you're second guessing them and all the rest of that. So, Russ Fordyce 🏆 (31:58.559) Right? Russ Fordyce 🏆 (32:02.726) rounded up to 15. Dan Stickel (32:19.342) You know, it can really, it can either eliminate those legal fees or it can reduce them as you cooperate and work together. I mean, there may be some things that the lawyer's willing to do. Don't worry, I'll keep track of all the accounting. $300 an hour, but no problem. Or you can say, listen, listen, you do the court paperwork, I'll keep track of the accounting. And you know, we'll call it even. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (32:41.076) Now, as we talked about, this is kind of a very stressful time for a lot of people. Usually it's a family member that you're an executive for. What sort of feedback are you getting from the users who go through this process? Dan Stickel (32:54.498) Well, you know, it's a, I was super impressed. You know, we have users that go to TrustPilot and leave reviews for us. I mean, they contact us too, but they go to TrustPilot and leave reviews there. And we don't have a process where we bombard you with requests for, you know, reviews. just, if you feel like leaving a review, figure it out. We just don't do that. And we have a 4.9 star rating on TrustPilot right now. which I was really impressed with. Now, I know some companies somehow have a process for managing that. There's a lot of companies out there that start talking about they have a 4.5 or a 4.8 or something like that. But really, I think we have one three-star rating and everything else is mostly fives. So they generally love it. They don't love the process of a state settlement. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (33:50.399) Right. Dan Stickel (33:50.659) but they understand that we really help them a lot. And that's the feedback that we generally get. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (33:59.083) Well, you're coming into this very legal, very financial process. And if you're not a lawyer or an accountant, you're thrown into the deep end. And it's got to be very confusing of how does the process work? I've been involved in a couple of legal cases. you're walking in blind. I'm a marketing guy. I'm not an attorney. Go ahead. Dan Stickel (34:17.89) Yeah, some of the people who would be really great candidates for using our tool also have a flip side to their personality though, which is that these are people who are, you know. You get the people who have no idea and they're grateful and they just do what the software says and they're happy. Then you get the people who are really smart and really knowledgeable and they just don't know about this particular thing. And so they come in here and say, well, this is how it should be done. You're doing it wrong. I want to organize it like this. And I don't really... And they can't get it through their head that, yeah, I suppose you could organize it like that, but that's not what we did. You got to do it the other way. You got to do it the other way if you're to use the software. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (34:57.192) Right. You're not in control. Dan Stickel (35:02.024) And, you know, I don't know if you ever took any physics classes, but, you know, sometimes in those courses, sometimes if you get the right analogy, the problem is super simple. Like, it's easy, three lines, I'm done. But if you don't figure out that like mental model, you're like, seven pages later, I'm still trying to figure, there's the answer. And, you know, once you get aligned with the estate exec model, you're like, got it, no problem. But, you know, some people, Russ Fordyce 🏆 (35:06.861) I stayed away with them like the plague. Dan Stickel (35:30.87) resist at first, and then they finally get it. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (35:34.688) Well, what surprised you most about how people use the platform? Dan Stickel (35:42.85) I don't know that I... Well, yeah, actually, they're using it wrong, but that's, you if it surprises me, that's not what we expected. You know, one of the things is we started off really with an accounting perspective. We're gonna help you organize this thing. Here's your assets and your debts, distributions, accounting... Russ Fordyce 🏆 (35:52.34) It happens all the time. Dan Stickel (36:04.022) And people wanted the, like, yeah, but what do I do? So we built up this whole task knowledge base and steps that I talked about. was tons of work. And it's always tons of work because the laws are changing and we need to keep those fresh and updated. And even if they weren't, the state sites that we link to constantly change their URLs and put no forwarding things. it's, you gotta stay on it. But. The most surprising thing is that people start trying to want to use it as a daily task manager. And that's not what we're doing. We were like, OK, you've got to file the taxes. You have to apply for probate. You have to notify the credit card companies. yeah, wake up early tomorrow and eat breakfast. There's plenty of to-do apps out there for that. And we can't be world class in every category. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (36:35.786) Mmm. Dan Stickel (36:56.524) But it's a struggle, you maybe we should just give in, say, all right, fine, that's what you want to do. We've got to put more effort into it. Russ Fordyce 🏆 (37:05.556) Dan, this is super interesting, super helpful for me. I'm going to turn my brother onto your platform. I know he needs some help right now dealing with an estate. And it seems like a no brainer. Just the complexity of it all and just not having an understanding. And you guys are really providing just that simple understanding of how the process works. And that's just super valuable to me. So congratulations again on the award. And thanks for joining the winner circle. Dan Stickel (37:29.593) Well, I appreciate it and thank you for having me.