Investment thesis
Starting with retirement. Expanding to every major financial choice.
Personal finances are opaque—not just in retirement, but right now.
| Question | Why it’s hard |
|---|---|
| “What’s my actual marginal tax rate?” | Federal + state + FICA + phase-outs of credits |
| “If I earn $5K more, how much do I keep?” | Might lose ACA subsidies, EITC, SNAP—could be negative |
| “Should I take this job offer?” | Different state taxes, benefits, 401k match, health insurance |
| “Can I afford to move?” | Property taxes, SALT cap, state income tax, cost of living |
| “What happens if we have a baby?” | CTC, CDCTC, EITC changes, Medicaid eligibility, childcare costs |
For low and middle-income households, the interaction of taxes AND benefits creates perverse incentives:
Earn $1 more → Lose $3 in benefits → Net: -$2
This happens at SNAP eligibility cliffs, Medicaid → ACA transition, EITC phase-out, CTC phase-out, ACA subsidy cliffs, housing assistance limits, childcare subsidy cliffs.
Nobody shows people these cliffs before they fall off them.
Financial advisors charge $5-10K/year to answer these questions—but their answers are often wrong:
People deserve probabilistic tools, not confident guesses from conflicted salespeople.
Millennials and Gen Z are 42% of the population but only 14% of advisory clients. They’re not avoiding financial planning—they’re avoiding the traditional model:
This generation wants to see the numbers themselves. Think Robinhood for financial planning.
EggNest answers “what if?” for major financial decisions with real tax and benefit math—not estimates. We start with retirement simulation, but the real opportunity is immediate decisions: job offers, relocations, and benefit cliff navigation.
People don’t think about uncertainty properly. They want a single number—“will I have enough?”—when the honest answer is a distribution. Financial advisors charge $5-10K/year to give people false confidence. Meanwhile, 42% of the population (Millennials + Gen Z) is underserved—they want to see the numbers themselves, like Robinhood showed with investing. We’re building the Robinhood for financial planning: real probabilistic tools, real tax math, no salespeople.
Build credibility with FIRE community. Prove the tax engine works.
Higher urgency, less competition, clearer value prop.
Python package + CLI. Let users own their financial data.
Expand geographically and deepen advisor relationships.
Our tax engine (transitioning from PolicyEngine to Cosilico) uses AI to encode legislation:
This is our moat. Competitors would need years to replicate.
The full picture, not just income tax:
True marginal rate—including benefit loss—for any family’s decisions.
2026 is the year of the filesystem. AI agents work with local files, not black-box APIs.
140M Americans (Millennials + Gen Z) are underserved by traditional advisors. They’re 42% of the population but only 14% of advisory clients. They don’t want to pay $5K/year for a black box—they want transparent tools they control.
| Decision | Annual volume | Realistic WTP | Accessible TAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job offers (multi-state) | ~5M/year | $20-50 | $100M |
| Benefit cliff navigation | ~10M affected | $0-20 (B2B funded) | $50M (B2B) |
| Retirement planning | 4M retiring/year | $50-100 | $200M |
| US addressable | $350M | ||
Single scenario, build awareness
Save scenarios, PDF export, priority support
White-label for HR platforms, benefits sites
We’ve analyzed 13+ competitors across 4 categories. Despite billions in cumulative funding and millions of users, none combine Monte Carlo simulation with real tax calculations.
Key insight: Every competitor uses tax estimates or ignores taxes entirely. None model benefit cliffs. This is because accurate tax law is genuinely hard—PolicyEngine represents years of work to encode actual legislation.
Free tier democratizes access to probabilistic planning. Pro tier for power users who want saved scenarios, comparisons, and exports.
Goal: Replace the $5K/year advisor with a $60/year tool
Embed in HR platforms, salary sites, benefits navigators. Reach people at decision moments.
Target: $1-5/user or $10K-50K/year enterprise
EggNest Python package (MIT license) lets developers build on our engine. Drives adoption and trust, not direct revenue.
Strategic: Adoption over monetization
Technical founder
Unknown. "Close enough" may be good enough for most users. Must validate early.
Boldin/ProjectionLab struggle to convert. B2B may be required path to revenue.
Transitioning from PolicyEngine to AI-encoded rules. Timeline and accuracy TBD.
Each country has unique tax/benefit systems. UK ready, others need validation.
They love spreadsheets and free tools. May drive awareness but not revenue.
HR platforms move slowly. Need consumer traction to prove value first.
The problem: People don’t think about uncertainty properly. Advisors exploit this with confident single-point estimates and product sales.
The opportunity: 140M Millennials and Gen Z want DIY tools, not $5K/year advisors. They’re 42% of the population, 14% of advisory clients.
The solution: Robinhood for financial planning—real probabilistic tools with real tax math. Open source, transparent, no salespeople.
The plan:
Financial planning for people who want to see the numbers themselves.
See your retirement projections in 30 seconds.