February 1, 2025 • 27 mins
Unlock the secrets to managing your client's family's essential information with the transformative insights from our special guest, Nat Robinson, creator of Trustworthy. Discover how this groundbreaking platform acts as a "family operating system," providing a secure and efficient way to organize, store, and share critical documents. Nat shares his personal journey to creating Trustworthy, inspired by the chaos families often face when handling important information. We explore how this innovative tool not only enhances security by avoiding privacy pitfalls but also streamlines the management of household equity and collaboration with loved ones and advisors.
Journey into the sophisticated world of document organization and security with Trustworthy's advanced AI features. Learn how the platform intelligently extracts key information, generates timely reminders, and provides concise document summaries—all while maintaining top-tier security protocols, including private cloud storage and two-factor authentication. We highlight the importance of preparing for estate transitions, offering insights on how Trustworthy can alleviate the stress of accessing crucial information during life’s pivotal moments. Whether you're planning for retirement or ensuring your family is ready for any emergency, this episode promises to equip you with the knowledge to utilize Trustworthy as a central hub for your family's needs.
To try out Trustworthy: https://trustworthy.com/#via=patty
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Check out our new website www.TheElderLawCoach.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you.
Specialized experience, Whetheryou're an established attorney
looking to refine your expertiseor an emerging lawyer seeking a
successful foray into elder law, this is your masterclass.
Now let's get started with theluminary in the field.
Here's Todd Whatley.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That's right.
This is the Elder Law CoachPodcast and my name is Todd
Whatley and, as always, I amvery appreciative that you're
here and thank you all fortaking time out of your day to
listen.
And today I'm particularlyexcited because I have a guest,
and it's with a new platformthat I have started in my office
that we have started giving toour clients and we've got some
(00:56):
really good feedback from it,and I think it's going to make
our clients' lives better, andtheir kids' lives particularly,
and so please stay with us.
But our guest today is NatRobinson.
Thank you for being with us,nat.
How are you?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm great Thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Okay, and I also have Patty and if y'all know me very
well, she's my wife and she ishere and she is my trustworthy
expert in the office and shehelps clients, she does trust
funding and she helps clientsget everything up to trustworthy
, and so I think this is goingto be a really good conversation
, that I hope you guys canimplement this with your clients
(01:34):
and really, really make adifference.
Okay, all right, so let's jumpinto it.
All right, so now tell me kindof how did Trustworthy start?
What happened in your life orwhat happened to say we need to
create this product?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, I think there were a couple of big things.
Our previous company had beenacquired and I started a family.
We had the birth of our nownine-year-old.
It happened right around thesame time.
So the combination of those twothings my dad brain sort of
engaged and I was thinkingbeyond myself.
I was thinking about legacy andwhat would happen to my family
(02:10):
if something happened to me andstarted looking around and
talking to folks as you do, likewhat do you do?
You know how do you deal withthis, these kinds of questions
and quickly learned that mostpeople had built some kind of
what we call family operatingsystem for themselves, using the
tools at hand, using files,folders and cabinets, fire safe
(02:32):
and all the digital equivalentsthat they felt comfortable with,
from the phone, your iphone orthe photos folder on your phone
to google docs, spreadsheets,really anything you could
imagine.
And we're surprised, you knowsome really impressive systems
have been built, sort of ad hocsystems, and when we tried using
(02:53):
those tools ourselves, we foundthat they fell short in some
critical areas and it washonestly kind of crazy that
every family had to build theirown system.
You know, we're 60 years intothe information age.
Families don't really have asystem of record to manage their
important family information.
That sort of astounded us, andeveryone was building their own
system.
But the big areas that the sortof off-the-shelf productivity
(03:15):
systems fell short in were allstarted with a blank page.
You had to remember exactly.
You know what needed to go inthere.
You needed to build it andmaintain it yourself.
You had to do all the workyourself.
There was nothing to help youor remind you.
The systems sort of the documentsystems were what we call dumb
containers, meaning they didn'treally know any information
about the information that youwere putting.
(03:35):
They didn't have anyintelligence and they couldn't
offer a big return, one of theones that you'll appreciate.
Temporality If I share someinformation in a document, a
Word doc or a spreadsheet, Ican't say don't look at some of
this information.
I might not want you to knoweverything there is to know
about my estate today.
I might want to hold some ofthat back.
(03:55):
So that was a big factor.
And then some of the businessmodels and security around those
systems weren't really ideal.
You know this idea of likeyou're getting a free tool, but
what are you really giving up interms of sharing your
information?
Are you becoming the productwith those kinds of tools.
That didn't seem like a greatequation when we considered
(04:16):
putting our own information intoa system like that.
It wasn't a non-starter.
So those are some of the bigones that were question marks
for us, that we wanted to designaround and, you know, build a
system for families that couldget them further faster, that
they didn't have to create forthemselves.
So those were some of the bigconsiderations in building
something like this.
(04:36):
Really, at the heart of it ishelping families be better
organized, be better preparedfor life and have access to all
that important information today, on a day-to-day basis, but
also during emergencies.
(04:56):
Okay, so what exactly doesTrustworthy do way to store,
access and share that importantfamily information with loved
ones and advisors, all thepeople in your ecosystem that
you work with, that youcollaborate with, that you might
want to have access to a lot of, or some of, your information
at the right moment.
(05:17):
So an example of that might beyour spouse having access to
everything and this idea of whatwe call household equity,
meaning generally today, inmodern households, there's this
division of responsibility youmanage one set of things, your
partner manages another set ofthings, because of sort of this
overwhelming nature of theamount of things that we have to
deal with today.
(05:38):
So the ability to bring thatwhole picture together in one
place is really key.
And then you know be able to dothat with lots of different
stakeholders.
So that could be, you know, atrustee or a guardian or adult
child or a parent or siblings.
You know in that sort of innercircle and then outwardly, to
some of the trustedprofessionals that you work with
, a wealth advisor, an estateplanning attorney, daily money
(06:02):
manager, business manager We'veseen all kinds of folks be added
to the ecosystems of differentfamilies and we, you know we're
trustworthy as a company.
We call what we've built thefamily operating system to allow
you to keep track of all thatinformation and all the related
critical tasks and all of thefolks that you might want to
work with across your system.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Super cool because I do a lot of Medicaid
applications and Medicaid wantsto know everything about the
person and so many times it'sthe kids coming in.
I'm like, okay, we need aboutsix months worth of bank
statements, we need socialsecurity, we need all their
investment stuff.
And I just see their eyes rollup and they're like there's a
file cabinet and we'll gothrough, and we'll spend half a
(06:46):
day going through this filecabinet, or a number of file
cabinets, trying to find whatthey need, or a shoebox or yeah,
maybe it's.
Hopefully it's in a filecabinet.
Sometimes it's just dumped in abox and so, yeah, so having a
place online that you can go to.
So you mentioned that it's notjust a dub, it's not just one
place.
(07:07):
Talk about how y'all use AI tohelp figure out what a document
is and where it goes and whereit segments within this platform
.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, within the last year we considered the AI way
that's taking over everythingright now, and the right way to
adopt some of that functionalitywithin Trustworthy.
Top of mind for us was how dowe keep this private and secure
to just your information, sothat you're not sharing any
information, we're not trainingthe system on any of our member
(07:38):
information and that it's sortof stateless and memoryless,
meaning it's not holding on toany of that information.
But what we've done is build afacility to help ingest your
information very quickly andinterpret it.
So the feature that we built iscalled Trustworthy Autopilot
and it basically understandsdifferent kinds of household
(07:59):
documents so that when youingest or upload something or
take a screenshot using ourmobile app, it will pull that
into Trustworthy, into what wecall the inbox, sort of like a
holding area for everything, andthen Autopilot takes over and
says oh, what is this?
Oh, this looks like a letterfrom insurance company, or this
is a bank statement, or this isan ID, you know, like a driver's
(08:20):
license or a passport orsomething, and it kind of knows,
just looking at it, some coolthings.
It'll pull out all the relevantuseful information, like the
VIN number for your car and acar registration.
It'll pull out salientexpiration dates and create
reminders for you so you knowwhen things are going to expire,
and it will notify you 90, 60,30 days ahead of those
(08:41):
expirations.
It'll pull out any usefulmetadata that it thinks you
might need to quickly get to.
For example, in an estate planit'll look at who are the
benefactors or who are thetrustees and guardians, who are
the relevant players in thisdocument, and then it'll create
a summary of that document aswell, so you can look at a
(09:02):
couple of sentences about whatis this document about and give
you a quick analysis.
It'll even make arecommendation for a better
title.
Quite often, you know, you getdocuments that are like PDF ABC.
It's not very useful forretrieving and searching against
, so it'll help you get a bettertitle, and all this in service
of helping you create yoursystem almost automatically.
(09:23):
Once we've done all that, wesort of tell you hey, does this
document relate to something youalready have in Trustworthy, or
do you need to create a sort ofnew place to put this?
Because it understands therelationships and maps those
relationships across the system.
So, okay, this is a mortgagedocument that relates to this
property that you've alreadycreated and trustworthy.
(09:48):
It should go, you know, in thatproperty or in that financial
entity and tell you where to putit Today.
You know, we, we ask you tolike double check it.
You know, make sure that we getit right.
Obviously, the system is stilllearning and improving over time
, but ultimately we expect to beable to let you say OK,
autopilot is doing a great job.
I'm going to put this on fullauto sometime later this year.
We expect that'll be acapability where the system just
(10:08):
organizes itself.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Wow.
That's cool, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So you were talking about the AI and how it isn't
trained to recognize specificthings.
That's kind of one of thethings that our clients have the
biggest concern about issecurity.
They don't want theirinformation sold.
They don't want anyone to beable to hack in and get access
to it.
I know that Trustworthy has apretty stout security.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, that's a question we get a lot.
Let's talk about AI.
You know we don't use anymember data.
This is a big topical thingwith AI being trained on public
documents or copyrighteddocuments.
We don't use any memberinformation to train our AI.
We use what's called syntheticdocuments, meaning, okay, let's
create what a bank statementwould look like.
(10:56):
You know, AI is pretty good atgenerating, made up things.
So we make up documents andthat's how we train it so that
when other bank statements comein, it sort of recognizes oh,
this is a bank statement.
So that's a really key part isnot using any member data to
inform it or build the system.
I mentioned that it was sort ofstateless, so that once it's
created that analysis of yourdocument, it's not holding on to
(11:19):
any of that information.
So that's a big factor as well.
It's not sort of building abrain based on any one or any
particular member information.
The other way that we'veimplemented this is in a very
secure private cloud, not justfor AI, but across the system.
Security and privacy isparamount.
We've built our business aroundand a business model around
(11:39):
keeping your information privateand secure.
We're not letting you make itor asking you to make any
trade-offs in that respect.
Of course, we do all the thingsyou'd expect around security.
We ask that you create a robustpassword.
You can't use 1234567 as apassword.
You have to create a robustpassword recipe.
You have to have a two-factorauthentication.
(11:59):
This is a really critical stepin securing your account,
meaning that you have to verifywhen you log in that it's you
logging in, then where you'relogging in from using a second
factor.
So it could be a text message,could be biometric, could be
something called a YubiKey,which is a hardware key attached
that you have to physicallytouch and say you're present
when you're logging in.
(12:20):
We use encryption across thewhole experience, where
everything's encrypted all thetime.
Probably the biggest thing thatwe have.
That secret sauce is calledtokenization and what it means
is that we take the reallysecure information in your
account, like your socialsecurity number, and we replace
it with a hashed, encrypted key.
The digits of your socialsecurity number are extrapolated
(12:40):
out of the system to anotherserver and replaced with a
hashed key, meaning if anyonewere to breach our system,
they'd only ever be able to seethat hashed key and not your
actual social security number.
And we do that for most of theinformation in your system.
That's something that only wedo, as far as I know, because
it's expensive to implement thissort of tokenization, but when
(13:02):
we considered putting our owninformation in Trustworthy, it
was absolutely something wewanted to have.
The other big facet to oursecurity is it's not just us.
Don't take our word for it.
We have third-party auditorsevery year audit the business
practices and the systems andthe training and everything that
(13:23):
we do across the business.
They're called controls.
They come in an audit.
This is part of the SOC 2 andSOC 3 compliance that we have
and we've had flawless auditsover the last couple of years.
So that's a big part of sort ofthe validation of our security
as well.
We do penetration testing on asemi-annual basis.
(13:45):
We have a bug bounty program,so reputable white hat hackers
will try to penetrate the systemand notice if they find
anything that we can patch.
So we've never had a breach.
We have very robust securityand privacy in place and we have
lots of external peoplevalidating that constantly.
If you want to know more aboutthe technical considerations
(14:07):
around trustworthy security, wehave a link right at the top of
our page trustworthycom.
Forward slash security.
There's a lot of as muchtechnical detail as we can share
without giving away the secrets.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Sure, wow, that's pretty cool.
I mean, I think the oldergeneration they just in general
don't trust if it's not in theirfiling cabinet.
If it's out there somewhere,they just generally don't trust
it.
I think anyone who understandssecurity and technology would
understand particularly theturning it into something else
and then sending it and thenturning it back into it is just
(14:41):
that's high level security.
And yeah, I'm sure that'sexpensive, but yeah, I think
people who basically understandthis under would know that
that's pretty high levelsecurity.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, it's a, it's a fundamental part of our offering
, so we've invested heavily init and continue to do so.
I think the bigger questions,todd, are, you know, beyond the
security of the system.
You know what are the sort ofsocietal factors behind this.
Why is this actually a goodidea?
And increasingly, you know sortof two big factors.
(15:16):
One you know, not everythingarrives in the mail anymore.
Right, increasingly, this ideaof digital transformation,
things arrive in the email or asa link.
So where do I store thatinformation if I can't put it in
the filing cabinet because it'sin digital format already?
And that was really a bigconsideration for us is how
(15:37):
quickly is this taking hold?
It's something we actually sawaccelerate through the pandemic
right Sure, where it sort ofnecessitated things to become
more digital.
The other facet that I think alot of people are thinking about
right now is this idea of atleast having a digital backup.
What if there's a flood or afire or a tornado or a hurricane
or some other phenomena, youknow, man-made or natural
(16:01):
disaster?
That would be great to have adigital backup of my important
information, everyone's.
You know we've been reallyfocused on what's happening in
LA with the wildfires.
That's not an isolated eventanymore, unfortunately.
You know, wildfires are part ofcommon consideration.
It's crazy that it's happeningin winter.
It tends to happen more insummer, right when things are
dry.
But having a digital backupmakes a ton of sense in a world
(16:25):
of you know let's call itclimate transformation where the
intensity of these things arehappening and the frequency of
these things seem to behappening more and more often.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So you've implemented programs and Patty's gone
through it, where you have whatare y'all called.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Trustworthy Certified Experts.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Okay, patty's a Trustworthy Certified Expert.
She's gone through thebackground check and the
training, the online trainingthat we have.
That we have, and this is aprogram that was created really
for a number of reasons, mostlyfor time or time successful time
starved families or for elderlyfolks who are maybe a little
less comfortable with technologyand would like some assistance.
(17:09):
So we have this nationalnetwork now of folks who have
gone through the backgroundchecks and the training to
become a trustworthy sort ofsort of and they're available to
work with you or a loved onewho would like to get everything
set up and trustworthy.
And quite often this is parentscoming to us saying our parents
left us a nightmare.
We don't want to do that forour kids, right?
(17:30):
Or kids coming to us saying,hey, we'd love to help.
You know, we have this for ourhousehold, but we'd love to get
this for our family, maybe ourin-laws, and get them set up
ahead of that inevitable estatetransition.
How do we get everything dialedin so that the right people have
access in the right moment andknow where to go to find
everything, because thealternative, as you probably
(17:52):
know, can be a nightmare.
We've heard all the horrorstories of how long it takes to
transition an estate.
Not finding documents, notfinding life insurance policies,
having to open the mail, hackpasswords, figure out where all
the bills are and you know, payall the bills and close all the
accounts.
It can be a real time-consumingtask in a time that you don't.
(18:16):
It's the last thing you want todeal with, right?
So how do we help families getbetter organized and prepared
for don't?
It's the last thing you want todeal with, right?
So how do we help families getbetter organized and prepared
with those moments, but also theday-to-day moments as well?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, we've.
You know, I kind of in someways gave up on selling it to my
clients.
I was like, well, but thentheir kids really appreciate
this, so it's.
You may not get your client.
If you're an elder law attorney, you may not get your client,
or if you're one of our clientsout there listening to this, you
may not like it.
(18:47):
But I promise your kids or yourgrandkids, depending on how old
you are would love to be ableto go to one place and find just
and I hope everyone understandsthis is not just estate
planning documents, this iseverything.
This is insurance.
And, like we, we went to Italythis past summer and before we
(19:09):
left I uploaded all of my creditcards, my passport, everything.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Insurance, all of it.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, so that if in pickpockets are huge in Italy
and I was afraid if I got youknow if I lost my wallet, it's
gone and so I could just go intoTrustworthy log in, bring it up
and see everything I need tosee, see the phone numbers I
need to call to cancel my cards,and just I felt better knowing
(19:36):
this was all taken care of andif if this does disappear, then
I've got it covered and it'sjust so nice.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
It's not surprising to me and I think travel is a
great moment, sort of catalyticmoment to sort of ask that
question like are we prepared,are we organized?
What if something were tohappen?
It happens especially withinternational travel, but even
with domestic travel, like itjust sort of flicks through your
mind like I'm getting on aplane, you know something could
happen.
What if something were tohappen?
Would my family be okay?
Would they know where to go tofind the important documents?
(20:06):
But there's lots of lifemoments.
We talked about disasters.
There's more common moments,like you know having a baby,
getting married, all the waythrough life, retirement,
changing jobs, life transitions.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
You know these are all moments where it occurs to
you to take stock of things andmaybe increment your family
preparedness.
It's crucial.
Have you seen, have you workedwith other attorneys, how are
other attorneys using this orwhat are some interesting ways
that this is being used?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, I think I mean across the spectrum.
Certainly, estate planningattorneys look at trustworthy as
a way to add value to theirclient experience, but also as a
way to deliver those importantdocuments, the estate planning
documents.
We have a whole category forlegal, really focused around
estate planning documents,healthcare provisions, powers of
attorney, all the things thatyou would help your clients with
(20:59):
and it's a great way to deliverthose documents, at least in an
online form or digital format,so they know where to go.
Also, that you end up being acollaborator in their system, so
you're present if they want tomake changes or alterations or
version their documents, whichhappens more frequently than
people realize as things changeacross life.
(21:19):
I know my example right now, I'm, I have a out-of-date estate
plan that I urgently need to getupdated.
So I'm, I'm, I'm a part of theproblem here as well.
But, uh, you know, those, thosekind, those are the
considerations of like, hey,we're not just delivering your
documents, we're giving you thisfamily operating system.
Having your estate planningdocuments in there is critical,
(21:46):
but there's all the other thingsthat you mentioned across IDs
and insurances, and property andheirlooms and all the other
things that families care about,that they want to build kind of
this treasure map to and I'llpoint out that not everything
has to be in trustworthy right.
You could have a safety depositbox or a safe somewhere.
You just want to let someoneknow where those things are.
So it kind of has the treasuremap, as we say, to where things
(22:08):
are and how you unlock theinstructions, even operational
instructions, for, oh, I pay formy mom's healthcare or I pay
for my mom's mortgage orsomething like that that the
other family members may notknow about.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Interesting Anything else we need to discuss.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I'd like to point out that it's very good in that you
can kind of make it what youwant to be.
You can put your own categories, like your you know for your
pets and you know just any,anything that you want to keep
track of or have someone elsehave the ability to see if it
needed to be taken care of ifyou weren't able to.
It's just kind of what you makeit.
It's good.
It's good.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, we've created this normalized organization
system because we've talked tothousands of families and
learned what is common acrossall families and so, as you say,
patty, we have sort of somestructure.
But you can make it your ownand make it flexible to your
needs.
And we work with all kinds ofprofessionals as well.
You probably work with somewealth advisors, some tax
professionals or accountants,you know, common insurance
(23:06):
brokers, realtors, you know wework with all of those folks and
they can all be collaboratorsin your system as well and let
your professionals, you know,exchange information as needed.
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Man, I'm sick and I hate it.
Sorry about that.
So, okay, man, once I saw it, Ifell in love with it and I
thought, man, this is somethingwe can definitely use, and so
I'm a big fan and I appreciateeverything that y'all do.
I think you have an excellentproduct, and you mentioned one
thing that the total automation.
(23:40):
Are there any other cool thingsthat you see coming in the
future?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, well, one of the cool things that's coming
that's been highly requested isan Android app.
We haven't had an Android appfor a while.
It's a couple of weeks awayfrom being delivered.
It's really close now.
We're really happy to deliveron that promise for Android
users today that having that hadto use the desktop or the
mobile web experience which isnot quite as good, not quite as
(24:05):
native to their operating system.
So really excited for that.
That's coming soon.
And then another thing that'scoming this year we are creating
a medical category.
It's sort of the big missingcategory that we haven't
provided for and that's relevantfor a lot of folks who want to
keep track of having dentalvision, medical all in one place
(24:26):
Usually they're separatedKeeping track of all the records
, keeping track of all themedications and quite often for
folks who are looking after aloved one needing to keep track
of all that information for aspecial needs person or just a
loved one who's sick.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Very cool.
Okay, good deal.
All right, nat, I appreciateyour time today and I just want
to get your information out tothe masses because I love it and
I think it's fantastic, and sothere will be a link in the show
notes that you can click on andthat will take you into
Trustworthy and get you theprogram.
(25:03):
Let's go and talk about prices.
I mean, for my legal clients,we include this with our stuff,
but if someone is justinterested in going directly to
you, how much is this?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, well, it's good timing.
We just actually released acompletely free plan in January.
So if you have some limitationsbut that's a great way to get
started there's no timeline ortime limit.
You can use that free planforever.
Hopefully, you get to a pointwhere you're like, oh, this is
great, we're really using it andyou want, you want to upgrade,
(25:36):
to get more capacity.
Really, uh, and that's tendollars a month.
Uh, you pay annually, but it'sjust ten dollars a month.
That's crazy.
That's a.
That's the sort of the silverplan.
And then the gold plan is ifyou have a business, if you have
a family business, uh, you wantto keep track of all your
business filings and uh,paperwork.
Um, then that's $20 a month,paid annually.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
That's a good price.
I mean that's incredible Forall that you get and to be
organized.
That is very I think that'svery economical.
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
We definitely wanted to be, you know, available to as
many folks as possible.
The other thing that we provideif you're a hero or a first
responder includes, you know,all the usual folks, as well as
teachers and medicalprofessionals.
We offer you a 50% discount onthat subscription.
So try to do the right thingfor the heroes that help society
, help our society and ourcommunities on a daily basis.
(26:32):
Good job.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, I like your company, I really do.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I like your company.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I wasn't asking for a compliment.
I just truly I think y'all aredoing a fantastic thing and I
appreciate it and I want to helpevery way I can.
So, all right, Nat, thank youvery much.
Have a great day, and we'll getyou back on here sometime later
when some new features come outand remind folks about
(27:00):
Trustworthy.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
All right, sounds great.
Thanks, todd, thanks.
Patty Great to see you, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Thank you for joining this episode of the Elder Law
Coach Podcast.
For those eager to take theirelder law practice to new
heights and are interested inTodd's acclaimed coaching
program, visitwwwTheElderLawCoachcom.
With Todd Whatley by your side,the journey to becoming an
elder law authority has neverbeen more achievable.
(27:24):
Until next time, keep learning,keep growing and stay
passionate about elder law.
Thank you.
Specialized experience, Whetheryou're an established attorney
looking to refine your expertiseor an emerging lawyer seeking a
successful foray into elder law, this is your masterclass.
Now let's get started with theluminary in the field.
Here's Todd Whatley.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That's right.
This is the Elder Law CoachPodcast and my name is Todd
Whatley and, as always, I amvery appreciative that you're
here and thank you all fortaking time out of your day to
listen.
And today I'm particularlyexcited because I have a guest,
and it's with a new platformthat I have started in my office
that we have started giving toour clients and we've got some
(00:56):
really good feedback from it,and I think it's going to make
our clients' lives better, andtheir kids' lives particularly,
and so please stay with us.
But our guest today is NatRobinson.
Thank you for being with us,nat.
How are you?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm great Thanks for having me on today.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Okay, and I also have Patty and if y'all know me very
well, she's my wife and she ishere and she is my trustworthy
expert in the office and shehelps clients, she does trust
funding and she helps clientsget everything up to trustworthy
, and so I think this is goingto be a really good conversation
, that I hope you guys canimplement this with your clients
(01:34):
and really, really make adifference.
Okay, all right, so let's jumpinto it.
All right, so now tell me kindof how did Trustworthy start?
What happened in your life orwhat happened to say we need to
create this product?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, I think there were a couple of big things.
Our previous company had beenacquired and I started a family.
We had the birth of our nownine-year-old.
It happened right around thesame time.
So the combination of those twothings my dad brain sort of
engaged and I was thinkingbeyond myself.
I was thinking about legacy andwhat would happen to my family
(02:10):
if something happened to me andstarted looking around and
talking to folks as you do, likewhat do you do?
You know how do you deal withthis, these kinds of questions
and quickly learned that mostpeople had built some kind of
what we call family operatingsystem for themselves, using the
tools at hand, using files,folders and cabinets, fire safe
(02:32):
and all the digital equivalentsthat they felt comfortable with,
from the phone, your iphone orthe photos folder on your phone
to google docs, spreadsheets,really anything you could
imagine.
And we're surprised, you knowsome really impressive systems
have been built, sort of ad hocsystems, and when we tried using
(02:53):
those tools ourselves, we foundthat they fell short in some
critical areas and it washonestly kind of crazy that
every family had to build theirown system.
You know, we're 60 years intothe information age.
Families don't really have asystem of record to manage their
important family information.
That sort of astounded us, andeveryone was building their own
system.
But the big areas that the sortof off-the-shelf productivity
(03:15):
systems fell short in were allstarted with a blank page.
You had to remember exactly.
You know what needed to go inthere.
You needed to build it andmaintain it yourself.
You had to do all the workyourself.
There was nothing to help youor remind you.
The systems sort of the documentsystems were what we call dumb
containers, meaning they didn'treally know any information
about the information that youwere putting.
(03:35):
They didn't have anyintelligence and they couldn't
offer a big return, one of theones that you'll appreciate.
Temporality If I share someinformation in a document, a
Word doc or a spreadsheet, Ican't say don't look at some of
this information.
I might not want you to knoweverything there is to know
about my estate today.
I might want to hold some ofthat back.
(03:55):
So that was a big factor.
And then some of the businessmodels and security around those
systems weren't really ideal.
You know this idea of likeyou're getting a free tool, but
what are you really giving up interms of sharing your
information?
Are you becoming the productwith those kinds of tools.
That didn't seem like a greatequation when we considered
(04:16):
putting our own information intoa system like that.
It wasn't a non-starter.
So those are some of the bigones that were question marks
for us, that we wanted to designaround and, you know, build a
system for families that couldget them further faster, that
they didn't have to create forthemselves.
So those were some of the bigconsiderations in building
something like this.
(04:36):
Really, at the heart of it ishelping families be better
organized, be better preparedfor life and have access to all
that important information today, on a day-to-day basis, but
also during emergencies.
(04:56):
Okay, so what exactly doesTrustworthy do way to store,
access and share that importantfamily information with loved
ones and advisors, all thepeople in your ecosystem that
you work with, that youcollaborate with, that you might
want to have access to a lot of, or some of, your information
at the right moment.
(05:17):
So an example of that might beyour spouse having access to
everything and this idea of whatwe call household equity,
meaning generally today, inmodern households, there's this
division of responsibility youmanage one set of things, your
partner manages another set ofthings, because of sort of this
overwhelming nature of theamount of things that we have to
deal with today.
(05:38):
So the ability to bring thatwhole picture together in one
place is really key.
And then you know be able to dothat with lots of different
stakeholders.
So that could be, you know, atrustee or a guardian or adult
child or a parent or siblings.
You know in that sort of innercircle and then outwardly, to
some of the trustedprofessionals that you work with
, a wealth advisor, an estateplanning attorney, daily money
(06:02):
manager, business manager We'veseen all kinds of folks be added
to the ecosystems of differentfamilies and we, you know we're
trustworthy as a company.
We call what we've built thefamily operating system to allow
you to keep track of all thatinformation and all the related
critical tasks and all of thefolks that you might want to
work with across your system.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Super cool because I do a lot of Medicaid
applications and Medicaid wantsto know everything about the
person and so many times it'sthe kids coming in.
I'm like, okay, we need aboutsix months worth of bank
statements, we need socialsecurity, we need all their
investment stuff.
And I just see their eyes rollup and they're like there's a
file cabinet and we'll gothrough, and we'll spend half a
(06:46):
day going through this filecabinet, or a number of file
cabinets, trying to find whatthey need, or a shoebox or yeah,
maybe it's.
Hopefully it's in a filecabinet.
Sometimes it's just dumped in abox and so, yeah, so having a
place online that you can go to.
So you mentioned that it's notjust a dub, it's not just one
place.
(07:07):
Talk about how y'all use AI tohelp figure out what a document
is and where it goes and whereit segments within this platform
.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, within the last year we considered the AI way
that's taking over everythingright now, and the right way to
adopt some of that functionalitywithin Trustworthy.
Top of mind for us was how dowe keep this private and secure
to just your information, sothat you're not sharing any
information, we're not trainingthe system on any of our member
(07:38):
information and that it's sortof stateless and memoryless,
meaning it's not holding on toany of that information.
But what we've done is build afacility to help ingest your
information very quickly andinterpret it.
So the feature that we built iscalled Trustworthy Autopilot
and it basically understandsdifferent kinds of household
(07:59):
documents so that when youingest or upload something or
take a screenshot using ourmobile app, it will pull that
into Trustworthy, into what wecall the inbox, sort of like a
holding area for everything, andthen Autopilot takes over and
says oh, what is this?
Oh, this looks like a letterfrom insurance company, or this
is a bank statement, or this isan ID, you know, like a driver's
(08:20):
license or a passport orsomething, and it kind of knows,
just looking at it, some coolthings.
It'll pull out all the relevantuseful information, like the
VIN number for your car and acar registration.
It'll pull out salientexpiration dates and create
reminders for you so you knowwhen things are going to expire,
and it will notify you 90, 60,30 days ahead of those
(08:41):
expirations.
It'll pull out any usefulmetadata that it thinks you
might need to quickly get to.
For example, in an estate planit'll look at who are the
benefactors or who are thetrustees and guardians, who are
the relevant players in thisdocument, and then it'll create
a summary of that document aswell, so you can look at a
(09:02):
couple of sentences about whatis this document about and give
you a quick analysis.
It'll even make arecommendation for a better
title.
Quite often, you know, you getdocuments that are like PDF ABC.
It's not very useful forretrieving and searching against
, so it'll help you get a bettertitle, and all this in service
of helping you create yoursystem almost automatically.
(09:23):
Once we've done all that, wesort of tell you hey, does this
document relate to something youalready have in Trustworthy, or
do you need to create a sort ofnew place to put this?
Because it understands therelationships and maps those
relationships across the system.
So, okay, this is a mortgagedocument that relates to this
property that you've alreadycreated and trustworthy.
(09:48):
It should go, you know, in thatproperty or in that financial
entity and tell you where to putit Today.
You know, we, we ask you tolike double check it.
You know, make sure that we getit right.
Obviously, the system is stilllearning and improving over time
, but ultimately we expect to beable to let you say OK,
autopilot is doing a great job.
I'm going to put this on fullauto sometime later this year.
We expect that'll be acapability where the system just
(10:08):
organizes itself.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Wow.
That's cool, that's cool.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So you were talking about the AI and how it isn't
trained to recognize specificthings.
That's kind of one of thethings that our clients have the
biggest concern about issecurity.
They don't want theirinformation sold.
They don't want anyone to beable to hack in and get access
to it.
I know that Trustworthy has apretty stout security.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, that's a question we get a lot.
Let's talk about AI.
You know we don't use anymember data.
This is a big topical thingwith AI being trained on public
documents or copyrighteddocuments.
We don't use any memberinformation to train our AI.
We use what's called syntheticdocuments, meaning, okay, let's
create what a bank statementwould look like.
(10:56):
You know, AI is pretty good atgenerating, made up things.
So we make up documents andthat's how we train it so that
when other bank statements comein, it sort of recognizes oh,
this is a bank statement.
So that's a really key part isnot using any member data to
inform it or build the system.
I mentioned that it was sort ofstateless, so that once it's
created that analysis of yourdocument, it's not holding on to
(11:19):
any of that information.
So that's a big factor as well.
It's not sort of building abrain based on any one or any
particular member information.
The other way that we'veimplemented this is in a very
secure private cloud, not justfor AI, but across the system.
Security and privacy isparamount.
We've built our business aroundand a business model around
(11:39):
keeping your information privateand secure.
We're not letting you make itor asking you to make any
trade-offs in that respect.
Of course, we do all the thingsyou'd expect around security.
We ask that you create a robustpassword.
You can't use 1234567 as apassword.
You have to create a robustpassword recipe.
You have to have a two-factorauthentication.
(11:59):
This is a really critical stepin securing your account,
meaning that you have to verifywhen you log in that it's you
logging in, then where you'relogging in from using a second
factor.
So it could be a text message,could be biometric, could be
something called a YubiKey,which is a hardware key attached
that you have to physicallytouch and say you're present
when you're logging in.
(12:20):
We use encryption across thewhole experience, where
everything's encrypted all thetime.
Probably the biggest thing thatwe have.
That secret sauce is calledtokenization and what it means
is that we take the reallysecure information in your
account, like your socialsecurity number, and we replace
it with a hashed, encrypted key.
The digits of your socialsecurity number are extrapolated
(12:40):
out of the system to anotherserver and replaced with a
hashed key, meaning if anyonewere to breach our system,
they'd only ever be able to seethat hashed key and not your
actual social security number.
And we do that for most of theinformation in your system.
That's something that only wedo, as far as I know, because
it's expensive to implement thissort of tokenization, but when
(13:02):
we considered putting our owninformation in Trustworthy, it
was absolutely something wewanted to have.
The other big facet to oursecurity is it's not just us.
Don't take our word for it.
We have third-party auditorsevery year audit the business
practices and the systems andthe training and everything that
(13:23):
we do across the business.
They're called controls.
They come in an audit.
This is part of the SOC 2 andSOC 3 compliance that we have
and we've had flawless auditsover the last couple of years.
So that's a big part of sort ofthe validation of our security
as well.
We do penetration testing on asemi-annual basis.
(13:45):
We have a bug bounty program,so reputable white hat hackers
will try to penetrate the systemand notice if they find
anything that we can patch.
So we've never had a breach.
We have very robust securityand privacy in place and we have
lots of external peoplevalidating that constantly.
If you want to know more aboutthe technical considerations
(14:07):
around trustworthy security, wehave a link right at the top of
our page trustworthycom.
Forward slash security.
There's a lot of as muchtechnical detail as we can share
without giving away the secrets.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Sure, wow, that's pretty cool.
I mean, I think the oldergeneration they just in general
don't trust if it's not in theirfiling cabinet.
If it's out there somewhere,they just generally don't trust
it.
I think anyone who understandssecurity and technology would
understand particularly theturning it into something else
and then sending it and thenturning it back into it is just
(14:41):
that's high level security.
And yeah, I'm sure that'sexpensive, but yeah, I think
people who basically understandthis under would know that
that's pretty high levelsecurity.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, it's a, it's a fundamental part of our offering
, so we've invested heavily init and continue to do so.
I think the bigger questions,todd, are, you know, beyond the
security of the system.
You know what are the sort ofsocietal factors behind this.
Why is this actually a goodidea?
And increasingly, you know sortof two big factors.
(15:16):
One you know, not everythingarrives in the mail anymore.
Right, increasingly, this ideaof digital transformation,
things arrive in the email or asa link.
So where do I store thatinformation if I can't put it in
the filing cabinet because it'sin digital format already?
And that was really a bigconsideration for us is how
(15:37):
quickly is this taking hold?
It's something we actually sawaccelerate through the pandemic
right Sure, where it sort ofnecessitated things to become
more digital.
The other facet that I think alot of people are thinking about
right now is this idea of atleast having a digital backup.
What if there's a flood or afire or a tornado or a hurricane
or some other phenomena, youknow, man-made or natural
(16:01):
disaster?
That would be great to have adigital backup of my important
information, everyone's.
You know we've been reallyfocused on what's happening in
LA with the wildfires.
That's not an isolated eventanymore, unfortunately.
You know, wildfires are part ofcommon consideration.
It's crazy that it's happeningin winter.
It tends to happen more insummer, right when things are
dry.
But having a digital backupmakes a ton of sense in a world
(16:25):
of you know let's call itclimate transformation where the
intensity of these things arehappening and the frequency of
these things seem to behappening more and more often.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So you've implemented programs and Patty's gone
through it, where you have whatare y'all called.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Trustworthy Certified Experts.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Okay, patty's a Trustworthy Certified Expert.
She's gone through thebackground check and the
training, the online trainingthat we have.
That we have, and this is aprogram that was created really
for a number of reasons, mostlyfor time or time successful time
starved families or for elderlyfolks who are maybe a little
less comfortable with technologyand would like some assistance.
(17:09):
So we have this nationalnetwork now of folks who have
gone through the backgroundchecks and the training to
become a trustworthy sort ofsort of and they're available to
work with you or a loved onewho would like to get everything
set up and trustworthy.
And quite often this is parentscoming to us saying our parents
left us a nightmare.
We don't want to do that forour kids, right?
(17:30):
Or kids coming to us saying,hey, we'd love to help.
You know, we have this for ourhousehold, but we'd love to get
this for our family, maybe ourin-laws, and get them set up
ahead of that inevitable estatetransition.
How do we get everything dialedin so that the right people have
access in the right moment andknow where to go to find
everything, because thealternative, as you probably
(17:52):
know, can be a nightmare.
We've heard all the horrorstories of how long it takes to
transition an estate.
Not finding documents, notfinding life insurance policies,
having to open the mail, hackpasswords, figure out where all
the bills are and you know, payall the bills and close all the
accounts.
It can be a real time-consumingtask in a time that you don't.
(18:16):
It's the last thing you want todeal with, right?
So how do we help families getbetter organized and prepared
for don't?
It's the last thing you want todeal with, right?
So how do we help families getbetter organized and prepared
with those moments, but also theday-to-day moments as well?
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yeah, we've.
You know, I kind of in someways gave up on selling it to my
clients.
I was like, well, but thentheir kids really appreciate
this, so it's.
You may not get your client.
If you're an elder law attorney, you may not get your client,
or if you're one of our clientsout there listening to this, you
may not like it.
(18:47):
But I promise your kids or yourgrandkids, depending on how old
you are would love to be ableto go to one place and find just
and I hope everyone understandsthis is not just estate
planning documents, this iseverything.
This is insurance.
And, like we, we went to Italythis past summer and before we
(19:09):
left I uploaded all of my creditcards, my passport, everything.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Insurance, all of it.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, so that if in pickpockets are huge in Italy
and I was afraid if I got youknow if I lost my wallet, it's
gone and so I could just go intoTrustworthy log in, bring it up
and see everything I need tosee, see the phone numbers I
need to call to cancel my cards,and just I felt better knowing
(19:36):
this was all taken care of andif if this does disappear, then
I've got it covered and it'sjust so nice.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
It's not surprising to me and I think travel is a
great moment, sort of catalyticmoment to sort of ask that
question like are we prepared,are we organized?
What if something were tohappen?
It happens especially withinternational travel, but even
with domestic travel, like itjust sort of flicks through your
mind like I'm getting on aplane, you know something could
happen.
What if something were tohappen?
Would my family be okay?
Would they know where to go tofind the important documents?
(20:06):
But there's lots of lifemoments.
We talked about disasters.
There's more common moments,like you know having a baby,
getting married, all the waythrough life, retirement,
changing jobs, life transitions.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
You know these are all moments where it occurs to
you to take stock of things andmaybe increment your family
preparedness.
It's crucial.
Have you seen, have you workedwith other attorneys, how are
other attorneys using this orwhat are some interesting ways
that this is being used?
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, I think I mean across the spectrum.
Certainly, estate planningattorneys look at trustworthy as
a way to add value to theirclient experience, but also as a
way to deliver those importantdocuments, the estate planning
documents.
We have a whole category forlegal, really focused around
estate planning documents,healthcare provisions, powers of
attorney, all the things thatyou would help your clients with
(20:59):
and it's a great way to deliverthose documents, at least in an
online form or digital format,so they know where to go.
Also, that you end up being acollaborator in their system, so
you're present if they want tomake changes or alterations or
version their documents, whichhappens more frequently than
people realize as things changeacross life.
(21:19):
I know my example right now, I'm, I have a out-of-date estate
plan that I urgently need to getupdated.
So I'm, I'm, I'm a part of theproblem here as well.
But, uh, you know, those, thosekind, those are the
considerations of like, hey,we're not just delivering your
documents, we're giving you thisfamily operating system.
Having your estate planningdocuments in there is critical,
(21:46):
but there's all the other thingsthat you mentioned across IDs
and insurances, and property andheirlooms and all the other
things that families care about,that they want to build kind of
this treasure map to and I'llpoint out that not everything
has to be in trustworthy right.
You could have a safety depositbox or a safe somewhere.
You just want to let someoneknow where those things are.
So it kind of has the treasuremap, as we say, to where things
(22:08):
are and how you unlock theinstructions, even operational
instructions, for, oh, I pay formy mom's healthcare or I pay
for my mom's mortgage orsomething like that that the
other family members may notknow about.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Interesting Anything else we need to discuss.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I'd like to point out that it's very good in that you
can kind of make it what youwant to be.
You can put your own categories, like your you know for your
pets and you know just any,anything that you want to keep
track of or have someone elsehave the ability to see if it
needed to be taken care of ifyou weren't able to.
It's just kind of what you makeit.
It's good.
It's good.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Yeah, we've created this normalized organization
system because we've talked tothousands of families and
learned what is common acrossall families and so, as you say,
patty, we have sort of somestructure.
But you can make it your ownand make it flexible to your
needs.
And we work with all kinds ofprofessionals as well.
You probably work with somewealth advisors, some tax
professionals or accountants,you know, common insurance
(23:06):
brokers, realtors, you know wework with all of those folks and
they can all be collaboratorsin your system as well and let
your professionals, you know,exchange information as needed.
Sorry.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Man, I'm sick and I hate it.
Sorry about that.
So, okay, man, once I saw it, Ifell in love with it and I
thought, man, this is somethingwe can definitely use, and so
I'm a big fan and I appreciateeverything that y'all do.
I think you have an excellentproduct, and you mentioned one
thing that the total automation.
(23:40):
Are there any other cool thingsthat you see coming in the
future?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah, well, one of the cool things that's coming
that's been highly requested isan Android app.
We haven't had an Android appfor a while.
It's a couple of weeks awayfrom being delivered.
It's really close now.
We're really happy to deliveron that promise for Android
users today that having that hadto use the desktop or the
mobile web experience which isnot quite as good, not quite as
(24:05):
native to their operating system.
So really excited for that.
That's coming soon.
And then another thing that'scoming this year we are creating
a medical category.
It's sort of the big missingcategory that we haven't
provided for and that's relevantfor a lot of folks who want to
keep track of having dentalvision, medical all in one place
(24:26):
Usually they're separatedKeeping track of all the records
, keeping track of all themedications and quite often for
folks who are looking after aloved one needing to keep track
of all that information for aspecial needs person or just a
loved one who's sick.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Very cool.
Okay, good deal.
All right, nat, I appreciateyour time today and I just want
to get your information out tothe masses because I love it and
I think it's fantastic, and sothere will be a link in the show
notes that you can click on andthat will take you into
Trustworthy and get you theprogram.
(25:03):
Let's go and talk about prices.
I mean, for my legal clients,we include this with our stuff,
but if someone is justinterested in going directly to
you, how much is this?
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, well, it's good timing.
We just actually released acompletely free plan in January.
So if you have some limitationsbut that's a great way to get
started there's no timeline ortime limit.
You can use that free planforever.
Hopefully, you get to a pointwhere you're like, oh, this is
great, we're really using it andyou want, you want to upgrade,
(25:36):
to get more capacity.
Really, uh, and that's tendollars a month.
Uh, you pay annually, but it'sjust ten dollars a month.
That's crazy.
That's a.
That's the sort of the silverplan.
And then the gold plan is ifyou have a business, if you have
a family business, uh, you wantto keep track of all your
business filings and uh,paperwork.
Um, then that's $20 a month,paid annually.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
That's a good price.
I mean that's incredible Forall that you get and to be
organized.
That is very I think that'svery economical.
So thank you.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
We definitely wanted to be, you know, available to as
many folks as possible.
The other thing that we provideif you're a hero or a first
responder includes, you know,all the usual folks, as well as
teachers and medicalprofessionals.
We offer you a 50% discount onthat subscription.
So try to do the right thingfor the heroes that help society
, help our society and ourcommunities on a daily basis.
(26:32):
Good job.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Okay, I like your company, I really do.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
I like your company.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I wasn't asking for a compliment.
I just truly I think y'all aredoing a fantastic thing and I
appreciate it and I want to helpevery way I can.
So, all right, Nat, thank youvery much.
Have a great day, and we'll getyou back on here sometime later
when some new features come outand remind folks about
(27:00):
Trustworthy.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
All right, sounds great.
Thanks, todd, thanks.
Patty Great to see you, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Thank you for joining this episode of the Elder Law
Coach Podcast.
For those eager to take theirelder law practice to new
heights and are interested inTodd's acclaimed coaching
program, visitwwwTheElderLawCoachcom.
With Todd Whatley by your side,the journey to becoming an
elder law authority has neverbeen more achievable.
(27:24):
Until next time, keep learning,keep growing and stay
passionate about elder law.
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