"As a young boy, I watched my family deal with a great deal of stress from unsecured debt. This forced us to live paycheck to paycheck. I didn't know how to deal with it. I put $10 I had earned from my paper route in an envelope and gave it to my mother, hoping it would bring relief; instead, it brought tears.
As I grew up, I mistakenly thought that I needed to become wealthy to prevent this from happening to my own family. I didn't focus on the root issue, which is that very few people learn how to save and spend money effectively. In addition to the lack of education, the taboo around 'money talk' and subsequent lack of conversations created strife in my personal relationships as a result of different expectations around money saving and spending. In order to tackle these issues, I realized the power of utilizing data to not only help people get out of debt, but also help them stay out of debt through money management techniques.
And so, Ascend was built."