Belvedere Nursery School dads launch free financial-planning tool

It was the middle of the pandemic, and Seth Burstein’s technology-based conference-planning startup was dormant. He was in need of a pivot.

After a pep talk by a friend and neighbor, fellow Belvedere Nursery School dad John Corcoran, Burstein did just that.

The 40-year-old Belveron East resident pitched an idea he’d been nursing for a novel online financial-planning app to another nursery-school dad, Gerard Suyderhoud, who jumped on the idea.

With a pitch deck, the two raised $2.2 million in a first round of fundraising. Some of it came from local venture capitalists, and some came from other friends like Corcoran as a show of faith. The money was used to develop the product and go through the legal mechanisms for protecting the idea and making sure they have the required certifications.

The app’s free tool, at livefortunately.com, allows users to get a personalized plan to use their assets to achieve each major financial goal of their lives, such as home mortgage, retirement, insurances and college educations for their kids.

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