The Story of Summer: Building the Future of Employee Financial Wellness

The Story of Summer: Building the Future of Employee Financial Wellness

Sometimes the most powerful startups emerge from the intersection of personal experience and systemic problems. For Will Sealy, founder of Summer, the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis wasn’t just a market opportunity – it was a problem he’d witnessed firsthand.

“My mother had student debt, I saw how it weighed heavily on her financial decision making,” Will reveals in a recent episode of Category Visionaries. “My dad actually is European. He did not have student debt, grew up in the UK, and had a lot of his educational expenses covered by the state, and I saw just how different systems handled that differently.”

This early exposure to contrasting education systems sparked an interest that would shape Will’s career. After college, he found himself working as a community organizer during the financial crisis, helping people navigate foreclosures, credit card debt, and student loans. But a pivotal moment came when Elizabeth Warren, then building the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), posed a crucial question: what would be the next big financial crisis?

“I just raised my hand and said, a big kind of crisis, a big bubble that could burst, I think could be student debt,” Will recalls. “And Elizabeth Warren said, I agree. I think that’s a huge problem. We need someone working on this.”

This led to Will becoming the first person at the CFPB focused on student loans, spending years writing reports for Congress and developing potential solutions. But after five years in government, he realized that creating real change would require a different approach.

Summer emerged from this deep understanding of the problem space. Rather than trying to solve everything at once, the company focused on building what Will describes as “almost a TurboTax like product” to help borrowers navigate over 120 federal and state loan assistance programs.

The company’s distribution strategy evolved to meet users where they are. Working through employers and financial institutions like Intuit and Fidelity, Summer created “bespoke models that work within their ecosystem.” This approach acknowledges the diverse needs of their user base: “You have young people who are like, I don’t even pick up the phone when my mom calls. I only text… all the way through to someone who’s like, I do not do finances through an app.”

Looking ahead, Summer is expanding beyond student debt to address broader financial wellness challenges. Will explains: “There’s all kinds of financial literacy and consumer financial problems that are adjacent to this that are equally as difficult but would be as impactful to solve.” He points to emergency savings as a critical focus area, noting that about 66% of Americans couldn’t afford a $1,000 unexpected expense.

The vision is comprehensive: “We’ve now added college savings planning so that people can navigate college costs on the front end. We’ve added tuition assistance so that people can enroll in educational systems while they’re working.” This evolution reflects Summer’s ambition to become a complete financial wellness platform, helping employers support their workforce through every financial milestone.

Will’s journey from government watchdog to fintech founder demonstrates how deep domain expertise can transform into innovative solutions. While many startups rush to market, Summer’s story suggests that sometimes the best path to disruption starts with truly understanding the system you’re trying to change.