THE FEEDINGBIRD JOURNAL
Fresh perspectives on estate planning, the moments that matter, and what we’re building at FeedingBird.
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A new platform brings estate planning to families who could never afford an attorney. Wills and trusts done in under an hour.
ELMWOOD PARK, NJ — September 8, 2026 — For generations, estate planning has operated on a two-tier system. Affluent families retain attorneys who manage the entire process, completing everything from drafting documents, navigating state law, and ensuring assets pass exactly as intended. For the rest of America, the options are limited, confusing, and expensive. 67% of U.S. adults have no will at all.
That gap is not a coincidence. It is the predictable result of an industry that was built for one kind of client and has never been redesigned fully for anyone else.
FeedingBird launches today with the infrastructure to change that, giving families a simpler, modern way to create legally valid Wills and Trusts. The platform combines a full step-by-step guided experience with AI-assisted technology, allowing documents to be completed in under an hour. No attorney required, and no prior legal knowledge assumed. The result is a high-quality estate planning experience designed for the people who have spent a lifetime building something worth protecting.
“There is a significant gap in both modern estate planning tools and the education families need to plan well. We want every family to have at least a basic will in place, and as their lives evolve, establish a trust so they have a comprehensive plan. We built FeedingBird to make that inexcusable.”
— Kamal Patel, Founder & CEO, FeedingBird
The timing of FeedingBird’s launch reflects a defining moment in the U.S. We have the largest population of older adults in our history, yet too many families remain unprepared for what comes next. Without proper planning, families can spend months navigating probate, losing time and money in the process. This isn’t a problem reserved for the wealthy. Every family has people, decisions, and a future worth planning for.
FeedingBird was founded by Kamal Patel, former founder and CEO of ELLKAY, a healthcare IT platform serving hospitals, health systems, and labs nationwide, alongside Shreya Patel, former partner and product executive at ELLKAY, and Ben Locke, Co-Founder and CFO with a background at PwC. The founding team brings decades of experience building trusted platforms at scale and returned specifically to address what they identified as one of the most consequential unsolved problems in consumer financial services.
"Families have always wanted to protect the people they love. The biggest barrier was that estate planning felt too complicated and out of reach. We believed that reinventing the experience could help more families finally create a plan."
— Shreya Patel, Founder & President, FeedingBird
FeedingBird's platform includes state-specific, attorney drafted estate planning documents, including Last Will and Testament, Revocable Living Trust and Children’s Trusts, Durable General Power of Attorney, Advance Healthcare Directives, HIPAA Authorizations, and additional planning tools designed to help families prepare for the future.
Plans start at $179, with a Founder's discount available through October 31, 2026.
About FeedingBird
FeedingBird is an estate planning platform on a mission to make one of the most important decisions in a person's life actually doable. Founded in 2025 and headquartered in Elmwood Park, New Jersey, FeedingBird offers legally valid wills and trusts that can be completed in under an hour, with no legal knowledge required. The platform is available in most states and rapidly expanding nationwide.
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Tasha Willingham, VP of Marketing
Kamal Patel, founder of FeedingBird, was inspired by his personal estate planning journey and the high cost of legal counsel to create an app meant to make estate planning accessible to the masses.
Kamal Patel had spent years building ELLKAY, a one-of-a-kind healthcare technology business, and was ready to take some time to focus on his personal life. He decided it was time to revise his estate plan. Again. “I was on my seventh iteration,” he says. “I hired the best legal counsel in New York, and I thought, let me refresh my memory on everything before I see them.”
As Mr. Patel re-read books on estate planning, he began searching for an app, something “where I could create a list of my assets and play around with stuff,” he says. “I couldn’t find anything.”
What he did find was startling: 67% of Americans have no estate plan at all. “Sixty-seven percent of the population does not have any kind of will when they die,” Mr. Patel says, still incredulous.
The deeper he looked, the clearer the reason became. For most Americans, estate planning felt like a luxury they simply couldn’t afford. “There is no way,” Mr. Patel says, “that a person making an average salary in the U.S. could afford what I was paying lawyers.”
That’s when the idea clicked. There was real demand for affordable estate planning. “That’s how it all started in my mind,” he says. “People making $40,000 a year—they still need a plan for when they’re gone.”
“There are all of these finance companies, like Charles Schwab and MetLife,” Mr. Patel explains. “They’ll do an estate plan for you, but what they really want is to manage your money and charge a 1% fee. That’s fine. But they’re targeting wealthy people. Nobody was doing anything for the receptionist, because the receptionist doesn’t have a lot of money.”
So much for retirement. Tenacious by nature, Mr. Patel began thinking obsessively about how to build an affordable estate planning app. “I felt like there was an opportunity to do something good for the world,” he says, “and at the same time, solve a big problem.”
To make it all happen, he knew he’d need the right team. “My strength is really bringing together the right people and keeping them excited,” he says. His first call was to Shreya Patel (no relation), whom he had worked with earlier in his career at ELLKAY.
Ms. Patel was immediately intrigued. A mother of two young children, she and her husband had been thinking about their own legacy and what would happen to their kids if tragedy struck. “It was like a black hole in my mind,” she says. “The process felt time consuming and hard to do.” Ms. Patel says she had a basic Will but hadn’t gotten around to creating a full estate plan. She felt like she needed to educate herself more about Trusts and legacy planning before she could even begin.
Ms. Patel decided to talk to friends and family about the process, and as she did she realized she wasn’t alone. “Everyone I knew wanted to get it done, but never got around to doing it.” she says. “And nobody had any idea what estate planning really meant,” she says. “They just had a vague idea that it was meant for families with wealth or properties.”
“I’m the kind of person who builds things that are hard to imagine but can make a real difference in people’s lives,” Ms. Patel says. “I’m also a mom, and with young children, I’m always thinking about their protection. That’s what made me excited to build FeedingBird. The opportunity to give people easy access to do the right thing for those they care about. That ethos is what drives everything we do at FeedingBird.”
After serious consideration, Ms. Patel decided she couldn’t say no. They began building a team and named the app FeedingBird, which was a reference to an adult bird caring for its young.
Feedingbird set several founding goals. The app needed to be modestly priced and accessible to everyone, which meant translating dense, often boring legal language into something anyone with a high school education could understand. “Can we make it interesting enough,” Mr. Patel wondered, “that using words and images, we can educate people through simplicity?”
Mr. Patel also wanted to build a feature that would allow users to leave personal messages for loved ones to receive after they were gone. This unique feature would help the app stand out.
“When people want to do something for their family, they get afraid,” Ms. Patel says. “They wonder, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’” That fear can be paralyzing. But at heart, she believes, people simply want to do something meaningful for their loved ones.
“If you think about the moments you remember most in your life,” she says, “they’re the ones where you had fun, or where you did something for your kids. Something you were proud of.” She pauses. “We want people to feel proud of doing this, because they’re doing it for their families, their loved ones or anything they wish to protect.”
In the end, Mr. Patel didn’t just revise his own estate plan, he decided to reimagine what estate planning could look like for millions of people. Talk about creating a legacy.
“Every single thing on this app was done with a piece of paper, using paint, using hands,” says Julia Rothman, the illustrator behind the estate-planning app FeedingBird. “It gives it humanity.”
When you think about planning for your legacy, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Stacks of paper? Boring legal terms that mean absolutely nothing to you? Admit it, you’re overcome with dread.
“It’s a scary topic,” says artist and illustrator Julia Rothman, speaking from her studio in Brooklyn. “It makes you feel sad and think about being separated from your loved ones. That’s not a fun thing to think about.”
She’s right. Estate planning is not an easy thing to ponder. But over the past several months, Ms. Rothman has been doing exactly that as the illustrator behind a new estate-planning app called FeedingBird. The app is filled with her hand-drawn illustrations, which appear throughout the experience. “Using illustration,” she says, “is a nice way to make it a little less unfriendly and stressful; because the drawings have a warmth and a playfulness to them.”
Ms. Rothman has spent the past decade working in illustrated journalism and is the author and illustrator of 15 books and counting. (Maybe this is a good place to mention that Ms. Rothman and the author of this article had a column in The New York Times for five years together as well as co-authored three books.) Over the years, Ms. Rothman has tackled plenty of difficult subjects: racism, war, depression, economic hardship and even death itself. No matter the topic, she brings the same approach: she uses her distinctive, handmade style to soften heavy ideas and make them more approachable.
“I think you can tell when something is made by hand,” she says. “Every single thing on this app was done with a piece of paper, using paint, using hands. There’s a warmth there. It gives it humanity and comfort. And for an app that’s talking about something so delicate, they did a great thing by deciding to use illustration. Especially illustration that was completely made by hand and not drawn on a computer or by AI. It really makes it special.”
The whole purpose of FeedingBird is to transform legacy planning from something that feels heavy or intimidating into an experience that feels meaningful, empowering, and even a little exciting. Rather than presenting it as a rigid checklist of legal tasks, the app encourages users to feel proud about thoughtfully shaping the legacy they’ll leave for their loved ones.
When speaking with Shreya Patel, co-founder and president of FeedingBird, she explained that one of the app’s central goals is to make complex legal jargon easier to understand. Incorporating hand painted illustrations into the app’s design helps make the experience feel more accessible and less intimidating.
“We want to break down intimidating concepts into clear, approachable guidance,” said Ms. Patel. “By weaving art and illustrations directly into the experience, FeedingBird turns guidance into a natural part of the app’s flow. Visual storytelling helps make each step feel engaging and surprisingly uplifting rather than bureaucratic.”
With this approach in mind, Ms. Rothman’s illustrations throughout the app rely on metaphor instead of literal depictions. “I have to think about how to convey an idea without showing people,” she explains. For example, guardianship is visualized as an umbrella, symbolizing protection from the rain. Marriage and children are represented through objects that evoke warmth, comfort, and gentleness.
Money, she says, was the hardest. “How many ways can you show money without always using a money bag?” She’s had to think outside the box here.
Ms. Rothman also likes to keep things light. “I put in little jokes,” she says. When the app addresses business ownership, the illustration is a mug that says Number One Boss. “I’m trying to get people to smile a little. Even though they’re thinking about something sad.”
The light touch works. And maybe from now on when you think about planning for your legacy instead of freezing up with dread, you can imagine a small hand-drawn umbrella keeping your loved ones dry and safe.
“The hardest part is that it forces people to think about what will happen when they’re gone.”
When I was a kid, my parents — both of whom had grown up working-class — didn’t have a will. They weren’t thinking much about what would happen when they died. There was no plan for their bodies, no plan for what would happen to me. We lived in a rent-controlled apartment in New York City and didn’t have much money. Still, I remember that before they traveled without me, my dad would sometimes type up a letter and read it aloud before they left. Even as a child who knew nothing about the world (and certainly nothing about estate plans) I could tell this little ritual was mostly theatrical. A placeholder for the real planning they didn’t know they needed. Or felt they couldn’t afford.
I wish I could tell you I learned from my parents’ lack of preparation. But I have not. I’m now a mom to two young kids, and I do not have a will or a trust. I don’t even type up a dramatic farewell letter and read it to my children when I travel for work. I just stroll through life pretending I’ll live forever, despite knowing that, historically speaking, the likelihood of that is fairly slim. Maybe even zero.
“It’s a bad idea,” said Sarah Sliwinski, a paralegal who works with FeedingBird, a new app that specializes in creating estate documents like wills, trusts and powers of attorney. “If you don’t create your own plan,” she told me from her office in Virginia, “the state will.”
I asked her what would actually happen if someone with kids died without any plans in place. “Best-case scenario,” she said, “a very good friend or family member shows up and says, We’ll take care of them until a permanent guardian is assigned. Worst-case scenario is that Child Protective Services shows up and says, We’re taking these children into temporary custody until this gets sorted out. Even if it’s only 24 hours, that’s pretty traumatic for your children.”
Upon hearing this, I sheepishly admitted that I do not, in fact, have a will. I told her my husband and I own an apartment, we have two little kids, but we don’t have much money. Her response was immediate and firm: “You have children. And that’s more important than any amount of money.”
A lot of people think like me. They think estate planning is only for the wealthy. “It’s a misconception,” she said. “People think you need a certain amount of money or assets to need a will. But even if you have very little, something has to happen to all the things you own when you pass.” And, even more importantly, something has to happen to the people and animals you leave behind.
Life circumstances can change quickly. We all know that in theory, but no one wants to sit down and plan for their own mortality. “I think the hardest part,” said Ms. Sliwinski, “is that it forces people to think about what will happen when they’re gone. I get it — that’s really scary. Nobody thinks, I’m going to die tomorrow. Everyone assumes they’ll live a long time, so there’s no urgency. Oh, it’s fine, I’ll do it next year. I’ll do it in a couple months. And thankfully, for most people, that’s true. But you never know. So why not just do it?”
My parents didn’t know what they didn’t know. But now that I understand planning isn’t about money, it’s about making sure the people you love aren’t thrown into chaos on the hardest day of their lives, it feels like it’s finally time for me to sit down and, well, just do it.
Estate planning hasn't kept up with how we live today. Our founders share why they built FeedingBird to be a warmer, simpler, and more empowering experience. FeedingBird was designed for real life.
We didn’t start FeedingBird because estate planning was an interesting problem. We started it because it’s an important one that hasn’t kept up with how people live today.
Most people know they should have a plan, whether it's a will or a trust, but figuring out where to start can feel overwhelming. As a result, estate planning is often delayed, not because it doesn’t matter, but because it hasn’t felt designed for real life.
We saw this firsthand. One of FeedingBird’s founders had gone through the process multiple times, while the other hadn’t yet begun.
That didn’t sit right with us.
So we started thinking about it differently: how could we change the experience? How could we make it not only easier, but something people feel good about from start to finish? It had to be easy. Clear. Guided. Even engaging. Something you could sit down and finish.
That’s what led to FeedingBird.
We built it to be simple, guided, and effective. We also incorporated painted illustrations that everyone can relate to, making it warm and personal, so you can make decisions quickly, on your own terms, and get your plan done. We designed a place where your plan can be changed as your life evolves.
This should feel empowering.
Estate planning is more than assets. It’s about the people in your life, your healthcare decisions, your financial responsibilities, and the choices that protect your family.
We believe it can feel different. More approachable. Even a bit unexpected.
A plan, finally complete.
