Greenville startup lobbies for legalization of e-wills.

• Position: Greenville, South Carolina

The strongest competitors for Greenville entrepreneurs Tyler McLeod and Erick Arb are California giants Trust and Will and LegalZoom.

These online legal platform sites wield a respective 65 to 1,000 employees. Upstate-based Willio has two.

But that isn't stopping the startup's founders from pursuing the next comparable tier of digital services even if they are now illegal in South Carolina.

In 2019, McLeod and Arb, a tax attorney and a former pro golfer-turned-designer, launched a blockchain-powered site that enables customers to build a will in 20 to 40 minutes, according to the duo.

"Willio's goal is to help people by making wills easier, more accessible and more affordable for a greater number of people," McLeod said in a statement. "Online estate plans can be very beneficial, but not all wills are created equal."

McLeod's first taste of opportunities offered by online wills came, more or less, at Smiley's Acoustic Caf.

And it left a sour taste in his mouth.

McLeod, then a full-time attorney, happened to sit next to a tipsy customer who had one too many opinions that night.

When the stranger asked McLeod what he did, McLeod shared that he was an estate planner, which released a torrent of predictions.

The gist: "Don't you know your job will be replaced by algorithms in a couple years?" asked the stranger.

McLeod couldn't stop thinking that maybe his unsolicited drinking companion was right after all. But if anyone was going to take his job, he was going to be the one to do it.

That was in 2017. In 2019, he hired on Arb as a software developer, while he continued to work as a partner for Brown, Massey, Evans, McLeod and Haynesworth.

In November 2021, Willio took its services to a national audience.

The duo doesn't plan on expanding their services beyond wills and powers of attorney like LegalZoom, which also offers remote consulting, trademark and copyright registration and business establishment services. It also doesn't want refer users to specific charities or push life insurance sales.

If you stay in your lane, McLeod said, you create better opportunity for sustainable growth and development.

The company is lobbying instead to bring the entire estate planning process online from start to finish.

Willio customers can create their will online but in South Carolina at least it must be first printed out, signed in pen and notarized in person as witnesses stand by. In the Palmetto State, the only valid will is an analog one.

But in an era...