Has anyone done formation and is it worth it?

I can answer this very transparently, apologies it might be long or over detailed, but trying to explain clearly and openly. Originally we worked with Leif to administer "classic" ISAs, which is something like, don't pay anything until you get a new job, then pay X% a month for Y months, capped at Z dollars, e.g. 10% per month for 15 months, targeting 15% of one year's base salary. These also had caps so if you make over $165K base salary, you won't pay more than the cap. If you didn't make $65K or more then your payments are paused until you do, or until a year passes in which case the contract is cancelled. There's a lot of good things about classic ISAs as they really help people pay who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford, or be approved for an upfront cost or a loan. The flip side is that, as I've said many times, the job market was particularly rough in 2023. Since we work with people until they get a job, people were taking longer to get jobs, and hence we don't get enough cash upfront to pay for our employee's salaries. **Another side effect is of unconditional support and the fact that most people are currently employed as SWEs**, is people would pause or ramp down, and move into holding patterns waiting for the market to improve, further exasperating this issue. So for people that had a job and in theory could afford upfront, or could afford another option, but just preferred the ISA because it felt less commtittal, the relationship just doesn't work financially if a person is also going to not commit to a timeframe for their job hunt. So we stopped offering "classic ISAs" earlier in 2023 and repaced it with FOUR OPTIONS. 1. Pay upfront, with credit card if you want 2. Pay via an ISL, which is similar to an ISA, except it looks more like a loan on paper. You are being credited the upfront cost of Formation, and you will pay back based on your income (and pause if you don't have a job) aiming to pay back that upfront amount + a reasonable effective interest rate. 3. Pay via deferred loan. Like a normal loan but you can defer it for a year from starting Formation. 4. Pay via up to 24 payments, upon approval by our partner, possibly interest-free, but the payments start on day 1 and no deferral. THESE ARE ILLUSTRATIVE AND THERE ARE MORE DETAILS ON OUR WEBSITE COMPARING THESE OPTIONS - BUT EACH OF OUR PAYMENT PROVIDERS WILL GIVE THE FINAL AND LATEST DETAILS OF SPECIFIC OPTIONS FOR YOU. So these options are aiming to be a little more in the middle. Formation gets paid mostly upfront and you can make a tradeoff (upon approval with each partner)) of how much you want defer payments and what kind of interest you want to pay. The more deferral generally the more interest and that's fair and gives you more control over the situation, and if you want to start payments right away, you might not have to pay any interest at all! We're always exploring ways to make payments the most accessible possible, while also paying our bills, and it's also why we take venture capital funding to pay top tier engineers competitive compensation to work for us on the long term platform we're building.