nomen

The financial OS for NIL athletes

usenomen.com

The problem

College athletes are earning real money with zero financial infrastructure.

  • NIL income is legally self-employment income, carrying a 14.13% self-employment tax on top of income tax. Most athletes discover this in April, when the bill is already due.
  • 1099 collection is completely manual. Athletes earn from 3 to 6 brands per year. The source doc estimates 40% miss at least one required form.
  • NIL collectives disburse $500M+ annually using Venmo, Zelle, and checks, with no centralized compliance or 1099 issuance.

The solution

Nomen is purpose-built for the NIL economy.

One platform to track deals, collect 1099s, estimate taxes, and receive payments. Payments and filing partners are planned, not live in this build.

  • Deal tracker. Log brand deals, collective payments, and appearance fees.
  • Tax engine. Real-time estimates, quarterly reminders, and 1099 tracking.
  • Payment rails. Planned Stripe Connect deposits and a 1.5% platform fee. Not connected until keys exist.

Market opportunity

A $2.6B market with no purpose-built fintech layer.

TAM
$2.6B
Total NIL market projected by 2026
SAM
$90M
500K eligible athletes × $15/mo tooling ARR potential
SOM
$1.8M
10,000 athletes in Year 1 × $15/mo, a Year 1 ARR target

Business model

Three revenue streams from day one.

Pro and collective monthly prices in the source doc are $[TBD]. The platform fee in the product is 1.5% on payments processed through Nomen.

Why now

Three forces creating an immediate window.

  • Infrastructure gap. NIL is years old and the source doc puts the market at $1.67B, without a purpose-built financial product.
  • IRS enforcement. 1099 pressure on gig income makes compliance tools necessary.
  • First-mover window. The category is still open.

Traction

Building in public. Milestones ahead.

These are targets from the source doc, not results.

  • First 10 athletes onboarded
  • First collective partnership signed
  • First payments processed through payment rails
  • First tax filing completed with a filing partner

Team

Devansh Kaushik

Founder and CEO

BS Business Administration (Finance), Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. AI and Business Strategy Analyst at Home Depot. Founder of Waresport, a sports club management SaaS platform.

The ask

$[TBD] pre-seed

Raising to reach launch, first 500 athletes, and a first collective partnership. Use of funds in the source doc: engineering 40%, go-to-market 35%, operations 25%.

Reach out devansh@usenomen.com

12-slide pitch outline

On-screen copy and speaker notes from the source doc. Placeholder amounts stay marked TBD.

01 · Cover

Nomen — The financial OS for NIL athletes

  • Nomen wordmark (large, centered)
  • Tagline: The financial OS for NIL athletes
  • Founder: Devansh Kaushik
  • Date: [Month Year]
  • Website: usenomen.com

Speaker notes: Open with a pause. Let the name land. "Nomen" means "name" in Latin — NIL stands for Name, Image, and Likeness. This is the financial layer that name deserves.

02 · The Athlete's Financial Reality

Marcus earned $8,400 last year. He had no idea he owed $2,100 of it to the IRS.

  • Marcus, 19, running back at a Division I program
  • 3 brand deals, 1 collective payment, 1 social media campaign
  • Paid via Venmo and direct check. No 1099 from one brand
  • Filed taxes in April expecting a refund. Got a $2,100 bill instead
  • The cause: self-employment tax (14.13%) that nobody told him about

Speaker notes: Marcus is a composite of real athlete situations. This story resonates because it is not about the star athlete earning millions — it is about the 450,000 athletes earning $1K to $10K who have no one helping them navigate this. The tax surprise is the universal entry point.

03 · The Market

$1.67B in NIL activity in 2023. $2.6B projected by 2026. Zero purpose-built fintech.

  • 500,000+ NCAA athletes now have NIL eligibility
  • Market grew from $0 to $1.67B in 3 years (post-2021 legalization)
  • 250+ active NIL collectives managing $500M+ in annual disbursements
  • Average non-star athlete: $1,000 to $5,000/year across 3 to 6 deals
  • Market expanding into high school NIL in 17+ states

Speaker notes: The market is young and growing fast but the tools are still spreadsheets and accountants. Point out that high school NIL expansion creates a second wave of this exact same problem. Nomen is built for both.

04 · The Problem in Detail

Three problems. One athlete. No solution in the market.

  • NIL income = self-employment income under IRS rules
  • SE tax rate: 14.13% on top of income tax brackets
  • Most athletes earn quarterly, pay nothing quarterly, owe a lump sum in April
  • Every brand paying over $600 must issue a 1099-NEC by January 31
  • Estimated 40%+ of NIL athletes miss at least one required form
  • Athletes have no centralized way to track which brands owe them a form
  • Payments arrive via Venmo, Zelle, check, PayPal, and direct transfer
  • No reconciliation. No audit trail. No receipt for deductions
  • Collectives writing paper checks to 47 athletes with no payment ledger

Speaker notes: These three problems are not independent — they compound. Fragmented payments make 1099 collection harder. Missing 1099s make tax filing less accurate. The athlete ends up overpaying taxes because they cannot prove their deductions and underpaying because they cannot find all their income. Nomen solves the system, not just a symptom.

05 · The Solution

Nomen puts deal tracking, tax compliance, and payment infrastructure in one place built for athletes.

  • Deal Tracker: Log every brand deal, appearance, and collective payment. Track deliverables, payment status, and NCAA disclosure. All income in one place for tax time.
  • Tax Engine: Real-time SE tax estimates, quarterly payment reminders with exact IRS amounts, 1099 aggregation across all brands, direct filing via Column Tax. No CPA required.
  • Payment Rails: Stripe Connect Express for direct deposits, shareable payment links, collective bulk disbursement. 1.5% platform fee. Every transaction creates an automatic record.

Speaker notes: Nomen is not just a tax app and not just a payment app. It is the connective tissue between how athletes earn (deals), how they get paid (rails), and what they owe (tax engine). That integration is the defensible moat — you cannot replicate it with a single-purpose tool.

06 · Product Demo

Four screens. Every financial question an athlete has, answered.

  • YTD income ($42,800), estimated tax ($11,340), active deals (3), and 1099 status (4 of 6 received)
  • Monthly income bar chart. Q4 tax warning banner if quarterly payment is overdue
  • Table of all deals with brand name, category badge, total value, % collected progress bar, status, and NCAA flag
  • One-click to add a new deal or mark a deliverable complete
  • Card grid showing each brand: received (green), requested (yellow), or missing (red)
  • One button to request all missing forms. Nomen contacts brands on the athlete's behalf
  • SE tax math visible: $42,800 income, $6,050 SE tax, $2,134 income tax, $8,184 total owed
  • Filing stepper: Collect forms → Review income → Add deductions → File with Column Tax

Speaker notes: Walk through each screen slowly. The dashboard is the hook — most athletes have never seen a real-time number for what they owe. The 1099 collection screen shows the problem visually: red means someone is not in compliance right now and they do not know it.

07 · Business Model

Three revenue streams that grow together as athletes earn more.

  • Pro subscriptions (athlete): Monthly or annual SaaS. Unlocks tax filing, agent access, and priority 1099 collection. Unit economics improve with every feature athletes actually use.
  • Collective plan: Per-collective SaaS. Bulk athlete management, disbursement dashboard, 1099 issuance. B2B contract, higher ACV, longer retention.
  • Payment processing fee: 1.5% on all payments processed through Nomen payment rails. Scales with athlete income growth, not just headcount.
  • Athlete earning $5,000/year in NIL processes all payments through Nomen = $75/year in processing revenue alone
  • Collective with 50 athletes disbursing $500K/year = $7,500/year in processing revenue from one B2B contract
  • Low churn expected: tax filing creates annual stickiness, same as TurboTax

Speaker notes: The freemium model is the acquisition engine. Free users see the dashboard, get hooked on the tax estimate, and convert to Pro before their first filing. The collective channel is the B2B flywheel — every collective partnership brings in 30 to 100 athletes at once.

08 · Go-to-Market

Three channels. One flywheel. Each channel feeds the next.

  • Target: D1 and D2 athletes with active NIL deals on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn
  • Tactic: content marketing on NIL tax education ("what every NIL athlete needs to know about taxes"), targeted social ads, college sports subreddits and Discord communities
  • Goal: 500 athletes in Year 1 from direct
  • Target: 250+ active NIL collectives managing athlete payments
  • Tactic: cold outreach to collective directors, conference at NILAC and Sports Business Journal events, referral from athlete financial advisors
  • Goal: 5 collective partnerships in Year 1, bringing 150 to 500 athletes at once
  • Target: NIL agents and athlete advisors managing 3+ college athlete clients
  • Tactic: agent read-only access is free — agents have incentive to recommend Nomen to every client
  • Goal: 50 agents each recommending Nomen to 3 to 5 clients = 150 to 250 athletes

Speaker notes: The agent channel is the sleeper. Agents get a free tool that gives them real-time visibility into client financials — they have no reason not to recommend it. Every agent becomes an unpaid distribution partner.

09 · Competition

No one is building this for athletes. Everyone else is building for a different user.

  • TurboTax and H&R Block: General consumer tax tools. No NIL-specific deal tracking, no 1099 aggregation from brands, no awareness of NCAA rules. Athletes can use them but they have to do all the work themselves.
  • QuickBooks and Wave: Built for small business owners. Too complex for athletes. No athlete-specific tax logic. Requires accounting knowledge to get value.
  • Spreadsheets: The real incumbent. Free, familiar, completely manual. Cannot auto-calculate SE tax, cannot request 1099s, cannot process payments. Zero automation.
  • Nothing: The actual default for most athletes. They earn money, ignore taxes, and deal with the consequences in April.
  • Nomen: The only purpose-built financial OS for NIL athletes. Deal tracking + tax engine + payment rails in one product. Built for athletes, priced for athletes.

Speaker notes: The competitive moat is not technical. It is the combination of a purpose-built product, athlete-native UX, and the network effects from collective partnerships. A collective that integrates Nomen locks in 30 to 100 athletes simultaneously — that is the defensible position.

10 · Traction and Milestones

Pre-launch. Full product infrastructure complete. Ready to grow.

  • Product: full-stack Next.js 14 app, Supabase schema complete, Stripe Connect integrated, Column Tax pipeline built
  • Brand: domain, Microsoft 365 email, complete design system, homepage live
  • Legal: Georgia LLC formation in process
  • GTM: email sequences, collective outreach, agent channel scripts ready
  • 6 months: Product launch, first 100 athletes onboarded, first collective partnership, first $50K processed through payment rails
  • 12 months: 500 athletes on paid Pro, 5 collective partnerships, first tax season completed (January to April pipeline), $500K processed
  • 18 months: 2,000 athletes, 15 collectives, first agent referral partnerships formalized, Series A metrics in view

Speaker notes: Be honest that you are pre-launch. Investors at pre-seed are betting on the founder and the insight, not the traction. The infrastructure story is the traction — this is not a PowerPoint company, the product is built.

11 · Team

Founded by someone who understands both the financial system and how to build on it.

  • BS Business Administration, Finance concentration — Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business, May 2025
  • AI and Business Strategy Analyst at The Home Depot (Fortune 4)
  • Founder of Waresport, a sports club management SaaS platform — built product, customer base, and partnerships independently
  • Background spans finance, product development, and sports industry distribution
  • [Advisor 1 — NIL industry / sports business background]
  • [Advisor 2 — fintech or tax infrastructure background]
  • [Advisor 3 — go-to-market or college athletics network]

Speaker notes: The Waresport story is important. This is not the first product Devansh has built for the sports industry. He understands how sports organizations buy, how athletes think about money, and how to build distribution in athletic communities. Nomen is a step up in market size and ambition, not a pivot into the unknown.

12 · The Ask

Raising $[TBD] pre-seed to reach product launch, 500 athletes, and first collective partnership.

  • Engineering (40%): Contract dev support, Grok API costs during build, security audit before launch
  • Go-to-market (35%): Paid acquisition, conference attendance (NILAC), content creation, influencer athlete seeding
  • Operations (25%): Legal, compliance review, API costs (Column Tax, Persona, Stripe), accounting
  • Full product launch on usenomen.com
  • First 500 athletes through the onboarding funnel
  • First NIL collective partnership with bulk disbursement live
  • First complete tax season (January through April 2027) with real athlete filings
  • Series A metrics in view: $50K MRR and 5 collective contracts

Speaker notes: End strong. "We are building the financial layer that every NIL athlete needs but nobody has built for them. The market is proven, the infrastructure exists, the timing is right. We are looking for partners who understand what it means to be first in a category." Then stop talking and let them respond.