A University of Connecticut student created an app called Klorah, which recently surpassed 100 users and writes invoices and user agreements for freelancers using artificial intelligence.
Third-semester business management student Elvin Atwine spoke with The Daily Campus about his app, which he created last October.
“Klorah right now is a client invoicing app for freelancers,” Atwine said. “It helps them create client agreements which it writes for them using AI, as well as it gives them the feature to create invoices to bill their clients.”
In high school, Atwine was a photographer for his basketball coach, then expanded to take photos for other coaches in the area.
“During that time, I was kind of just like ‘I love this, but there seems to be a lot of stressors within being a freelancer, being a photographer,’” Atwine said. “Only one-third of full-time freelancers have a retirement savings account, things like that…I just kind of wanted to figure out how can we bridge the gap between traditional financial services to freelancers. So, the first step for me was just naturally what do freelancers need on a day-to-day basis, which is invoicing and client agreements.”
Atwine said that while his intended user base is creative freelancers, some contractors recently joined the app for his invoicing agreements.
“One interesting [case] I’ve seen was two users joining two weeks ago, both contractors, which was not a typical use case that I had in mind, but it still works for them and what they do so I can see it expanding to them,” Atwine said. “My bigger focus is towards the creative community, so thinking individual designers, writers, et cetera.”
Atwine said that much of the growth for his app has been organic through existing photographer communities that he is a part of in his hometown in Pennsylvania. He has also been messaging other photographers on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Atwine brought up freelancing on a college campus and how there is a Gen Z bias towards freelancing.
“We do have a couple of UConn users, one being a hair braider, another being a photographer here,” Atwine said. “It’s just part of the overall student base here, like, how can I get more money as a student?”
Atwine said he raised an angel investment round of $15,000 where outside investors invested in his business.
“The goal is to connect freelancers with financial services that are relevant to them. The way that we get there is through understanding each individual user’s earnings,” Atwine said. “In terms of the mission, it’s using that data to match you with relevant financial services.”
Klorah is available on the App Store, Play Store and the web. Klorah can take different forms of payment such as CashApp and credit cards, making it easier for freelancers to bill clients.