Souleymane Diallo, known as Souley, is the founder of debtbrak.
Growing up in Senegal, Souley experienced financial hardship and scarcity firsthand. From an early age, he learned that reaching a difficult goal often required discipline, sacrifice, and the willingness to follow through even when things became uncomfortable.
When he moved to the United States, his relationship with money changed.
Debt seemed to be everywhere. Student loans, credit cards, car loans, financing — borrowing was simply part of how life worked. Like many people, Souley adapted to that system. But he would eventually learn some of its hardest lessons himself.
While earning his engineering degree at Clarkson University, Souley accumulated more than $80,000 in student debt. Carrying that balance weighed heavily on him. There were periods of anxiety, stress, difficult financial decisions, and sleepless nights.
So he made getting out of debt a mission.
Through years of disciplined decision-making, sacrifice, and consistently following through on the commitments he made to himself, Souley paid it off.
Then he made a decision that challenged everything he thought he had learned.
He borrowed more than $30,000 to purchase a new car.
After working so hard to eliminate his debt, he found himself back in it.
That experience changed the way Souley thought about personal finance. Knowing what the financially responsible decision is isn't always enough. People can understand the numbers and still make decisions that work against their long-term goals.
Getting out of debt requires more than information.
It requires behavior, commitment, and follow-through.
Souley returned to the same disciplines that had helped him before and paid off the new loans as well. By the age of 24, he had paid more than $120,000 across student and auto loans.
That journey became the foundation for debtbrak.
From RizzMoney to debtbrak
While in college, Souley began building a personal finance app that eventually became RizzMoney. His goal was to help people make better financial decisions using technology.
He spent more than a year designing, building, and eventually launching the product.
But shortly after launch, he realized something.
The product he truly wanted to build wasn't another app that simply showed people their finances. It was the product he wished had existed during the years he was fighting to get out of debt — something that could help people stay committed when emotions, stress, impulses, and everyday life challenged their goals.
Three months after launching RizzMoney, Souley made the decision to rebuild the company around that mission.
debtbrak was born.
Souley also participated in the Harvard Business School Foundry Bootcamp, learning from entrepreneurs, business leaders, and operators while strengthening his understanding of how to build products around real customer problems.
Today, Souley combines his background in AI engineering and software development with the lessons from his own debt journey to build debtbrak.