Podcasts about lending club

Is it better to be broke or in debt? Most people assume that having no money is the worst possible financial situation. But what if living paycheck to paycheck with $0 is actually safer — and smarter — than earning good money while drowning in debt?In this episode, we break down the real difference between being broke and being in debt, and why $0 net worth is better than -$10,000. From the psychological impact to the financial traps most people fall into, this episode exposes the truth about debt, the dangers of living beyond your means, and why broke might actually mean you're on the right path.What you'll learn in this episode: o Why being in debt is more dangerous than being broke o The real cost of debt: mentally, emotionally, and financially o The freedom that comes with living within your means o What lifestyle creep is and how it silently builds debt o Why minimum payments are a trap, not a solution o How broke people can still win — and why they often do o The only kind of debt that might be okay (your home) o What you need to focus on if you're serious about financial freedomKey facts mentioned in this episode: o Over 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck (LendingClub, 2023) o Americans hold over $1.16 trillion in credit card debt (Federal Reserve, 2024) o The average credit card APR is at a record-high 22.8% o 47% of U.S. adults say money issues affect their mental health (Bankrate, 2023) o 28% of people struggle to make minimum payments each month o Being debt-free with low income often beats high income with high debtSubscribe to the channel for more empowering content on personal finance, investing, and self-improvement. Don't miss out on the opportunity to unlock your true financial potential and live a life of abundance. It's time to invest in yourself and create the future you deserve!Articles Used:o https://ir.lendingclub.com/news/news-details/2023/60-of-Americans-Now-Living-Paycheck-to-Paycheck-Down-from-64-a-Month-Ago/o https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/consumer-debt-study/#:~:text=Credit%20card%20borrowers%20continued%20to,much%20of%20the%20additional%20increaseo https://www.bankrate.com/loans/personal-loans/money-and-mental-health-survey/#americans-mental-healtho https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/average-credit-card-interest-rate-in-america/o https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-cards/study/credit-card-debt-statistics/#:~:text=Fewer%20than%20half%20of%20adult,May%202024%20Federal%20Reserve%20study**Support the Stream By Shopping at Our Store** Buy Your Financial Mirror Gear: https://www.thefinancialmirror.org/shop YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thefinancialmirrorRumble: https://rumble.com/TheFinancialMirrorFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefinancialmirr0rX: https://twitter.com/financialmirr0rInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefinancialmirror/Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/thefinancialmirrorIf you are in need of a Financial Coach, don't waste another day of being in debt, not planning for retirement, or simply wondering where your money went each month. Today is the day to take control of your finances and I can help, no issue is too big or too small. Contact me at https://www.thefinancialmirror.org/#DebtFreeJourney #LivingPaycheckToPaycheck #BrokeButFree #FinancialFreedom #GetOutOfDebt #MoneyMindset #PersonalFinanceTips #StopLivingInDebt #WealthBuilding #DebtFreeCommunity #MoneyTruth #PaycheckToPaycheck #CreditCardDebt #FinancialIndependence #BudgetingTips

As the complexity and demands of technology continue to rise in our business lives, CEOs need to explore all available avenues of how to identify and attract top talent. This is where nearshoring comes in. Nearshoring is a valuable vehicle to augment existing teams, support rapid scaling, or bring new knowledge into an organization quickly.   To learn more about nearshoring we turned to Brian Samson, an entrepreneur who has lived and established multiple companies in Latin America. Because of this he holds unparalleled insight into leveraging untapped talent pools of highly educated individuals in Central and South America. Brian holds a passion for helping businesses thrive by introducing great talent to great companies but along the way we also learned he is a caring human who will always be found rooting for the Chicago Cubs.   Here are highlights of our conversation:   -      Nearshore Defined: Moving jobs or tasks within the same time zone, as opposed to offshoring which involves moving across an ocean. The benefit of nearshoring is finding highly skilled talent regardless of the location that speaks English and works the same business day as the US.   -      Challenging Latin America Misconceptions: The discussion focused on myth busting some perceptions of Latin America, particularly Mexico, based on media portrayals and personal experiences.   -      Fostering Children: Brian shared his personal experience of becoming a foster family after hearing about the challenges faced by children in the foster care system. He punctuated the need for more good homes for the 440,000 children in the foster care system in the US, adding that less than 3% ever make it to college.   Brian Samson is a seasoned entrepreneur with a nine-year track record as the founder and CEO in the Nearshore (LATAM) industry. Having lived in Argentina and established multiple companies throughout Latin America that serve the U.S. market, Brian has an unparalleled insight into leveraging untapped talent pools. His journey includes raising $2 million as a founder, scaling his company to 80 team members, and achieving three successful exits. He has held significant roles such as Department Head at Lending Club during its pre-IPO phase, which IPO'd with a $10 billion valuation, and was part of the executive team at Sosh before its acquisition by Postmates and eventually Uber. Brian holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and leads as a General Partner at Hang10X Capital, making numerous investments in promising ventures. Away from his professional endeavors, Brian's personal life is equally fulfilling. He and his wife are licensed foster parents and have adopted a baby girl from foster care, now raising two toddlers along with a Boston Terrier puppy in their Oahu home. A Chicago native and a staunch Cubs fan, Brian enjoys the island life, which includes the beautiful weather and vibrant community. With a passion that wakes him every day since 2015, Brian is committed to connecting exceptional talent across the Americas with hyper-growth companies in the U.S.   Connect with Brian: Website: www.plugg.tech LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansamson/   Connect with Allison: Feedspot has named Disruptive CEO Nation as one of the Top 25 CEO Podcasts on the web, and it is ranked the number 6 CEO podcast to listen to in 2025! https://podcasts.feedspot.com/ceo_podcasts/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/  Website: https://www.disruptiveceonation.com/  X: @DisruptiveCEO     #CEO #brand #startup #startupstory #founder #business #businesspodcast #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every bank that decides to get into the Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) space already has an existing legacy business. Most of those legacy businesses have very little crossover with fintech and BaaS, so internally at the bank, there is a completely new skill set that needs to be developed. But then there are those banks that were born digital and for which BaaS is a natural extension of their existing business.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Mike Butler, the CEO of Grasshopper Bank. I first had Mike on the show back in 2019, when he was the CEO of Radius Bank - that was the bank that LendingClub acquired in 2021. So, Mike is back at the helm of another digital bank, bringing his deep experience in BaaS and digital banking. And he has big plans for Grasshopper.In this podcast you will learn:How Mike went from selling Radius Bank to becoming CEO of Grasshopper.The core offerings of Grasshopper.Why Grasshopper has a "work from away" culture.How much they focus on BaaS versus serving customers directly.The core learnings he brought from Radius Bank to Grasshopper.Who Mike thinks of as his main competitors.How the BaaS challenges of 2024 impacted Grasshopper.Why you can't dip your toe in the water when it comes to BaaS.How the expectations of fintechs have changed.The types of fintechs they work with today.Why they decided to acquire Auto Club Trust, an insurance company.Where Mike sees the future growth for Grasshopper.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Desde el retorno de Trump al poder en Estados Unidos, cada vez son menos los inmigrantes que siguen creyendo en el famoso eslogan del "american dream". La agresiva ofensiva lanzada desde la Casa Blanca frena el flujo migratorio en la frontera y al mismo tiempo siembra temores entre los latinos ya instalados. A tal punto que muchos, desanimados, ya están planeando regresarse a sus países de origen. Con ellos conversamos en Washington. Reportaje multimedia: audio, texto y video. Solo el 27% de las personas que viven en Estados Unidos creen en el "sueño americano" según una encuesta de Ipsos y ABC News. Es un proyecto de vida cada vez más lejano para los cerca de 48 millones de migrantes que trabajan en el país para sobrevivir y están ahora a merced de las políticas migratorias de la Administración Trump. El Ejecutivo conservador amenaza con finalizar programas de ayuda, como el TPS (protección temporal), el DACA (que resguarda a quienes llegaron en la infancia) y el de asilo.Según Diana Fula, activista por los derechos de los migrantes, varias familias la han contactado recientemente porque no quieren seguir escondiéndose y quieren regresar a sus países. “El 'sueño americano' se ha convertido en una pesadilla porque lastimosamente este país no está siendo gobernado con los valores que dice tener", asegura a RFI. "Se ha convertido en una pesadilla porque las comunidades están siendo criminalizadas y nuestra gente perseguida”. "Tienen miedo hasta de ir a la iglesia"Aunque el número de arrestos en la frontera sur de Estados Unidos llegó a su punto más bajo en los últimos 25 años, con apenas 8.300 detenciones en febrero, y las deportaciones también hayan bajado considerablemente, los migrantes siguen atemorizados por las campañas de las policías migratorias.“O sea, creo que ahorita es claro que nuestra gente tiene miedo", concluye Fula. "Tienen miedo de llevar a sus hijos al colegio, tienen miedo de ir a la iglesia”.La situación de angustia y desesperanza se refleja en la disminución de un 94% en febrero de los cruces hacia Panamá a través del peligroso "tapón" del Darién, en comparación con el año anterior. De hecho, es muy posible que por primera vez, más migrantes crucen el Darién hacia el sur que hacia el norte, según reportes en Estados Unidos. Para Daniel García, migrante venezolano que hoy trabaja en una barbería del barrio latino de Washington, y que también pasó por el Darién, las duras condiciones económicas llevan a que muchos cuestionen su permanencia en este país. “El sueño americano es todo lo contrario, aquí nadie duerme, aquí es todo el día trabajando, nadie descansa. Aquí uno se toma un día y ya se te descuadra la semana, el alquiler, la comida, todo, ¿entiendes?” Uno de cada seis dólares de impuestosLa inflación en los precios de comida, alquiler y servicios públicos lleva a que el 62% de las personas en Estados Unidos vivan mes a mes, sin poder ahorrar, según un estudio del Lending Club.Daniel también quisiera regresar a su país. “Mi objetivo es trabajar lo más posible acá. Trabajar el tiempo que pueda, hacer mi dinero e irme para mi país, montar allá mi negocio, en mi país, tranquilo, cerca a la playa”.Para todos ellos, Donald Trump parece haber dejado de lado que los inmigrantes representan una fuerza crucial para la económica estadounidense. Cada inmigrante pagó en 2023 uno de cada seis dólares recolectados en impuestos, y representan casi el 20% de la fuerza laboral, según el Consejo Americano de Inmigración. Pero también son esenciales en la otra punta de la economía de la primera potencial mundial puesto que solo en 2024, los inmigrantes consumieron por encima de 1,7 billones de dólares.

Desde el retorno de Trump al poder en Estados Unidos, cada vez son menos los inmigrantes que siguen creyendo en el famoso eslogan del "american dream". La agresiva ofensiva lanzada desde la Casa Blanca frena el flujo migratorio en la frontera y al mismo tiempo siembra temores entre los latinos ya instalados. A tal punto que muchos, desanimados, ya están planeando regresarse a sus países de origen. Con ellos conversamos en Washington. Reportaje multimedia: audio, texto y video. Solo el 27% de las personas que viven en Estados Unidos creen en el "sueño americano" según una encuesta de Ipsos y ABC News. Es un proyecto de vida cada vez más lejano para los cerca de 48 millones de migrantes que trabajan en el país para sobrevivir y están ahora a merced de las políticas migratorias de la Administración Trump. El Ejecutivo conservador amenaza con finalizar programas de ayuda, como el TPS (protección temporal), el DACA (que resguarda a quienes llegaron en la infancia) y el de asilo.Según Diana Fula, activista por los derechos de los migrantes, varias familias la han contactado recientemente porque no quieren seguir escondiéndose y quieren regresar a sus países. “El 'sueño americano' se ha convertido en una pesadilla porque lastimosamente este país no está siendo gobernado con los valores que dice tener", asegura a RFI. "Se ha convertido en una pesadilla porque las comunidades están siendo criminalizadas y nuestra gente perseguida”. "Tienen miedo hasta de ir a la iglesia"Aunque el número de arrestos en la frontera sur de Estados Unidos llegó a su punto más bajo en los últimos 25 años, con apenas 8.300 detenciones en febrero, y las deportaciones también hayan bajado considerablemente, los migrantes siguen atemorizados por las campañas de las policías migratorias.“O sea, creo que ahorita es claro que nuestra gente tiene miedo", concluye Fula. "Tienen miedo de llevar a sus hijos al colegio, tienen miedo de ir a la iglesia”.La situación de angustia y desesperanza se refleja en la disminución de un 94% en febrero de los cruces hacia Panamá a través del peligroso "tapón" del Darién, en comparación con el año anterior. De hecho, es muy posible que por primera vez, más migrantes crucen el Darién hacia el sur que hacia el norte, según reportes en Estados Unidos. Para Daniel García, migrante venezolano que hoy trabaja en una barbería del barrio latino de Washington, y que también pasó por el Darién, las duras condiciones económicas llevan a que muchos cuestionen su permanencia en este país. “El sueño americano es todo lo contrario, aquí nadie duerme, aquí es todo el día trabajando, nadie descansa. Aquí uno se toma un día y ya se te descuadra la semana, el alquiler, la comida, todo, ¿entiendes?” Uno de cada seis dólares de impuestosLa inflación en los precios de comida, alquiler y servicios públicos lleva a que el 62% de las personas en Estados Unidos vivan mes a mes, sin poder ahorrar, según un estudio del Lending Club.Daniel también quisiera regresar a su país. “Mi objetivo es trabajar lo más posible acá. Trabajar el tiempo que pueda, hacer mi dinero e irme para mi país, montar allá mi negocio, en mi país, tranquilo, cerca a la playa”.Para todos ellos, Donald Trump parece haber dejado de lado que los inmigrantes representan una fuerza crucial para la económica estadounidense. Cada inmigrante pagó en 2023 uno de cada seis dólares recolectados en impuestos, y representan casi el 20% de la fuerza laboral, según el Consejo Americano de Inmigración. Pero también son esenciales en la otra punta de la economía de la primera potencial mundial puesto que solo en 2024, los inmigrantes consumieron por encima de 1,7 billones de dólares.

Police say he embezzled at least $208,000 A Philipstown resident was arrested on Wednesday (March 12) and accused of stealing at least $208,000 from two local organizations for which he served as treasurer. In a news release, Putnam County Sheriff Kevin McConville said Mark A. Kenny, 61, had served as a treasurer for the civic groups, which he did not name, saying they had been victims of a crime. He said the agency's investigation began in December when one group reported that funds apparently had been stolen from its bank account over four years. An investigator learned Kenny was also treasurer of the second group and requested its records over the past five years. After a review, the sheriff said the investigator found Kenny had used funds for personal expenses such as gas, cellphone charges, dental bills, pet supplies, cigars, liquor, automotive and lawn equipment, building materials, dumpster rentals and dining at restaurants and bars in Putnam, Dutchess, Westchester and Orange counties. The sheriff said Kenny also made purchases from a restaurant distributor after he submitted a credit application in the name of one of the organizations, adding he and his wife as authorized users. The investigation uncovered cash withdrawals from ATM machines and bank branches. The sheriff said Kenny appears to have stolen at least $118,000 from one organization and at least $90,000 from the other. He was arraigned in Philipstown Town Court on three felony counts of grand larceny and released until his next court date. No further information was available; a Philipstown court clerk said the town does not release documents from any case unless a person is convicted or by special permission from Justices Camille Linson or Angela Thompson-Tinsley. Philipstown also does not upload its records to the state's electronic system. Kenny's LinkedIn profile says he is a graduate of New York University and since August has been a manager for global product risk and control at Wells Fargo. In December 2023, according to court records, he was sued by Lending Club for a $4,702 debt it said had gone unpaid.

Visit our Substack for bonus content and more: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/kristen-berman Many of the most successful products launched in Silicon Valley lean heavily on behavioral design to increase engagement. Former Design Better guest Nir Eyal talks about this in his books Hooked and Indistractable, and today we have another expert in this field, Kristen Berman, who co-founded Irrational Labs with professor and researcher Dan Ariely in 2013. We chat with Kristen about how to design products that change behavior, and also about the darker side of behavioral design, which in extreme cases can create addictive products. We also learn how Kristen uses behavioral science on herself, to achieve goals and encourage positive habits. Bio Kristen Berman is a leading figure in applied behavioral economics and behavioral product design. In 2013, she co-founded Irrational Labs with Dan Ariely, collaborating with major organizations such as Google, PayPal, Facebook, and Netflix to enhance user health, wealth, and happiness. She was also on the founding team of the behavioral economics group at Google, a collective that supported over 26 teams within the company, and hosted the global behavioral change conference StartupOnomics. In addition, Kristen co-founded the Common Cents Lab at Duke University, where her leadership guided over 50 experiments aimed at improving the financial well-being of tens of thousands of low- to middle-income Americans. Her expertise has been featured in outlets like The Stanford Social Innovation Review, TechCrunch, and Scientific American. As a co-author of the workbooks series Hacking Human Nature for Good alongside Dan Ariely, Kristen has provided practical guidance on changing behavior that is widely used by prominent companies—Google, Intuit, Netflix, Fidelity, and Lending Club among them—for their business strategies and product design. *** Premium Episodes on Design Better This is a premium episode on Design Better. We release two premium episodes per month, along with two free episodes for everyone. Premium subscribers also get access to the documentary Design Disruptors and our growing library of books, as well as our monthly AMAs with former guests, ad-free episodes, discounts and early access to workshops, and our monthly newsletter The Brief that compiles salient insights, quotes, readings, and creative processes uncovered in the show. Upgrade to paid *** Visiting the links below is one of the best ways to support our show: Masterclass: MasterClass is the only streaming platform where you can learn and grow with over 200+ of the world's best. People like Steph Curry, Paul Krugman, Malcolm Gladwell, Dianne Von Furstenberg, Margaret Atwood, Lavar Burton and so many more inspiring thinkers share their wisdom in a format that is easy to follow and can be streamed anywhere on a smartphone, computer, smart TV, or even in audio mode. MasterClass always has great offers during the holidays, sometimes up to as much as 50% off. Head over to http://masterclass.com/designbetter for the current offer. To get $100 towards your first bed purchase, go to http://thuma.co/designbetter. *** If you're interested in sponsoring the show, please contact us at: sponsors@thecuriositydepartment.com If you'd like to submit a guest idea, please contact us at: contact@thecuriositydepartment.com

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 09:03:00 +0000 https://jungeanleger.podigee.io/1913-inside-umbrella-powered-by-wikifolio-01-25-anpassungen-jahresbeginn-grosste-neuaufnahme-moderna-weitere-details-zur-strategie 5fd37c910be9e35387ecc1ec3dad8929 Folge 1 des Podcasts Inside Umbrella by wikifolio. Die Umbrella-Strategie, die steht für Richard Dobetsberger aka Ritschy, der auf Europas grösster Social Trading Plattform 2024 die häufigste Nr. 1 war, er hat im Q4 die 100 Mio. Euro Marke bei den Assets under Management überschritten und wurde zum Asset Manager of the Year gewählt. Ab sofort gibt es jeden 2. Donnerstag eines Monats Updates. Zum Start im Jänner gehen wir zunächst die aktuelle Umbrella-Zusammensetzung aus Rheinmetall, Paypal, Moderna, Tesla, Constellation Energy, NextEra Energy, LendingClub, Palantir und Palo Alto durch. Wir sprechen aber auch über generelle Themen wie Cashquoten, Charttechnik, Tagesablauf, Watchlist und liefern anhand von Moderna einen Rückblick in die Pandemie. Dazu gibt es stets Infos, wo man Ritschy persönlich treffen kann. Am 2. Donnerstag im Februar geht es dann weiter ... - https://www.wikifolio.com/de/at/p/ritschy?tab=about (dort findet man auch YouTube-Videos zur Strategie). - http://ritschydobetsberger.com - Börsepeople-Folge Richard Dobetsberger: https://audio-cd.at/page/podcast/6482 - wikifolio Rankings von aktuell mehr als 30.000: https://boerse-social.com/wikifolio/ranking - Ritschy als Gast in der zweistündigen Wiener Börse Silvesterparty. Re-Live-Hören: https://audio-cd.at/page/podcast/6616 - Meet Ritschy am 8. März 2025 in Wien bei http:://www.boersentag.at About / Risikohinweis: Christian Drastil wurde im Q4/24 in Frankfurt als "Finfluencer & Finanznetworker #1 Austria" ausgezeichnet. Der Jingle, der on the Job weiterentwickelt wird, basiert auf einem Sample der befreundeten Shadowwalkers, da werden wir ebenfalls einiges erzählen. Die hier veröffentlichten Gedanken sind weder als Empfehlung noch als ein Angebot oder eine Aufforderung zum An- oder Verkauf von Finanzinstrumenten zu verstehen und sollen auch nicht so verstanden werden. Sie stellen lediglich die persönliche Meinung der Podcastmacher dar. Der Handel mit Finanzprodukten unterliegt einem Risiko. Sie können Ihr eingesetztes Kapital verlieren. Und: Bewertungen bei Apple (oder auch Spotify) machen mir Freude: http://www.audio-cd.at/spotify http://www.audio-cd.at/apple . 1913 full no Christian Drastil Comm.

[Editor's note: This interview was recorded on November 13 and in the fast-moving transition to a new administration, some items discussed here as possible or unlikely have already come to pass.]The new Trump Administration is going to have a dramatic impact on leadership at Federal banking regulators as well as on the new rules impacting fintech. So, I thought it would be useful to bring on an expert to tease out this impact and how fintechs can adapt to the changing of the guard.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Armen Meyer, the Co-Founder of the American Fintech Council, the former head of public policy at LendingClub and a public policy expert. We cover a lot of territory on this show as Armen prognosticates on what the change of administration could mean for fintech.In this podcast you will learn:Armen's history with fintech and forming the American Fintech Council.What changes we are likely to see at the top of the regulatory agencies.Why the Federal Reserve will see a lot of noise under Trump.Why the CFPB will not focus their attention on Section 1033.What might happen with the new BNPL rules.The future of the credit card late fee rules.What might happen with EWA, overdraft rules and regulating big tech.The impact on BaaS bank consent orders.How the state regulators may react to the changes at Federal agencies.How the pendulum swing back and forth between Democrats and Republicans impacts banking and fintech.What the end of the Chevron Doctrine might mean for fintech.Whether we will see some kind of new limited fintech or payments charter.Why Armen is optimistic for the new Trump Administration.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Hans Morris is used to following fintech trends. He's a managing partner at Nyca Partners, a fintech venture capital firm in New York and San Francisco, and the chairman of the board of Lending Club. In today's Punk Rock-themed show, Hans talks to Al and Steve about some of his portfolio investments that touch on juicy industry themes, like: Generative AI (and interesting ways to use it), automated tax prep services and fresher ways to screen tenants than requesting their credit scores.Hans will also share some of his favorite wine picks just in time for the holidays.

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found Click On Picture To See Larger Picture China's housing market is crashing, we have seen this before back in 2008. Newsom goes after oil companies while [KH] flip flops on oil. This holiday season is going to be the worst one we have seen in a long time. Trump says there is a way to get rid of income taxes and go back to the 1890 or so. The [DS] is now panicking, MAGA is voting early which is allowing people to see how many people have voted. By knowing the number this is going to be a problem for the [DS] because when they make up the difference  the number will not add up. There comes a point where the election is to big to rig. Trump lets everyone know that MAGA is close to 200 million people. [DS] prepared to delay the election to count but they will move to phase II of their plan.   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); Economy https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1848743363387719922   70 of China's major cities this year. Even as China rolls out pandemic-like stimulus, their real estate market continues to collapse. China needs a major economy restructuring. https://twitter.com/US_OGA/status/1848444343541239858?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1848444343541239858%7Ctwgr%5Edf58b5915d0d7d096237f6ec6ff6bfa8d563c957%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffreebeacon.com%2Felections%2Fkamala-harris-climate-official-reverses-her-reversal-of-harriss-support-for-fossil-fuels%2F Retail Expert Warns of Weak Holiday Shopping Season with Consumers ‘Stressed by Inflation' A former Target executive and retail expert is warning of a not-so-jolly holiday shopping season as Americans struggle in President Joe Biden (D) and Vice President Kamala Harris's (D) economy. “They're increasingly stressed by inflation and the exhaustion of their pandemic-era savings. When you take a look over the last several years, what you see month after month, everyone talks about, the consumer's still spending. They might be, but they're spending less than the growth of inflation,” he stated. In 2023, a LendingClub study found a majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, as polling at the time showed only 14 percent of voters believed Biden's economic policies were helping them, Breitbart News reported. “Now and the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is very, very short, so that's going to be bad. The election's going to weigh on things and the geopolitical situation as well, so I think it's going to be a pretty weak Christmas,” he said. The nation has seen a wave of retail stores closing down amid challenges between physical locations and the growth of the internet, Storch noted. He added:   Trump cited the rising cost of basic grocery staples under the Biden-Harris administration compared to when he was leading the nation: Source: breitbart.com https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1848441460699631760  for every American. In 2024, the US paid a total of $1.16 trillion of interest on this debt in its first year above the $1 trillion mark. In interest alone, the US paid $3,360 for every American during fiscal year 2024. What is the long-term plan here? https://twitter.com/TRHLofficial/status/1848667730527862837   $35.8 trillion—equivalent to $1,450 per American added in mere weeks. Each citizen now bears $103,700 in national debt. Meanwhile, interest payments surpassed $1 trillion in 2024, costing every American $3,360 in interest alone. This fiscal irresponsibility is an unsustainable gimmick to hide the true state of the economy. https://twitter.

How did a Silicon Valley property play become a global corporate innovation driver and VC firm? In this episode of Open For Business, Jojo Flores, Co-Founder of Plug and Play, shares how a Silicon Valley real estate play in 2006/2007 has turned into a global innovation platform and early-stage startup investor. Plug and Play now operates across 50+ locations, running accelerator programs, corporate innovation services, and a venture capital firm.We discuss their journey, expansion into APAC, and their perspective on the future of innovation in the region. Key points we dive into include:- The story behind the founding of Plug and Play and its early beginnings in real estate.- How Plug and Play became a hub for startups like Dropbox, Lending Club, and PayPal.- The role of corporate partnerships in Plug and Play's accelerator and innovation programs.- Plug and Play's investment strategy and how they choose the startups they invest in.- The expansion into Southeast Asia and insights on Malaysia's innovation potential.

Download your FREE Curated Money Plan HERE  Have been meaning to get on top of your money but don't know where to start? Learn more about 1:1 coaching with me to help keep you accountable and reach your money goals faster! Get the lowdown HERE Have a question, feedback or topics you would like to hear more about in a future podcast? DM me on Instagram @curated_money or contact me via my website  Baz's smart stats: Canstar Consumer Pulse Report 2023 Lending Club

In this episode of the Operate Podcast, we take a behind-the-scenes look at the birth of fintech P2P and marketplace lending with Peter Renton, one of its pioneers. Peter shared his extensive background, starting from his early days as a self-directed investor to founding key fintech companies like Lend Academy and LendIt, which later became Fintech Nexus. We discussed his journey into peer-to-peer lending and its evolution as institutional investors entered the space. The conversation spans the rise of fintech innovation, the challenges of scaling peer-to-peer platforms, and the role of community banks in the future of financial services. Peter recounted the bubble in the fintech lending space around 2015 and how the industry adapted following the Lending Club debacle in 2016. He also shared his advice for fintech founders, emphasizing the importance of diversification in funding sources and customer acquisition strategies.  We delved into notable companies like Upstart and their pivots in the fintech landscape. Additionally, Peter reflected on the transition from LendIt to FinTech Nexus to encompass a broader range of fintech innovations for their content and events. We touched on the increasing interest of banks in fintech events from 2016 onwards and the changing landscape post-pandemic. Peter discussed emerging trends in fintech, such as embedded lending, mobile wallets, and new payment rails. He highlighted the necessity for community banks to adopt technology and attract younger customers. Lastly, Peter introduced his new consulting venture, Renton & Co, aimed at guiding fintech companies through content strategy, marketing, and market analysis. Enjoy this comprehensive look at the past, present, and future of fintech.   CHAPTER MARKERS: 00:00 Preview  00:34 Intro 00:47 Sponsor 01:19 Meet Peter Renton: A Fintech Pioneer 02:50 Peter's Early Fascination with Finance 04:04 Discovering Peer-to-Peer Lending 05:36 Building Lend Academy and LendIt 09:21 The Evolution of Marketplace Lending 18:39 Reflections on the Fintech Lending Boom 27:19 Kudos to Dave Girard (UpStart) and Team 28:04 The Shift to FinTech Nexus 29:04 Expanding Beyond Lending 32:16 Challenges and Stress of the Events Business 32:48 The Impact of the Pandemic 33:54 Future of FinTech and Embedded Lending 37:47 The Role of Community Banks 42:38 Advice for Community Bank CEOs 49:18 Peter's New Venture: Renton & Co

Lex chats with  Danielle Sesko about insurance and innovation in the fintech sector. They discuss the purpose of insurance and why it exists, the structure of insurance companies, the challenges of insurance innovation, and the integration of insurance into digital lending platforms. Sesko explains that insurance is necessary because most people cannot sustain a total loss of their assets, such as their homes or businesses. She also discusses the regulatory structure of insurance in the US, which is regulated on a state-by-state basis. Sesko describes the product she is working on at TruStage, which provides insurance coverage for loans in the digital lending space. The insurance is designed to protect both the borrower and the lender in case of unexpected events, such as job loss or disability. Sesko explains the technology integrations between insurance and digital lending platforms and the economics of the product. She also discusses the challenges and opportunities in the insurtech industry. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION TruStage's Website: https://bit.ly/3WibyC1Danielle's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3XUZNmp Topics: InsurTech, Insurance, Digital Lending, Lending, embedded finance, embedded insurance, API, fintech Tags: TruStage, Payment Guard, Lending Club, FDIC ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 

In this episode of Money Tales, our guest is Marla Sofer. Marla had an epic career in financial services and fintech. Along the way she developed an entrepreneurial itch that wouldn't go away. Realizing she only has one life to live, Marla decided to align her work with her values and leapt into entrepreneurship. A key motivator was her daughter, who, after hearing Marla's dreams, asked, "When are you going to do it?" Realizing that Marla was modeling more for her daughter than she thought, Marla took this as a double dare that she wanted to go after. Marla, Founder and CEO of Knomee, is a seasoned financial services and fintech executive, founder of two women's networks driving change and inclusion in corporations, frequent speaker on topics related to the future of financial services, wealth, and asset management, startup advisor, 2020 Woman of Silicon Valley, 2021 Woman in WealthTech to Watch, and proud mom, and wife. She led partnerships quantified in billions of dollars at J.P. Morgan and BlackRock before leaping into fintech in 2015 to improve customer experiences. Her experiences at Microsoft, Carta, Invesco, Xignite, and Lending Club influenced her decision to create a solution that would improve personal financial wellness and enable financial services companies to better serve their customers and prospects.

This episode of The Get Down podcast features an insightful conversation on financial inclusion and the potential of emerging technologies like blockchain and AI. Special guest Betsabe Botaitis shares her unique career journey from traditional banking to entrepreneurship in FinTech and web3, and how her diverse experiences have fueled her passion for impacting underserved communities. Plus, host Ritzy P and Cleve Mesidor discuss the direction of butterscotch Media now that the podcast has launched!Be sure to sign up for our newsletter, Chews! Betsabe Botaitis serves as the Chief Financial Officer at Hedera, a trusted blockchain layer for enterprises, where she is responsible for overseeing all financial and accounting activities, including token economics and strategy. Prior to joining Hedera, Betsabe held senior finance positions at various high-growth companies including Uplift, Kueski, LendingClub, and Citigroup. Betsabe is on the advisory board of the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center and is a member of the Fortune Most Powerful Women.This episode discusses:Betsabe's nonlinear career path from large financial institutions to startups and her role as CFO of Hedera.How blockchain technologies like stablecoins can revolutionize access to financial services globally.The importance of finance professionals having an understanding of both traditional and newer digital assets.Potential for blockchain to improve data integrity and decision-making in healthcare and longevity.Blockchain has the ability to solve long-standing problems of trust and efficiency across multiple industries. By leveraging the emerging technologies like blockchain and AI, we can create more inclusive and equitable financial systems worldwide. We hope you walk away feeling inspired by Betsabe's commitment to using her skills and experiences to empower underserved communities.Thanks for tuning in! To get the full scoop on creating a more inclusive Web3, DeFi, and Bitcoin space, make sure you catch every episode – we're packed with actionable tips and insights. If you found this episode valuable, spread the word and share it with someone who needs to hear this. Don't forget to follow, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite listening app – it helps us reach even more people who are passionate about building a better future for everyone in the crypto space.CONNECT WITH BETSABE BOTAITIS:LinkedInHederaCONNECT WITH BUTTERSCOTCH MEDIA:Check us out on our website butterscotch.media and subscribe to our newsletterFollow us on X @butterscotch360Watch our content on YouTube

Miguel Armaza interviews Charles Moldow, General Partner at Foundation Capital, a 30-year old venture capital firm with $3+ billion in AUM. Charles joined Foundation in 2005 and over the last two decades has led early-stage investments for many companies, 14 out of which either went public or were successfully acquired. Some of his investments include Lending Club, DOMA, Rappi, Rover, and OnDeck Financial.I learn a lot every time I talk to Charles and I hope you'll enjoy this conversation as much as I did.We discuss:Why data is the new gold and a framework on how to invest in the sector. The reason why different market dynamics require different types of founders to succeed. Thinking selectively about credit-driven fintechs. Valuable portfolio and liquidity management lessons… and a lot more! Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

In this episode, I sit down with Renaud Laplanche, founder and CEO of Upgrade. Renaud talks about his move from Lending Club to starting Upgrade, focusing on innovation in consumer fintech. He shares insights on the unique features of the Upgrade Card, the strategic partnerships with credit unions, and the future of consumer finance. We dive into his strategies for building successful fintech companies and what sets Upgrade apart in the industry.

This episode was produced remotely using the ListenDeck standardized audio & video production system. If you're looking to jumpstart your podcast miniseries or upgrade your podcast or video production please visit www.ListenDeck.com. You can subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio. In this episode, the host John Siracusa had a remote chat with Renaud Laplanche, Co-founder & CEO of Upgrade.  Renaud was previously CEO of Lending Club where he is also a co-founder.  In this episode we go in depth about his journey from corporate lawyer, to MatchPoint (acquired by Oracle) and Lending Club which was created in a time when peer to peer lending was not even an idea.  Today at Upgrade he's creating something that is not obvious yet.  Throughout the interview Renaud realizes that he loves to create non-obvious things that change industries.   Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and iHeartRadio to hear next Thursdays episode with Lamine Zarrad from StellarFi. About the host: John is the founder of ListenDeck a full-service podcast and video production company, which has produced over 1500 episodes of various podcasts. He is the host of the ‘Bank On It' podcast, which features over 600 episodes starring high profile fintech leaders and entrepreneurs. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium

Today on Banking Transformed, we have the privilege of revisiting Scott Sanborn, CEO of LendingClub, the leading digital marketplace bank in the U.S. Since its inception, LendingClub has challenged the traditional banking model, leveraging technology and data to deliver better rates and products to its members. Scott shares his insights on the company's journey since acquiring Radius Bancorp in 2021, and the future prospects for growth since successfully exiting from the three-year Operating Agreement required of new banks. Finally, Scott provides his vision for the future of banking, and how he sees LendingClub's role in shaping this future.

Lex chats with Nelson Chu, founder and CEO of Percent -  the modern credit marketplace. Nelson kicks off the discussion b by walking through his inspiration for building the private credit marketplace and the challenges of operating in the fintech industry. He explains that Percent aims to provide a better alternative investment platform for credit investors by offering shorter durations and lower minimum investments. Nelson also discusses the importance of infrastructure in the private credit market and the need for technology to streamline processes. He highlights the different types of investors and borrowers that use Percent's platform and the challenges of building a three-sided marketplace. Nelson also touches on the impact of macroeconomic factors, such as interest rates, on the private credit market and the role of data and AI in the industry. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Percent's Website: https://bit.ly/3x3w8MgNelson's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4a5Nwym Topics: Private credit, lending, borrowers, underwriting, AI, artificial intelligence, investment, alternative investment, fintech, marketplace Companies: Percent, Lending Club, LendIt, Prosper, Blackstone ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 

LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn joins to discuss the state of the credit and loan market. He speaks with Bloomberg's Sonali Basak.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the dynamic world of entrepreneurship, few stories are as captivating as Renaud Laplanche's journey. From the picturesque streets of Paris to navigating the entrepreneurial waters in the South of France, Renaud's experiences have shaped him into a serial entrepreneur with a remarkable track record.

President Biden's visit to a local restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina, over the past weekend didn't quite pan out as his White House advisors had planned after a keen observer pointed out something intriguing on the diner's menu. The administration has been diligently pushing 'Bidenomics,' the moniker given to the president's economic strategy, as a boon to the working-class citizens of the United States. However, the ground reality paints a contrasting picture compared to the administration's portrayal of improved livelihoods for working-class Americans. In August, a survey conducted by Lending Club shed light on the fact that 60 percent of American households were functioning on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis. It wasn't just the low earners that were affected as the survey revealed that this trend spanned across income groups, with 45 percent of those raking in more than $100,000 per annum also included. This harsh reality was inadvertently put under the spotlight during President Biden's visit to a diner in North Carolina, according to the Daily Mail UK.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, Nicole gives you a way to fight back against a system that's typically set-up against you: lending. Along the way, she shares insights from a recent conversation with Scott Sanborn, the CEO of LendingClub, who shares Nicole's passion for making lending more equitable. Nicole and Scott unpack who gets hurt in traditional systems of lending, how to use credit as a tool and "good debt." Originally aired 05.23.23

The small business lending space has seen a lot of innovation over the last decade with fintech leading the way. But there is still much more work to do as many small business still lack the access to capital that they deserve.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Steve Allocca, the head of Funding Circle USA. He has worked at some of the biggest names in fintech (PayPal, LendingClub, Bluevine and now Funding Circle) working on this challenge of helping small business access capital. Funding Circle is a pioneer in this space and recently they received the news that they have been approved for a new SBA 7(a) lending license.In this podcast you will learn:Steve's deep and varied history in the fintech space.Some of the lessons he has brought to Finding Circle.What attracted him to the role at Funding Circle.The typical terms of their core term loan product.Their approach to underwriting small businesses.The impact on demand of the increase in interest rates.What it means for Funding Circle to be approved to be an SBA 7(a) lender.The timetable for when they will be able to start making SBA loans.How they are building their lending as a service offering.How they interact with the Funding Circle head office in the UK.Some of the new hires they have made to the leadership team.How they can get a clearer picture of small business data.What is top of mind for Funding Circle for 2024.Connect with Steve on LinkedInConnect with Funding Circle on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

The small business lending space has seen a lot of innovation over the last decade with fintech leading the way. But there is still much more work to do as many small business still lack the access to capital that they deserve.My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Steve Allocca, the head of Funding Circle USA. He has worked at some of the biggest names in fintech (PayPal, LendingClub, Bluevine and now Funding Circle) working on this challenge of helping small business access capital. Funding Circle is a pioneer in this space and recently they received the news that they have been approved for a new SBA 7(a) lending license.In this podcast you will learn:Steve's deep and varied history in the fintech space.Some of the lessons he has brought to Finding Circle.What attracted him to the role at Funding Circle.The typical terms of their core term loan product.Their approach to underwriting small businesses.The impact on demand of the increase in interest rates.What it means for Funding Circle to be approved to be an SBA 7(a) lender.The timetable for when they will be able to start making SBA loans.How they are building their lending as a service offering.How they interact with the Funding Circle head office in the UK.Some of the new hires they have made to the leadership team.How they can get a clearer picture of small business data.What is top of mind for Funding Circle for 2024.Connect with Steve on LinkedInConnect with Funding Circle on LinkedInConnect with Fintech One-on-One:Tweet me @PeterRentonConnect with me on LinkedInFind previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

Reports are surfacing suggesting that there is underlying tension amongst the White House staff due to the increasingly critical spotlight the normally supportive mainstream media is casting on President Joe Biden's sinking approval rating. This phenomenon is drawing attention as the upcoming 2024 election cycle is revving up. Over the majority of the previous year, Biden's ratings continue to slip. Interestingly, more and more polls suggest that former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate by a significant gap, is on a smooth journey to once again claim the Republican nomination. This information comes courtesy of news outlet, The Hill. An anonymous source close to Biden expressed their dissatisfaction with the biased media attention which persistently focuses on the polling results showcasing Biden's downward trend while disregarding those that paint him in a victorious light. Trump, on the other hand, has prophesied a collapse of the U.S. economy under Biden, countering which, White House officials assert that inflation is under control, stock market figures are promising, and unemployment rates are near historical lows. The Consumer Price Index, which studies a selection of common goods, has indeed been experiencing a decline since the engulfing pandemic. Despite these encouraging economic indicators, The Hill points out that the media coverage of this positive economic climate is insufficient. This in turn impacts the polling outcomes since public opinion is heavily influenced by media headlines. A high-ranking Biden official remarked on the frustrating lack of media coverage. The sentiment was echoed by a Biden ally who shared that in light of this overwhelming 'deep frustration', strategic meetings have been called to assess the situation. They clarify, however, that these meetings do not suggest panic over the President's prospective standing. These gatherings involve deliberations on how best to spread the message about President Biden's age and achievements. Serious concerns are being raised that the communication of Biden's accomplishments have not been persuasive or recurring enough to resonate with the public. The challenge, therefore, is crafting a message that is both potent and penetrative. However, despite the government's optimistic economic projections, according to many polls, a noticeable share of Americans continues to struggle financially. In fact, a recent survey may provide further fuel to the Republicans as they strategize their political maneuvers against Biden and the Democrats leading up to the 2024 elections. Remarkably, the November 2023 PYMNTS and LendingClub survey found that 62% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and around 60% of the country's credit card holders are among this group. The research went on to disclose that an astonishing 80% of these individuals possess at least two credit cards. The study went on to add an even more worrying statistic: cardholders living paycheck to paycheck are twice as likely to carry forward a credit card balance month-to-month than those who do not. Almost a third admitted that they have maxed out their credit card limit of on average $9,200, at least a few times within the past year. In an alarming trend, U.S. consumers have amassed an additional $48 billion in credit card debts during the third quarter of 2023, increasing the total outstanding amount to a staggering $1.08 trillion. This outstanding amount was revealed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through an analytical report regarding household debt. Campaigning his 'Bidenomics' approach, the President is steadfast in his belief that his implemented policies have significantly improved the living standards of US citizens. However, what the public tells the pollsters narrates a different story. Many survey respondents stated that it was Biden's policies that pushed them to reduce their Christmas spendings. Furthermore, in multiple cases, individuals reported having to work extra hours or take on additional jobs just to afford celebrating the holiday season. Aided by the Empower's 2023 holiday spending report, it was uncovered that a whopping majority of 74 percent of respondents - 1,000 people conducted in the survey - agreed that inflation caused them to be more frugal during the holiday season. Remarkably, 31 percent of them stated they had to work additional hours so as to afford holiday expenses. Empower's study uncovered further details regarding Americans' spending habits, with over a third of respondents (34%) electing to make savings this year by reducing their budget allocation. Another prominent change in spending behavior amongst respondents included reducing expenditure on non-essential items such as dining out or buying gifts so as to stay within their budget. According to Empower representative Courtney Burrell, the survey gives a glimpse into the current financial situation of most Americans. Budget reductions, compromise on quality of life, and an increase in work hours are the measures employed by many to survive in today's economy. Faced with such high inflation rates, they are forced to cut back on non-essential expenses to make ends meet. While there are people criticizing the media for being biased, there are others who feel that their life situations are not improving regardless of the economic indications. The mainstream narrative focusing on Biden's slipping ratings indicates a negative perception of the Biden administration's efforts at managing the country's economy. For Biden, tackling these ongoing struggles goes beyond mass media manipulation. Efforts must be ramped up to restore confidence in his policy-making and economic management. American households that are feeling the financial squeeze from inflation and rising costs deserve attention, and the President must strive to deliver on that. Ultimately, regardless of spin and media narratives, substantive changes on the ground reflecting in people's wallets will be instrumental in swaying public opinion. The high number of citizens living paycheck-to-paycheck, increased credit card debt, and the struggle to make ends meet all paint a different picture from the government's take on the country's economy. This signifies an urgent calling for more effective and impactful economic reforms. This Post First Appeared on Real News Now: https://www.realnewsnow.com/trump-steams-forward-as-bidens-approval-ratings-tumble/ Visit Real News Now for more breaking news and stories https://www.realnewsnow.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RealNewsNowApp/ X Twitter: https://twitter.com/realnewsapp Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realnews/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@realnewsnowapp Video: https://youtu.be/PK_RJn2J-xQ  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this special episode, we explore valuable company-building lessons and mistakes shared by 18 of our guests from over last 2 years. So if you're building a business, I hope you find it helpful.This show is divided into four categories of insights:Organizational CultureProduct StrategyLeadership TacticsSales and MarketingEach chapter explores critical aspects of building a tech company, featuring the CEOs, Founders, and leaders of companies like Ramp, SoFi, Gusto, Lending Club, Figure, Upgrade, Melio, and Carta, amongst others.This episode is a treasure trove of lessons learned and strategic advice for current and aspiring fintech builders. We are also including the links to each individual episode on Substack so that you can dive-in to each one of them.Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 60,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

As the federal administration continues to promote the financial state produced under its own policies, the catalyzing economic approach often called 'Bidenomics,' a recent report is bound to offer substantial talking points for the opposition leading up to the impending election cycle. An insightful survey disclosed that, as of November 2023, a staggering 62% of consumers were dependent on their forthcoming paycheck for their monthly fiscal needs, according to the data collected by PYMNTS and LendingClub. It was also noted that this precise set of consumers are the owners of nearly 60% of the credit cards circulating within the U.S. market. In an even more surprising twist, a vast 80% of these consumers who live paycheck-to-paycheck holds on average no less than two credit cards, as reported by Fox Business. The informative report went on to highlight that those struggling with paycheck-to-paycheck patterns often carry a higher likelihood, almost twice as much as others, to extend their credit card balance into the consequent month. Adding to the complexity, nearly a third of these consumers stated having hit their credit card limit, calculated to be an average of $9,200, sporadically within the past year as reported by the same outlet, referencing the analyzed data. As if this wasn't concerning enough, the credit card debt has climbed an additional $48 billion during 2023's third quarter, bringing the total liability to an unnerving $1.08 trillion as per the analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recent data signals a trying time for American citizens and could be causing a dip in the current administration's popularity. A LendingClub study reveals that around 60% of U.S. residents are now getting by on a monthly salary, with this statistic looming over the forthcoming festive season. Inflation rates and fuel expenses are both noticeably steeper compared to when the current leadership assumed power. Furthermore, the study showed a worrying trend where 40% of shoppers believe their financial standing has deteriorated since 2022, as shared in a CNBC article referencing LendingClub findings. This information was gathered in October, a mere month before the onset of the holiday shopping spree. Simultaneously, a contrasting survey by TD Bank indicates a resurgence in credit card debt, which has now exceeded $1 trillion. Disturbingly, a considerable 96% of buyers predict exceeding their spending budget this holiday season, as reported by CNBC, further adding to the growing consumer debt. Half of these consumers are contemplating incurring additional debt to finance their holiday expenses, according to a separate study by Ally Bank. Only about 23% of those borrowers have hatched repayment plans for the next one to two months.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is the Elephant in the Room in Banking that comes to mind following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and recently the Citizens Bank (a small state-chartered Iowa bank)? The problem that bankers and regulators wish someone would solve is the topic of the discussion with serial entrepreneur Michal Cieplinski (founder and CEO of Capstack). Capstack https://www.capstack.com/Michal Cieplinski   / michalcieplinski   is a Silicon Valley veteran with over 24 years of operating and legal experience in financial technology and services. Before founding CapStack, first integrated operating system for banks, he co-founded Pipe, a unicorn and one of the fastest-growing fintech startups. Prior to Pipe, Michal was Senior Vice President at Lending Club, the largest publicly traded fintech lender responsible for operational and legal matters. Prior to that, he co-founded Fundbox, a unicorn B2B fintech lender. He was also Managing Director and SeniorCounsel at The Bank of New York Mellon responsible for wealth management and investment management units. Michal has been recognized by GC Magazine/Legal500 on the GC Powerlist 2019 as one of the top general counsels in the United States in both the finance and technology sectors. He combines left-brain and right-brain thinking with an MFA in Photography, deep expertise in banking and capital markets, and as a graduate of the George Washington University Law School.

Rebecca is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures where she leads early-stage investments in Fintech, Healthtech, and AI. Rebecca has been named to the Forbes Midas List five years running, a Woman to Watch: Senior Deal Maker by the Wall Street Journal, and a Top Woman VC by the New York Times. Some of her notable investments include Luminar (NASDAQ: LAZR), Lending Club (NYSE: LC), Practice Fusion (acq Allscripts), Gabi (acq Experian), Check (acq Intuit), RelateIQ (acq Salesforce), CrowdFlower (acq by Appen), Viewics (acq Roche), FutureAdvisor (acq Blackrock), and Figure8 (acq Appen).  Before founding Canvas, Rebecca served as a General Partner at Morgenthaler Ventures. During her time at Morgenthaler, one of her early investments, Doximity (NYSE: DOCS), went public in 2021 and was one of the year's largest IPOs. Before that, she was the VP of NextCard. At NextCard, the first online credit card company, Rebecca helped scale the company from 30 people to 1300 and an IPO.  You can learn more about:  How to invest in the world's changing entrepreneurs   Founding and managing a leading VC firm  How to be a value-adding board member  ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG =====================   Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company.

In this episode (originally published Jan 3, 2023), Miguel Armaza brings you a curated selection from the best lessons, reflections, and secrets on how to build and manage an amazing board of directors. Whether you're a CEO managing a board, an investor who sits on several, an independent board director, or you just want to learn,  we hope you find it helpful.Over the last of last 12 months, one of the common themes across many episodes, has been to learn about the best practices of corporate board management. Several of our guests have sat or currently sit on the board of some of the most incredible firms in the world and they had a lot to say about it.In this episode, you will hear from:Martin Escobari, Co-President of General AtlanticRenaud Laplanche, Co-Founder & CEO of UpgradePaulo Passoni, Head of Growth Investing at Valor Jackie Reses, CEO of Lead BankMatt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital VenturesDave Nangle, Managing Partner of VEFCollectively, they sit or have sat on the boards of Nubank, Alibaba, Lending Club, dLocal, XP, Upgrade, Incode, VTEX, Affirm, Quinto Andar, Billtrust, Justworks, Creditas, Finix, Acorns, Konfio, and many more.They discuss three main topics:Importance of Diversity in The Board RoomMost of the Work is Done Outside the Board MeetingBuild Your Board Early and Make Sure It Feels Like Any Other Great Team at the CompanyWant more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary, instead? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join almost 60,000 readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Lex chats with Sam Bobley, founder and CEO of Ocrolus - a fintech infrastructure company that powers underwriting processes for lenders like SoFi, Lending Club, and Enova. In this episode Sam starts off by sharing how he got started in entrepreneurship at a young age and the influence of his father, who was a serial entrepreneur. Bobley explains how Ocrolus focuses on document automation using OCR technology and the challenges they faced in the early days. He also discusses the evolution of machine vision and the improvements in handling semi-structured and unstructured documents. Bobley highlights the importance of vertical-specific solutions and the integration of AI technologies into financial services. He shares the company's experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and the pivot they made to focus on the Paycheck Protection Program. Bobley emphasizes the need for transparency, focusing on the big picture, and having a support system to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship. He rounds off the episode discussing the trends he sees in the industry, including the rise of large language models and the adoption of cashflow-based underwriting. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Ocrolus's Website: https://bit.ly/3QHYoeNSam's LinkedIn profile: https://bit.ly/3SrC7TU Topics: artificial intelligence, ai, machine vision, OCR, LLM, machine learning, automation, fintech, embedded banking Companies: Ocrolus, Plaid, OpenAI, Google, Amazon, AWS, OnDeck ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 

Episode Topic: In this episode of PayPod, we dive into the world of financial innovation with Adelina Grozdanova, a seasoned expert in the payments and fintech industry and the Co-Founder and Head of the Investor Group at Upgrade. Adelina shares her journey, starting her career in the financial world, and the driving force behind co-founding her company, followed by insights into the unique approach and affordable credit solutions of her company, which have redefined the landscape of financial services. Lessons You'll Learn: We explore Adelina Grozdanova's journey in finance, her motivation to co-found a company, and her drive to offer affordable credit solutions. Learn how Upgrade redefines finance by offering affordable and responsible credit and mobile banking, targeting mainstream consumers. Discover how Upgrade builds trust with consumers, tackles industry traditions, and creates meaningful connections. Explore the innovative Upgrade OneCard, which provides flexibility in credit. We also delve into Upgrade's recent acquisition of Uplift, its strategic vision, and the evolving landscape of financial industry acquisitions. About Our Guest: Adelina Grozdanova, the Co-Founder and Head of the Investor Group at Upgrade, Inc., brings over seven years of expertise in the financial and fintech industry. She has a diverse background, with experience serving on the Board of Directors at MightyOwl and advising at Cardless. She also served as Vice President and Head of Institutional Investors at Lending Club and worked in healthcare investment banking at Morgan Stanley. Her skills span investment banking, capital markets, and financial modeling, making her a well-rounded leader in the finance sector. Topics Covered: In this episode, Adelina Grozdanova discusses her journey in finance, co-founding Upgrade, and their innovative approach to financial services. Explore the concept of "affordable and responsible" credit, addressing traditional industry practices, and building trust with underserved consumers. Discover the unique features of the Upgrade OneCard and how it reshapes credit flexibility. We delve into Upgrade's strategic acquisition of Uplift and the evolving landscape of financial industry acquisitions. Adelina's rich background in investment banking and her insights on success factors in the finance sector provides a comprehensive perspective on financial innovation. Check our website: https://www.soarpay.com

In today's episode, Rhea Advani hosts John MacIlwaine, Co-Founder & CEO at Highnote. They delve into the evolving payments processing space, emphasizing the rise of innovative embedded finance platforms like Highnote. The conversation also unveils insights into Highnote's latest Credit Issuing product. In this episode, you will hear about: The complexities of payments processing and regulatory challenges faced by fintech companies. Highnote's innovative approach as an embedded platform, emphasizing differentiation and flexibility. Insights into Highnote's latest product, the Credit Issuing platform, and its implications for the market. The future of issuer processing, where legacy platforms coexist with cutting-edge solutions like Highnote. Highnote's strategies for navigating the competitive fintech industry and their vision for the evolving market landscape. About John MacIlwaine John MacIlwaine is the the CEO and co-founder of Highnote, an embedded finance company setting the new standard for modern card platform management through differentiated payment experiences. John has over two decades of experience leading in technical and management roles at global financial companies. Prior to founding Highnote, he served as General Manager of Braintree, a leading global payments platform that powers some of the world's most innovative and fast-growing companies, including Uber, Airbnb, and Dropbox. During his tenure at Braintree, John was instrumental in driving the company's global growth and expansion. Before joining Braintree, MacIlwaine served as the Chief Technology Officer of Lending Club, a pioneering online lending platform that connects borrowers with investors. In his role, John laid the groundwork to establish the company's technical foundation while driving innovation across the organization. Throughout his career, John has been committed to helping businesses move faster and innovate more through differentiated payment experiences. He believes that payments are a critical touchpoint in the customer journey and that businesses must deliver seamless, personalized experiences to stand out in today's competitive landscape. About Highnote Highnote is an embedded finance company setting the new standard in modern card platform management. Purpose-built to realize customer loyalty and engagement through embedded card experiences, Highnote's fully integrated tech stack provides every service needed for innovative companies to launch new ways to use card payments. Utilizing the developer-friendly Highnote platform, product and engineering teams at digital enterprises of all sizes can easily and efficiently embed virtual and physical payment cards (commercial and consumer prepaid, debit, credit, and charge), ledger, and wallet capabilities into their existing products, creating compelling value for users while growing revenue and building a unique and differentiated brand. The company has raised more than $100 million from leading investors and strategic partners and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For additional information, please visit www.highnote.com. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Rhea's Twitter: @rheaadvani Rhea's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rheaa/

Are you ready to dive into the future of privacy, AI, and data risk management?We have Russell Sherman CTO and co-founder of VISO TRUST, an AI-powered solution for third-party risk management. We discuss:Why AI is more than just a buzzword and why Privacy Pros need to adopt and adapt to stay ahead of the game How to leverage AI in third-party risk management to stay competitive The secrets to successfully transition into Privacy and specialise in AI If you want to be ahead of the curve and dominate in this space, this episode is a must listen.Russell Sherman is the CTO and co-founder of VISO TRUST, an AI-powered SaaS solution that scales and automates third-party risk management. He is an accomplished technology executive, security leader, and security product innovator, previously working at highly regulated technology companies, including ASAPP, Varo Money, LendingClub and Dell SecureWorks, with extensive experience in third-party cyber.If you're ready to transform your career and become the go-to GDPR expert, get your copy of 'The Easy Peasy Guide to GDPR' here: https://www.bestgdprbook.com/Follow Jamal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmjahmed/Follow Russ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neverenoughinfo/Get Exclusive Insights, Secret Expert Tips & Actionable Resources For A Thriving Privacy Career That We Only Share With Email Subscribers► https://newsletter.privacypros.academy/sign-upSubscribe to the Privacy Pros Academy YouTube Channel► https://www.youtube.com/c/PrivacyProsJoin the Privacy Pros Academy Private Facebook Group for:Free LIVE TrainingFree Easy Peasy Data Privacy GuidesData Protection Updates and so much moreApply to join here whilst it's still free: https://www.facebook.com/groups/privacypro

The Hunters and Unicorns session with Anant Bhardwaj, Founder and CEO of Instabase unveiled an extraordinary journey, starting from humble beginnings to becoming the visionary founder of a groundbreaking AI company, Instabase. The emphasis on developing applications around real-world use cases struck a chord, highlighting the need to identify broader relevance beyond a specific scenario for achieving impactful market fit. Key Takeaways; 1. Early Life and Education: Grew up in a rural part of India called Nalanda, Bihar, without modern amenities. Initially struggled adjusting to a city environment due to a shift in language and educational medium to English. 2. Career Aspirations: Initially wanted to join the Army like family members but was rejected due to colour blindness. Had an interest in literature, poetry, and writing but was discouraged from pursuing it as a career. 3. Academic Journey: Accidentally got into computer science during college in India and discovered a passion for programming. Moved to the US for a master's at Stanford but felt pressure to start a company during this time. Pursued research projects at MIT, one of which was Data Hub, exploring abstracting complex data for diverse applications. Faced challenges with visa status and legal issues but was supported by MIT during this period. 4. Formation of Databricks: Founded Databricks without a clear commercial application but had an academic focus initially. Initially targeted academia, providing free products to professors and students at various universities. 5. Discovery of Commercial Use: Identified a commercial use case with companies like Zenefits and Lending Club needing data extraction from diverse sources like PDFs and images. 6. Product Development and Market Fit: Iterated the product based on market needs and feedback, eventually finding a product-market fit in data extraction and analysis for various industries. Emphasized a fearless and experimental approach to adapt to new opportunities and discover viable product uses. 7. Key Advice from Martin Casado: "Use cases precede the product; product precedes the platform; platform precedes the ecosystem." Don't build a product without understanding the use case it solves. Don't build a platform without a real product. A platform allows value creation by someone other than the creator. 8. Discovery of Product-Market Fit: Understand the key drivers and drags for customers; drivers are critical to why they buy. Find the one or two core drivers that make customers want to buy your product. Prioritize features that cater to these key drivers and address critical pain points. 9. Approach to Product Development: Engage in parallel experimentation to find both the use cases and the right product. Engage early customers to help validate and define the product, ensuring it addresses their needs. Focus on problems applicable across a wide range of industries to have a broad market impact. 10. Building a Platform: Allow customers to create value by building their own apps on your platform. Separate the product from custom services and prioritize building a scalable product. Be open to iterating and adjusting the product based on customer feedback and use cases. 11. Ecosystem Building: Move towards creating an ecosystem by enabling third-party developers to build on the platform. Aim for apps built by one entity to be usable and valuable for another, promoting a broader ecosystem. 12. Early Growth and Funding: Achieved significant growth from $250k to $5 million in a year, gaining investor interest. Raised funding at a $1 billion valuation in 2019 due to perceived strong product-market fit. 13. Challenges in Scaling Sales: Initially, sales were handled by the founder, but transitioning to a sales team required careful planning. Incorrect hiring and lack of understanding of sales dynamics led to a wasted year in scaling sales. 14. Building an Effective Sales Team: Hiring salespeople requires careful consideration of ramp-up times, quotas, and net new revenue targets. Defined sales process stages: first meeting, technical deep dive, proof of value, success criteria, business value, commercial and pricing, legal. 15. Sales Process and Experimentation: Focused on identifying and repeating successful use cases to drive sales effectively. Employed a small growth team for experimentation and exploration of new use cases and verticals. Launched a self-serve product (iHub) to understand the market, not focusing on specific deal sizes initially. 16. Sales Velocity and Incentives: Emphasized velocity of feedback and signal collection over deal size to learn from a larger customer base. Experimenting with sales team incentives to encourage high-velocity growth and learning from a diverse customer set. Episode 3 of 'The Founders Edition' is not to be missed!

(9/1/23) Anticipating Jobs Report (187k vs 170k estimated); bad news is good news. Inflation is here to stay; wage growth is slowly cooling; Lending Club survey on living paycheck to paycheck & non-essential spending. The "winter" of society is here; Neil Howe's "The Fourth Turning is Here;" the need for household financial rules; the geopolitical risk seems higher than at anytime in our lifetimes. The need for a financial vulnerability cushion. The manipulation by the media. The foolishness of allowing political sentiment to guide investment. Preview of our next Candid Coffee, Financial Fitness Podcast, and show swag; Changes in 529's and what to do with left-over money; filling out the FAFSA; the FAFSA Simplification Act. How grandparents can contribute to college education. Advantages of going to trade school. What is a university's ROI? Thrift Store Finds & Old Homes' Walls; the Secure Act should be called the "Rothification Act of America;" what happens in 2026?? Forced catch-up in Roth implications & tax rule sunset. SEG-1: Inflation is Here to Stay SEG-2: Living Paycheck to Paycheck & Non-essential Spending SEG-3: Coming Changes in 529's & FAFSA SEG-4: Thrift Store Finds; the Rothification of America Hosted by RIA Advisors Director of Financial Planning, Richard Rosso, CFP, w Senior Financial Advisor Danny Ratliff, CFP Produced by Brent Clanton, Executive Producer -------- Watch today's show on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldE2JtxJ_54&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1 -------- The latest installment of our new feature, Before the Bell, "Will September Weakness Return?" is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H_9akXBRrU&list=PLwNgo56zE4RAbkqxgdj-8GOvjZTp9_Zlz&index=1 ------- Our previous show is here: "Has the Fed Already Broken Something?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWmqq-Eqr2o&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1 -------- Articles mentioned in this report: "Inflation And Deficits And QT, Oh My -Part 2" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/inflation-and-deficits-and-qt-oh-my-part-2 "10 Best Days – A Meme For Every Bull Market" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/10-best-days-a-meme-for-every-bull-market/ "Deficit Surge Will Lead To Lower Rates, Not Higher" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/deficit-surge-will-lead-to-lower-rates-not-higher/ ------- Get more info & commentary: https://realinvestmentadvice.com/newsletter/ -------- SUBSCRIBE to The Real Investment Show here: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheRealInvestmentShow -------- Visit our Site: https://www.realinvestmentadvice.com Contact Us: 1-855-RIA-PLAN -------- Subscribe to SimpleVisor: https://www.simplevisor.com/register-new -------- Connect with us on social: https://twitter.com/RealInvAdvice https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts https://www.facebook.com/RealInvestmentAdvice/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/realinvestmentadvice/ #InvestingAdvice #JobsReport #Inflation #InterestRates #TheFourthTurning #PaycheckToPaycheck #529 #FAFSA #GeopoliticalRisk #Roth #Markets #Money #Investing

(9/1/23) Anticipating Jobs Report (187k vs 170k estimated); bad news is good news. Inflation is here to stay; wage growth is slowly cooling; Lending Club survey on living paycheck to paycheck & non-essential spending. The "winter" of society is here; Neil Howe's "The Fourth Turning is Here;" the need for household financial rules; the geopolitical risk seems higher than at anytime in our lifetimes. The need for a financial vulnerability cushion. The manipulation by the media. The foolishness of allowing political sentiment to guide investment. Preview of our next Candid Coffee, Financial Fitness Podcast, and show swag; Changes in 529's and what to do with left-over money; filling out the FAFSA; the FAFSA Simplification Act. How grandparents can contribute to college education. Advantages of going to trade school. What is a university's ROI? Thrift Store Finds & Old Homes' Walls; the Secure Act should be called the "Rothification Act of America;" what happens in 2026?? Forced catch-up in Roth implications & tax rule sunset. SEG-1: Inflation is Here to Stay SEG-2: Living Paycheck to Paycheck & Non-essential Spending SEG-3: Coming Changes in 529's & FAFSA SEG-4: Thrift Store Finds; the Rothification of America Hosted by RIA Advisors Director of Financial Planning, Richard Rosso, CFP, w Senior Financial Advisor Danny Ratliff, CFP Produced by Brent Clanton, Executive Producer -------- Watch today's show on our YouTube channel:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldE2JtxJ_54&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1 -------- The latest installment of our new feature, Before the Bell, "Will September Weakness Return?" is here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H_9akXBRrU&list=PLwNgo56zE4RAbkqxgdj-8GOvjZTp9_Zlz&index=1 ------- Our previous show is here: "Has the Fed Already Broken Something?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWmqq-Eqr2o&list=PLVT8LcWPeAugpcGzM8hHyEP11lE87RYPe&index=1 -------- Articles mentioned in this report: "Inflation And Deficits And QT, Oh My -Part 2" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/inflation-and-deficits-and-qt-oh-my-part-2 "10 Best Days – A Meme For Every Bull Market" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/10-best-days-a-meme-for-every-bull-market/ "Deficit Surge Will Lead To Lower Rates, Not Higher" https://realinvestmentadvice.com/deficit-surge-will-lead-to-lower-rates-not-higher/ ------- Get more info & commentary:  https://realinvestmentadvice.com/newsletter/ -------- SUBSCRIBE to The Real Investment Show here: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheRealInvestmentShow -------- Visit our Site: https://www.realinvestmentadvice.com Contact Us: 1-855-RIA-PLAN -------- Subscribe to SimpleVisor: https://www.simplevisor.com/register-new -------- Connect with us on social: https://twitter.com/RealInvAdvice https://twitter.com/LanceRoberts https://www.facebook.com/RealInvestmentAdvice/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/realinvestmentadvice/ #InvestingAdvice #JobsReport #Inflation #InterestRates #TheFourthTurning #PaycheckToPaycheck #529 #FAFSA #GeopoliticalRisk #Roth #Markets #Money #Investing

LendingClub Corporation, Q2 2023 Earnings Call, Jul 26, 2023

Charles Moldow, a general partner at Foundation Capital, shares his remarkable journey from being a Wall Street analyst to becoming an entrepreneur and eventually transitioning into his current role as an investor over two decades ago. His captivating anecdotes leave you eager for more, whether he's recounting stories about his father's wisdom on the internet or recalling a memorable encounter with an exceptional entrepreneur. Charles also delves into the exciting market trends within insurtech and offers valuable insights into the areas to focus attention for fruitful opportunities.In this episode, you'll learn:[2:20] Charles Moldow's early entrepreneurial ventures during the dynamic evolution of the internet.[7:58] The role of a VC in sometimes discouraging founders to protect them from their own pitfalls.[13:01] The revealing nature of a founder's personal life story, showcasing their unique abilities.[19:54] "Don't prepare to impress me. Just share your authentic truth." - Charles Moldow[23:43] The importance for entrepreneurs to explore the vast array of promising opportunities for leveraging technology in the insurance industry.The non-profit organization that Charles is passionate about: safespaceAbout Charles MoldowCharles Moldow is a general partner at Foundation Capital. At Foundation, he identifies technology trends and new user experiences that will change the financial services landscape. His thesis investing has him focused on fintech, insurtech and proptech opportunities with a crypto overlay to everything he evaluates. Since he joined Foundation Capital in 2005, he's made seventeen successful investments, five of which have gone public and twelve have been acquired. Charles' public portfolio includes early-stage investments that have led to notable IPOs with DOMA (IPO 2021), Rover (IPO 2021), LendingClub (IPO 2014), OnDeck (IPO 2014) and Everyday Health (2014). Fun fact: Charles moonlights as AAA Little League coach and family vacation planner.Learn more about Charles here.About Foundation CapitalFoundation Capital is a Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm that's dedicated to the proposition that one entrepreneur's idea, with the right support, can become a business that changes the world. The firm is made up of former entrepreneurs who set out to create the firm they wanted as founders. Foundation Capital is currently invested in more than 60 high-growth ventures in the areas of consumer, information technology, software, digital energy, financial technology, and marketing technology. These investments include AdRoll, Beepi, Bolt Threads, DogVacay, Kik, ForgeRock, Lending Home, Localytics, and Visier. The firm's twenty-six IPOs include Lending Club, OnDeck, Chegg, Sunrun, MobileIron, Control4, TubeMogul, Envestnet, Financial Engines, Netflix, NetZero, Responsys and Silver Spring Networks.Subscribe to our podcast and stay tuned for our next episode. Follow Us:  Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram | Facebook

Today we're going to introduce a game changer in the dental practice management software world...‍‍This is an innovative, all-in-one, cloud-based practice management software, and it offers an array of powerful features that are custom built for dentists by dentists ready to revolutionize the way you work. ‍If you are a start-up and decide to sign up with Oryx, they will NOT charge you a single dime, until you reached 200 active patients!⁠⁠They are partnering up with all startup practice owners and making sure you succeed, fast!⁠⁠ Click this link to schedule a FREE personalized demo and to see more on their exclusive deal!⁠‍‍‍Guest: Jay LetwatBusiness Name: SunbitCheck out Jay's Media:Website: https://sunbit.com/Email: jay@sunbit.com‍‍Other Mentions and Links:FicoBeyoncéT-MobileBurger KingCheesecake FactoryStarbucksVantageExperianiPadGimbelsTargetCare CreditLending ClubTerminatorEBITDA - earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortizationFlip the Script - Oren Klaff‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Expensive treatment plans can build a wall of resistance in a patient's mind. Be sure to address these fears, and provide customizable options for financing.Sunbit approves approximately 85% of patients who need care for financing options. That's more than double the average!Nobody budgets for a $3,000 dental procedure out of the blue. Be sure to stress that patients don't have to pay all of this at once!The credit approval system in the US has largely been untouched since the 60's. It is about time to update the process and allow more accessibility.The patients that are scared away by price will mostly likely never return. Having great finance options will help them feel safe and included!‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guest, Jay Lewa. Jay, how's it going? Jay: Everything is great, Michael, how are you? Michael: I'm doing pretty good, man. I'm doing pretty good. I appreciate you coming on. If you don't mind me asking. I know, I know. But like for our listeners, where are you located?Jay: Based in, uh, Los Angeles. Based in Los Angeles. Yeah, that's where our headquarters are at. Michael: How are you liking this Jay: rain? It's kind of new to me, to be honest with you. I've, I've only been in LA for five, six years. Um, so it's new in the sense of la but like, I'm originally from the Midwest in Chicago, so it rains and snows and could snow in, you know, August could rain in, you know, March.So we used to kind of the four seasons here, people start to panic a little bit when the rain comes or when it gets cold. It's kind of funny, but, uh, but it's nice, it's fun. Yeah. Michael: Yeah, we do. Yeah, we, that happens a lot all the time, but Awesome man. Okay, so then tell us a little bit about your past, present.How'd you get to where you are today? Jay: Sure. So I've got about 20 years of experience, um, mainly on the technology disruption side. So I did a lot of consulting early on in my career. A lot of performance improvement, compliance work as well. Uh, then kind of moved along into the technology space and, and where I really have spent my time is in a lot of, um, startups or growing, uh, technology companies that have kind of passed the startup phase in which they have a unique technology and they need the ability to market that technology to the masses and, and typically, It's a company that, is really changing the game.It's really, really disruptive. So what I love to do and what I'm doing now at Sunbelt is we're taking a disruptive technology in the pay over time space. And what we're trying to do and what we're doing it successfully is gaining significant market share in many different vertical markets, including the one that I manage, which is, uh, the dental patient financing space.Michael: Okay, so break it down to me Sun Bit. I'm under the impression Sun Bit is a bank Jay: or no? No, we are, we are a technology company. So we have the, uh, technology that allows or enables folks to get approved at a very high level. the technology enables us to approve about 85% of all people that apply for financing.And, and if, I'm not sure how familiar or not you are with specific financing, but usually that number is in the 40% range, 35, 40% range. Particularly now in a, in a. Recessionary sort of environment, inflationary environment, it typically tops off at 30, 35%. We're more than double that. And a lot of it is really because of the technology that we use, a lot of ai, a lot of machine learning.Cuz at the end of the day, what we're really doing, it's basically a math problem, right? Because you go to a bank, when you're a small business, let's say, and you go for a loan, Most people get rejected for a loan, for, for many reasons, may maybe their, their overall credit isn't good. They haven't been in business that long because the bank doesn't wanna take a risk on you, right?Banks don't like taking risks. what we do is we're able, using our technology to provide folks all throughout the credit spectrum, you know, not so great credit. Mid-level credit, very high end credit. We're able to get all those folks the patient financing they need when they walk into that doctor office.And so we allow through the technology, more people to say yes to treatment. And that's ultimately what we're doing. We use, we have, uh, banks, that kind of administer the loans, but at the core, our focus is on the technology. Because it's really a technology problem, like, the ability to have someone who is, you know, a good person, but they may have subprime credit, Historically, those folks don't get credit, right? You go to to Target or Walmart or Nordstrom's or wherever. If you're subprime, you're not getting a credit card. When they ask you if you'd like to, you know, get a red card or get a Nordstrom card, right? What we're saying and what we're doing is we're enabling folks both at the low end of, of FCO and at the very high end, full spectrum.They can get the credit they need on the dental space as well as other verticals that we work with. And we're comfortable that we're going to get repaid and we do it in a fair and transparent way and cost effective for the patient or the customer. And you can only really do that. With like mathematical formulas, algorithms, ai, et cetera.This isn't, uh, you can't do it via spreadsheet like, like the banks do, and like some older, uh, patient financing companies that have been around for 30 years. Gotcha. Michael: Okay. So I know you wanted to show something, right? Like a demo? Sure. Real quick. Sure. Of course. Sure. The demo is for what? Like for the patient doing Jay: it?Right. So what we do, maybe I can explain it a little bit. So mm-hmm. What we do is we do point of sale financing. So let's say you, um, haven't been to the dentist in a few years. You go to the dentist, they give you a comprehensive oral exam, they say, Michael, thanks for coming in. Appreciate it. Here's a list of seven things our doctor, uh, the dentist thinks you need to get done.Right. And those seven things have. Each, you know, a treatment and a cost, right? And at the end it's like, let's say $4,000. And they say, well Michael, how would you like to pay for the $4,000? And you're like, holy cow, I didn't budget for that. I don't have $4,000 in my pocket. Cuz it doesn't matter whether you have great credit you, you make a lot of money in your job or you don't.No one budgets. For unexpected medical expenses, like you can't go on your personal Quicken and, and, and say, okay, 2024, I'm gonna budget $3,000 for dental. Doesn't work that way. So what happens is that patient generally either says no to the treatment that they need, or they do kind of like a partial kind of, you know, French menu sort of thing where they say, okay, I'm gonna grab maybe the cavities here.You know, I'll, I'll take this $500 treatment here. But the other $3,000 doesn't really hurt me so much today, so I'm gonna go home and then when it really hurts me, maybe I'll come back. Right. And that's dentistry for the last 50 years, What they call case acceptance. So the ability of, let's say you, you have those seven things and it costs $4,000 and let's say you're only able Michael to, um, pay for 400 of that.Well, your case acceptance is basically 10%, right? $400. Divided by the 4,000 that you should have, uh, that you was prescribed to you, right? Which is terrible, which means 90% of your needs are not met, right? Mm-hmm. And you're walking out the door and probably never coming back. So that's kind of historic dental.So what we do is the patient comes in, they get qualified very quickly, and we approve nearly nine out of 10 folks. Without doing any kind of hard credit check, we do a soft credit check and the process is very simple, very clean. we like to think that it's like an un refinancing sort of transaction.It's almost like buying a coffee at a Starbucks drive-through. We want the experience to be not the same experience you get at a bank or from some old time patient finance company that, you know, maybe may still do it on, on pen and paper. Okay? Mm-hmm. So, That's kind of the preface of, of what we do. and I can, I can show you the kind of the process, how it works, because it's very, very different than anything you've seen or folks in the dental market for the past 20, 30 years.They've generally never seen it, and they usually have a very positive reaction to it. Like, you know, where have you been all my life? And can we talk and, and, you know, use this at your, at your practice. Yeah. Michael: Could we see it? Could we see how it Absolutely. How it works and stuff. And so absolutely. For absolutely.Sure. Sure. Our listeners listening right now, if you want to go on the show notes below, you can watch the video version of it and we can see it right now. Sure. Jay: so right on my screen, you see iPad. Okay. And that's the iPad I have in my hand right now. Okay.So we provide this iPad. To every dental office, and it could be more than one iPad, just depends on how many people, what kind of patient flow you have. So the first thing the, office team does is they will select their name. Okay? So again, this is a demo. Michael, who do you wanna be today? Michael: Beyonce always.Jay: Excellent, excellent choice. Who? Who doesn't wanna be Beyonce after all? Come on. Yeah, you click on Beyonce, then you click scan card, then we take the driver's license. Right? And it doesn't matter which state it works in all states. On the back is a barcode, right? So you take that barcode and what I do is I just scan that baby right there automatically.What happens is, and again this is in real time, I'm not, you know, slowing it down, speeding it up, takes my home information. Patient types in their phone number and email. They continue and then you simply ask the patient, Hey patient, is this your updated info? They usually say yes. You click copy to form the patients a agrees to check their options. And just like that you've been approved for $6,100. This is the approval process. Wow. That's it. We're done. Okay? Mm-hmm. So now there's a ton of things that happen in the background, right? But that's invisible to the practice, invisible to the patient, right? And again, this kind of goes into how we're a technology and data company.So a couple things here. One, you were approved for 6,100, we're approving every single patient. With a FCO score of 500 or greater. So when you, when if in terms of F ICOs, 500 is a very, very low F ico, right? Mm-hmm. But we're able to approve them because of our unique and flexible model. If you approve from 500, it equates to typically 85 to 87% of all patients that apply. So going back to the dentist example, the the office example, you know that. Eight and a half outta 10 people that walk in the office have the ability to get qualified for finance and can get the treatment they need.So that case acceptance number I gave you before, whether it's 10, 20, 30, or 40%, it shoots up dramatically so they can actually walk out being happy because they're, you know, dental problems are solved. Okay. So the first thing, high approval, second thing, we never do a hard credit check. So in the us, typically when you are.you know, when I signed up for T-Mobile mm-hmm. They do a hard credit check, which impacts your credit. It's not fun. Right. We do a soft inquiry to get to this point. So all we do is, get basic information. It doesn't impact your credit score whatsoever, but the kicker is, even if you decide to move forward with the loan, we still do not do a hard credit check.So it has no impact. Your credit has no impact. If you apply or take the loan initially, which is again, very, very unique. And again, it kind of is because of our kind of technology backbone. And the last thing is we approve up to $20,000. So I'll just show you one more screen. Mm-hmm. So let's say for instance, your treatment plan is 2100 bucks.So you click 2100. And then what we have here is basically. A menu of options like, you know, burger King, have it your way. Other, partners of our, of ours call it the Cheesecake Factory Menu of options here, we usually have three to six options here, right? We highlight the one that's the most affordable.So, hey, patient, you don't have to pay $2,100 today. Again, sigh of relief, right? You can pay 48 months, 48 to over 48 months, 56 bucks. In this particular case, it's a dollar down payment. Again, eight APRs vary. It could be 0%, um, or higher. In this particular case, let's say it's 12.99, you see everything very clearly delineated.There's no tricks, there's no penalties. Uh, we don't do any kind of deferred interest. If you're familiar with that, maybe the patient wants 0%. We have 0% options too. And so the idea is, and they just kind of select what they want. They kind of go through, the process. Make sense. Go the z Michael: go to the zero present one real quick.Sure, no problem. Okay. Okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So it, it all changes throughout the, you're not set with the percentage then? Jay: Correct. So the, the idea is, The patient gets to choose what's best for them, right? We don't wanna make a judgment call, right? We don't wanna be judgmental, period in life, right?We don't know what shoes the other person's sitting in, but particularly the dental office. I mean, you don't know whether somehow someone is dressed and, and we shouldn't be making that. Let's let the patient decide maybe they're comfortable with 121 bucks a month. But maybe they're not. Maybe $56 is more comfortable for them.We let them decide, and that's kind of the power of the solution. There's again, three to six unique offers that they're getting, and they choose what's best for them. That's kind of part of the secret. If you give a product that's customizable to the individual, They're gonna like it more, and oh, by the way, they're going to pay us back at a higher rate, right?Which lowers the defaults, which again allows us to loan to more people. here's something like I learned early on. So payday loans, right? Terrible, horrible, predatory, four, 500% terrible. Mm-hmm. Well, why? Why are they four or 500% It's not because the money costs four or 500%, right? I mean, you can get a loan from a bank now even with high interest rates.12%, 13%, right? But the reason is because maybe five out of 10 people don't pay it back. So the five that do pay it back are paying for the five that don't pay it back. So that's why the interest rate is high. But if you can create a product that's customizable down to the individual you have a greater amount of people that pay you back.It's kind of like a self-fulfilling thing. You can continue to loan to more and more people so that your approval rates continue to be higher and higher and higher and satisfy more patients. And that's been kind of our goal from day one. We want people to pay back. So we, have developed unique offers for every individual.Michael: Mm-hmm. Can they customize also the down payment due at Jay: checkout? Yeah. Yeah. So they can, for instance, you can, um, Let's look at here. Let's say they wanna lower the $56 a month. Let's say it's still too high. Mm-hmm. You would just go click here and say, okay, I wanna pay 500. What? What? I just wanna make sure remember the 56 30?Mm-hmm. So let's say they wanna make a $500 down payment, right? Because they wanna lower the monthly payments. You click update and then magically what happens? It's $42 a month. So totally customizable, and a lot of people do that, and we want them to do what's most comfortable for 'em. I don't wanna dictate what's best for them.I, I don't know what they want, but they know what they want. So let's give them the option. when you go to the Starbucks drive-through, do they tell you what coffee to get? No. You know, you can get 10 different variety, 20 different, uh, variations of a macchiato. That's why they're successful.Michael: Yeah. Interesting. Jay. Okay. so a couple questions I have when it comes to the technology, because you said this is new, right? Disruptive technology, nobody's doing it in the industry or, no, I mean, Jay: every, their, their patient financing has been around.For 25 years. but historically, even today, it's very much FICO driven. So if your FCO is 6 81, you get the credit you need. If it's 6 79, you get decline. It's like a straight number. Right? And there's companies that provide those numbers. There's. You know, uh, vantage, and there's various, you know, uh, Experian, TransUnion, et cetera, to provide the number.So most of the companies historically just do that. And there's not really any technology there, right? That's mainly how banks are like old school patient financing companies that have been around since like 1990. That's what they do. But, but think about this example. let's take you and I, today.Our FCO scores are six 50, right? Both of us, like it looks like we're the same, right? But what if a year ago, yours was 600 and mine was 700, Who's the greater risk? We're not the same. Six 50 is not the same. You're a much better risk than I am because you're on your way up, you're trending. And I'm on my way down.So our offers might be a bit different and they should be a bit different. We can't be treated the same. So we look at thousands of data points. It all basically, and we're not getting any kind of secret information. This is, we're doing a soft data inquiry, right? So we're getting kind of condensed data.and then we take that data and we use it to model basically we measure it against our, our AI model. And then it spits out the information. Okay, approve, not approve. If we're gonna approve them, how much are we gonna approve them for? What's the a p r? you know, then again, what's the e fee, if there's a down payment, et cetera.So it's that uniqueness that enables us to up with an offer that could be very different than someone else. So typically, a lot of the folks that we're approving people aren't touching with a 10 foot pole. Why? Because historically, if you're measuring things by fico, it's just not real accurate for installment loans of 18 months or 24 months.Mm-hmm. So we have confidence that we're gonna get paid back. And in terms of our, you know, numbers, people do pay us back, at great rates. So that's, I think, the difference. It's. Everyone is a bit different in the world. every American is different. When they apply for credit, they're different. And you have to have a product that takes that into consideration.We're not like just a score, right? We're, we're made up of, of thousands of different, you know, uniqueness characteristics, whether you're, I'm not talking about finance, but just in general, we're all different. Mm-hmm. So you need to have kind of a scoring system, a mathematical model that takes that into, into consideration.Michael: now when it comes to, when it comes to this, I know you mentioned soft data, our data pools mm-hmm. And what's behind the soft Jay: data pool? So basically how it works is.These credit agencies basically charge money, right? To companies that would like to pull your data. Of course, it's with your authorization. So I, I don't know if you remember on, on the iPad there's clear authorization that says you, you know, agree to having your, uh, credit soft pulled. So basically it's like a condensed credit file.Mm-hmm. Okay. So, If you get that condensed credit file, that soft inquiry, it doesn't have any impact on your credit score, If you get a hard credit check, which by the way, nearly all the patient finance companies use, why do they use it? Because it has much more granular data, And they basically take the granular data, they feed it into their kind of limited model and, and they say approve or not.Our technology takes the condensed, takes the more limited data, and then we feed it into our proprietary model, and it gets us to an answer that's satisfactory such that we don't need the hard credit check. And oh, by the way, hard credit checks are terrible. Like, like if you're, you know, if you're buying a house or an apartment.it hurts you, it's questionable in terms of how much and and how long it's, it hurts you on in terms of your report. Mm-hmm. But it clearly hurts your credit for a period of time. So we avoid that. We avoid the friction in the office staff because of that. And again, they're regular people, just like the folks that are walking in.They don't wanna offer a product or service that's going to hurt their patients. Right. That's just not human nature. So it reduces the friction. So when they use, um, you know, when they're working with us, you know, some that working with, you know, with the iPad, they can be comfortable that it's only a soft inquiry.And so that helps us get a lot more utilization than, than the company that they used before. You know, we got to their office. Yeah. Does that makes sense? Michael: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know a lot of the times like. When, I remember when I was trying to build up my credit, like it was in the 600 s and I'm like, oh man, I, any little thing, hard inquiry.Oh yeah, you get outta there, right? Like, I didn't want that Jay: terrible Yeah. Kind of thing. Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm like, I'm like paranoid. Like I, I have, you know, um, those free credit services and I look on the report because you, you wanna check it like you, you, or if you're in the process of buying a house or whatever, or a car, you, you don't want your hard credit check.But even if you're not, like in general, there's really no reason like, When I, I was telling a story when I got to, when I moved to LA and I went to the T-Mobile store, they took down my information and before they even asked me what package I wanted, they were like, oh, we need your social security number cuz we need to do a hard credit check.And I'm like, why? Why do you do a hard credit check when you don't even know what, what I want? Like what if I want prepaid? Mm-hmm. Like, I'm gonna, I would maybe pay you the cash. Now, that's not what I wanted, but they're like, no, we have to do a hard check. It's like, no, well you really don't. Just that they don't have the technology in place to kind of determine the credit worthiness of that customer.And we do. So that's why, it's a soft inquiry and we're, I believe, the only company that does it throughout in terms of the app, the, uh, approval process. And then when they actually take the loan. Still, no, our credit check. Wow. Michael: Okay. So I never thought about that, Jay. I always thought it was like a people problem instead of a technology problem when it came to like being approved.Jay: It's not, it's, it's, it's, I'll tell you, it's like a co it's a complex math problem, right? It's like this guy who has a six 10 fico, let's say has a job she has a job, they have money in their checking account, But based on historical, credit worthiness standards, They are not getting any credit card whatsoever, right?Because it's been told by them that it's not happening. But we look at it very differently. Like if it's a $2,000 installment loan and it's over 24 months, the question is, does this person have a hundred dollars? And they're checking account every month cuz we're pulling out of their checking account.And the answer is generally yes, but it goes against. All the kind of the credit, decisioning that's been going on since like 1950. I mean, I brought something here, which kind of cool. So you're, you're from the West coast. This is a credit card application. There's a store called Gimbals based in, I believe, Philadelphia.Open in 1880, close in like 1987. This is actually, we kind of see it here. This is actually a credit card application from 1967. Pristine condition. Okay. Yeah. So what's interesting about it is if you look at the question that's kind of small, prince, I'll read, if you look at the questions, the same questions of what's your income, do you rent versus own?Are you married versus single? this is 1967. So what have credit card companies and patient financing companies done? All they've done, this is the same 1967 application. They've just digitized it. They're asking the same questions. I guarantee you, if you go to an office that has another patient financing solution or you go to Target or you go somewhere else, they're going to ask you married versus single.What's your income rent versus zone? These are questions literally 60 years old, and they're still asking, this is basically what you see today is digitized. So it's, there's like a lack of innovation that has taken place that actually hasn't taken place, right? And, and specifically patient financing in 30 years.Literally nothing. Literally nothing. And so what we're doing is we're focusing on the technology and solving the math problem. And helping a heck of a lot more people get approved and get the dentistry they need. And that's why we're growing so rapidly. Gotcha. Michael: So then I like that part where you light bulb, I mean like it, it opened my eyes.It's true. It, we just put it on a computer and now we're kind of like presenting people and we don't really see the need to change until you kind of showed us the demo. I have a question. True. When it comes to the risk on this, let's just say, okay, six 10, right, credit score, I'm gonna pay you back. And then we do the sun bit thing and then we're like, okay, boom, I'm gonna pay 58 something.He pays the first one, then he kind of skips on the second one, third one, oh no, it's starting to go down, right? It doesn't look good. Who runs the The risk there? Jay: So. we do non-recourse loans, which means we take full risk. let's say you're, you're, you're at the dental office and you do a, a $2,000, uh, transaction for, I dunno, bridge, crown, et cetera.Two days later, we send those funds to the office, then we sit back and we wait for the patient to pay Huss if they don't pay for whatever reason. That's my mistake. You guys are sitting on the money within two business days and we will never claw back those funds. So we, we are taking the risk.And as you can imagine, that being said, you know, we have a very heavy duty data analytics, you know, risk fraud, et cetera, group that manages this risk. And obviously there's a lot of, Techniques that we use in the process to kind of minimize this. But we also have a huge collection group. So we have a customer, uh, care center, 160 people in Las Vegas.Our employees, we manage it top to bottom and we call it like collections with kindness. So it's really, really important for us. To maintain those relationships because we have al also customers that are fixing their cars, uh, getting a new set of tires, new batteries, and those same cu customers are our dental customers as well.So there's a lot of, cross vertical, uh, customers. We have even more when you think about it. Remember, we're not, we're not financing powerboats, right? It's not like someone goes and says, I'm gonna buy a $30,000 powerboat and then I'm not gonna pay it. Right? These payments on average could be 70, 80, 90, a hundred bucks a month.So generally when that's the case, plus the process is good. It's very clear they, you know, we only work with, you know, great partners. they may be late by a day or two, so we'll call them up and say, Hey, what's going on Very nicely. And generally no one wants to ruin their credit for 70, 80, 90 bucks.Mm-hmm. A month. Now, if it's a $30,000 power boat, That's kind of a different calculus, right? You may want to say, I want the powerboat and I don't wanna pay for it. Right? And it kind says okay, kind of. I understand kind of the logic there. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. But in dentistry and auto and the other verticals we're in, typically it's, it's high frequency, lower dollar, monthly payments, and generally people are paying them uhhuh.Michael: That makes a lot of sense. So then, Into practice. Let's just say somebody's listening and they're like, oh, cool. Sun bit. Right? I'm gonna check 'em out. I'm gonna try it. But they already have like Care, credit, lending Club, Verity, right? All these other ones. Is this just another add-on? Like do we just add it on?Or what do you recommend? Do we take others? Would it even make sense to have other ones on anymore? Cause we have some bit. Jay: Yeah. It wouldn't because we, we like to say we are the waterfall because we're approving folks from 500. So every single patient that has a 500 FICO and higher. We're approving. So again, it's 85 to 87% generally.So that's higher than all those solutions combined. Right. Even if you kind of stack 'em up. Mm-hmm. Um, so when we go to an office, we believe, and I think it's been proven by, you know, we've got 9,000, uh, locations in dentistry that we believe we have the best. Financing product out there for patients, bar none.the process is better. The approvals are better. So if an office has multiple products, well, here's a question. I mean, if they have multiple products, why do they have multiple products? Right? It's like, it's the old saying, like, if you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks, right? They have, they have four products.Cause they had one, right? And then they had two didn't work, then they had three. It didn't work and they had four. They use us and generally they eliminate everything. that they typically use in the results are better because we're eliminating a lot of friction. The office staff loves the tool we have.we have a appreciation program for the offices as well. We have a Sun Beast program, which, you know, they can get, you know, uh, for just doing the regular course of their work. They can get, you know, gift cards, et cetera. Uh, we also do some fun stuff as well, but in, in general, we are the primary financing provider of all the offices that we're in.Michael: Gotcha. Sun Beast is the appreciation program. Correct, correct. Oh, okay. And that's with like the Jay: practices? Correct. So we have, right. So if you think about it, you know, we're, we, we've got right now 40, I, I wanna say 50,000 sun beasts because we have an application and, and then when we train an office, they download the application and then we, you know, send them cool things like they're just different promotions and things like that.They can learn that we have like a, you know, a sun bit tip of the week, things like that. We want to. Train appropriately so that the office team members are really, really comfortable. We also wanna make it fun. Like we don't wanna be, you know, the boring finance company. Like we wanna be the guys that are helping people doing it the right way, not charging any crazy fees or anything like that.We don't do any kind of, you know, deferred interest. we think we can be the good guys, be profitable, and, Help a lot of patients get the treatment that they need. Gotcha. Michael: What are the, what are Jay: the fees? So the fees in, in general, they're risk based. I won't go over like in detail, but in general, the fees are pretty much the same, very, very similar on a blended basis as what they're paying today.The difference is they're gonna get double the amount of approvals and. They're gonna have more people apply. So it's very common that they see our practices and our groups and our DSOs. We've got, you know, large groups, mid-size groups, single location groups. Um, it's very common that we see three x four x, five x, the amount of production with Sun Bit.Then whatever they're using today, because again, it's so easy in the high approvals, but the cost is basically about the same as what they're paying today. Michael: Gotcha. Yeah. And I noticed like it's never, that's never really the issue when it comes to like, uh, presenting or when it comes to accepting this, right?Like let's just say, yeah, I'll take some bit, right? Or I'll take another third party. What's the issue is more like the patient's accepting it, right? And the one barrier is like, oh my gosh, you're not approved. You can't, even if you wanted to accept that, you can't. Right. So that's a barrier lifted with some bit, both.In your experience, what's the best way we could present this to a patient? Jay: It's a great, that's a great question. That's a great question. It's something that we, we talk about quite a bit in our training. So what we like to say is, Have the iPad, do the talking, right?Show them the product, say, hey, you know, when you go through the treatment plan, you know, you do the comprehensive oral exam, you do the treatment plan, you're sitting down with the tc and the TC generally says, or the office manager says, Hey, You know, it's $2,500, but you don't have to pay everything today.Let me get you qualified. Takes 30 seconds. No hard credit check again. Cuz what happens is it's such a pressurized experience and it's happened to me too. Like even like prior, prior to Sunbelt, family member needed some significant dental work. It was like seven, $8,000. And you're like, you gasp. You're like, oh, man, that's like crazy, right?Mm-hmm. It's not cheap. It's, it's not getting cheaper. It's getting much more expensive. So what happens is the person goes with, you know, sits down with the tc, they hear that number. All of a sudden there's like a wall, right? There's a wall that's built. It's panic. You're, you don't know what to do on one hand, you need to get the work done.On the other hand, it's a crap load of money. And you're like, what do I do here? And you've stopped paying attention to whatever that other person is saying because all you're thinking about is the, the little thoughts in your head, like, how am I gonna pay for this, right? Mm-hmm. And again, it doesn't matter if you're making 300,000 a year, a hundred thousand a year, 50,000, it doesn't matter.It's a lot of money, right? No one budgets for this. So when the TC can put the patient at ease and say, Hey, I know this might be a, a large sum, but hey, you don't have to pay for everything Today. We have a patient financing solution that approves, 85, 80 7%, let me walk you through. It takes 30 seconds, no hard credit check.And then usually what happens is there's like a sigh of relief. The wall gets removed, there's a bit more openness, right? It's, it is very much like human psychology or, and it's, and that's what I've kind of, it's, it's very interesting and. The wall gets, uh, broken down and the patient is able to communicate clearly with the TC and the TC with the patient.And once they do, they show the demo or they show the the iPad. It's a very easy, simple, understandable process. And, and that's generally the best way to do it. just want to kind of let the iPad do the talking. Yeah, I like that. And present it. But you gotta, you gotta present it like it doesn't, we can't approve loans.If the iPad isn't presented right or if, yeah, you have to basically understand that hey, 40 to 50% of patients that walk in the door have less than a thousand dollars in their checking account, right? Mm-hmm. And if you wanna truly help patients, right? This is a huge impediment to case acceptance, right?Like money. So if you can help them, then help them with this. You can get them more treatment, which is I think, the goal of everyone that's working in the office. Including the, the Michael: dentist. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It is the goal. I mean, but that's the thing we have to remember, like to present it right. Um, all the time to the patient.Yeah. But I like what you said, how, how it's human psychology. It's true. Even if get approved, cuz for example, let's just say you have the cash and you don't get approved. Sure. You, you're, you're in a negative flow now, right? You're like, of course. Of course. I didn't get approved. That's what I thought.You know what? I'll, I'll, let me talk, talk to my husband, my wife about it. You know what I mean? I'll get back to you, blah, blah, blah. But when you're approved and you're like, oh, I never get approved. I'm approved. Jay: Exactly. Wow. Look, Michael, I've seen people cry. Mm-hmm. Tears of joy when they get approved.I've seen it multiple times. I've gotten hugs before and like, it's, it's very weird. Like it's, it's, it's a beautiful thing, but it's very strange for it to happen because it's so infrequent. But you understand, We're not doing brain surgery here. Let me just put that out in front.But we are helping people with their oral health, which, which impacts the rest of their body, And if we can help people, Full spectrum of folks that normally can't get helped. It's amazing. And you're right there. There's two sets of what happens here. They get approved and they generally haven't gotten approved before.In some cases, they're super happy, but the alternative is in the past, when they get declined from other providers, they do not come back to the office. You know, it's like the Terminator when he says like, I'll be back. Yeah. He never comes back to the coffee shop at the end. And you remember he, he never comes back.Mm-hmm. Right. So it's, it's kind of a gr it's, it's really a gratifying thing that you wanna help these folks, and this is a great tool for case acceptance, you know, increasing the production of the office and helping patients get the treatment that they need. Michael: By any chance, Jay, do you have any like, stats on how this has improved, like any specific practices, you know what I mean?Of course. Jay: Yeah. I mean, we have, we have lots of case studies. I mean, we've, we've seen cases of, you know, ebitda, Significant ebitda, uh, improvements, significant production case acceptance. We've seen sometimes 30, 40%, uh, increases. significant. Um, because again, if you're offering something that approves nearly everyone, you're going to get great results, right?Because keep in mind, from the office perspective, if you offer and someone gets declined, just like the patient won't come back, the office staff. Won't offer it anymore. So that's what's typically happened. So there's, you know, there's, there, there, you know, a large competitor out there that's been around forever, but a lot of people don't use it because they have, been declined.You know, the office has declined folks, so they just stop offering it. But, so even though they've stopped offering it, that doesn't mean that the patients walking in the door don't have needs. Right. They of course have needs, you're just not offering it to them. Michael: Interesting, interesting. Okay, so Where can we reach out to you if we have any questions or concerns? Sure. Jay: So, um, the best way is, uh, sun.com, slash dental. can also email me. So I manage the dental practice at sun j y sun.com and happy to, help anyone that, whether it's, again, whether it's a single practice, you know, single practitioner, Multiunit group or large d s o we work with, um, all of them.again, we wanna help people. We wanna do it the right way. And, and really that's why we're, we're growing at the rate that, that we are. Michael: Nice. Awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely reach out to Jay and Jay. Thank you for being with us.It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Great. Thank you Jay: very much, Michael. Appreciate being on.‍‍

Today, Nicole gives you a way to fight back against a system that's typically set-up against you: lending. Along the way, she shares insights from a recent conversation with Scott Sanborn, the CEO of Lending Club, who shares Nicole's passion for making lending more equitable. Nicole and Scott unpack who gets hurt in traditional systems of lending, how to use credit as a tool and "good debt."

Mike Zayonc and Joe Lynch discuss Silicon Valley in a box, a nickname for Plug and Play Ventures, a global startup accelerator and venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, California. Mike is a Partner at Plug and Play where he founded the firm's $25.5M Supply Chain Fund and Supply Chain accelerator program. About Mike Zayonc Mike Zayonc is a Partner at Plug and Play where he founded the firm's $25.5M Supply Chain Fund as well as the Supply Chain accelerators based in Silicon Valley, Savannah, Toronto, Northwest Arkansas, Hamburg, and Shanghai in partnership with 60+ corporate partners such as Walmart, TJX, Tyson Foods, JB Hunt, Shell, DHL, Kohls, Japan Post, Yamato, Maersk, Ryder, Prologis, BASF, ArcelorMittal, ExxonMobil, United States Postal Service, Arcbest, Mitsubishi Electric, Georgia Pacific, Trimac, Crowley Martime, etc... This program is responsible for accelerating hundreds of startups and investing 60+ supply chain related startups at the seed stage including Rappi, Einride, Shippo, Cogniac, Repowr, Koffie Labs, Oloid, etc. Prior to joining Plug and Play, Mike was a serial entrepreneur from Vancouver, Canada. Mike graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Management, where he specialized in studying Entrepreneurial Technology and Finance. Throughout University Mike maintained a full-ride athletic scholarship for competing across Canada in men's varsity basketball. About Plug and Play Plug and Play is a global innovation platform that connects startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. The firm is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has a presence in more than 40 locations across five continents. Plug and Play offers corporate innovation programs and assists corporate partners at every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. The firm also organizes startup acceleration programs and is among the most active investors worldwide, with over 200 investments per year driving innovation across multiple industries. Plug and Play's portfolio comprises companies such as Dropbox, Guardant Health, ApplyBoard, Course Hero, Einride, Honey, Blockdaemon, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. Key Takeaways: Silicon Valley in a Box with Mike Zayonc Mike Zayonc is a Partner at Plug and Play Ventures a global startup accelerator and venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, California. The firm was founded in 2006 by Saeed Amidi, who is also the CEO of Plug and Play Tech Center, a startup incubator and co-working space. Plug and Play Ventures invests in early-stage startups across various industries, including fintech, healthtech, insurtech, and mobility, among others. The firm has a portfolio of over 1,200 companies, including notable successes like Dropbox, PayPal, and LendingClub. Plug and Play Ventures provides more than just funding to startups; it also offers mentorship, resources, and access to a vast network of corporate partners, investors, and mentors. The firm has a presence in over 35 locations globally, including in the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Plug and Play Ventures typically invests between $25,000 and $500,000 in startups, with the potential for follow-on funding in later rounds. The firm is known for its industry-specific accelerator programs, which provide startups with tailored resources and connections to help them grow and succeed. Plug and Play Ventures is also actively involved in corporate innovation, working with established companies to help them stay competitive and innovative in the face of disruption. The firm has a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, with initiatives like its Female Founders program and partnerships with organizations like Black Founders Matter. Learn More About Silicon Valley in a Box Mike on LinkedIn Plug and Play on LinkedIn Plug and Play Website Plug and Play Silicon Valley June Summit 2023 The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube

On this week's show, Kamz is joined by Hedera leadership, Chief of Staff and Head of Global Policy at Hedera, Nilmini Rubin and Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer, Betsabe Botaitis. Nilmini Rubin is the Chief of Staff and Head of Global Policy for Hedera. Previously, she worked on the global policy team at Meta, and before that, Nilmini headed Tetra Tech's global team, implementing energy and internet projects that resulted in millions of people gaining access to electricity for the first time. For 12 years, she served as a senior aide on both the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, where she spearheaded the passage of legislation to provide electricity access in Africa, increase global internet access, reduce corruption through transparency, and reform U.S. foreign assistance. She is an adviser to the Women's Democracy Network and the Energy Growth Hub, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Academy of the Global Teacher Prize, and the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.Betsabe Botaitis is the newly appointed treasurer and chief financial officer at Hedera. She was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. During the Mexican peso crisis in the 1990s. The crisis left many families in financial ruin, and after witnessing her family being negatively impacted, she enrolled in a 6-month course to become a bank teller at 14-years old. Betsabe began her career as a bank teller at Citibank at the age of 15 and rose through the ranks, growing more interested in fintech and financial inclusion as her career progressed. She has since held senior positions at companies like Citigroup, and Lending Club. Botaitis is a member of Hipower, a network of executive women leaders in Silicon Valley, and she was recently awarded Nasdaq's top honor at the annual Latina Disruptors Event. Above all, she is a passionate advocate for economic equality, who has been working in blockchain since 2016. On this incredible panel, we discuss:

If you work at Compass Coffee, Roblox, Vox Media, Etsy, Roku, Vimeo, LendingClub or any of the other companies with deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, you are waking up this morning with welcome news. After a white-knuckle weekend you can be confident that payroll will be met, checks will clear and your company will have access to every cent of its SVB deposits, not just the FDIC-insured limit of $250,000, after federal agencies stepped in Sunday evening to backstop the failed bank and attempt to stem a burgeoning crisis among the nation's medium-sized banks. If you're a banker, investor, financial regulator, business owner or Biden administration official, you might still be plenty nervous. While Sunday's announcement was aimed at restoring faith in the banking system, the early word Monday is that the markets might not be buying it. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing. Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio

According to an index of building occupancies in 10 major metro areas by security firm Kastle Systems, more than half of workers went to the office last week, the first time that return-to-office rates crossed 50% of their pre-pandemic levels. All of the cities tracked by the company — including San Francisco, Chicago and Austin, Texas — reached return-to-office levels of 40% or above, which was also a post-pandemic first.In this episode of The Higher Standard, Chris and Saied examine this and many other stories and attempt to cut through the spin and the rhetoric to get at the truth.They discuss comments from Starwood Capital's Barry Sternlicht, who said that, if Jerome Powell continues down the path that we're going, he's going to drive the economy into a horrible situation because the government won't be able to afford to pay its bills, and why that thinking is flawed.Chris and Saied look at a survey by Pymnts.com and Lending Club, which indicates that the share of Americans who say they live paycheck-to-paycheck climbed last year to 64%, and most of the new arrivals in that category were earning more than $100,000 a year.They also offer some thoughts on the Fed's decision to reject Wyoming-based crypto-centric bank Custodia's application to become a member of the central bank's exclusive payment system, saying that the firm's proposed business plan, and focus on crypto assets, presented significant safety and soundness risks.Join Chris and Saied for this fascinating and informative conversation.Enjoy!What You'll Learn in this Show:Why the Fed rejected Custodia's application to join the US payment system.Why the market's reactions are disconnected from what the Fed is trying to accomplish.The five types of treasury securitiesThe importance of staying true to your budget when looking for a home.And so much more...Resources:"Fed rejects crypto bank's application to join U.S. payment system" (article from MarketWatch)"Inflation Fell but so Did Spending. The Economic Signals Are Both Good and Bad" (article from Barron's)"National home prices have further to fall, say 24 leading housing market researchers—while 5 firms think prices have bottomed" (article from Fortune)"Wall Street Is Losing Out to Amateur Buyers in the Housing Slump" (article from Bloomberg)"US offices reach 50% occupancy for the first time since Covid" (Bloomberg Business via Instagram)"More Americans are living paycheque-to-paycheque, even those on more than $100,000" (Bloomberg Business via Instagram)