 What’s that old saying...”Misery loves company”? SPENDiD and other early stage fintech companies know very well that a world in the midst of a pandemic is a real kick in the teeth for a startup founder. The recent Forbes article linked here emphasizes this point very well. The key to surviving and even thriving in such a world is agility, and not only having the ability but the willingness to pivot toward delivering best in class solutions to problems that are “fluid”, shall we say.
The unmet needs among millions of US households are clearer now more than ever: financial anxiety, budget illiteracy, and a growing intolerance for complex, confusing "solutions" which often just make things worse. Compounding this is the shrinking (or is it evolving?) attention span of humans today. Some studies have concluded that the average person today has an attention span just under that of a goldfish. Not surprisingly, the "firehose" of content being hurled at everyone today via multiple technologies and channels leaves us all longing for one elusive thing...SIMPLICITY. The fundamental problem for millions of American households today more than ever is "making ends meet". Any discussion of saving for retirement, or a down payment on a home, or the kids’ college, must be preceded by a clear, simple perspective on their current cash-flow situation. The data is out there, and the technology to deliver tremendously valuable information is in place - the problem until now has been no one has curated the demographic spending data properly, and created the seamless algorithms to deliver clear perspective and answers that low and middle income households desperately need. Further, these user's limited spending resources need to be marketed to in the most efficient way possible. "Shotgun" marketing is terribly inefficient and a waste of everyone's time. Perhaps most troubling is the devastating cycle of payday lending and exponential credit card debt that millions find themselves trapped in. Often this is due to prior negative credit problems that can follow a person for years. The resulting low traditional FICO and other credit scores don't allow someone to get a fairly priced loan. They may even have a good steady job now, paying their bills on time, and without much doubt, compared to most of their peers are a very solid credit risk – if not for what may be ancient history defining them by a borderline credit score. Without a dynamic, current, relevant secondary lending metric that tells a lender that this person can indeed be a really good loan candidate as compared to their demographic peers, they will remain locked out of a win/win opportunity for them and for the lender. At SPENDID we plan to pursue these solutions now more than ever before – because the need is greater than ever before. Early stage startup or not, pandemic or not, SPENDiD intends to succeed and help millions of households also succeed as a result.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |