I'm also in the credit card world (I suppose I'm one of your competitors: I work for the Small Business team at Capital One). (Obligatory disclaimer: I speak only for myself here, and do not in any way represent the views of my employer.)
First of all, I'd like to say "Great Work!" You have a compelling and interesting product, with a very interesting set of features. Your rewards program is innovative (especially the idea of offering AWS credits, given your target audience). I'll let others who are more qualified comment on your website and signup process, but I wanted to let you know that I think your product is quite innovative.
I am actually curious how you are managing risk on this card. Underwriting businesses well can be difficult given the paucity of reliable data, but underwriting startups is even more difficult as there IS no history to go on for the business. Most lenders address that by relying heavily on a credit assessment of the founder(s), but you are offering the (unusual) "non-personal guarantee". If it's not something you consider a trade secret, what approach are you taking to assess and balance the risk of losses in making loans to a category of business famous for it's high rate of failure?
(By the way, if you're open to having a conversation with a competitor and would like to have a chat, reach out to me by email.)
I'm in analytics for several banks (including credit cards) and have always thought that one of the key competitive edges is managing risk so in my mind, it'd be a trade secret ;)
But also curious about the answer to the question :)
Yes, I will be completely unsurprised if that's the answer, and I don't mean to pry. But I'm also aware that there are benefits to open conversation and to the extent that I'm allowed to, I am happy to engage in such!
I'm an architect for our Small Business department (used to do just the Small Business Bank, more recently expanded my purview to cover Small Business Credit Card as well. Further conversation is probably better done over email (my contact info is in my profile).
First of all, I'd like to say "Great Work!" You have a compelling and interesting product, with a very interesting set of features. Your rewards program is innovative (especially the idea of offering AWS credits, given your target audience). I'll let others who are more qualified comment on your website and signup process, but I wanted to let you know that I think your product is quite innovative.
I am actually curious how you are managing risk on this card. Underwriting businesses well can be difficult given the paucity of reliable data, but underwriting startups is even more difficult as there IS no history to go on for the business. Most lenders address that by relying heavily on a credit assessment of the founder(s), but you are offering the (unusual) "non-personal guarantee". If it's not something you consider a trade secret, what approach are you taking to assess and balance the risk of losses in making loans to a category of business famous for it's high rate of failure?
(By the way, if you're open to having a conversation with a competitor and would like to have a chat, reach out to me by email.)