Joe Bayen of Grow Credit
An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Joe Bayen (founder and CEO) of Grow Credit, which was honored in our:
Tell us the origin story of Grow Credit – what problem were you trying to solve and why?
I was raised in France and made my way to the United States by receiving a track and field scholarship from the University of Miami, where I competed in the 100m, 200m, and long jump.
While attending school, I qualified for a credit card, and I was late with my payments here and there. I had no idea about the repercussions this would have on my credit score performance since I did not know what a credit score was in the first place. It took me 5 years or so to rebuild my credit, and my car payments were atrociously high. We are talking $330/mo for a 1999 Ford Escort ZX2.
Fast forward to 2014, a year marked by the eruption of popular fintech apps such as Venmo, Acorns, and Robinhood. I became intrigued with fintech and the variety of novel tools at our disposal. I began investigating ways to leverage them to help my younger self, students, and millennials in need of an affordable mechanism to establish credit, while also providing financial literacy content.
Though I was an international finance and marketing major, I was completely green in the banking and lending world. My beginner’s mind proved to be incredibly useful since I did not know what was and wasn’t possible.
Thanks to a successful financial exit from my previous startup, Free App A Day, I had enough resources to secure a California lender license. And since I spent the previous 6 years developing iPhone apps, it made it easier to transition and create a fintech app. Finally, I managed to get FICO onboard to extend free FICO scores to our userbase, which is how Lenny Credit, the first incarnation of Grow Credit, started.
What was the biggest hurdle you encountered in your journey?
Over the past 7 years, we went through 2 pivots, starting with Lenny Credit, followed by Lenny Bike, a subscription-based bike-share program dedicated to helping students establish or build credit, and the inspiration behind Grow Credit. We had at least 5 near deaths, including surviving COVID by miraculously raising $500K in April 2020, as well as having the Grow Credit program initially rejected by Mastercard before finally being approved following an excruciating fight for survival.
What does the future hold for Grow Credit?
What’s interesting in the credit building space is that consumers are labeled thin-file borrowers when they have less than 5 credit products reported to the credit bureaus. That mechanism effectively puts a ceiling on their credit score performance, preventing them from enjoying cheaper borrowing costs.
In that context, since we are a mission-driven platform, we’ve developed an API that seamlessly integrates with fintech apps and financial institutions. The process enables our financial inclusion partners to extend affordable financial products to consumers with no credit or thin credit files, including students and low-income individuals.
Most importantly, since our memberships are unsecured, they do not require a security deposit, which further alleviates some burden for our target audience.
While using Grow, consumers have enjoyed a 51 point average credit boost within the first 12 months, while also receiving financial literacy content weekly. Once consumers reach the FICO scores threshold requested by our partners, we are able to seamlessly graduate them to our partner’s credit products, getting users one step closer to reaching the 5 credit product threshold.
We plan to focus on accelerating partnerships for the foreseeable future since the process delivers a win-win valuation proposition for fintech apps, financial institutions, Grow, and most importantly, over 100M+ consumers with no credit or thin credit files.
What are your thoughts on the local tech startup scene in Santa Monica?
Back in 2014, I was an EIR at accelerator fund Science Inc, during the very early stages what is now known as “Silicon Beach”. Over the years, we’ve seen companies such as Dollar Shave Club erupt as industry leaders. The ecosystem has remained vibrant and keeps producing industry-leading startups, including Fare and Liquid Death. I would say that the future looks bright for the Santa Monica startup community.
What’s your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Love, relentlessness, discipline, simplicity, patience, and compassion are the main ingredients to achieving success in any venture. It’s a marathon with many sprints in between: follow your heart, trust your instincts, and most importantly, never give up.