Nadav Samet of TrueAccord
An exclusive Tech Tribune Q&A with Nadav Samet, the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of TrueAccord, which was honored in our:
Tell us the origin story of TrueAccord – what problem were you trying to solve and why?
The debt collection industry has long been broken and impacts approximately 80 million Americans each year. Dealing with collections is a sensitive and stressful time in consumers’ financial lives. The ability to take control of debt can determine the course of one’s financial future.
TrueAccord was founded in 2013 with the mission to empower consumers to gain financial health through their experience in debt collection. We recognized the opportunity to fix debt collection through my co-founder’s experience with a store card that ended up in collections. Looking to solve a real problem with a social mission, and coming from a lower socioeconomic background myself, I was excited to utilize my skills by building a meaningful product that has become what TrueAccord is today. Seven years into this endeavor, I continue to be motivated by the stories we hear from the consumers who use our product and go on to thank us for being a part of their journey.
What was the biggest hurdle you encountered in your journey?
I often read interviews of fellow Bay Area startup founders to learn from their wisdom and experience. It is no coincidence that the biggest common hurdle among all of us is hiring. The San Francisco Bay Area offers a unique ecosystem ripe for starting a technology company due to its abundance of expertise, talent, and investment capital. On the flip side, the Bay Area is the toughest market for startups due to its competitiveness. Employees are expensive, hard to attract and win, and technical talent in particular tends to hop between places within 18-24 months, on average.
Solving an unsexy problem like debt collection has added to this challenge. Early on, we actually had a candidate that rejected our offer because his wife had a bad experience with collections. Another candidate withdrew his application after several interview rounds because he wanted to pursue the next best thing in search tools with an early Twitter employee. While hiring challenges have been a hurdle at times, fortunately our mission and continued success has attracted plenty of amazing talent.
What does the future hold for TrueAccord?
In recent months, TrueAccord has launched multiple new products expanding our reach with both businesses and consumers. With these launches, TrueAccord now provides the entire suite of collection and recovery services to businesses across various industries. In addition, our direct-to-consumer platform, Engage, helps consumers take control of their debts and improve their financial well-being.
In the future, we believe we’ll continue to see accelerated growth, especially as the economy prepares to reboot following the COVID-19 pandemic. Since March, banks and other lenders have widely provided payment holidays that are set to expire soon. Once the dust settles, and unemployment payments and stimulus checks cease, lenders will need help with sensible outreach to consumers as they come after the deferred payments. In addition, consumers will need assistance with planning their repayments according to their updated financial abilities. TrueAccord is in a unique position to support both businesses and consumers in their journeys toward recovery.
What are your thoughts on the local tech startup scene in Lenexa?
We expanded into Lenexa mid-2019 following extensive research of growing markets that have the right composition of talent and culture. We knew that we were entering into a growing metro area whose startup scene is in its infancy but well-positioned to be more than that. A year into our expansion, out of our 200+ employees, over half are based in Lenexa across many different departments including software engineering.
I think that the local startup scene in Lenexa and the greater Kansas City area is going to blow up in the next 5-10 years. There is a great talent pool, as well as good schools inside the state and in neighboring states. The presence of technology leaders like TrueAccord will encourage locals to stay put with their families while benefiting from Bay Area level careers, without having to uproot themselves and relocate to larger metro areas.
What’s your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
Don’t ignore common wisdom. I’ve witnessed so many aspiring entrepreneurs trying to reinvent the wheel, not taking advice from serial entrepreneurs, and they eventually go on to fail. Learn from the experiences of others so you can focus on becoming the expert of your domain.