10K Users from Product Launch Day 1 | TomoCredit Kristy Kim
Summary
TLDRChrisy Kim, the founder and CEO of Tomo Credit, a fintech AI startup in San Francisco, discusses the challenges immigrants and international students face in obtaining credit in the US. With no background in banking, Kim leveraged her own experiences and industry insights to build a platform that approves loans based on a proprietary 'Tomo score' derived from bank data, not traditional credit scores. The company has grown exponentially, aiming to empower its diverse customer base and help them build a better financial future.
Takeaways
- π Chrisy Kim, the founder and CEO of Tomo Credit, shared the company's rapid growth, starting from over 10,000 customers on day one to nearly 4 million customers in the US.
- π‘ Tomo Credit is a fintech AI startup based in San Francisco that was founded to address the credit access issues faced by immigrants and international students.
- π The company experienced significant growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, growing by 400%, and aims for another 200% growth this year.
- π¦ They received investment from Barclays UK bank and have been able to meet and learn from various banking professionals, which helped them in their journey.
- π’ Tomo Credit uses its proprietary 'Tomo score' to assess creditworthiness based on bank account data, offering a solution for those without a traditional credit score.
- π‘οΈ The company's approach to risk management involves hiring experienced professionals from established banks to ensure the sustainability and security of their lending practices.
- πΌ Chrisy Kim's personal experiences with credit rejections motivated her to create a solution for immigrants and international students facing similar issues.
- π€ The Tomo score is based on factors such as affordability, sustainability of income and spending patterns, and the willingness to pay, which are crucial for assessing credit risk.
- π Tomo Credit does not share private or sensitive customer data with lenders, ensuring privacy while still providing valuable insights to partners.
- π± The company's mission is to help people build a better tomorrow by providing financial services to those traditionally underserved by the banking system.
- πͺ Chrisy Kim advises entrepreneurs to turn their weaknesses into superpowers and focus on their strengths, which has contributed to her success as a founder.
Q & A
What is the name of the fintech AI startup based in San Francisco mentioned in the transcript?
-The name of the fintech AI startup is Tomo Credit.
Who is the founder and CEO of Tomo Credit?
-Chrisy Kim is the founder and CEO of Tomo Credit.
Why did Chrisy Kim and her friends decide to start Tomo Credit?
-Chrisy Kim and her friends decided to start Tomo Credit because they faced difficulties in getting credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages as immigrants and wanted to help others with similar issues.
What investment did Tomo Credit receive from Barclays UK bank?
-The transcript does not specify the exact type or amount of investment received from Barclays UK bank, only that they received investment.
How did Tomo Credit's growth rate compare during the COVID pandemic and the following year?
-Tomo Credit grew by 400% during the COVID pandemic and by 200% in the following year.
What is the main challenge that immigrants and international students face according to Chrisy Kim?
-The main challenge that immigrants and international students face, according to Chrisy Kim, is not having a credit score, which makes it difficult for them to get loans and other financial services.
What is the significance of the 'Tomo score' in the context of the company's services?
-The 'Tomo score' is a proprietary formula used by Tomo Credit to assess the creditworthiness of customers without a traditional credit score, allowing them to approve loans based on bank account information.
How does Tomo Credit handle the privacy of its customers' data when working with partner lenders?
-Tomo Credit does not share any private or privacy-related data of its customers with lenders. The data is used to train the model for the Tomo score, ensuring confidentiality.
What is the role of Tomo Credit in the credit ecosystem according to Chrisy Kim?
-According to Chrisy Kim, the role of Tomo Credit in the credit ecosystem is to help people who are rejected by traditional financial institutions due to lack of credit history, by providing them with a chance to build credit and access financial services.
What advice does Chrisy Kim give to young entrepreneurs and herself in retrospect?
-Chrisy Kim advises young entrepreneurs to turn their weaknesses into superpowers, focusing on their strengths and hiring people who excel in areas they are not good at, to improve overall company performance.
What is Chrisy Kim's vision for Tomo Credit in the future?
-Chrisy Kim's vision for Tomo Credit is for it to become a big brand that empowers immigrants, helping them succeed in various financial aspects such as getting apartments or auto loans, and to be the go-to brand for international students.
Outlines
π Founding Tomo Credit: A Fintech Solution for the Underserved
Chrisy Kim, the founder and CEO of Tomo Credit, introduces her San Francisco-based fintech AI startup. The company was born out of the personal experiences of its immigrant founders who faced difficulties in obtaining credit cards, auto loans, and mortgages due to their lack of credit history in the US. Tomo Credit aims to assist immigrants and international students by providing financial services without the need for a traditional credit score. The company experienced rapid growth, reaching nearly 4 million customers in the US without relying on paid marketing. Chrisy Kim attributes the company's success to its ability to address a real pain point for immigrants and international students, who often face rejection from traditional financial institutions due to their unfamiliarity with the US financial system.
π± Growing Tomo Credit: Overcoming Challenges and Scaling Up
The script details the growth trajectory of Tomo Credit, which expanded by 400% during the COVID-19 pandemic and aimed for another 200% growth in the following year. The company's approach to credit scoring is innovative, focusing on factors beyond traditional FICO scores, such as the age of credit, which disproportionately affects immigrants who may not have established credit early in their lives. Tomo Credit's solution is to offer a 'Tomo score' based on a proprietary formula that utilizes bank account information to assess creditworthiness. The company initially funded its lending operations with its own capital, as banks were initially hesitant to approve loans without a credit score. Tomo Credit's strategy was to prove the viability of their model, which has since attracted interest from other financial institutions looking to partner with them.
π‘οΈ Privacy and Partnership: Tomo Credit's Commitment to Data Protection
Chrisy Kim emphasizes Tomo Credit's commitment to customer privacy, ensuring that no personal data is shared with lenders. Instead, the company uses aggregated data to train its underwriting model, which can confidently predict the likelihood of customers repaying loans. This approach allows Tomo Credit to offer a valuable service to banks and other financial institutions, licensing its underwriting and scoring system without compromising customer confidentiality. The company's mission is to help build a better financial future for its customers, particularly for immigrants and international students who have traditionally been underserved by the financial industry.
πΌ Embracing Diversity and Innovation: Tomo Credit's Vision for the Future
The final paragraph outlines Tomo Credit's vision to become a leading brand that empowers immigrants and international students in the US. With a team predominantly composed of immigrants and international individuals, the company is deeply connected to its customer base. Tomo Credit aims to help its customers overcome the barriers to financial services they face, such as securing apartments or auto loans. The company's long-term goal is to ensure that future generations of immigrants do not have to struggle with financial exclusion due to lack of credit history. Chrisy Kim shares her entrepreneurial advice, encouraging others to leverage their unique strengths and experiences to build successful businesses.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Fintech
π‘Credit Score
π‘Immigrants
π‘International Students
π‘Investment
π‘Growth
π‘Underwriting
π‘API
π‘Risk Management
π‘Fraud
π‘Sustainability
Highlights
Tomo Credit has acquired over 4 million customers in the US without any paid marketing.
Founded by immigrants to address the credit card and loan access issues faced by immigrants and international students.
Received investment from Barclays UK bank in the second year of operation.
Growth of 400% during COVID and a target of 200% growth for the current year.
The challenge of building credit without a credit history, likened to creating a 'painkiller' for those in need.
The founder's personal experience of rejection due to lack of credit history motivated the creation of Tomo Credit.
Tomo Credit's initial execution involved extensive industry consultation to understand credit scoring and lending.
Barclays' investment facilitated further industry connections and support.
The FICO credit score is determined by five main factors, one of which is the age of credit, posing a significant barrier for immigrants.
Tomo Credit aims to solve the issue of credit invisibility among immigrants by offering an alternative scoring system.
Tomo Credit's proprietary 'Tomo Score' uses bank account information to assess creditworthiness.
Risked the company's own money to approve loans for people without a credit score, as banks were unwilling to do so.
Tomo Credit's relationship with banks involves licensing its underwriting and scoring system without sharing customer data.
The company's mission is to help people build a better tomorrow by providing financial tools to those traditionally underserved.
Tomo Credit has a strong team of 90% immigrants and internationals, deeply understanding and caring for their customer base.
The importance of balancing innovation with risk management in fintech, as emphasized by the company's hiring of experienced risk team members.
Tomo Credit's focus on affordability, sustainability, and willingness to pay as key factors in their lending decisions.
The founder's advice to young entrepreneurs to turn weaknesses into strengths and focus on individual superpowers.
The vision for Tomo Credit to become a leading brand empowering immigrants and international students in the US.
Transcripts
we got 10,000 more than 10,000 customers
signing up day one without us having to
do any paid marketing we only did it in
year five as of today we are close to
like 4 million customers in the US hi my
name is chrisy Kim founder and CEO of
Tomo credit so Tomo credit is fintech AI
startup based in San Francisco so we
started a company because as immigrants
we all had the same problems uh we
couldn't get a credit card we couldn't
get an auto loan we couldn't get a
mortgage so me and my friends we decided
to start a company that helps other
immigrants and international students we
got investment from Barclays UK bank the
following year the second year we were
growing very fast we grew like 400%
during the covid and then last year we
grew like 200% and this year we are
aiming for another
200% not having a credit score it's a
real pain so building to of credit feels
like I'm building a painkiller for
people who really need it when
immigrants International we come here we
come here for our own like ambitious
goals right whether it is to start your
own company or to study get a job or be
somebody here in my 20s I kept getting
rejected it was more about not knowing
the system and I think I felt difficulty
more as a adult than a teenager uh
because when you are like teenager and
when you are in the school when you're
at University you are kind of protected
cuz you are in a bubble cuz your
identity is a student for me the main
actual struggle I felt like oh it sucks
when I was applying for jobs for the
real world why am I getting rejected CU
I got rejected uh for apartment
application and also I got an offer from
Goldman and in San Francisco and Goldman
resed the offer and they were saying
that they decide not to offer visa for
the incoming class at that time so for
me it's like well that's totally not
fair I studied hard and worked hard and
I am about to enter this like Workforce
and then getting rejected uh for not
having a Visa or not being a US citizen
and not having a credit score so that's
where I just felt like oh like I
thought that I fit in and then and oh
maybe I don't fit in so that was the
time that I just felt like rejected and
that feeling became some sort of a
driver to start tomomo because founding
team members are all foreigners we all
had that experience that oh wait am I
not accepted here or why am I getting
rejected and trying to figure out why
and how to change that first execution
was talking to people because I had no
background in credit card or banking I
did Investment Banking which is totally
different from consumer banking so I
started um meeting people who are
working at personal loan or business
loan loan uh department at Wells Bago
and then I talked to people at American
Express I talked to people at Barclays
and finally Barclays invested in Tomo
and after that it got easier to meet
more and more Bank people because now I
have some track record but in the very
beginning was really just like having
coffee meetings with people who were in
the industry credit score uh of known as
FICO uh it has five main factors that
determine the score so think of it this
way let's say your score is 750 and
there is a Formula that spits out the
score it can be like ax plus b y plus
XXXX equals the score and there are five
main factors you can think of as a b CDE
e and one major factor is age of your
credit so if you were born and raised in
the US and opened your first credit card
when you were like 19 then by the time
you're 29 you have 10 years of history
but immigrants like me uh my parents
didn't help me open a credit card so I
didn't open a credit card for a really
long time and when I'm 29 trying to
apply for anything my age of credit is
zero that's why as an immigrant is so
hard you are just behind simply because
you didn't know that you had to open
your credit when you young so in that
formula that determines your credit
score you are starting at a huge
disadvantage cuz one factor that
determines the biggest weight
determining your score in the formula
you have zero you have no age so so at
Tomo that's something we are trying to
solve that a lot of people in that
situation we tell them that hey it's
okay no credit score no problem come to
us and we will guide you to the right
direction
so ignorance was a blessing I didn't
know how difficult it would be to start
a credit card company I just had no idea
all I cared about is hey can we approve
people without credit score can we make
it really no credit score no problem the
mission I cared about was very clear but
when it comes to exactly how like I
didn't know the answer so initially when
I was meeting with people in the banking
industry I asked them hey can you do
this can you uh approve people without
credit score like I'm the living example
that without credit score but good
quality
customer can you go talk to your team
and then try to approve people like me
who don't have credit score
International students and immigrants
and it will be good for your business
it's not a charity it's not a like like
Mission driven activities it's good for
your business because you can acquire
more customers who are high quality and
then during that process I realized and
learned one very clear answer is that
banks will never be the first mover they
will never do it unless somebody has
tried it and then proved that it's
working so somebody had to try that's
why I was like okay then I have to do
lending by myself so after talking to
people in the industry about my idea of
building Tomo credit the very next thing
I did was building a website and I hired
two engineers at that time we just got
to work right into it and I think we are
very lucky because the very first idea
that we chose together back in 2019 and
still our idea is basically the same and
I think it's very lucky as a startup
that your initial idea and your initial
product Market fit that you hope for is
there and then you are able to double
down on it and triple down on it I think
that's a big blessing that we have had
so the relationship between Tomo and
Banks and Tomo's customers are like this
so our customers they all have their own
bank accounts so we do not Target
illegal immigrants or people without
credit score we target like legal
immigrants and legal International
students and even Americans who were
born and raised here but happen to have
no credit score yet so we target these
people and majority of them already have
US bank account or foreign bank account
and Tomo what we do is that we tell
these customers that no credit score no
problem show me your bank account then
our customers like potential customers
can connect their bank account and they
can connect as many as bank account they
want so let's say say you have three
bank account one at boa one at Wells
fago and one at City you can add all of
it and let's say you have stock
brokerage account like Robin Hood or
charge swap or even your 401k account to
your savings account you can add all of
it and it's free you can just add it and
on Tomo what we do is that our back end
our algorithm would categorize your data
and analyze data and see check your
income and your spending power and your
disposable income Etc and then decide a
score and we call it Tomo score it's
using Tomo's own proprietary formula
that is using your own bank account
information and if you have high Tomo
score we are able to approve you
regardless of your credit score or FICO
score we risked our own money in the
very beginning to try it out because
Banks were not willing to do it and no
one was willing to do it and I just
wanted to be a to be honest I just
wanted to be a tech company with API
only I wanted to provide API to Banks so
Banks can do the lending uh but Banks
didn't want to do it so I had to um not
only build the like a software API
software and underwriting and also had
to do lending so I had to do all of it
but I'm glad that we did because now in
2024 I look around nobody has done it
except Tomo and then now everybody is
interested in doing it so they are
coming to tommo and ask us about what
was our performance and maybe we can
potentially partner together so Tomo can
license our underwriting and Tomo score
and here's a really important part we do
not share any private or privacy related
data of our customers to lenders at all
so our partners would never know that
this data came from you but our partners
would know that oh income data or your
number of transactions or your income
and transaction ratio would have this
much impact on your probability to pay
lenders back so our data was used to
train the model so we can confidently
build a score Tomo score that can be
used instead of
FICO I have a very strong opinion about
it cuz my question to people who
criticize is okay so what are you
exactly doing to help so many people
they criticize other companies saying
that well it's not perfect but I I want
to ask them better okay so exactly what
are you doing like are you helping
anybody so no company is perfect and for
even Tomo we are still a startup so
there are so many new features we want
to roll out and many improvements we
want to make but bottom line like we are
trying every day our best and our team
members are 90% immigrants and
international so for us we do care about
our customers a lot
and we do have growing pains because we
grew so fast in the past couple of years
so now we are trying to hire more people
so we have more manpower to support more
customers and Etc and another think
important part is that we see our role
as helping people build better tomorrow
that's why the name of our company is
Tomo too we wanted to find people who
are rejected today and we wanted to help
them get approved and build better
tomorrow so on that sense yes we cannot
help everybody but we try our best to
help as many as possible and I think
bringing more people into credit
ecosystem has more net positive than net
negative because we bring people in and
if they do not not pay lenders back then
that data about the fact that they
didn't pay back will go to the bureaus
then now everyone will know so knowing
is better than not knowing many people
entering credit system is a risky it can
be but after they enter we are going to
monitor what's going to happen and then
we are going to train our model and then
now everyone all the other lenders will
be able to know what happens once we
approve people without credit score the
difficult part of fintech is that you
have to always find balance between
being Innovative and being the first
mover and also don't be too crazy and
relying on risk management that's
already proven so for us is okay we want
to be the first mover by welcoming no
credit score customers like immigrants
International students but when it comes
to building our own score Tomo score our
own score has to be good enough to make
sure that we are not losing money to
make sure that we don't accidentally
approve bad quality customers or Bad
actors cuz there can be a frauds so I
made sure that we bring in experts from
the industry so we brought in people
from American Express City bank Wells
fago a people who have done this for 20
years so our risk team was actually the
team that's paid the most very senior
our underwriting works now because
Market is good but you never know what's
going to happen four years 5 years or
next cycle in the market we had to make
sure that we bring in people who have
seen the market Cycles what I learned
from the data is that basically we were
right our high level assumptions were
correct it is not about having high cash
balance
so when I tell people that Tomo score is
from Bank data transaction data people
think that oh that just means that a lot
of money now that's good enough I'm like
no because what we are looking for is a
couple of things like number one like
affordability so are you able to afford
this loan yes that maybe it has some
correlation with the balance but it also
has to be sustainable so sustainability
making sure that it's not one time you
have a lot of money we want to make sure
that in the past one year P past two
years you have stable income or stable
spending pattern to give us a comfort
that you have sustainability in your
cash flow and then the third part is
your willingness to pay this is the most
difficult part because someone with
stable income and sustainable cash flow
and who are able to afford a loan might
not want to pay you back willingness is
a tricky part right so that's why some
people with great cash flow sometimes
default because they're unwilling to pay
so that's why training the data is very
meaningful and also takes time um and
Tomo is in a great position cuz we have
been doing this to four to five years
that we are sitting on the result so we
can say okay four years in this is a
result 3 years in this is a result
so we have gathered like um trended data
and that becomes more powerful as our
portfolio
matures the advice I want to give
to younger version of myself and other
soon to be entrepreneurs is that turn
your weakness into your superpower so in
my
earlier career career I thought a lot
about what I was lacking for example I'm
not a CS major or I'm not this I'm not
that and now looking back I do feel like
I had my own
superpowers and I wish I focused on that
more earlier because now I think I'm at
really at ease and know what I'm good at
and then being able to really like shine
that and triple down on it instead of
focusing on things that I'm not good at
and actually that made me a really
efficient entrepreneur because I don't
bit myself over the things I'm not good
at it's more like okay if I'm not good
at this how do I find someone hire
someone who's really good at it so
everyone can focus on their own
superpower then our entire company's
performance goes up instead of me trying
to like struggle and like try to do
things that I'm not good at and not
being able to really spend time on
things I'm good at I really want to see
Tomo become a big company a big brand
that can be empowering for immigrants
because in the US right we have so many
immigrants coming in to study or work
and I think it's great to have a brand
that that present them make them feel
empowered and make them feel like this
brand has their back so whether it's uh
getting an apartment or getting an auto
loan or everything um that immigrants
for you to succeed I want Tomo to be the
go-to brand so in that way there are so
many more we can do down the road
because my thinking is when immigrants
International we come here we come here
for our own like ambitious goals nobody
comes here to get a credit card or to
get an auto loan I think that's just
tools to make your life convenient and I
don't want the future generations of
international students to get stuck and
struggle because of these tools cuz I
suffered with it and with Tomo I hope no
International students in the future
have to get rejected anymore so that's
my hope for the
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future
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