Building a Better Checking Account with Vie Co-Founder Jake Bass [004]
Episode Summary
In this episode, Gus sits down with Jake Bass, founder of Vie (Viecard.io), who's on a mission to help people build financial security through asset investment. Jake shares insights on his startup journey, including securing seed funding, educating customers about financial products, and the importance of founder sales.
Key Topics
- Creating financial security through appreciating assets
- The challenges of educating customers about new financial products
- Why founder-led sales are critical for early-stage startups
- Building strategic relationships with larger financial institutions
- Finding and hiring the right team members for a startup
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Introduction & Company Overview
Gus: All righty. Welcome back to Founder Facing. And today we are joined by the one and only Jake Bass. So Jake, thanks so much for joining us on the show.
Jake: Nah, thank you for having me on, man. Excited. Excited to talk a little bit about what we're doing here.
Gus: Yeah, me too, man. So we had a previous conversation. You've told me a little bit about what you're working on, but two minutes max, give me the elevator pitch for Vie and what you're trying to do with your new startup.
Jake: Yeah, for sure, man. I mean, we're really just trying to help people build financial security, especially people who may have never thought it possible. What we do is, with all these solutions these days that are really designed at delaying debt payments and pushing them to the future, all in hopes that wages will increase faster than the cost of living, that's gotten a lot of people in a bind. It's created a little bit of a bubble. So what we do is we provide people a loan that pays for an asset that appreciates in value, and we just leverage that asset a little bit at a time over time to pay it off. And eventually that asset is owned by the customer and they can leverage it to do whatever. So excited for this.
"We're really just trying to help people build financial security, especially people who may have never thought it possible."
– Jake Bass, Founder of Vie
Startup Journey & Funding
Gus: Nice, man. That's awesome. We talked more in detail because I know you've kind of shifted some things, but also tell us a little bit about where you are in terms of what stage you're in, how much funding you've got, if you're able to disclose that information, no pressure or anything like that. But where are you in your startup journey?
Jake: Yeah, for sure. I mean, we're definitely early on. We closed some pre-seed money late spring, early summer, and it was just a little bit. But we recently signed a term sheet for a $2 million equity investment that also has a debt facility with it. And so nothing's done until it's done and it's in the bank. That's what I always say at least. I've had my fair share of lessons that taught me that, but nevertheless, we're working really hard at getting this one closed out. And we think we've found a good partner to move forward with. As far as customers go, that stage, we've got a few loans in the air, but really looking to use this seed round to go ahead and prove this model out on a grander scale and with a little bit larger of a subset of customers. So that's where we're at.
Gus: For sure, man. I mean, congratulations. Hopefully that goes through, but trust me, I'm in the same boat even just as a lowly agency owner over here. That money ain't yours until that contract is signed and that's in your bank account. So good lesson for everybody out there, for sure. But it's also crazy because you're the first person we've had on the show who is in the financial services industry. And we were discussing that some of the requirements for being able to create your product is having that capital to be able to give people these loans and things like that. So would you say... It's just really cool to have that perspective on the show because as many industries as we can get in front of our audience, the better. But what would you say your biggest priority is right now, given where you're at in your startup journey?
Jake: Really, other than securing the capital, which is usually pretty much everybody's biggest thing on the radar. Obviously, just making sure that our customers, these initial ones are well-educated about the product and that they understand all the inner workings of this financial product. Because anytime you're messing with people's finances or doing anything in that realm, you want people to feel safe and you want to feel trusted. You don't want to feel like the startup who's here to break things, even though that's typically the mantra that goes along with one. So yeah, just making sure that everybody is comfortable with what we're doing and educated and understands why and how it can help. Other than that, keeping the team morale up, everybody focused on the right things, and then building that customer base out from a sales perspective. I'm a firm believer in founder sales that if you can't sell it, then nobody can. And so just working on building out that pipeline is another thing that I focus a lot of my time on.
Customer Education & Marketing
Gus: Awesome, man. Yeah. And that brings us into the meat and potatoes of why I was excited to talk to you. At your current stage, seed funding, trying to build out that initial customer base. I also agree as a founder of an agency myself. If you can't sell your products, you can't expect to bring a team in and have them sell for you as well. It's really interesting that you talked about that education piece of it, because some products out there, it's a product or it's a gizmo. And it's like, what you see is what you get. And there's not that much education that is required for people to understand like, oh, this does this. But for you, and especially in the financial services industry, you don't want to have any reputation of any uncertainty in your customers' minds before they commit to doing business with you. So how do you approach that from a marketing perspective? And how do you try to educate or what is your plan for educating your customers on how this process works, what you guys do, and why it's something that's viable and also not going to screw them financially in the long term?
Jake: Right. Well, to start off, the hardest part is just educating them at all. Not from the aspect that they don't want to learn, but it's because you're competing with so many other services, products, apps, whatever you want to call it for their attention. Attention spans are very, very hard to capture. And they're even harder to hold on to for longer than 30 seconds. Luckily, I was able to get a rock star marketing lead from a reputable lender who was interested in joining the team. And she has some methods, but a lot of it's going to be what everybody else is doing, utilizing video content to break the lessons down into micro lessons and explain them as quick and easy as possible so that they understand the product in its full capacity. There's some other kinds of insurance policies that we implement on the back end that are kind of complimentary. They're a little bit cheaper, but they allow us to provide that customer with a little extra support should something very unpredictable happen to make sure that their financial interest is protected no matter what. And that they're not only from what they have in the bank standpoint, but from a credit standpoint as well, making sure that they're never going to be hung with any debt or anything like that.
Gus: Nice. Nice. For sure. And would you say from problem aware, solution aware, from that kind paradigm, where would you say your ICP sits? Do they know that they have this problem, but they don't know that the solution exists? Where would you put them on that spectrum?
Jake: Yeah, probably exactly what you just said. The problem is most people are so used to having the problem that they might not even consider it a problem. They just consider it that my mom and dad have always worked. I'm going to always work. And retirement is for the wealthy. And they don't even piece together the fact that they could have money working for them while they're going to their job every day. And that that's actually going to provide them a lot better or a lot bigger of an opportunity to have options later on in life. And so, yeah, I would say that everybody's pretty aware of the problem, maybe too aware. Now, the solution, that's a little bit different because it's a little bit complex and it's very, very new.
"The problem is most people are so used to having the problem that they might not even consider it a problem. They just consider it that my mom and dad have always worked. I'm going to always work. And retirement is for the wealthy."
– Jake Bass, Founder of Vie
Jake: A, no one cares about it. And B, no one really understands it yet. Until it's got out there and worked on these customers, these loyal few that we've been able to go out there and convince to try it out. And until they've done that, and we have the touch points to illustrate how this works, not looking forward, but looking backward, there's a barrier there for us as far as teaching goes. We work hard at it and we try to explain it. And at the end of the day, the results will speak a lot louder than we ever can anyway.
Scaling Strategy & Partnerships
Gus: Yeah, no, I totally get that. Customer references, social proof, all of that stuff is incredibly, again, just from my experience, I can talk a big game, but if I don't have any of the results to back it up, it really does take a bit of a leap of faith to try something out or partner with somebody who doesn't have that giant portfolio or anything like that. So it makes sense. So yeah, when you're thinking about, so let's say you have your core cohort right now, but let's say you get that up to like 50, 100 customers who are within your system, utilizing the process that you guys have set up. Do you have enough to know that, okay, we've gotten some people in the door, we have some social proof. How are you approaching allocating both money and time and effort into going from 100 customers to 1,000 customers? What do you think would be the most valuable thing to invest in your time, your capital on getting that next 900?
Jake: Building relationships with people who can connect me or who are directly tied to the larger financial institutions that can provide us large balance sheet for us to really scale this loan program out. You see, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it takes. If you're going to do any kind of lending, you're going to have to partner with one of the big boys at one point, but you're going to have to have the proof, the touch points, and all the evidence that what you're doing is not going to hurt their brand, their reputation or anything from a compliance standpoint. And so, I've started that. It's been part of the journey the entire way. And it's one of the reasons why I know what I have to have before I can go sit in that chair and visit with them. But never, I mean, it's still one of those things that I just have to always kind of revisit and focus and make sure that I'm spending enough time building those relationships because that's how you fast track the process when it comes time to scale. You can turn six months into two months if you already have a year-long relationship with somebody who knows what you're doing, knows what you're about, and you deliver on what you told them you were going to do.
Gus: Totally. Yeah, keeping up to date with the process. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Exactly. I think that's awesome. And I mean, it goes to what we kind of try to help people with, which is like that founder-facing content, right? Which is like, hey, you've seen me build this thing from zero to whatever it's at right now. Just putting a face to a company, I think, is the most valuable thing in the world right now. I've invested my time and capital into that hypothesis. But yeah, I think that for you, it's an interesting situation because you're not only trying to get customers, you're not only trying to get investors, but you're also trying to define these partnerships and get your foot in the door at these big institutions. How do you keep on track with all of those? You have your short-term, you have your long-term, you know the steps that you have to take to get to the point where you could partner with a larger bank or a larger institution. How do you stay on track and divide your time to focus on all of these different pieces?
Jake: Well, first of all, I'll tell you that I learned a lot of this, what it takes. And my roadmap's been developed based on failure. Obviously, everybody's naive at the beginning, and they think they can go straight to the way it works ideally and start there. And that's what I tried to do. And so I basically kind of reverse engineered my way to where I'm at. But along the way, I made sure I put stakes so I know exactly how I got down this ladder and I can get back up it again. And so yeah, I mean, knowing where to start, that would have been helpful, but I didn't have a clue. I know a lot more now than I knew two years ago when we started this journey. And yeah, I mean, I guess just failure has kind of taught me what needs to be done as far as keeping track of it. You just keep your foot on the gas and go. Once you know what you have to do, it's all written down, it's all in a roadmap, it's all planned. And now you just got to try to from A to B to B to C as quickly as possible. Because whether someone's out there working on this or not, I don't know. But I know that it's a solution that right now the market's primed for, the timing's perfect, especially if interest rates come down a little more. I mean, that's going to be sweet.
Gus: Hey, fingers crossed for all of us, man.
Jake: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's working out with this thing. The debt ceiling's at an all-time high, interest rates are starting to creep back down, so it may work out for the better. But yeah, I mean, you just got to go. It's not really a focused effort as much as it is a driven effort, trying to get from task to task.
Gus: Nice, man. That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, trust me, my biggest learnings are, it's not like I have to write them in a journal. I'm like, you really fucked that up.
Jake: Well, yeah, you don't forget them.
Gus: Yeah, exactly. No, you don't forget those mess-ups and stuff. And yeah, I think that's some valuable info and insights into people who are starting this for the first time. You're going to mess stuff up. You're going to over-promise. You're maybe going to under-deliver. There are parts of the process that you're going to make decisions that aren't perfect, unless you're really lucky, or you're just a genius. But I think that everybody goes through that whenever they're anything. Even when it comes to content creation. Even for my own personal YouTube channel, I was trying crap out for a long time. And then you find something that works, you learn from the things that didn't go well, and you go from there. It's really cool to hear founders who are working on stuff say, yeah, I've made mistakes, and I've learned from those. And now we're a way better product. I'm so much farther ahead than I would have been had I not had that experience.
Team Building Strategies
Gus: So I also want to pivot from the tactical to just how do you go about building your team and how do you go about knowing when it's the right time to invest in a different part of your business? For example, when do you know it's time to hire a sales team? When do you know it's time to hire a marketing team? All these different aspects. Some startups have different focuses. You need developers if you're developing an application or a software or something like that. But when you're at the point where you can make those investment decisions, how would you approach what team is the most important for you to deal with next?
Jake: Really, to me, it's whichever one is causing you the most pain as a founder, taking the most of your day away. I've come from a place, actually a manufacturing background, where from a personnel standpoint, you always try to run your team as lean as possible. You'll know when to hire somebody because you'll feel it. That's how I've approached the startup deal as well. We got to a point, like I mentioned the marketing person, very new. She's the newest one. We got to a point where it's like, okay, well, we got to build out some kind of constant contact system to make sure that there's brand guidelines that are clear and everything is cohesive and everything is matching throughout and the wording and the messaging and the tone, everything's the same. I looked around and I was like, y'all know how to do that? I was like, I don't know how to do that, but I'll learn. I went and I found someone who's done that before and knows how to do that. Whenever you get to that point where you're needing to make decisions like that, especially with your customer base and marketing, those are big ones.
Jake: I would say the same thing though with finance. When it comes time to manage a certain amount of money to where you're going to need working capital working for you, you're going to need money allocated in all these different vehicles doing what they do to provide the best possible return and liquidity solution for your business, you probably need to go find someone who's done that before and done it well because you're not going to have the time to. I think your day and the things that are pulling you in all these different directions, they usually guide you as to where you need to hire and where you need to focus bringing in more people.
Gus: Nice, man. Yeah, I think that is super, super insightful. If it's a constant pain in your ass, maybe it's time to look into somebody who might be able to, who's done that before. In terms of credentialing too, there might be people listening out there who are trying to and they don't want to build something from the ground up and find investments and really start from scratch. When you are looking for somebody to hire, what are some of the key aspects? Maybe keep it generic in some ways, but obviously, if you just hired a marketing person, what are those things on a resume or what are some tactics that are outside of a resume that really help people stand out when it comes to applying for a new startup job?
Jake: Right. Well, what I've started doing, and I didn't do this early on, I actually had two different tactics and I found out that the first one didn't work. Before, I looked for people that had tons of experience, worked at some startups, but also some of the biggest companies in the world and who were experts. Then I found out that those people, they've been used to being in a pretty sweet situation for a long time. A cushy corporate gig for a long time. So when you get people who are accustomed to making a certain amount of money, that is way more than any startup is going to pay you and also not have to really roll up their sleeves. It creates situations that are not ideal. Recently, what I've been doing is basically, after a couple of interviews, just unless they demand an offer letter, just saying, all right, well, let's give it a go. Let's see if it's a fit for real. Why don't you come on? Let's try out this position. Look, if you're comfortable with it and I think you're doing a good job, then the relationship's obviously going to mature from there and we're going to be able to get something on paper and it'll be probably one of the best experiences of your life because everybody thinks they want to work at a startup till they do, but they have to be very comfortable with uncertainty, especially in the very early stages of, hey, you might be at another job next year. And for a lot of startups, you probably will be.
Gus: You might be at another job in three months. Yeah, man, a hundred percent.
Jake: Yeah. And so now, I mean, part of that is on the founder though, to make them feel comfortable and make them understand and go to bat for them if something does happen. And I think that's up to just the founder and the employee building that relationship. But no, I look for people that are young, scrappy. They want to work at a startup. They understand what they're getting into. And they also have a track record or some kind of demonstration of doing whatever I need done, but actually doing it, not managing people to do it or managing a team of-
Gus: Managing the managers who are managing other people who actually execute them.
Jake: Yeah. Or the people who were consultants, unless they were like a roll up your sleeve, I did this for this company and provided these metrics type of consultant. That's another one that I kind of stay away from, but-
Gus: That's interesting.
"I look for people that are young, scrappy. They want to work at a startup. They understand what they're getting into. And they also have a track record or some kind of demonstration of doing whatever I need done, but actually doing it."
– Jake Bass on hiring for startups
Jake: But I lean on my network a lot too. And I feel like that's always a good place to go is turn to other founders because a lot of other founders, they're the best avenue for people and even investors usually. I mean, I turned up my founder network for everyone. That's probably, if I had one tip for a founder, that is the number one thing that I've learned is that nobody will help you more than other founders. I mean, at least that's been my experience. I mean, they are going to provide you the best introductions, the best people that could possibly turn into employees. And yeah, I mean, I'm glad it kind of worked into the conversation naturally because that is a big thing of mine that I lean on heavily.
Networking Insights
Gus: Yeah, man. I mean, I was talking to another founder recently and it's like, you have some sort of unfair advantage. So take advantage of that advantage, right? Like lean into your network, lean into the connections that you have, because especially at the place that you're at right now, or even before you have your first thousand customers, you need people to take that leap of faith, right? Try this thing out. Hey, come have a conversation with me and let's talk about investments, right? Those are the people who are going to give you the time of day. And I guess the last thing that we'll kind of chat on is more of the networking piece, because I have struggled in the past. I think I'm a social guy. I think I'm a cool guy. I think people like hanging out with me every once in a while, but networking for me has been a challenge to find. It's not like I'm going out and networking exclusively with like, I want to be talking only to people who will help me grow my business and things like that. But I haven't had all too much luck in the networking sphere when it comes to going to meetups or going to events and things like that. So when it comes to networking for you, where do you think some of the best connections have come from? Whether it be people who have put you in touch with new investors or just people who are like, wow, you're an awesome person and I want to be able to run stuff by you. If I have a question, you talk to me about what you're dealing with on your startup, right? How do you build that network?
Jake: Yeah. I mean, for me, I was kind of lucky. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to someone at Capital Factory, which is kind of an incubator there in the Austin area. You want to talk about networking, that's what they do best. I mean, they connect. They connect and they throw great parties. And so they get the right people in the right room at the right time to have the right conversations. And I feel like that helped a lot. Now, other than that, there are some very, very unorthodox ways. So when I first started, actually, in order to get feedback on my product, what I did and to make a little extra money, I started driving for Lyft actually. And I would drive. Oh yeah. I mean, I would do it at night, a few hours, sometimes all night because it was fun. That two-way learning curve and being able to talk to a different person every 10 minutes really helped me keep my interpersonal skills sharp. And it gave me, you know, I didn't ever like force it on people, but I would ask, what do you do? And then they would naturally ask the same thing. And that gave me plenty of openings and opportunities to just iterate and talk about my product and pitch it. I mean, in a very, very short manner of time, in a very informal environment to one person who couldn't run away, they were in my backseat.
Gus: Right. They can't do that. Like awkward, like, Oh, you know, I gotta, I gotta, you know, they were, they were there and they were just as bored as I was.
Jake: So that, that honestly have met a lot of people that have actually turned into friends or, or even connected me to business opportunities through that. And so, you know, I mean, there's look in a world that is, that feels ever, you know, as connected as ever, there is a lot of disconnect at some of these meetup events. I know I've been to plenty where I show up and I'm like, okay, what do I do here? You know, everybody, it feels like, it feels like you're walking into a room full of clicks, but you know, at the end of the day, if you dive in, the good thing about being at a event where founders are is founders are two-way learners. And so if you walk up to them, they're going to be as curious about you as you are them. And more oftentimes than not, they're going to be inviting and warm and welcoming. So a lot of times it's just, it's just taking that leap, that leap of faith, like we talked about.
Gus: That's awesome advice. And honestly, it's so funny. My, my buddy is going to, I'm not going to name him cause he'll get too hyped, but my buddy was always back in the day, like, I want to drive Uber. I want to drive Lyft. And I was like, why? And he's like, dude, you have so many cool conversations. It's like speed dating, but like for just chatting with people. Right. And like, it's not like you're like pitching them or anything like that, but it's like, Hey, here's what I do. They're like, what are you talking about? You can easily like, all right, maybe I should, maybe I should tweak the messaging a little bit or something.
Jake: Well, especially in Austin, because like, you know, I don't think I could do it in like a place like New York or somewhere like that, where you might be in the car for 45 minutes at a time, but everything in Austin is like 20 minutes apart. So, you know, you know, it's going to be a quick one and then you're going to have another one and then another one plus Austin super young. So, I mean, it keeps the conversations fresh and, you know, there's a lot of people, a lot of young people going through a lot of different things that you would have never even crossed paths with that you, that you get to cross paths with doing it. I mean, it's, it's really cool. So yeah, it does get kind of scary. I don't recommend it after midnight.
Gus: like what's your craziest Lyft driving story. And then we'll end on that.
Jake: Oh man, dude. I've got a few, I got a few, but it's probably my, so the craziest one I ever had was actually the, there was this girl in town from San Diego and she had, she had been dating a guy for 10 years, 10 years and never seen him in her life. And she comes, she's out by the curb and she's like freaking out looking and I pick her up and I'm like, what's, what's wrong? And she's like, um, I came here to see this guy that I've, that I've been dating for 10 years, but I've never met him and we're supposed to get in his car and drive to Denver. I said, hold up. What? I said, what? And she's like, yeah, but I got like serial killer vibes from him. I'm like, yeah. Like you should have had those before you got like, who, what kind of plan is that? Like, like drives, I mean, date somebody for 10 years, not 10 years, get in their car and drive to Denver. Like, no, I think he was pretty much going to kill you. So yeah, that's a weird one.
Gus: 10 years. Okay. So advice for, we're, we're throwing out advice all over the place. Don't e-date somebody for 10 years without meeting them. Like don't do that for more than like, if you're dating for a year, I don't know, you're married. Uh, so you probably have better insights into this than me, but if you're dating somebody for a year and you've never met them in person, unless the circumstances are outrageous, like different country, you know, whatever, whatever, try to knock that out by like year one.
Jake: Yeah. That's, that, that sounds like something that's pretty high on the priority list, right. Is meeting in person, but you never know, man, in today's day and age, it's one of those things, man. So, um, anyway, I'm just blessed to be off that app. So praise the Lord.
Gus: Yeah. I can, I can imagine, man. I mean, luckily I'm kind of old. Hey, still young at heart and that culture, that culture, man, it seems very intense and stressful. Um, I can't imagine being out there today. It would be, it would definitely be something that, uh, that I wouldn't have time for now anyway, you know, founding the company. So.
Jake: Not a chance, man.
Gus: Um, but speaking of time, thank you so much for, uh, for taking the time to tell us more about your journey, your experience and how you approach things. Uh, I really enjoyed this chat, man. I think, uh, I think you're, you got some big things cooking, obviously best of luck with the big contract. Hopefully that goes through for you and, uh, any other like final thoughts, where can people find you? Do you have any, you know, any things you want to promote? Obviously the website and your business and things like that, if people want to get in touch.
Jake: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, um, I'm on, I'm on the socials, LinkedIn, um, Insta of course. And then if, uh, you want to go onto the website, you can go to www.vcard.io, um, Vie card, Vie I E C A R D.io. And we're actually about to push a new update. So, um, you know, stay tuned because it's going to be sick. Um, our guys have been working really hard on it. So yeah, you know, just, just grateful that you, you know, gave me the opportunity to talk about my product here today and excited for the future, man. And obviously wish you the best of luck as well. You know,
Gus: Appreciate it, man. Well, we'll have to, we'll just snag a beer at the capital factory sometime soon. We'll, uh, we'll make a day of it. Um, but Jake, thank you so much, man. Uh, and we'll link everything in the, uh, the description as well. So if you want to connect with Jake or, you know, check out his product or see what he's working on, um, you can just head to the description, but that has been another episode of founder facing. We'll see you next time.
Conclusion
That wraps up this episode of the Founder Facing Podcast with Jake Bass. If you found this conversation valuable, please subscribe to the podcast and check out Vie at viecard.io to learn more about their innovative approach to helping people build financial security.
Stay tuned for more episodes where we'll be talking with other founders and business leaders about their journeys, challenges, and insights.
Resources Mentioned
- Vie (Viecard.io) - Jake's financial security startup
- Capital Factory - Austin-based startup incubator mentioned by Jake
