- May 29, 2024
- 128
- 59
We were shaking. After small wins, some large wins, and more losses than we could count, the first large notification came in, $37,000, then the next, the next, and the next within minutes of each other.
"Is this actually happening dude?"
"I don't know, I don't know".
That was a day that took months and months of preparation, testing, massive screw ups and total desperation down to our last dollar.
How did we do it?
First things first since people like screenshots:
This was one month.
I've been here for a little while and I haven't gotten a chance to contribute as much as I would have liked lately. I thought I would talk about something that would be very valuable from a unique insight perspective and might provide inspiration to those of you that feel like they're going in circles and that are feeling like there are less opportunities and more competition, or are going after the same types of offers, same types of niches, and are doing the same thing year after year and are stuck.
Whether that's:
I want to show you that there is an alternative and that there's a lot more money in doing something unique than it is in doing what everyone else is doing.
I don't usually post in this section but I figured this was worth sharing because the model is genuinely different from anything I've seen discussed on BHW, and the numbers are completely real.
The Short Version
Two years ago a small team of e-comm creative strategists and other types of marketers got together to attempt something that was a bit more radical than your average startup.
We built a platform that lets people convert their credit card limits into cash in their bank account. Flat 8.5% fee. No loans, no interest, no daily ACH pulls, no new debt. Just credit → capital in 2-3 business days.
In 18 months we processed $110M+ through the platform. Total marketing spend: $0. Every dollar came through manual outreach, relationship building, & word of mouth coupled with working with affiliate marketers in the credit and funding space.
We worked with a wide variety of folks that either had the ability to drive traffic, had the ability to reach out to potential partners, or were just good at producing content that just needed to be pushed. These key partnerships were one of the greatest ways to bring people together for mutual benefit because when people pool resources you're able to end up getting way farther ahead as long as everyone is at least remotely competent in what they are doing and gives their best.
How It Started
The CEO, was let's what you might call an unconventional background. Started with lemonade stands, ran a dorm room e-commerce business, went $56K into debt by 21, tried a bagel shop franchise that failed, hit $250K in debt by 23. The pressure was building, his opportunities were drying up, others were going off to work at tier 1 firms or startups that raised $10-20-30 million dollars and were laughing.
Then he figured out something called credit conversion, the idea that the credit limit on your card is capital you already own, and there should be a way to access it without paying 25-60% through MCAs or cash advances.
He built the first version manually. Like, actually manually processing conversions for people. No app, no fancy stack. Just the concept and a phone.
It did $1M in the first 90 days. Then, he picked up a few folks, and doubled down on relationships. $110M in 18 months. All bootstrapped. All through affiliate marketers especially people in credit repair groups, business funding communities, and financial Facebook groups who understood the product immediately because they were already in that world.
From there it expanded to whoever was competent at being able to convey an idea clearly.
And that was just the beginning. Over the course of the 18 months, the team evolved to intricately understand every facet of the market and establish relationships at the highest levels (though some of them that joined on later already had them so that helped). The work compounded, the team compounded, the results, compounded.
Why It Worked
Three reasons:
The the more we understood about our offer and the more traffic that we got, in the more clients that we processed, the more data we had. This allowed us to really understand what they were using us for, which gave us even more capability to understand what other offer opportunities in other markets and audiences that it would fit.
For instance an example of a use case that became very prevalent for us was for those that ran large volumes of media buying. They were able to use our product in order to scale their points for their credit cards when they were advertising via Google or via Facebook or any other platform. At the same time they were able to get full access to their points and have a more convenient option for payment.
What We Did Next
We rebuilt the entire thing from scratch. The legacy platform was held together with duct tape and phone calls. We built Kashu, proper FDIC-backed banking, identity verification, payment orchestration, and fraud detection. Real infrastructure for real scale. We're the only legal option.
We also acquired our only direct competitor. They now run as a white-label partner on our wallet. So the competitive landscape is effectively us and whatever DIY solutions people cobble together that can't sustain, survive, or be competitive price wise. From here, we ramp up higher and higher.
The Takeaway
You see a thousand people doing the same offers, same things, and while it works, its in deeply, deeply saturated markets. My next post, which I will add later this evening will be about how you should go about digging into opportunities and finding what will work for you, based off your skill sets, what communities and audiences you understand, and how you can integrate and find what their true pain points are so that you can create or source a solution to their problems that can make you profitable.
Partnerships + offer scalability =sustainability & growth. Find and fix a stupid problem simply or help people understand how they can fix it. Then, find people that are smart and trustworthy and work to make them rich and they in turn will make you money.
These are the things combined with a unique offer make you capable of doing more money and revenue than some of the most elite peptide guys in 1/100th of the time and less complications, though it still requires effort.
Happy to answer questions (within reason) in the thread.
"Is this actually happening dude?"
"I don't know, I don't know".
That was a day that took months and months of preparation, testing, massive screw ups and total desperation down to our last dollar.
How did we do it?
First things first since people like screenshots:
This was one month.
I've been here for a little while and I haven't gotten a chance to contribute as much as I would have liked lately. I thought I would talk about something that would be very valuable from a unique insight perspective and might provide inspiration to those of you that feel like they're going in circles and that are feeling like there are less opportunities and more competition, or are going after the same types of offers, same types of niches, and are doing the same thing year after year and are stuck.
Whether that's:
- local SEO for service businesses
- gambling offers
- only fans
- crypto coins
- peptides (seems like everyone is doing it)
- newsletters
- video clipping
- AI influencers
I want to show you that there is an alternative and that there's a lot more money in doing something unique than it is in doing what everyone else is doing.
I don't usually post in this section but I figured this was worth sharing because the model is genuinely different from anything I've seen discussed on BHW, and the numbers are completely real.
The Short Version
Two years ago a small team of e-comm creative strategists and other types of marketers got together to attempt something that was a bit more radical than your average startup.
We built a platform that lets people convert their credit card limits into cash in their bank account. Flat 8.5% fee. No loans, no interest, no daily ACH pulls, no new debt. Just credit → capital in 2-3 business days.
In 18 months we processed $110M+ through the platform. Total marketing spend: $0. Every dollar came through manual outreach, relationship building, & word of mouth coupled with working with affiliate marketers in the credit and funding space.
We worked with a wide variety of folks that either had the ability to drive traffic, had the ability to reach out to potential partners, or were just good at producing content that just needed to be pushed. These key partnerships were one of the greatest ways to bring people together for mutual benefit because when people pool resources you're able to end up getting way farther ahead as long as everyone is at least remotely competent in what they are doing and gives their best.
How It Started
The CEO, was let's what you might call an unconventional background. Started with lemonade stands, ran a dorm room e-commerce business, went $56K into debt by 21, tried a bagel shop franchise that failed, hit $250K in debt by 23. The pressure was building, his opportunities were drying up, others were going off to work at tier 1 firms or startups that raised $10-20-30 million dollars and were laughing.
Then he figured out something called credit conversion, the idea that the credit limit on your card is capital you already own, and there should be a way to access it without paying 25-60% through MCAs or cash advances.
He built the first version manually. Like, actually manually processing conversions for people. No app, no fancy stack. Just the concept and a phone.
It did $1M in the first 90 days. Then, he picked up a few folks, and doubled down on relationships. $110M in 18 months. All bootstrapped. All through affiliate marketers especially people in credit repair groups, business funding communities, and financial Facebook groups who understood the product immediately because they were already in that world.
From there it expanded to whoever was competent at being able to convey an idea clearly.
And that was just the beginning. Over the course of the 18 months, the team evolved to intricately understand every facet of the market and establish relationships at the highest levels (though some of them that joined on later already had them so that helped). The work compounded, the team compounded, the results, compounded.
Why It Worked
Three reasons:
- The math sells itself. When someone is paying 20-60% for an MCA or 25%+ APR on a cash advance, and you show them 8.5% flat with no compounding and no daily pulls, the conversation is over. There's no objection that survives the math.
- The affiliate marketers were already in the room or worked with us to figure out how they could apply their resources/experience with different offers to crush it with ours. Credit repair groups, business funding communities, financial Facebook groups and more, these people talk to business owners who need capital every single day. The product slotted into conversations they were already having. They didn't need to create demand. They just needed a better answer to give. The ones that were used to dating offers or sweeps, they realized they had a wide-open opportunity to attack.
- Users come back. This isn't a one-and-done product. Business owners need working capital regularly for payroll, equipment, inventory, seasonal ramps. The average user who converts once converts again. That's recurring revenue for us and recurring commissions for affiliate marketers. You don't grind for every dollar. You build a portfolio of users and it compounds.
The the more we understood about our offer and the more traffic that we got, in the more clients that we processed, the more data we had. This allowed us to really understand what they were using us for, which gave us even more capability to understand what other offer opportunities in other markets and audiences that it would fit.
For instance an example of a use case that became very prevalent for us was for those that ran large volumes of media buying. They were able to use our product in order to scale their points for their credit cards when they were advertising via Google or via Facebook or any other platform. At the same time they were able to get full access to their points and have a more convenient option for payment.
What We Did Next
We rebuilt the entire thing from scratch. The legacy platform was held together with duct tape and phone calls. We built Kashu, proper FDIC-backed banking, identity verification, payment orchestration, and fraud detection. Real infrastructure for real scale. We're the only legal option.
We also acquired our only direct competitor. They now run as a white-label partner on our wallet. So the competitive landscape is effectively us and whatever DIY solutions people cobble together that can't sustain, survive, or be competitive price wise. From here, we ramp up higher and higher.
The Takeaway
You see a thousand people doing the same offers, same things, and while it works, its in deeply, deeply saturated markets. My next post, which I will add later this evening will be about how you should go about digging into opportunities and finding what will work for you, based off your skill sets, what communities and audiences you understand, and how you can integrate and find what their true pain points are so that you can create or source a solution to their problems that can make you profitable.
Partnerships + offer scalability =sustainability & growth. Find and fix a stupid problem simply or help people understand how they can fix it. Then, find people that are smart and trustworthy and work to make them rich and they in turn will make you money.
These are the things combined with a unique offer make you capable of doing more money and revenue than some of the most elite peptide guys in 1/100th of the time and less complications, though it still requires effort.
Happy to answer questions (within reason) in the thread.
