MEETUP PREVIEW: The Trials of Innovation Startups
I started the parent company of Bank Innovation 15 years ago, yet I still remember the chore of those early years. I literally slept in my office a least once a week — and I made enough mistakes to last two lifetimes.
Those memories are what drive my curiosity about FindABetterBank.com and Bank Simple, founders of which will be featured speakers at tonight’s Bank Innovation gathering. (RSVP are still being accepted here.)
FindABetterBank.com operates under a simple principle: it aims to answer the question, Which is the best bank for each customer? This might sound like a somewhat innocuous question, but it is not. It goes to consumers’ most profound financial fears since the Great Depression. How to convert the resulting answer into revenue is another question facing FindABetterBank.
Bank Simple is intended to be a better bank, although whether it actually will be is another matter entirely. The fanfare surrounding Bank Simple is acute — for the same reason why FindABetterBank strikes a deep chord. Consumers, as a whole, are deeply disturbed by what they saw from the oligopolistic-like mega banks of today. Their recklessness calls into question the very essence of their bank brand promises (“The Bank of Opportunity”? Owned by the federal government?) Shamir Karkal is one of the founders, and I’ve previously talked with him about the opportunities in front of Bank Simple — as well as its potential pitfalls. In the week following clarification of Mint.com’s “banking” strategy, I look at Bank Simple as being arguably the brightest of all consumer financial services startups over the last couple of years solely because it is honing in on the truest pot of gold: actual banking services. Again, actually tapping into that pot is Bank Simple’s greatest challenge.
But beyond it all is the startup’s dilemma. Both FindABetterBank and Bank Simple must convert their ideas into profits — and sooner rather than later. This is the great challenge facing us all really. We all yearn for innovative ideas and products in banking, but “innovation” and “profitability” do not always deserve to be used in the same sentence. We’ll discuss how to do so tonight.
You are welcome to share your questions and/or advice for Shamir and Rob Rubin of FindABetterBank in comments to this blog. All of us at Bank Innovation look forward to seeing you this evening at 5.30 pm.
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