It’s About the Customer
The predatory lending market is huge — over 32 million US households qualify as un or underbanked, according to an FDIC report in 2017. In the same year, a recorded 12 million payday loans were given out. This market of financially underserved community members is so vast; how does a small, socially responsible financial services business find a place to begin?
The answer: Identify an initial target market through market research and customer interviews.
A successful product or service is created around addressing a need their potential customers have. However, it can sometimes be difficult to find those first customers. Customer interviews are crucial to identifying where your consumer’s pain points are and how you can build a service that best fits their needs. So often new businesses are centered around really great or innovative ideas but are missing that crucial customer component. Rather than trying to create a product to fit into a market, first, identify a market, understand their needs, pinpoint areas for improvement, and then create or validate solutions. It may seem like commonsense, however, at MiraLend, we are learning the value in a narrow, niche market.
MiraLend is currently focused on talking to financially underserved members in our community. By doing this, we are able to break down this ambiguous underbanked market and pinpoint who exactly is most in need of micro borrowing. For a community-driven lending platform to be successful, there has to be a recognized community. We aim to celebrate diversity and inclusion and encourage our lenders and borrowers to discover similarities in their financial journeys.
We have currently identified four market segments that would benefit from a community lending platform: college students, abuse survivors, immigrants, and veterans. These members of our community have financial needs that are not being met and through customer interviews we are able to understand and empathize with those needs as well as account for them as we build out our lending platform. Stay tuned to hear stories from individuals we’ve talked to and learned from!
