A Conversation with Brendon McQueen, CEO of Cred
Tell us a bit about how you started working with Science.
I’ve been operating in Santa Monica since 2011, so naturally became acquainted with Mike Jones and the Science team. We didn’t get a chance to work together on my first company (Tuition.io), but I always knew they did good work so brought my second company to them. That company eventually morphed into what it is today, Get Cred.
What got you interested in cryptocurrencies and blockchain? What was your first experience with bitcoin like?
I was initially skeptical about crypto, but Mike convinced me to check it out. After taking a look, it became obvious how amazing blockchain and crypto were to the future of fintech. The other thing that became brutally apparent was that the tools available to consumers were lacking the ease to reach the general public and mass adoption. So we started Get Cred to make it easy for people to buy their first crypto.
What are you trying to do with Cred? How has it evolved from when you got started?
We’re totally focused on making crypto accessible to regular consumers. That’s been our mission from the onset and continues today. Almost half of our users are new to crypto, and we hope that ratio grows. A big feature of Get Cred is the apps’ ability to easily setup recurring investments — so much so that over 80% of our users have a recurring investment setup on the platform. The other thing that’s been really striking is that our users hold their crypto (HODL) for the long haul — for example, we’ve seen less than a 5% withdraw rate, which is great for crypto as a whole.
The landscape for on-ramps to crypto for mainstream audience has been growing. How do you think about your competitive position?
We’re not focused on day trading, semi-pro investors in the same way Abra or to some extent Robinhood is — we’re focused on newbies. To that end, we offer roundups, education, transparent pricing and the ability to get free alt. coins. The other thing we do is offer twice the coins of Robinhood or Circle, and definitely more ease than the standard exchange out there.
Due to the volatility and liquidity of what’s still a fairly nascent market, the decision of consumer investing apps to list specific tokens is often an event of hot discussions. Can you share your framework on how Cred decides what tokens to list?
We leverage our digital asset assessment guide to support coins that are building a legitimate project, coins where the team and the concepts are sound and can be explained to consumers. It’s in our own interest to only support coins we think will be here in the long haul. To your point about volatility, we actually think this is a great fit for today’s new investors as the average daily volatility of the S&P 500 is like watching paint dry to a generation of folks hooked on Instagram or AmazonPrime. If it’s not moving in the hours or days, it’s a snooze.
When it comes to working in the retail investing space in general, is there anything that you think people are not paying enough attention to that will become fairly important or popular in the long run?
We like index options for consumers (will be rolling something out here in the next quarter), and we also like transparent pricing. I think the era of doing exchange arbitrage and pulling the wool over your customers’ eyes and calling your product free is coming to an end very soon.
What are some things in this space that you think are overhyped right now?
I think people backing away from the market when it’s down is the opposite of fundamental investing. You’re supposed to buy when it’s down, remember?
What are some emerging behaviors or trends that you are excited about in crypto?
Normal folks buying crypto on a recurring basis, the emergence of a lot of the utility of alt. Coins coming to bare, and I’m excited to see how crypto and blockchain will begin affecting traditional finance in the mainstream.
