James Garvey, CEO and Founder of Self Financial — Empowering Consumers to Build Credit & Save Money

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with James Garvey, the CEO and Founder of Self Financial. Since 2015, Self has helped hundreds of thousands of people build a strong financial future. It provides tools necessary for building on-time payment history and responsible use of credit, in collaboration with issuing bank services for those who are new to credit or who might not have access to traditional financial products. Self understands that building a financial foundation is a daunting task for most people, so they’re dedicated to building a product that will help their customers move two steps in the right direction.

Last month, Self raised $50MM in a Series E round which included investors like

Altos Ventures, Conductive Ventures, and Meritech Capital Partners. In 2020, Self raised a Series C and a Series D round.

In this episode we discuss:

• Self’s Credit Builder Account: “Our flagship product is technically a CD secured installment loan. So it’s a small dollar loan that is linked from our bank for to the consumer, and the money is placed into a certificate of deposit bank account that’s in the customer’s name that’s held that same bank. These products, they range from $25 a month to $150 a month, in terms of size. We’re talking about $500 up to a little bit less than $2000. And basically, just to walk through an example, I’m going to pay $25 a month for 24 months, so $600. I’m going to pay $9 open up the account, so I’m going to pay $609 and after two years of making on time payments, I’m going to be established. I will have established credit history. I will get about 520 back, so in that simple, simple example, we’re talking about a customer that pays $89 and net expense over two years to help themselves build credit but also to help themselves save $520. We’re talking 10s of dollars of costs, typically. So it just depends on which [loan] they choose. But at the end the day, these are very affordable products that are designed to help people responsibly build credit and save money.”
• Why a credit history matters: “So the one thing that Credit Karma has done really, really well is educate consumers on the value of having a good credit score, and how important credit is. Credit karma has done a credible job there. So what we definitely see are people who want to improve their score — that’s the thing that they want to do. But they are goal driven. Every customer we have, we ask them, ‘Hey, what kind of goals do you want? What kind of things do you aspire to have?’ Owning your own home, getting a mortgage is a goal that our customers have. Getting their first credit card is also a goal that our customers have.”
• James’s career as a serial entrepreneur: “My very first job — I was a software engineer for a startup — that’s how I paid for college. It’s the year 2000. It’s a crazy, crazy, crazy time. I was 18 years old. I was able to pay for college by working at a startup, and after having that experience, I realized that I wanted to do something different. The first company that I started was an email service writer company that sent a lot of emails for a lot of big brands. I never had to raise money, didn’t have a board of directors, small team never had more than a dozen employees. But basically, the company ran for about six years, and I had a great experience, a great opportunity. But I didn’t really feel, you know, the exciting drive every day, like waking up being so excited to work on something. And, you know, I would say that, after starting that company, operating it, and selling it, I was a little aimless for a while trying to figure out what I do next. I tried a couple of things but ultimately fell in love with this idea that I could create a product that helps people, that helps myself, that has this ability to solve these amazing problems. And, it’s been the most exciting thing I’ve done in my life.”
• Self’s work culture: “We now have employees in 14 states. We’ve been able to hire some amazing people that don’t live in Austin, that don’t live in Texas. That was never a possibility. Because if you lived in San Francisco, you wanted to work for a company in the Bay Area. If you’re living in Chicago, you want to work for a company in Chicago, right? And so being able to work at home and do it effectively, and do it outside of where the company is located, it’s been a huge benefit for us, because we’ve been able to bring on some amazing people that we may not have otherwise been able to do so. ”
• And much more!

Full interview → Spotify | Soundcloud | Apple

About James Garvey

James Garvey is the CEO and Founder of Self Financial.

Self is the third start-up company which James launched. He started Self after his own experience building his credit score. He is a graduate of the University of California, Davis where he studied Mathematics.

James currently resides in Austin, Texas. To follow him on Twitter visit twitter.com/jkgarvey.

About Self Financial

Self Financial is a venture-backed fintech startup that helps customers build credit and save money. For additional information on Self Financial, please visit self.inc | Twitter: twitter.com/SelfCreditApp

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