Jul 8, 2015
Episode 7: Vouch Founder & CEO Yee Lee
Everywhere I go in the fintech world these days, people are
mentioning
Vouch. It's new, it's still small, but it has a
potentially huge idea, and a team that can make it happen.
Vouch is a
Bay-area startup that calls itself "the first social network for
credit". Its concept is simple: a borrower asks his or
her social network friends to vouch for repayment of the loan. The
friend can choose an amount to vouch for. If the borrower defaults,
the friend pays the promised amount. The vouching network - or
"trust network" -- can become mutually beneficial, bringing lower
rates (5% to 30%) or larger loan amounts ($500 to $15,000, with
one- to three-year terms.)
As I say in introducing the episode, this idea may look like
something just for millennials, but I think it is tapping into
something with massive potential - new ways to evaluate people's
creditworthiness by understanding them in their social context -
understanding how they are viewed by the people who know them best.
Vouch says they want to "return lending to its roots," where your
reputation carried weight, but to do it using new tools and
reach.
Yee
Lee is a software engineer and serial entrepreneur and
investor. In our conversation he says he grew up in the
Bay Area and it was just "in the water" there to do an internet
startup during the dot-com bubble - he quit his PhD program at
Stanford to go after his first idea. Since then he's been involved
with everything from PayPal to TaskRabbit, and in 2013, founded
Vouch.
That same year, he wrote a
thoughtful
Wall Street Journal blog piece for Fathers In Tech. He lives in
the Bay area with his wife and two young sons, and I will
personally "vouch" for his dad credentials, as I recently invited
him to an event that he declined because of his younger son's
birthday. I know you'll enjoy hearing our discussion.
And here's is a bit more on some of the other entities mentioned in
this episode:
- PayPal
- Mission Asset Fund, a much-emulated innovator using Latin American-style lending circles
- Grameen Bank, microfinance pioneer
- Core Innovation Capital, a Vouch investor
- IDG Ventures, a Vouch investor
- The CFPB's Project Catalyst, fostering pro-consumer innovation
Enjoy my conversation with Yee.