Portfolio Case Study: Fundera
Responding to the COVID Pandemic at Fundera: Turning on a Dime to Help Small Business Owners Access PPP Funding
Stacking the Odds in Favor of Small Businesses
Fundera is known for helping small business owners confidently shop for lending options. But as the impacts of COVID started to unfold, lenders stopped lending, and our core business became (for a moment) irrelevant to its core customers.
That said, we were positioned really well to replace the supply side of our alternative lending marketplace with a big slice of the $500 billion Paycheck Protection Program government assistance capital. To make that happen, everyone at Fundera had to drop whatever they were doing and refocus entirely on building an application process for securing PPP funds. This shift completely upended the economy, our business included, and it took a massive effort to change course as quickly as we did. The way Fundera differentiates is by offering exceptional service, curated options, and expert advice.
For me that meant jumping into the change-management fire and contributing to the process that helped us pivot all our people and resources towards something totally new and totally confounding.
TL;DR:
We used our highly trafficked content site to let customers know we could help them apply for the Paycheck Protection Program
We redesigned and rebuilt our core loan application workflow
Our entire Sales Team reorganized around the changes
We reacted in realtime as the government released new rules in realtime
We packaged as many PPP applications as possible
Our bank partners took in the applications and processed as many as possible
In the end, we were able to transact over $2 billion of that PPP money in a few weeks
Funded by Fundera
People start a business out of passion - out of a love to cook, to build, to create. But passion only gets you so far. Financial expertise is needed to run a successful business, but that’s not an inherent strength for all entrepreneurs. Fundera exists to help business owners make smarter financial decisions.
The way Fundera helps small businesses is by offering exceptional service, curated options, and expert advice. At the end of the day, customers know that they exhaust their best options when working with Fundera. The product and service helps businesses confidently shop, compare, and understand the financial solutions they need to succeed.
Let’s Talk
Fintech is a broad space but there’s a lot of interesting things happening right now across banking, lending, insurance, real estate, and investing. Hit me up if you want to talk about design’s role in this moment.
