Monday, June 8, 2020
Interview with Scott Grimes, Stackin
Our interview today is with Scott Grimes, the CEO of Los Angeles-based Stackin', which operates a text-based, financial messaging platform. Stackin recentlyraised $12.6M in a funding round led by Octopus Ventures, and also which also included Experian Ventures, Cherry Tree Investments, Dig Ventures, Mucker Capital, Unlock Venture Partners, TechStars and Wavemaker Partners.
What is Stackin'?
Scott Grimes: We are the simplest entry point into finance. We try to make it very easy for the average consumer to get more financial information, content, and ultimately, product, in the financial industry.
How did the company start?
Scott Grimes: The goal was always to make it simpler for people to engage with their finances. It's tough to navigate the system for people who don't have a lot of money, and there are less entry points, generally, making it relevant and accessible to those people. Our goal, from the beginning, 3 years ago, was to create the simplest entry point into finance we could. We wanted to make the topics, information, and content relevant to people as they came into the ecosystem. Ultimately, we wanted to create a simpler way, a place for people to not be judged, and ultimately allow them to engage in financ in a much more, personalized way.
We see a lot of this is based on text messaging?
Scott Grimes: Ultimately, we are a text messaging platform build on top of Twilio. We recently crossed a million active users in the United States, who get a text message from us two to three times a week. There are lots of others trying to put content on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok, which is more about entertainment around social media. What we do, is we take them from social media into a one-to-one relationship, via text, directly to their phone. That's the core of our business, a one-to-one text messaging relationship with the ened user. Moving forward, this recent funding is going towards creating more personalization around that text experience. We love texting, because it's a very personal, intimate environment. You have lots of control over it, unlike email, and we think it's a great way to get people to engage, and to ultimately improve their finance. As we move forward, we are hoping to personalize that relationship as much as possible, based on life events, and provide a customized experience. We want that text to be more relevant to your daily life, and ultimate, want to go deeper down the funnel, helping our users with more data and information, and make it easier to get them into products to help them in their financial life. Instead of signing up for a bunch of different products, we want you to house most of your information, if you want to, with Stakin', to allow you to more easily port you around the fintech universe.
What kind of financial products are you talking about?
Scott Grimes: If you look at Credit Karma, we are taking a different approach to this. We curate the best products within each category of finance. Right now, we have two categories, banking, where we've partnered with Neobank to provide better solutions to our audience, digital solutions which are cheaper and help them savemoney. We also work with high yield savings and investment, and also have an investment partnership. All of these partners, obviously, are referral based. We are using predictive analytics to make referrals to our user base, when it's like that we can help them make money or save money. The entire experience is curated. We will be launching into credit cards, loans, and insurance over the next two quarters, providing any kind of financial product and tools which are helpful to our end users.
What's your background?
Scott Grimes: I previously started a company, Uproxx Media, which I sold to Time Warner Music. This is my second venture. My previous company was a digital media and content company, and was much more content based. But, my passion is for personal finance, which is why I got into this. I grew up outside of Austin, and didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up. As I spent my professional career living in different cities, I had a passion to create a better way for the general public and mainstream America to interact with their finances, in a simpler, more efficient way. That's why I started Stackin. My passion has been to help improve the ecosystem of information, and create a culturally relevant access point. Finance is often not relevant to people, and we decided you need a better access point to finance, and do it at scale, using technology, data, and things like machine learning. It's good if you can help five to ten people, but it's better if you can help five to 10 million people along their financial path, and have a greater impact.
How is it you managed to find funding in a pandemic?
Scott Grimes: It wasn't easy. I will give testament to Octopus Ventures, which is in the UK. We were looking to expand in the UK this year, and they stuck with us, in an environment that has been very challenging for everyone. Every aspect of the economy has been impacted by this. It really took my team, a fantastic investment team which put in a lot of late hours. It also helps that our business model itself is fundamentally strong, the problems in fintech are real, and customer acquisition costs are very high, and there really is a need to more efficiently get people into the fintech universe. We're building something unique, and Octopus and all of our existing investors were very strong believers in our dream. They believed in our business, and stood by even in the midst of this pandemic.
What will you use this new funding to work on?
Scott Grimes: A lot of it is for new user acquisition. We have about a million users right now, and are looking to move that to five million users over the next two years. We also are working on personalization. We're moving now from a segment-based content approach, which is much more general, to much more event-based content. With more data and information, we can help provide more guidance for you wherever you are in your life. So, as opposed to general guidance on a topic, we can provide you with specific information you are interested in. We also will be providing options for more guidance, and a subscription model, as well, which will provide more educational information if you have a subscription. We will provide add-ons to allow you to go deeper into certain topics and areas through that paid premium model.
Finally, what's been your biggest lesson as a second time entrepreneur?
Scott Grimes: There's a litany of things. Probably, enjoy the moment a little more. It's hard enough to get one company from a Series A to Series B round, and having done it twice, I feel extraordinarily blessed. I'm hoping to enjoy the wins a lot more. Businesses are very difficult to scale, grow, and few get funded. So, I'm increasingly appreciate of those moments when they happen.
Thanks!