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Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#11

Post by binarymax »

VrindaGupta wrote: post #6

Hi, I'm Vrinda Gupta. I worked at Visa Inc. for years, launching popular credit cards. But when I applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve (the credit card I helped develop), I was rejected! I'm now the CEO and Co-Founder of Sequin, a debit card that builds credit for women risk-free with no credit history required. My co-founder, Mark Thomas, spent over a decade at PayPal leading ACH products in various EM roles. I wa…

Really cool! What's the biggest differentiator between Sequin and a secured credit card? Me and my wife used the latter as the first step to help build our credit history...but admittedly the limit was small.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#12

Post by VrindaGupta »

hpagey wrote: post #8
VrindaGupta wrote: post #6

Hi, I'm Vrinda Gupta. I worked at Visa Inc. for years, launching popular credit cards. But when I applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve (the credit card I helped develop), I was rejected! I'm now the CEO and Co-Founder of Sequin, a debit card that builds credit for women risk-free with no credit history required. My co-founder, Mark Thomas, spent over a decade at PayPal leading ACH products in various EM roles. I wa…

Me and most of my friends had credit cards when we were in grad school. Amex had that student blue card issued. Most of my cohort used that card to build credit and move on to better cards. Universities also have a student union which issues credit card to students. Is this not the target market for this card?

Young women are less likely to sign up for those products or be pre-approved (b/c lowest financial literacy levels and thus,lower awareness of products). Target market is young professional woman who missed these opportunities to build credit early.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#13

Post by VrindaGupta »

binarymax wrote: post #11
VrindaGupta wrote: post #6

Hi, I'm Vrinda Gupta. I worked at Visa Inc. for years, launching popular credit cards. But when I applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve (the credit card I helped develop), I was rejected! I'm now the CEO and Co-Founder of Sequin, a debit card that builds credit for women risk-free with no credit history required. My co-founder, Mark Thomas, spent over a decade at PayPal leading ACH products in various EM roles. I wa…

Really cool! What's the biggest differentiator between Sequin and a secured credit card? Me and my wife used the latter as the first step to help build our credit history...but admittedly the limit was small.

Secured cards have high deposits ($200+) and can still get you into debt if you don't pay back / pay min / pay late - affects women more than men.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#14

Post by VrindaGupta »

danpalmer wrote: post #9
VrindaGupta wrote: post #6

Hi, I'm Vrinda Gupta. I worked at Visa Inc. for years, launching popular credit cards. But when I applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve (the credit card I helped develop), I was rejected! I'm now the CEO and Co-Founder of Sequin, a debit card that builds credit for women risk-free with no credit history required. My co-founder, Mark Thomas, spent over a decade at PayPal leading ACH products in various EM roles. I wa…

Congratulations! This sounds very exciting. I've heard about the inequality in financial products but didn't really understand why, thanks for the explanation of this particular bit. I could imagine that this is a problem that women may not realise until it's "too late" – when they get to opening that credit card or applying for a mortgage. While Sequin would help address that situation if used in advance, is there a…

That's exactly what we're trying to solve here with Sequin. We're targeting young professional women / new grads to address the problem at the source.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#15

Post by adityadsr5 »

sunil_loanmeet wrote: post #7

Hi HN! We are a rather unusual team of six founders (Pei, Amit, Sunil, Jack, Bo, and Kartik) spread across India and China, building Karbon Cards ( https://www.karboncard.com/ ). We help companies in India get instant access to a corporate card. We came across this problem separately while Amit was doing VC and Sunil was running his own fintech. We saw that a startup with $1M in the bank was facing mind-numbing issue…

Congratulations guys!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#16

Post by adityadsr5 »

iamstg wrote: post #2

Hi HN, we are Manas, Swapnil and Sailesh, co-founders of AlgoUniversity ( https://www.algouniversity.com/ ). We bridge the gap between the CS curriculum taught at universities in India and the skills that are required by the tech industry. We offer live classes, industry-relevant projects, and learning products that prepare students for software engineering jobs at top tech companies. We started AlgoUniversity in our…

Congrats guys!! AlgoUniversity is great!

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#17

Post by sunil_loanmeet »

adityadsr5 wrote: post #15
sunil_loanmeet wrote: post #7

Hi HN! We are a rather unusual team of six founders (Pei, Amit, Sunil, Jack, Bo, and Kartik) spread across India and China, building Karbon Cards ( https://www.karboncard.com/ ). We help companies in India get instant access to a corporate card. We came across this problem separately while Amit was doing VC and Sunil was running his own fintech. We saw that a startup with $1M in the bank was facing mind-numbing issue…

Congratulations guys!

Thank you Aditya

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#18

Post by debarshri »

sunil_loanmeet wrote: post #7

Hi HN! We are a rather unusual team of six founders (Pei, Amit, Sunil, Jack, Bo, and Kartik) spread across India and China, building Karbon Cards ( https://www.karboncard.com/ ). We help companies in India get instant access to a corporate card. We came across this problem separately while Amit was doing VC and Sunil was running his own fintech. We saw that a startup with $1M in the bank was facing mind-numbing issue…

Me and my current co-founder did face this issues or atleast were discussing about this issues. It is a big problem. Also, problem is india is just simply incorporating a company.

It becomes even more difficult when both the founders do not live in India. Relevant problem, huge market. Good luck! We will probably be a customer if you guys execute well. One of the things that I love about brex and if you could replicate would set you apart is customer experience. If you build some very customer centric that would completely change the game.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#19

Post by jeswin »

ravi_b wrote: post #4

Hi HN, we're Ravi and Pratik of Enerjazz ( https://www.enerjazz.tech/ ). We make battery swapping stations (like gasoline stations) for electric vehicles, swapping discharged batteries with charged batteries in 2 minutes for light commercial EVs. Commercial EVs or electric rickshaws have 2 pain points. One high upfront cost of battery (can be up to 50% of the total cost of vehicle). Two, high charging downtime result…

Good idea, and extra credits for not being another software and services platform. India needs more companies who actually build/manufacture, will be rooting for you.

Re: Launch YC S21: Meet the Batch, Thread #8

#20

Post by imharkunwar »

sunil_loanmeet wrote: post #7

Hi HN! We are a rather unusual team of six founders (Pei, Amit, Sunil, Jack, Bo, and Kartik) spread across India and China, building Karbon Cards ( https://www.karboncard.com/ ). We help companies in India get instant access to a corporate card. We came across this problem separately while Amit was doing VC and Sunil was running his own fintech. We saw that a startup with $1M in the bank was facing mind-numbing issue…

This is great guys. Indeed a very big problem.
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