Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

brex.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 350 posts

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#261

Post by klik99 »

cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #162
parkaboy wrote: post #147

Not surprised by any of this. Feels like it comes from the top, culturally. I had a terrible experience "onboarding" with Brex last year. They actually "approved" my bootstrapped startup and sent me a physical card only to rescind it a shortly thereafter, because--even though we met the funding minimum--it wasn't "professionally invested" on further review. Bootstrapping apparently required a $1MM minimum. Here's wha…

Yuck. Brex comes across as risky, mercurial, and snobby rather than useful, professional, and reliable. Does anyone else know about or use Silicon Valley Bank? How do they compare to Mercury?

We started using SVB when we expected to raise a sizable seed round which never happened. It's been over a year that we've been bootstrapping with them and we're quite happy with them. Support is great and I don't think they care that we're smaller and bootstrapping. Of course our needs aren't that big so we don't need a lot of support - but when we do the response is fast and personal.

My read on SVBs strategy is - if there is potential for this company to become large VC then it's better to be kind to them even before that point.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#262

Post by joshribakoff »

retcon wrote: post #200
pedrofranceschi wrote: post #10

Brex founder here. We've made the difficult decision to no longer offer services to the small business market. Back in April we launched Empower, and we decided to put the full weight of Brex towards building the best global payments platform for tech startups and larger companies. With that, we realized we couldn't do a great job serving the small business community at the same time. This has been an incredibly diff…

What were your reasons for attempting to sell your services to smaller businesses in the first place? You have made decisions capable of inflicting tremendous pain on entirely innocent people eg employees. How are you to be believed that you will not randomly hurt more people? Buddy this isn't PR this is proving you're not a dangerous child entirely before you defend your job.

They were trying to execute the principles in “the innovators dilemma” by acquiring customers while they are small and helping those businesses grow. I speculate that the sudden pivot came from the VC investors not the founders. First the drive for profitability most likely stemmed from emerging competition like ramp, and the now with growth stocks losing momentum and the credit market drying up, the VCs have more leverage to run things the way they want.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#263

Post by fn-mote »

parkaboy wrote: post #179
djbusby wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SVB site UX has been "dated" since at least 2014. Good service tho.

It's almost sort of endearing, but not actually. The fact that they use SMS-based 2FA (at least through 2021) is a travesty and a bit concerning, though. Edit: since I can't reply to response below (I think due to thread depth topping out). To clarify: they ONLY support SMS-based 2FA. No TOTP. Sure, other services offer SMS as well, but you wouldn't want to use that for securing any serious amounts of money (millions…

Yes, well unfortunately 2FA and banking and investing doesn't seem to go well together in the US. These companies move at a glacial place.

Examples with huge market cap and no TOTP support (afaik): Vanguard ($6T+ managed), Chase Bank ($3T), and every botique investment firm I have dealt with.

I personally don't count "we email you a secret code" as 2FA. Do other people?? I mean, sure my email might be secured with real 2FA, but it's just my gut reaction that this isn't nearly as good.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#264

Post by pnutjam »

HoyaSaxa wrote: post #254

I’d highly recommend actually using a real bank instead of a fintech for business banking. As others have mentioned some of the “go-to” options like SVB have terrible (digital) services. I’m biased but Grasshopper Bank has one of the best digital experiences, and is an actual FDIC insured bank. They are also much cheaper once you start needing services like Letters of Credits, etc.

Or use a credit union. https://www.lmcu.org/

I've been using LMCU for a couple decades living away from any branches. I use the app for cashing checks and there are ATM's in their free network at all the Speedway gas stations and CVS's around me.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#265

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

mizzao wrote: post #119
pedrofranceschi wrote: post #10

Brex founder here. We've made the difficult decision to no longer offer services to the small business market. Back in April we launched Empower, and we decided to put the full weight of Brex towards building the best global payments platform for tech startups and larger companies. With that, we realized we couldn't do a great job serving the small business community at the same time. This has been an incredibly diff…

Mmm... if we're an early-stage startup, is that a small business? And if the answer is no, then does that mean if we're not growing fast enough / raising money fast enough, you will kick us out? Please clarify.

^

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#266

Post by ptomato »

batuhanicoz wrote: post #40
immad wrote: post #14

CEO of Mercury here. If you are looking for an alternative, we are 100% committed to businesses of all sizes: A) the smallest businesses can be the next big startup B) We maintain strong unit economics at all sizes. We setup a landing page to get these customers onboarded quickly: https://mercury.com/partner/brex

I tried to open a Mercury account on May 22 and still waiting for a response :( I was happily using Brex until now. Any suggestions to speed up the waiting?

They just rejected me; I'm guessing single-owner LLCs are a no go.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#268

Post by NonNefarious »

nlitened wrote: post #240
Animats wrote: post #160

Remember Vimeo? They started as an alternative to Youtube, letting anybody upload. Then they decided to dump their small users and go for large ones. Vimeo is publicly held, so we can see how this worked out.[1] Price one year ago, at the peak, $49. Price today, $6.54. [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/stockdetails/fi-c26vvh?ocid=...

> Then they decided to dump their small users and go for large ones If they didn't, they'd stay "shitty youtube" and lose. They decided to differentiate themselves to have a chance at finding their target market.

Vimeo was never "shitty YouTube." Vimeo has always been less shitty than YouTube, with a much cleaner and more professional interface.

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#269

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

immad wrote: post #24
felipemnoa wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they are doing things right now that do not scale so that they can get reviews like yours. It is a strategy to create loyal customers at the beginning. I'm not sure but I think PG has talked about this strategy.

Support is If the product mostly does what it should then support costs shouldn’t be crazy. (Assuming that’s the part that you think is unscalable for us)

> If the product mostly does what it should then support costs shouldn’t be crazy.

One of the huge benefits of not hacking your product together as fast as humanly possible!

Re: Why am I no longer qualified to be a Brex customer?

#270

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

friendzis wrote: post #190
dopeboy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless that business is in crypto, in which case you'll freeze their account. This happened to us, which halted our payroll and hurt us. We had to scramble to find an alternative, which is now Brex. To Mercury's credit, their staff was responsive the entire time in helping us transition. But the fact that they couldn't give an ETA on when things would resolve with their partner bank was distressing for us.

I do not think it is fair to complain about regulated banking when you yourself deliberately do stuff with crypto. Even more so when you mention that this particular institution was helpful with resolution out of the hole you dug yourself into. I don't want to start a debate on how crypto should be treated, but currently it is treated the way it is.

> you yourself deliberately do stuff with crypto

It's...their business?

Also, responsive ≠ helpful.

Post reply on HN