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

brex.com

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

#31

Post by draw_down »

duped wrote: post #15
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…

How do you distinguish between a tech startup and small business? Not to doxx anyone but I'm familiar enough with the financials of several businesses that would call themselves either depending on the context, and the only meaningful distinction I can think of is venture funding

Growth rate

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

#32

Post by SadTrombone »

> This decision cannot be either changed or delayed. Your account will be closed by August 15. We’ve appreciated your business and wish you all the best in the future.

I get that corporations couldn't care less about us as people but the phrase "we appreciate your business" and its variations will forever rub me the wrong way.

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

#33

Post by toomuchtodo »

rawtxapp wrote: post #25
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

Mercury is awesome! Not sure if this is right venue for feedback, but if only you could offer ACH without Plaid (which feels like a huge invasion of privacy), it would be even more awesome. Wire transfers cost 20$ each, depositing by check feels like the 1990s and takes time to clear.

I assume they will support FedNow instant payments as they’re rolled out over the next 18-24 months. Those payments cost the financial services provider 5 cents per transaction up to between $100k and $500k (depending on configuration with the Fed). They settle immediately 24/7/365. Wires via FedWire will be reserved for amounts between $500k and $50M, which doesn’t sound like a $20 fee would be unreasonable for to account for human review of the transfer.

Edit: I didn’t even know Mercury doesn’t charge for sending wires. As a customer, I’m delighted.

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

#34

Post by eins1234 »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #29
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…

So current costs vs. revenue mean you can't service your current customer base? Specifically, the customer base that punched the growth numbers to achieve many millions in funding?

I would guess they probably found that the "small business" segment of their customers ended up contributing to a disproportional percentage of fraud, support requests, etc, to the point they were net negative?

Though I still wonder if they considered just closing off to new customers instead of closing accounts of existing ones, since the fact that the latter would blow up in a nasty PR nightmare like this and do massive damage to their brand was pretty foreseeable.

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

#35

Post by immad »

eins1234 wrote: post #30
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

While it's great to maintain good enough unit economics to not have to pull stunts like this one, it's not necessarily always a plus from a customer perspective. Comparing Mercury and Brex/Ramp specifically, Mercury is notably missing rewards on transactions, while Ramp has unlimited 1.5% cashback, and Brex has a bunch of multipliers ranging from 7x to 1x points. If I have access to all of the options above, it would…

This comment is so ironic. Love it.

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

#36

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#37

Post by [deleted] »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #29
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…

So current costs vs. revenue mean you can't service your current customer base? Specifically, the customer base that punched the growth numbers to achieve many millions in funding?

[deleted]

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

#38

Post by csomar »

So customers have less than 2 months to find new banking partners, migrate their data, inform their partners about banking changes, etc...

This is one reason why I'm avoiding all fintech/startup/neo banks in the future. My most solid experience was with a top 5 US bank. They have a shitty customer service and a plethora of offers; but my direct deposits go faster, I don't get pestered over 5 figures amount going in/out because AML and they were able to accommodate some particular needs (that no neo fintech will do, since they lump all customers into one basket).

If anyone wants to bank in the future (both for personal/business), here are the banks I'd suggest: Citi, Chase, BoA and WellsFargo.

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

#39

Post by sgk284 »

yawnxyz wrote: post #2

So... what alternatives are people moving to? I really liked the dynamic credit card generator, and Brex Travel was luxurious... Also, I'm curious what the new cut off is, and who their new customers are. Is the new downturn causing their "strategy change"?

[disclaimer: I work at Brex, but am not speaking on behalf of the company]

I think one thing being lost in translation here is that Brex considers small businesses to be different from startups, and it's an important distinction internally that is likely getting lost externally.

For example, we just acquired Pry to help with founders at small startups figure out financial projections and needs. If you're an early stage funded startup, Brex is probably still a good fit.

The policy cited here is more about no longer being a good fit for "traditional" small businesses.

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

#40

Post by batuhanicoz »

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?

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