On the TechTO stage ×3
Andrew Graham of Borrowell presents Building Customer Trust
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Andrew Graham of Borrowell presents Scaling: Why it's hard
Watch on YouTube ↗What FinTech Can Learn From FitTech
Watch on YouTube ↗First seen on a TechTO stage in 2016. Every TechTO talk is searchable — ask the archive about Andrew ↗
In their words
The process was so fast, it just seemed like a scam — you couldn't actually have been checking my credit. So we inserted a little spinner that takes about four or five seconds after you click submit that says 'checking your credit, generating offers.' So you can actually be too fast in fintech.
The problem with Godzilla is that Godzilla doesn't work at that scale. If you square the surface, you cube the volume — so Godzilla's feet would actually be crushed under the weight of Godzilla. Its bones would collapse.
I don't think it's healthy to only do one thing, but I don't think you can choose five things. I actually think the right number is three.
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Quick answers
Who founded Borrowell?
Andrew Graham and Eva Wong, in Toronto in 2014. Graham is still co-founder and CEO; Wong was the company's longtime COO. Both have spoken on the TechTO stage — Wong first pitched Borrowell there in January 2015, and Graham has spoken three times since 2016.
Why did Borrowell start giving away free credit scores?
Customer acquisition was too expensive. Borrowell launched as a lender for people with good credit, but as Graham explained in 2018, the applicants who showed up were disproportionately the ones who did not qualify — a low score usually means you apply for credit more often. Free credit scores, a Canadian first in 2016, brought in thousands of people a week, most of whom wanted products other than loans. Borrowell spent 2017 building a marketplace for them.
What is Andrew Graham's advice on scaling?
That product-market fit is not the hard part — growth is. His example is an alligator: excellent product-market fit for hundreds of thousands of years. Make it bigger and you get Godzilla, whose feet would be crushed under his own weight, because squaring the surface cubes the volume. A big company is not just a bigger version of a small one.