It feels like very few people nowadays actually love their bank. Over the past 20 years the big Wall Street banks have gobbled up the smaller community banks at a rapid pace so we're no longer doing business with a local company that we know and trust. The banking system has become more about shady financial products, over-leveraged balance sheets, more miscellaneous fees and outright fraud/scandals like we recently saw from Wells Fargo. Joseph Sanberg and his team at Aspiration realized it was an ideal time to start a financial company that customers would love and brag about. At this time Aspiration provides banking and investment solutions to customers but what makes the unique is that they are online-only. 

Aspiration is reinventing the banking experience. The company was started a couple years ago, has 40+ employees and has already raised $30 million from investors. Not only does Aspiration donate 10% of their revenue to charity but they also allow customers to set the fee amounts on their bank and investment accounts. The company says "We trust you’ll pay us a fair fee if we do a good job."

In this interview I spoke with Joseph about why he started Aspiration, what his long-term vision is and what makes the company so different from traditional banks and investment companies. We also chatted about their business model, why they've raised so much capital, what the regulatory process was like, what types of people they are recruiting, what have been the biggest challenges, how much he paid for the domain Aspiration.com, what's the company's #1 goal for 2017, why he strongly believes Aspiration will be a massive success and much more. 

Thanks for listening.

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