Finding Genius Series

For more videos such as this one, follow along on Substack (https://findinggenius.substack.com/) This interview was sponsored by Trinet and Anchin. For accounting, tax, and advisory services including R&D Tax Credits, please reach out to [email protected].   

Finding Genius with Misha Esipov, co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit (https://www.novacredit.com/). Nova Credit was founded 5-years ago to help immigrants integrate into the U.S. economy by democratizing access to credit. Nova Credit raised a $50m Series B in early 2020 led by Ilya Fushman at Kleiner Perkins with participation from General Catalyst, Canapi Ventures, Index Ventures, Ashton Kutcher, and Alex Rodriguez.   

Per Misha, Immigration today drives 50-60% of U.S. Population growth, and every year more people move to the United States than those turning 18 in the United States becoming eligible for financial services for the first time. Over 50 million immigrants in the United States have experienced a similar challenge when they first come to the U.S. and apply for an auto loan, apartment lease, financial loan, or a financial product that requires a credit history. U.S. credit bureaus typically don't recognize immigrants and credit history needs to be built from scratch. As a result, well-educated/high-potential immigrants that are here for the American dream of education, opportunity, or love, are effectively shut out with their financial identity left in their home country. Nova Credit seeks to solve this issue.   

In our conversation, Misha walks us through the data problem Nova Credit is solving and how it is creating systemic change for immigrants to access a country's services, establishing the standards of data through a Credit Passport (R), and building partnerships with U.S. Financial institutions and international credit agencies. In this conversation, Misha discusses growth-at-all-costs often prescribed by VCs and the worst advice he was given from a venture capitalist who compelled them to grow quickly and find their hockey stick. Misha discusses the anxiety this created for their team early on when the company was dealing with a marketplace that had highly regulated financial institutions on one side and slow-moving credit agencies on the other. On top of other advice shared in this session, Misha stresses to early founders to understand their business and understand that hockey sticks are not one size fits all.

Stephen Sikes is Public.com’s, Chief Operating Officer. He oversees the investing, operations, legal, compliance, and risk functions of Public Holdings, Inc, focusing on providing an intuitive and responsible investing experience for Public.com’s community. He was previously VP and Businsess Lead of SoFi Invest, SoFi’s core investing product. As part of the founding team for SoFi Invest, he drove the long-term strategy and business plan; built and launched five ETFs; launched SoFi Crypto; and grew the customer base to hundreds of thousands of accounts. Previously, Sikes was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company and served as an officer in the U.S. Army. 

Packy McCormick is the founder of Not Boring, a newsletter that has attracted over 30,000 subscribers for its weekly deep-dives into small and large tech companies. Packy discusses the newsletter + influencer economy, syndicating investments through Angellist, and the companies he is most excited about. 

Highlight quote from this episode: 

“You either sell tickets or you don’t. You create a trailer and people either buy tickets or they don’t. If they don’t, go and create a better trailer, change the price of a ticket, or re-think the entire concept of the movie. The concept of a minimum viable product (MVP) is stupid. More people need to emulate Apple. You ship a finished product. As Jack at Square says often, ‘the customers are not Guinea pigs’. People who treat customers like Guinea Pigs have incredibly poor net promoter scores.” 

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