In today's episode, I speak to Rodney Williams, who's the co-founder, chairman, and president of SoLo Funds, which is a B-Corp-certified community finance platform that's now used by more than 1 million users. Members can borrow and lend money between themselves rather than go to traditional lenders, loan sharks, or banks.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[01:16 ] Rodney's personal background
[03:18 ] What other alternatives exist
[04:50 ] How does SoLo work?
[07:25 ] When and how do your customers use SoLo
[08:56 ] Difference between Credit score vs SoLo score
[11:50 ] Fighting the step crisis
[14:27 ] SoLo's plan for the future
[16:15 ] SoLo’s expansion to Nigeria
[18:22 ] SoLo's approach to fundraising & growing revenue
[19:53 ] Investors' feedback on the business
[24:36 ] How did SoLo approach investors
[27:53 ] How did Solo get to become
[33:04 ] Undeniable product market fit
[37:32 ] 10-year vision


KEY LESSONS & QUOTES


" You can't build wealth without growing it. " [12:12 ]
"Subprime product, underserved communities, helping people that usually doesn't sound like a big business you’d want to invest in." [19:44 ]
"Our goal to market strategy is done right and do good because if you can't buy users, you need users to really like what you do.” [21:46 ]
“A challenge that has made this extremely difficult is that the same financial system
that has created the market that we live in today has created so much discrimination.” [20:30 ]
“The majority of the group who use this predatory product, tend to be women. Women are taking advantage of these products significantly more.” [26:30 ]
“All of the impact investors who have turned down Solo, I think they're a joke.” [24:57 ]
“As we made the consumer experience better, our growth rate accelerated and that's when I knew it was an undeniable product market fit.” (35:01 )

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