How GradBridge is building distribution through school partnerships to reach students at the point of decline | Jen O'Donald

Speaker A: It's not just about distribution and product. It's about building trust across all these different players across the ecosystem. Um,

Speaker B: welcome back to another episode of Builders. As always, this show is brought to you by Frontlines IO, Silicon Valley's leading B2B podcast production studio. If you're bringing technology to market and want to learn from your peers, we have a library of more than 1200 interviews with Venture backed founders and marketers. Where they talk, all things go to market. Of course, if you want to launch your own podcast, we offer podcasts as a service to more than 80 tech startups. The idea there is very simple. You show up and host and we do everything else. Now with all that said, uh, let's jump into today's episode. Our guest today is Jen O', Donnell, founder and CEO of GradBridge. Jen, welcome to the show.

Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker B: Of course. Really excited for this conversation. So I see that you spent 13 years at Sallie Mae, most recently as the head of product. What was that like? I don't speak with many people who have been part of Sallie Mae before.

Speaker A: Yeah, so I've spent my entire career in consumer finance, both at kind of large companies and startups. I'd say Sallie Mae is kind of this medium sized company. You know, we're operating in a highly regulated space that's primarily focused on student loans and helping students get through college.

Speaker B: And what was it like there at Sallie Mae? And you don't have to reveal anything to revealing here, but maybe take us behind the scenes. And uh, the reason I ask, I think no one that, that I've interviewed out of 1500 people have ever worked at Sallie Mae before.

Speaker A: Great. Yeah. So Sallie Mae is primarily focused on helping students achieve the dream of higher education through student loans primarily. So it's kind of a mid sized company. I spent a lot of time there, more on the analytics and strategy side before running product. You know, like most highly regulated, you know, areas, there's a lot of stakeholders and a lot of kind of red tape to getting things done. But you know, overall it was a great group of people to work with with a very specific mission.

Speaker B: And did you have this secret plan somewhere in the back of your mind that like someday I'm going to go out and become a founder or where did that come from?

Speaker A: You know, I always love building. So again, they look back on my career. My favorite moments were, you know, when there was an idea, a blank sheet of paper and I really had to figure everything out. So I Never thought, okay, one day I want to be a founder of a student loan company. When the opportunity and the idea came up, it really kind of fell into that sweet spot of where, you know, I like that there's, you know, this big open idea that, you know, it's complicated. You need to pull a lot of pieces together. And so that was really that big shift when this idea came up and started thinking about, you know, how to launch Gradbridge.

Speaker B: Well, it's a perfect segue to talk about what Gradbridge does. So what's the high level?

Speaker A: Yeah, so Gradbridge is focused on private student loan lending. So if you think about private student loans, not sure how familiar you are with that, but, you know, each year there's millions of students that need private student loans to go to college. And every year, over half of applicants ultimately get turned down. And so for students that are really close to the finish line and close to that degree, we are allowing them kind of a second chance through our product to kind of stay in school. A lot of students who are declined are forced to pause or abandon their degree. The number one reason students drop out is the inability to secure funding. And so we wanted to find a way to help them secure funding so they could continue their education. Knowing that that has really significant impacts on them personally and, you know, for their families as well. Those that can complete school have significantly higher lifetime earnings. So it's about a million dollars more over their lifetime if you graduate college versus just having a high school diploma. And really, the worst thing you can do is go to college, get some debt, and then drop out. Like, default risk and inability to pay your loans is significantly higher in those situations. So we're focused on helping kind of upperclassmen and graduate students get that one, maybe two loans that they need to cross the finish line.

Speaker B: And I know you're coming off of a very big day. You're coming off of launch day. Take us behind the scenes into launch day.

Speaker A: Yeah, there's, you know, a ton of buildup. You know, I originally had this idea for Grotbridge in December of 2024, and so have been building this ever since then. There's a lot of coordination. I think some of the biggest challenges with starting with, uh, Garbridge or really any company is going from zero to where we were with launch yesterday. And a lot of that is just thinking about how to build this entire ecosystem. And so when it all comes together, you know, it is a moment to kind of pause and celebrate. So we're live accepting Applications and really getting geared up to support peak season coming this academic year, which for students is kind of the July, August time period where they need funding.

Speaker B: Talk to us about the speed there, because that was very fast, it sounds like, from inception, to actually shipping the product, especially being in such a regulated market, how'd you move so fast?

Speaker A: It was tough. I mean, the biggest challenge is really, you know, that sequencing the progress across this entire ecosystem in a very highly regulated fintech environment. So that's everything from securing fundraising to figuring out the tech stack, the full compliance management system, operations, really, you know, everything. And so what I found was, you know, so much of this is interdependent, so I've told people, kind of feels like a circular reference sometimes. Like, you can't finalize A without B, but B depends on A. And so, like, early on, it's just trying to move things up, like inch by inch, side by side, until you get to this point where everything's starting to move a lot faster. And so, know, operating in this heavily regulated world, I often was just thinking about, like, what don't I know, right? Like, asking the question, what questions am I not asking? I don't know what I don't know. And just trying to look around corners to make sure that we were not taking any shortcuts, that we were, you know, operating with clarity and accuracy. And so, you know, that is challenging. And I think in this regulated fintech space, when you think about going to market, it's not just about, like, distribution and product. It's about building trust across all these different players across the ecosystem.

Speaker B: Um, this show is brought to you by Frontlines Media podcast production studio that helps B2B founders launch, manage and grow their own podcast. Now, if you're a founder, you may be thinking, I don't have time to host a podcast. I've got a company to build. Well, that's exactly what we built our service to do. You show up and host, and we handle literally everything else. To set up a call to discuss launching your own podcast, visit Frontlines I.O. podcast. Now back to today's episode. And how'd you approach launch? Can you unpack that for us a little bit?

Speaker A: Yeah. So with our products and being in the fintech space, we have, you know, a pretty robust tech stack across, you know, our origination platform, um, all the way through our customer servicing platform, and we also have a sponsor bank. And so through that process, we coordinated our launch and made sure that we were ready to accept applications. And so, you know, it was just finalizing all the agreements, all the customer communication, the entire end to end customer experience, making sure that we had the right data and you know, reporting set up so we could be good to go and then just managing, you know, the go decision across all of these different players to make this happen.

Speaker B: How intense was that launch day? How'd you sleep the night before, if at all?

Speaker A: Not well. I mean there's been, you know, as you can imagine building this company, there's a lot of hours that goes into it, there's a lot of sleepless nights, definitely the night before. There's a lot of stress. You know, you've got press releases ready to go out, you've got a lot of partners looking at, you know, what we're doing. And so it was a little stressful turning the switch to on. But we're excited it went smoothly and we're looking forward to helping students.

Speaker B: Obviously, student lending has been around for a very long time, a very established category. What's your take there? Is this a new approach here and it's going to disrupt the legacy category or is this a category creation play for you?

Speaker A: This is really category creation. So you're right. Student lending has been around for decades and the traditional lenders in this space, most notably Sallie Mae and you know, College ave, they are, you know, supporting students that have exhausted all of their free money, their you know, federal loans and then fill a, uh, gap financing need through a private student loan. And that, you know, kind of ecosystem has existed for a long time. Where we come in is we're really supporting those students that ah, you get declined from a private student loan lender. So you know, during my time at Sallie Mae, I knew, you know, there was this audience, it was kind of this customer base that was making academic progress. You know, they're upperclassmen and they just need another loan or two to cross the finish line and they're just narrowly missing the credit cutoff. And so, you know, taking a step back and thinking about that, there's second look programs in other consumer credit asset classes like credit card, personal loan, auto student loan didn't have that. If you didn't qualify for one of the traditional lenders, you are left to look for other solutions like credit card, you know, personal loans, your parents are taking money out of their 401k. You're really looking for any way to make that tuition payment. And if you can't figure that out, you have to drop out. And so we're basically coming in and offering, you know, a second look for those that just narrowly miss the credit cutoff and they just need another loan or two to cross the finish line and unlock future earnings.

Speaker B: How are you going to name that? Have you thought through a name or is it more specifically focused right now on just nailing the problem definition?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's really focused on nailing the problem definition. There's lots of different ways to innovate and ours is really around access, uh, and expansion and this new kind of category. And so we came up with the name Gradbridge. It's all around second chances, unlocking future earnings, helping people cross the finish line. But, you know, the nice thing for us is that the product itself, to your point earlier, is really well defined. You know, student loans have been around for a long time, and so our product looks very similar to traditional lenders outside of a couple, you know, differences around, you know, rates and fees to allow for that expanded access. But we've been able to get to market so quickly because it follows a lot of the same rails as existing student loan business.

Speaker B: As you're ramping up here, what's the biggest go to market challenge that you're going to have to really solve?

Speaker A: One of the biggest challenges really for, uh, the entire industry is the changes that are coming as a result of the one big beautiful bill that's going to start impacting students this upcoming academic year. And so there's significant changes that are coming to the plus programs. And as a result of that, the entire industry and schools are looking for solutions for students. You know, how can the private market come in and support students? So, you know, it is a time that we're entering the market that there's a lot of noise around student loans. And so making sure that we can kind of cut through that, make sure that, you know, schools know that we're an option for their students that, you know, have gotten declined from other lenders, that students are aware of us. And so it's a challenging time in this space and making sure that we and our brand kind of stands out as another solution for students and families. This show is brought to you by the Global Talent Company, A, uh, marketing leader's best friend. In these times of budget cuts and efficient growth, we help marketing leaders find, hire, vet and manage amazing marketing talent for 50 to 70% less than their US and European counterparts. To book a free consultation, visit GlobalTalent

Speaker B: co. And for you, in 2026, what's the rest of the year going to look like?

Speaker A: I mean, we really want to focus on executing as flawlessly as possible. Being in a highly regulated space, unlike maybe other industries where you can kind of test and learn and iterate really quickly in this very regulated space, you have to get everything right, you know, from day one. And that's what we're looking to do. You know, we able to go live prior to our peak season. So we want to make sure that we're kind of testing the pipes, making sure everything is deploying as designed, and really allow for us to ramp up this peak season. So our focus really is on making sure that the product is available, that we are, you know, going to market across all of our different marketing channels, creating that awareness and making sure that schools and students know about us. So we're all gearing up for peak season. So as you can imagine, for students, that's in that July, August time frame when tuition bills are, uh, due, and we're all racing towards that and making sure that everything's ready in time.

Speaker B: How do you think about really shaping the narrative around the brand? And have there been any big iterations in terms of how you're thinking about the narrative?

Speaker A: So as far as kind of the narrative, you know, we came in as a second look provider from day one. And so we had to get really clear around that narrative and make sure people understood the story that we were telling. And so we remain true to that. Uh, you know, I think at the time when the initial product and company was designed, that was during, you know, a time where there's a lot of noise in the market around, know, the election cycle and the threat of like the department of Ag going away. And so at that time, you know, I knew that this could be a massive disruption to the space and to students and families. And so our market and our target market is going to grow significantly as a result of that. And so some of the messaging and, you know, how we're positioning ourselves to go to market, you know, really had to get fine tuned to make sure that we were not only submitting. Uh, we're supporting what the market looks like today, but we're also supporting how it will look in the future. And so that was kind of a big focus and a little bit of a shift that we needed to do once some of these federal loan changes became real.

Speaker B: And final question for you, let's paint a big picture vision here. If we go out three years, five years, 10 years, we can go out however far you want to go. What's the big picture vision for everything that you and the team are building today?

Speaker A: Yeah, the big picture vision is to focus on Second look student lending, uh, making sure that we're supporting lenders in this space through referral partnerships. We're supporting schools as they think about retention and how to keep students enrolled. We're helping students and families cross the finish line, unlock future earnings, and making sure that we're kind of synonymous for Second look student loans in this space. It didn't exist previously, and we're really excited to be part of solutions for families.

Speaker B: Amazing. I love it. Jen, thank you so much for taking the time. It's been a lot of fun.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: And for those listening in that want to follow along and keep up with this journey, where should we send them? Where should they go?

Speaker A: Grabbridge.com um, amazing.

Speaker B: Thanks so much.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Well, that's all for today's episode of Builders, brought to you by the Frontlines. If you want more amazing content like this, visit Frontlines IO, where you'll find a library of more than 1500 interviews with founders, marketers, and other GTM leaders, where we unpack the tactical lessons from their journey. And of course, as always, if you do want to launch your own podcast, we'd love to have a conversation with you. Visit Frontlines IO podcast as a service. Mention that you listen, mention you love the show, and we'll give you a 10% discount. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode.