From Techstars to the NBA: How James Garvey Built Self Financial to Help 100 Million Americans Build Credit | Supply Chain Saga Ep. 013

Mark Taylor : And we're live. Good morning. James Garvey : Good morning, Mark. Mark Taylor : How's it going today, James?

James Garvey : It's going well. Great to be here. Mark Taylor : I really appreciate you jumping on the show. And as I typically start out with everybody, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us how you got here?

James Garvey : Absolutely. So my name is James Garvey. I'm the founder and formerly the CEO of Self Financial. Started the company in 2015, and the idea was to help people build credit, help people save money.

Basically, from a personal experience where I hurt my credit score, I was looking for a way to build credit. And through this journey, I knew that I needed to raise money. I knew that this business was going to require a lot of capital and decided that it was going to go through a tech accelerator in order to do that. And so went through Techstars in March of 2015, and that's where you and I met.

Mark Taylor : That's right. James Garvey : More than eight years ago. Mark Taylor : I can't.That's mind blowing to me, by the way.

Almost a decade. James Garvey : Yeah. Yeah. Time sure flows.

So basically, went through Techstars, did not have any money that we raised. And at the end of the program, after three months, we had raised about $2 million and we were off to the races. And so my objective of going through Techstars was to help solve this fundraising issue, and it did that. And so from there, built the company to the point where we've got about 600 people.

We've raised about $127 million of venture capital, and it's been a pretty wild ride. One of the things I'm most proud of is if you go in the app store, if you go to Google Play, in the app store, we've got 4.9 stars, 250,000 reviews. Mark Taylor : That's amazing.

James Garvey : Customers love the products, and it's just been awesome to see the number of people we've been able to help, and at the same time, build a sustainable long-term business. Mark Taylor : That's fantastic. In addition to knowing you and knowing how awesome the story is and everything like that, one of the bents I think is interesting for supply chain operators out there is, and I can't speak for everybody, but for me, I do like to look for ways to increase the ...

I hope our people come to us and they leave us better than what they came to us as. And as an operator, you think, well, okay, you can pay them, you can treat them well, you can give them meaningful work, you can involve them in the company, you can develop them. But one of the ways I've noticed is really on the banking and credit score side. A lot of our team may use check cashing companies.

They may use ... I've talked to some of our guys who've got 23% interest rates on loans and things like that. : And I don't want to belabor too much that's already listed on your website, for instance, but I do think it would be interesting for you to kind of talk about just how simple it is to actually raise or how you can turn it into a simple process to help an employee, for instance, raise their credit score and kind of pull themselves out a little bit. So that's a multi-part prompt, I guess.

James Garvey : Sure. Mark Taylor : But please. James Garvey : Yeah. So when I started self, the ability to build credit yourself was pretty hard.

You needed to have a friend, a family member, or somebody to help you. And typically, the way it would work is somebody would add you onto your credit card as a authorized user, or if you want to be really sophisticated, you could take $500 and go to a bank like Capital One or a large bank where they've got these secured credit card products. So it's basically you drop in $500, they give you a credit card, and it's secured by that money that you've deposited. The problem, of course, is just coming up with the money.

I mean, very few people have the ability to just bring $500 and have it be held indefinitely. And so the whole concept of, "Okay, well, how can we help people build credit, but how can we do it in a way that's sustainable, that's easy, that I can sign up in a few minutes?" And so the concept was, "Hey, let's try something different." And what we did was we partnered with a bank where we lend you some money that pretty much anybody in the US can get.

: You have to be 18 and have a way to pay us, but ultimately it's a small dollar loan that is deposited into a CD. So it's a certificate of a deposit bank account that's in your name. It earns a little bit of interest, but we basically, we lend you some money and you have to save it. And that concept of, "Okay, I've got this loan, however, I can't spend it.

" It's basically a savings plan that builds credit. And so there's a start date, there's a stop date, you've got these equal payments. And so the customer experience for most people is you come to self, you say, "I'm going to pay $25 a month for the next 24 months." And at the end of the term, I've established credit, my credit scores up in most cases, and I've got over $500 of money saved up.

: So it's like a really nice way to save money and be able to build credit at the same time. And that was the very first product that we had, and it's still our flagship product today. And so one of the things that we've done is we've launched a couple of other products to help people continue to build credit. One of them is a credit card, another is being able to build credit with rent payments.

It's a new product that we recently launched. So we want to be that platform where anybody who needs to build credit has the ability to do so. Mark Taylor : And James Garvey : The thing that I've observed, being the CEO of a couple companies, having a mission that people believe in is incredibly important and it's one of the ways to really motivate people. Mark Taylor : Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I briefly looked at the website before I came and before we spoke, and I think on the website it says that your average customer raises their credit score around 49 points off using your product once. James Garvey : Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And at the end of the day, we don't control what the credit bureaus do, but what we do is we give people the tools to establish credit history, to do it in a responsible way.

But the thing that's important to stay out loud is we give people the tools to help themselves, but they still have to do the hard work. They have to make the monthly payments to bill Mark Taylor : Credit. James Garvey : And in the event that somebody signs up and they don't pay, it's going to help you establish credit history, but it's not going to be the kind that you want. So we report the payments as they happen and give people the tools and the information such that we try to make it really easy and give people options of like, "Hey, if they want to cancel it, they want to bail out, not a problem, make it really easy for people to do it.

" But if we were to only report on time payments as an example, it wouldn't be credit and the credit bureaus wouldn't take the Mark Taylor : Data.That makes sense. So to your point, somebody's got to be committed, otherwise they could end up hurting their credit. Yep.

Oh, I mean, it's nice that ... And it makes sense that there still has to be consequences because if the credit bureaus weren't reporting on things that had consequences, then that score's worth nothing. So that's interesting. So what is the average American's credit score and what does 49, 50 points do for them?

James Garvey : So through COVID, the average American's credit score has increased quite a bit. And the reason has been that during COVID, a lot of people had a little extra money and they were using that money to pay down debt. And I think on average, Americans' credit scores have increased somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 points today versus 2019. But right now, the average American's credit score is around 700, but that being said, there's roughly a hundred million adults that either don't have a credit score or they have a credit score below 670, which is subprime and below.

So it's roughly half the US has either no credit score or a low credit score. Mark Taylor : Wow. And I think that this is an interesting delineation is that if you don't have a credit score, you got to figure it out somehow. James Garvey : It's so important.

I mean, whether you want to rent an apartment, whether you want to obviously get a loan or get a credit card. And then the other thing just to point out is, in most states, they use your credit score as a way to underwrite you for insurance. And so if you have a DUI and a 800 credit score, it's likely that you're going to pay less for insurance than if you have a low credit score and a perfect driving record. Mark Taylor : Wow.

That's definitely a shock situation there or statistic that I had no idea about. And then James Garvey : The other thing just to also call out is employers too. Some employers will look at your credit history and so whether you're looking for loans, you're looking for insurance, you're looking for a job, you're looking for a place to live, landlords will look at it too. It's pretty important and you can't escape it.

Mark Taylor : Yeah. So what is the length of time that somebody has to go before it actually, it's going to make an impact? I mean, because I assume you can't just do a one month loan. It has to be some amount of time before the credit bureaus look at it and say, "Okay, this is relevant."

James Garvey : Yeah. So on our, what we call the credit builder account, the flagship product, it's like the savings plan that builds credit. On that product, it's 24 months. However, we typically see pretty substantial credit score increases in the six month timeframe.

So it doesn't take that long, but it's longer than a month, but it's typically less than nine months. Mark Taylor : Yeah, that makes sense. So I mean, this is such an interesting ... Yeah, one of the questions I had thought of to ask you was, how did you identify this opportunity?

And it was because you had an incident where you needed to build back your own credit, but I am curious, I mean, you are a serial entrepreneur You've never had a quote unquote real job, have you? James Garvey : I have. The real job I had was when I graduated high school, it was the year 2000, and I had a dilemma because I needed to pay for college, but at the same time, at the year 2000, there was a lot of activity going on. So the first dot com boom was still happening.

And I decided to work full-time while I was in college working for a startup and I was a software engineer. They hired me when I was 17. I still can't believe they did that. I would never hire a 17 year old.

And that was my ... I've had, I guess, one, real job. But that being said, I recognized the problem. I hurt my credit score.

I was looking for a way to build credit and was just flabbergasted by how hard the whole process was. And obviously doing some research and seeing that a hundred million people have this issue, it seemed like a pretty exciting opportunity to do something that could not only help myself, but help a lot of people. : And during the process of trying to figure out, "Hey, is this going to work? Is this not going to work?"

The thing that always drew me back to this problem was just the scale of it. When you've got a hundred million people that need to build credit, I mean, it's a massive market. It's a huge problem. And I can't tell you the number of people along the way that blatantly told me that cell phone never work and very smart people.

I've had a number of conversations with one guy in particular who he built out the credit card program of a really large bank. He was responsible for this bank's tens of millions of credit card program, like a huge, huge program. And early on, I was pitching him the idea and : He's like, "Listen, nobody's going to ever want this product. It's not going to work."

And these guys like, "Hey, I know the market. I know the space. I know the consumer. It's too expensive to acquire the customer.

It's too expensive to service the customer." I've heard that over and over again, but going back to the fact that so many people need to build credit was really captivating and that's what's been so exciting is for financial services, I feel like sometimes the space is overly complex and it's not for any real reason. It's just because the incentives aren't there to be totally transparent and if everybody knew how expensive it is to be poor or expensive it is to have a low credit score, I think they'd understand that it's just a massive problem that affects so many people to the point where people have to rely on payday lenders or they have to rely on expensive credit.

: And so yeah, the problem has been captivating to me, but this idea that I could do something that helps people and creates a long-term sustainable business has really been the driving factor behind this opportunity versus something else. Mark Taylor : That's cool. And you don't have to share this number, but I am curious, how many customers have you guys served up to this point? Because I mean, you said 250,000 reviews, that's awesome.

James Garvey : Yeah. Mark Taylor : So I don't mean to, I mean, I don't know the gentleman, but I guess he was wrong. James Garvey : Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, and we connected later, but that's the thing about starting a company is you have to be able to focus on the outcome and to not listen to everybody. And so for, in our case, we've helped millions of people build credit and today we've got more than 1.3 million actives.

We're active as somebody that's actually using our product and paying for a product every day, but yeah, we've helped a lot of people. Mark Taylor : That's got to feel good. James Garvey : It's awesome. Mark Taylor : As you know, everybody's talking about AI, and I've listened to several very, very smart people speak on it, and some of those have said, "Well, we all thought that it was going to be the blue collar job that was eliminated by AI, and what we're figuring out is that it's the complete opposite."

And so in warehousing and supply chain in particular, automation, robotics, and data manipulation, using AI is a very hot topic right now, but you're still going to need a lot of people for a long time. And some of these really, really large companies that have got 100,000 workers, 50,000 workers or whatever, I have a pretty good feeling that a lot of those workers are maybe suffering from a less than average credit score who could benefit. Do you guys have programs built with companies or instilled with companies?

James Garvey : We've tried to go down that path. The challenge has always been, as an employer, whatever products you show to somebody, to your employees, whatever products that you're essentially recommending, it can be a little tricky. And the other piece is, not all employees are excited to turn to their employer when they have a financial issue. Some are, but we've really focused on the direct to consumer space and whether it's been just massive ad spend to acquire customers or whether it's been spending so much money to build a brand.

We're the Jersey Patch sponsor with the San Antonio Spurs and that kind of brand awareness is so special. But yeah, I think there's a lot of people that need to build credit. There's a lot of ways for us to acquire customers. The thing we've had the most success with has just been going direct to consumer.

Mark Taylor : Interesting. I mean, and it seems, I mean, depending on which product you listen to, I mean, we're headed for tougher times or we're in tougher times. And so the likelihood is that you're probably, it seems like it's an evergreen product in terms of that, but also I'm sure that you have an amount of repeat customers as well and does it, once you've done one loan and it integrate and it takes you up 30, 40, 50 points, whatever it may be, and then you come back and you do a second loan if it's a little bit more, or how do you kind of turn the dials to make it effective a second time around?

James Garvey : So anybody can have one credit builder account at a time. And once you pay off one, people can obviously go out and get a second one and so on, but there are diminishing returns with respect to getting the credit builder account. In other words, if you join self and you've got an 800 credit score, you're not going to get a 50 point increase. But one of the things that we've done is we launched the self visa credit card and that was launched Q4 of 2019 and that's given us a way to extend the relationship with the customer, but also providing them a way to have a lot of utility such that they've got the credit card, they can use it to go out and buy stuff and so on.

So we've seen customers that have joined and been with us for years, and it's primarily been because we've got a variety of new ways to retain customers over time. Mark Taylor : That makes sense. So switching gears a bit, you are a serial entrepreneur, how do you identify your opportunities? Is it just over time or what's your process like?

James Garvey : Well, first, I love going really deep and trying to understand things and trying to really understand the space and trying to find opportunities that are interesting and stimulating, but also have upside. And I just stepped down as CEO and hired a CEO that we love, who's absolutely incredible. And the idea of starting another company right now is pretty crazy. I don't know if I can do it again, but I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I think for me, it just comes down to finding something that I absolutely love and working on something that's exciting, gives you that feeling that's not really work.

Mark Taylor : Yeah. So one of the incredible things, even I remember when you were going through Techstars and I was just kind of there helping and doing random things as one of their associates, I recognized then, I mean, you're one of the most disciplined people I've ever met. And I mean, of course that's a compliment. And one of the things I've heard over the years, I guess, is just one of the things that I think sets you apart is just how well you communicate with your professional investors and things like that.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but there was a time, if not still, where it's every single week, your newsletter goes out or your investor update goes out. James Garvey : Yeah. So from March of 2015 through, I think it was early 2022, so a long time, seven years roughly, I wrote a newsletter that I sent to all of our shareholders, advisors, and employees, and I did it every week. And the thing that's really been fun about that is, one, it keeps me accountable.

Being able to set a target, give an update about the target is really, really nice. The other thing that it does is, when you have people that have invested in you, invested in your company, it gives them a level of transparency and insight into who you are, into your company, into your business, into really how you operate. And for me, if I were starting another company, that would be one of the first things I would do is putting that into place and having an update that I can share with everybody because if you're lucky enough to have external investors, if you're lucky enough to have somebody who's put money into you and invest in you, they deserve communication, they deserve to know what's going on.

: And Techstars was the organization that told me about that, this concept of, "Hey, let's do a weekly update. Let's do that. " And I think had I not done that, I don't think I'd have the same commitments that we have with our current investors. And just as an example, our flagship investor, Silverton partners here in Austin, they invested, rather they led our series seed, they led our series A, and then they participated in our series B, C and D.

Altos Ventures, they came in at our series B, and then they led or co-led B, C, D, and E. And really great signal, having an investor that writes multiple checks is obviously the holy grail. And in my case, I attribute it a lot to the communication, being able to give them insight in the business, but also the people, the team that we built, and then the value that we created over time. : But when I think about this, it's like, if I were an angel investor, which I'm not, but if I were and I put money into a company, I would love to know what's going on.

And yeah, I think this constant communication of, "Hey, every Saturday I send an update and it was super effective for me in terms of managing the business, but it also gave our employees a lot of clarity and into what was going on because I sent it to our shareholders and our employees, providing quite a bit of transparency." And so some weeks the message was inspiring, some weeks it is not, but I think it gave our employees, but it also gave our shareholders insight into how I think and how I plan for the future.

Mark Taylor : Yeah. Did you have, I assume there were a few different bullets that were fairly constant, and then the messaging would always be somewhat of a, "Okay, KPIs are this, long-term goals are this, midterm, short-term goals, that kind of thing." And so we're on track, we're not on track. And then I'm assuming it would be something like an anecdote about the previous week or some ...

To what level of detail would you ... Did you only focus on things that had been done, closed, or to what level of detail did you say, "Hey, we've got a very interesting meeting coming up." There's a level of setting expectations where you don't want to get everybody excited only for something to not happen. So did you have an opinion on that or how did you handle, like if you had something that you're pretty certain that's going to happen, but it's going to be a few weeks out, would you just wait or would you signal that good things were on the horizon?

James Garvey : Yeah. So over time, the weekly update that I wrote changed. And so in the beginning, by beginning, I mean, the first couple years it was extremely granular, super detailed, probably too detailed. And one of the mistakes that I made early on is when you tell employees especially that you're fundraising, and if you tell them that, "Hey, we're expecting to close money on so- and-so date," and you don't hit that date, it's It's not good.

And so there's a balance of what you should disclose to your employees, but also what you disclose to the shareholders such that they can help you. And so one of the things that I always did in my email was to put an ask at the top of the email. So can you help me with an introduction to X, Y, and Z? Can you help me with whatever?

And that was also really, really nice because it gave our investors reason to read it, but also to engage with me and to help me. : And so over time though, the newsletter became, I'd say, not as detailed, still focused on KPIs, but I would only talk about things that were likely to happen or had a very high confidence of happening. : And this is where the whole setting expectations and managing expectations, it's such a critical thing because if you tell people that you're going to do something and then you don't do it, it makes you look either untrustworthy or like an idiot.

And so we don't want that. And I made plenty of mistakes by over-promising and under-delivering. And when you do that, it makes those kind of mistakes. It's a good opportunity to reflect and to change your behavior.

And so for example, I would never set expectations with the board or board level that would be a situation where I couldn't hit them. So if I told the board something, absolutely I'm going to hit it. And that built a lot of trust with the board, but also built a lot of trust with their employees. Mark Taylor : And then what was the catalyst?

What made you decide to stop doing the weekly updates? James Garvey : So yeah, once we crossed 250 full-time people, it was so much information. And basically what I transitioned to is a monthly update for the employees and a quarterly update for the board and the investors. Still giving them a lot of transparency, but changing the cadence from every week to every month.

Mark Taylor : It's an interesting thing because as you're growing and you're growing so quickly, clearly, I mean, there's always going to be people who come in. They're not a fit. They go out. And so monitoring, it's competitive data and the more people you have to look out for.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So what have you learned ... I mean, obviously you said 127 million raised total over A, B, C, and D and E. Incredible.

So few people make it from seed to E. So few people make it from seed to series A for that matter. And so for you to be at the helm all that time, and congratulations on finding your new CEO as well, because I know that you've got a lot of exciting personal things coming up. Yeah, indeed.

So anyway, how have you ... Because I mean, from the first company, you raised ... I think you told me once you had a partner and you guys were cash flow almost immediately and you didn't have to go and raise any more money. James Garvey : No shareholders, no board.

Mark Taylor : Right. Very easy. And then this one, of course, the complete opposite. So from the time you started self to now, what are some of your biggest takeaways?

What are some of the big pitfalls you avoid when raising money? Money raising strategies that you would give to people, that kind of thing. James Garvey : So fundraising is very hard. And what I've noticed is that you need to ask yourself, do you need to raise capital from institutional investors?

And in my case, I knew that the business itself was going to require a lot of capital and I needed to raise money from institutional investors. But the prior company I started, I was bootstrapped, never had more than a dozen employees and managing a dozen people versus managing hundreds, it's very different. And the thing that I've learned more than anything is the team that you surround yourself is going to be the difference between success and failure. Finding people that are passionate, that want to work on an exciting problem, they're out there and they have the ability to work on anything.

And when you can work on anything, you could be literally anywhere in the world right now and having them choose to work with you. : It's such an honor really to do that. But what I've really learned is having people that you can surround yourself, that have a good track record, that have high integrity, that share your core values, that is the most important thing. You can't raise money on your loansome.

You can't do this by yourself. Mark Taylor : It James Garvey : Really takes a team. And while the core team itself has changed over time, there's been a number of people that have been with us for years. Our CMO has been with us for almost six years.

Our CFO was the first to ... Actually wrote the first check in a self years ago and we have software engineers that have been with us for five, six, seven, eight years. But it comes down to the people and what professional investors are looking for, they're looking for investments that fit their pattern. And by fitting their pattern, I mean that, does the company have a really strong executive team?

Do they have a track record of hitting the targets? Are they good people? Are the people that you like to spend time with and you would trust? : But then there's other things where your actual business, the fundamentals of the business are very important.

At a very early stage, when you don't have much revenue or any revenue, they're betting on you and it's a tremendous responsibility and finding investors that believe in you is incredible. Early on, I can't tell you the number of investors I pitched that said no. I mean, it had to be a hundred, I'm guessing. And the strategies that I employed years ago of sending cold emails and stuff like that, it never works.

You have to find people that know the investors that can help you like a warm introduction from a company that has raised money from the investor is so good and so strong in terms of capturing their attention because investors are getting hundreds of inquiries per day. And it's like, well, how are you special? And part of it's going to come down to, do they know you? : Do they know that you can execute?

Do they know your team? And going back to pattern matching, if an investor knows the team and the team is really strong and has a good track record of success, I mean, it's a no-brainer. And so I can't stress enough how important it is to be surrounded by good people that have a good track record. And for me, that's been what's helped us more than anything.

Mark Taylor : So as I'm listening to you, it's kind of interesting because it's like you're not going to start with the team, you're starting with yourself and your idea. And so that's like proving, okay, the economics work. Or it's like, we believe the economics are going to work and this is how we're going to go out and do it. And then you convince one person or a group of people to give you the seed.

And then really you could also, I mean, it's almost proof of concept money. And then so you go out and you acquire a couple more people, you convince some other smart people who are then going to amplify your efforts and then move on. And then you get to the next level where it makes more sense to a series A, and then you get to, and then you just keep on doing it as long as all of the positive signals are there that like, yeah, that we didn't run into an unforeseen consequence or an unforeseen pitfall with the economics of the opportunity.

: And as you can see, we're putting more and more smart people here to do this and amplify this. And we believe that we're going to get to a level where this is the result. And as long as you keep tracking to that result in a decent enough timeline, you're in a good spot. Is that a fair summary?

James Garvey : Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The thing that's tricky is, at different stages, you need people of different skills. And at the early stage, at the seed stage, series A stage, even series B, finding people that are generalists that can run through walls with you, that can do everything they can to help the company succeed.

These are people that are risk takers. Somebody who joins us at an early stage startup is a risk taker and that kind of person may not be super effective at a series B stage or series C stage or series D as the company becomes bigger. And so this is where it's interesting that, because early on, if you were to hire the top people, it's so expensive, like somebody who's got incredible pedigree that can help you really expensive. People have so many options, they could be working on anything.

And so it's an interesting balance because once you get to a certain scale, once you get to so certain size, you got to reevaluate. : You got to understand, well, do I have the right team right now? Where are the weaknesses? What are my greatest strengths?

And finding a way to take these very, very special risk takers that are so critical to the company's success, finding a way to keep them, both from making sure they're happy, but also making sure that they're a good fit at the new role. This is the hardest part, because you spend so much time with incredible people and you develop the relationships, but as you grow, the company's needs are changing. And there's been so many people that have had a huge impact at our company, and it's one of the most tricky things is as the company matures, you have to consistently be reevaluating the team to understand, do I have the right people to help get the business to the next critical effection point?

Mark Taylor : Some tough conversations and definitely some ... I mean, because at the end of the day, people are going to be people and not everybody wants to. That's why I'm sure you've heard the metaphor from entrepreneurship where there's three types of dogs. There's a bloodhound retriever and a sled dog, and the idea is somebody seeks out the opportunity, somebody goes and gets it, and then somebody drives it, and not very few people can do all three.

James Garvey : It's true. Mark Taylor : And so I think you get those people that are, to your point, these fantastic risk takers who make such an impact to your company only for them to not fit in with the next stage. And that's a very tough thing because these are people you've been in the trenches with. James Garvey : And they're cultural ambassadors because they're so important to the company culture.

There's been so important to the success of the company. And so the tricky part is finding a way to take these super high adrenaline, high risk takers, and putting them into different roles where they're still having fun and it still makes sense for the business. Mark Taylor : Yeah. I think you touched on being in Techstars and going through an accelerator, and it's very interesting, as you say, one of the excellent things that they do is give you the warm intros to the early investors, the seed and series A investors.

It's a great function. One of the things that I always attribute, or that I'm much happier that I have than don't have is mentors as well, or people I consider mentors, whether or not they consider me a mentee. Do you have mentors and how'd you go about finding them or ... James Garvey : Yeah, so absolutely I do.

And the tricky part is finding people that can give you candid feedback that isn't biased, it's hard. And so I'd say at different stages, I meeted mentors for different things. Mentors for when you're very early stage, it's just trying to stay alive. The business is thinly capitalized and you've got to find a way to make payroll, to do everything that you need to do to build the business.

I mean, as you get bigger, managing employees, dealing with the company culture of having hundreds of people, I'd find that, again, my needs would change as well in terms of the kind of advice that I need. And so, yeah, I mean, over time, I've recruited a number of people that have been able to be super helpful for us. And one of the things that's been such a blessing is just being able to meet people that are on a pretty incredible trajectory. : For example, if you had asked me in Techstars, "Would you ever have your logo on the NBA jersey?"

I'd say, "There's no way." That's ridiculous. We will never be that big. And so just the opportunity to meet super interesting people as you're going on your journey is such a pleasure.

And I'm naturally very introverted. I try pretty hard to not be. And the thing that's been so helpful for me is just trying to meet as many people in my industry and trying to have a network where I can call the CEO of this company or this company, and if I'm having an issue, I can bounce to other CEOs. And during COVID was a great example of, "Hey, what are you guys doing right now?

What's your return to office policy? How are you handling ... Are you requiring vaccines coming in the office? Are you not?

: " Just every company's doing things a little differently and the thing that's been most helpful for me is trying to build a network of people that I respect that are doing interesting things.That's really where I've been able to find the most value, helping me and being able to use that knowledge as a way to have these mentors. Mark Taylor : Yeah. I remember during the ...

Well, we were operating in California, and that was when the state came down and said, "Everything's closed." And I remember being able to pick up the phone and reach out to a couple people and say, "Well, what are you doing?" They're like, "Well, I mean, warehouses are essential businesses, so business as usual for us." And I mean, that was my answer as well, but being able to have those confirming signals that other people were doing it, it does mean a lot.

It makes a lot of difference. And I would even say some of the people I called then weren't, I wouldn't necessarily consider it mentors, but having ... When you get to a certain level, your peers, your peer group gets smaller. And so it's really, really nice to at least have those connections if even they're not mentors.

James Garvey : Absolutely. Mark Taylor : Yeah. So then it's been how many years since you guys incorporated? James Garvey : So the company was incorporated in 2015.

I registered the domain name in middle of 2014, so it's been almost a more than nine year journey. Mark Taylor : Yeah. So you're getting close to a decade since you registered the domain. James Garvey : Indeed.

Mark Taylor : Did you have any idea that it was ... Did you think it would go 10 years or 10 years later you'd be doing the same thing? James Garvey : No. No.

I thought we would've sold the company after a couple years. I didn't build the business to be sold, but I did assume that we would get to small reputed target and sell the company, but it's just that's how things work, but it didn't happen that way. It's been good. Mark Taylor : Fortunately, it didn't happen that way.

James Garvey : Fortunately, it did not. Mark Taylor : Yeah. And so you have ... I think there are not many people out there who've got their name on a sports jersey, major sports team nationally recognized like the San Antonio Spurs.

How does that happen? Just how do you guys go about that? I mean, I don't even know who you'd call. James Garvey : Yeah.

It's funny. As we've gotten bigger, we've been pitched by a variety of companies and we got pitched by another NBA team and we had money for a brand budget to try to spend on things that would help us build our brand. And we talked to this other NBA team and it just didn't make sense. It wasn't a good fit.

We didn't have the same values. It wasn't a good fit for us. : And it was a total coincidence. One of our employees, she knew somebody at the Spurs and she was talking to them about what was going on and the Spurs were like, "Hey, we're actually looking for a new sponsor."

And when we started talking to them, it was immediately a fit. We knew that it was a good fit. I sat down with the owner, Peter Holt, and the CEO, RC, and they were just telling us about their process, how they recruit, and how they ... They're not the team that has high drama, crazy players.

The Spurs have been a team where they've tried to hire for character first, and this is where it's been such a good fit for us because SELF is here to make money, but we can do it responsibly. And if we do our job right, we're also helping people, and it's a win-win. : Everybody who uses our product has a good experience when they pay on time. And this is where the Spurs organization and their core values just super aligned to what we're doing.

And it was kind of funny because at that time, and we announced this partnership in June of 2022, but at the time you saw a whole bunch of crypto companies doing stuff and trying to do similar things, and it was a crazy time where you saw FTX and these other companies : Doing a lot of things and ... That's Mark Taylor : One way to say it. James Garvey : And the Spurs were ... They were smart enough to think like, "Hey, we want to do things we believe in.

We want to partner with companies we believe in. And we want to take that same culture of this high integrity core value culture and apply it not only to the team, but apply it to who they work with. Mark Taylor : " Yeah, that's great. And then you guys also had a partnership or still have a partnership with Moody, right?

James Garvey : Yeah. So in Austin, the Moody Center is like this incredible arena facility, 18,000 seats, I think, something like that. And they're now having these massive concerts and these huge events, and it's something that Austin was always missing. The thing about Austin was, if you wanted to have a huge act, if you wanted to have a huge music act, a huge comedian, whomever you can think about, they had to perform in Dallas or Houston, and now Austin has its own huge facility where these great acts come in.

And so we had the opportunity to partner with them, and that actually happened first. That happened before we did the Spurs. And we thought it was a great way where we could have our name in a bunch of areas and also do something good for Austin, but also give our employees and give some of our customers the opportunity to get access to seats for our different shows. : And it's been a lot of fun.

Mark Taylor : That sounds like a lot of fun. So as we ... What are your thoughts right now, broader, just general on the economic outlook and that kind of stuff? James Garvey : We're in a very interesting period of time.

You've got unemployment is still very low. You've got the supply chain, which seems to be finally back to normal. You have companies that are ... A lot of them are hiring, but at the same time, you're hearing about some companies that are laying off people or having financial hardships.

But I believe in America, I believe in our economy, and I think in the long term, this is the place to do business. : I do understand that a lot of people are still living paycheck to paycheck, and so it's this interesting balance where you've got ... There's obviously a lot of people struggling, but at the same time, there's companies that are doing really, really well, and the stock market's doing pretty well still, which is ... It's almost like we're waiting for the shoe to drop, but I think I've been hearing that the IPO market's going to open up next year.

There's going to be more companies going public next year. And for economy that's growing, that's what you want to see. You want to see a lot of capital going in the market, new companies coming online. But my belief is that we're going to have some challenges over the next few years, but even then, it doesn't seem like we're in the 1970s.

It doesn't seem like we're in the 1980s in terms of the inflation. : We're still high, but it's not 20%. Interest rates are not 20%. That's right.

My parents, they got a mortgage in 1974 and it was, I think, 18%. Mark Taylor : Wow. James Garvey : Yeah. I mean, can you imagine paying that much?

Mark Taylor : No. Especially with where cost basis is, right? James Garvey : Yeah. Mark Taylor : Yeah.

That's an interesting one because it's like you do get into ... It's like the interest rates aren't nearly what they were. The cost basises are so much higher. And if you look at real wage growth since, let's say, the 80s, it hasn't kept up with inflation.

So it's a tricky ... It's an interesting moving target, and while it isn't 17%, it's 8% maybe a little bit worse than what 8% would have been back in the day. Oh, James Garvey : Totally. And listen, and just to be clear, 8% makes a lot of houses unaffordable for people when compared to 3%.

Mark Taylor : Of course. : Yeah, of course. And I guess I should also mention, I think rates crap back, excuse me, back down about a week and a half ago, two weeks ago. So I think it's around 7.

5% now, but still seven and a half flirting with 8%, that kind of thing. Look, this has been ... I've enjoyed it immensely. It's great to catch up and hear things from your perspective.

You've got such a unique way of looking at things. And like I said, your discipline is second to none. So I really appreciate you being here. Is there anything you would like to add at the end?

Definitely, how can people find self.ink, I believe. And yeah, I do think this is a tool, an easy way for ... I've recommended some of our guys to do it, like that kind of a thing.

James Garvey : Yeah. Well, thank you. And I'm on LinkedIn. If we If anybody has any questions or if they want to chat with me, just shoot me another LinkedIn.

My LinkedIn handle is JK Garvey. But it's been a pleasure, Mark. Mark Taylor : You also write on Medium, right? James Garvey : I have one and I'm going to be starting up again shortly.

Mark Taylor : Okay. James Garvey : Yeah, that's one of my goals for the rest of Mark Taylor : The year. Fantastic. Well, like I said, thank you very much and I hope everybody learned as much as I did.

James Garvey : Oh, thanks a lot. Good one. Mark Taylor : Bye-bye.