What This Startup Teaches Us About Behavioral Economics

Debbie, an early-stage fintech startup, is rewriting the rules on rewards. Instead of offering consumers rewards for spending, Debbie offers rewards for paying down their debt and saving money at a time when credit card and auto loan delinquency rates have increased to their highest level since the Great Recession, per data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Today’s episode: Mary sits down with Debbie’s CEO and Co-Founder, Frida Leibowitz. They chat about how to drive engagement on a dreary subject, offer unexpected techniques to develop a vibrant user community, and discuss something seemingly counterintuitive: How too many resources can interfere with building a bank product – something Frida witnessed firsthand while previously working at Goldman Sachs’ Marcus.

Transcript

00:00:06:26 - 00:00:29:03
Mary Wisniewski
Welcome to money isn't everything. I'm Mary Wisniewski, Cornerstone Advisors editor at large. Every other Thursday, we bring on a guest that is shaking up financial services in some way. And we get into the why, how in the possibilities. This episode is in conversation with Frida Leibowitz. I found out about her by watching her demo a product at the event a while back, and she really struck me.

00:00:29:03 - 00:01:02:23
Mary Wisniewski
She's the CEO of Debbie and she's doing something really cool, namely reinventing rewards. Debbie rewards consumers for paying down debt and saving and partners with financial institutions to make it happen. She also has experience of having worked at Goldman Sachs. Marcus.

00:01:02:25 - 00:01:06:22
Mary Wisniewski
Frida, welcome to the show. Money isn't everything. So excited to have you on.

00:01:06:23 - 00:01:08:06
Frida Leibowitz
Thank you for having me.

00:01:08:08 - 00:01:33:06
Mary Wisniewski
Yeah, it's a pleasure. I can already tell. So I wanted to get right into it. About your background of having worked at Goldman Sachs. You know, presumably having, like, unlimited resources to build. Marcus, clearly, you're no longer there, but I'm wondering what that experience might have revealed to you and what you're building now. And we'll get into Debbie very shortly, but let's let's start there for sure.

00:01:33:09 - 00:01:54:23
Frida Leibowitz
and I mean, like, I kind of like to say that maybe even getting to Marcus was totally like, I guess, like some twist of fate or some, like, weird. Like, I wasn't planning on it, right? I was actually an intern. And I'm also making that same summer that Marcus was launching. and I heard about it, and I kind of thought, hey, this is way more passionate about this, than I am about about.

00:01:54:23 - 00:02:24:13
Frida Leibowitz
So making, and that's kind of how I ended up there. And at that time, Marcus was like, this really cool startup inside of Goldman. It was a small group of people who are just starting the thing, and they work. They came from different, you know, areas of finance or tech. and, and you're right, like, we had this idea of unlimited resources, like, you could build a startup, but you have Goldman behind you, you've got this huge balance sheet, you have all these, like, you know, all these resources you can hire quickly and grow quickly.

00:02:24:16 - 00:02:45:02
Frida Leibowitz
and it was really exciting and awesome at first. but it's as much a curse as it is a blessing, because when you have too many resources and you're just, like, focusing on like, what's next, what's next, and growth at all costs. you run into the same exact issues that all the other startups who didn't, you know, who didn't have unlimited resources eventually ran into.

00:02:45:02 - 00:03:14:03
Frida Leibowitz
Right. You realize that it's not a sustainable way to build. So I think it was a very, very exciting time. And at first, like Marcus, was a very exciting project and it had a lot of promise. I can talk a lot about, like, you know, what are the things that maybe didn't go as well, and also the reasons why I eventually left and no longer really, you know, didn't see myself, growing with Marcus, but, it was, it was a cool experience building a startup with unlimited resources, but also taught me how important it is to actually have limited resources.

00:03:14:03 - 00:03:19:12
Frida Leibowitz
And I think that has proven true for, for me as a founder now having to build with limited resources.

00:03:19:18 - 00:03:37:12
Mary Wisniewski
Yeah. No, I think that's really fascinating. And I definitely do want to get into some of like the lessons learned, because I'm sure you're applying them now at, at Debbie. But to just set the stage for our listeners, Debbie is a really interesting product. I heard you demo at innovate at least a year ago, I'm pretty sure, and I was like, hey, this is really cool.

00:03:37:12 - 00:03:50:06
Mary Wisniewski
You are really rethinking a business model in a way that will surprise the financial services. So give us the elevator pitch of of Debbie, what you're doing with the, you know, pay down the debt and also savings and the rewards program.

00:03:50:09 - 00:04:10:18
Frida Leibowitz
Yeah. For sure. So Debbie is really inventing how rewards work in financial services, right. Today, the best example of rewards that we know is credit card rewards. We are getting rewarded for spending more. And that is not serving the 90% of Americans who are not, you know, super secure financially, don't really need to be rewarded for spending more money.

00:04:10:21 - 00:04:27:20
Frida Leibowitz
So we decided to completely flip that. and Debbie is a first rewards program that works with financial institutions to actually reward you for positive financial behavior. So imagine that every time you pay down your debt, you get points. Every time you add one to your savings account, you get points. When you reduce spending in certain categories, you get points, right.

00:04:27:20 - 00:04:51:09
Frida Leibowitz
And the idea is to actually align those, activities with activities are also eventually profitable for the financial institutions. but I really focus on long term, simultaneous growth as opposed to rate being taken advantage. And, and kind of like the old school model of banks charging people high fees and keeping them in debt forever. Well, that's, that is doing that.

00:04:51:11 - 00:05:13:00
Mary Wisniewski
What's that? You give me a perfectly I guess we're we're doing a segment set called That's What You said. And so I'm dating it back to Reddit when you wrote, in a thread, I think it was just a thread that you wrote, we’re proving that rewarding users for positive financial habits is much more effective than punishing them for bad ones, like using like, the credit score hits, etc. so clearly that's not the what.

00:05:13:02 - 00:05:27:05
Frida Leibowitz
I still doing. Wow. Yeah, well I'm like I'm like first one you're like, I'm going to read the Reddit, but I'm like, sure, what did I write up? I hope it made sense. But and you, I know you picked a good one. I don't know, you said a lot of things are at the time and I'm like, I have to be sure the things I say that I know.

00:05:27:05 - 00:05:48:18
Frida Leibowitz
But eventually you'll dig back into it. but know that that was. And by the way, that that's true. And and by the way, that ties back to what you're asking for. But lessons learned at Marcus. Yeah. And what I learned was that squeezing a consumer to a point where, you know, and then using the stick to try to keep them in line, right, by hitting them with late fees and things like that is very it's a very short term gains model.

00:05:48:25 - 00:06:05:20
Frida Leibowitz
Right. Because what you end up having is you have your best, customers, the ones that are doing super well, there is a much higher attrition there. They don't feel like they're getting rewarded for, you know, for loyalty. Like you're not really growing alongside them. So they're they're leaving. And the people who stay are more and more likely to just keep going farther down the hole.

00:06:05:20 - 00:06:21:14
Frida Leibowitz
Right. Like getting trapped in these fees or you know, that also when you look at the behavioral psychology of it, consumers will get hit with fees once are way more likely to get hit with B the second time, and after a second time, it's way more likely to get hit a third time because at some point you just get used to negative reinforcement.

00:06:21:19 - 00:06:36:12
Frida Leibowitz
Whereas if you look at positive reinforcement, right, if you were to, engage, in preventative measures and really give people this positive reinforcement for on time payments, they're never going to get sick of that. They're going to keep coming back for that reward. That's how our human brain works.

00:06:36:14 - 00:06:56:03
Mary Wisniewski
Well, you know, I'm so glad you brought that up, too, because our first guest on this show was Ethan, who founded digit, who, kind of set the tone of making like, playful, encouragement messages and text messages when he launched digit originally. So, you know, he sort of got that conversation going. But it's so cool that you're doing this at Debbie's, like paying down debt.

00:06:56:03 - 00:07:20:19
Mary Wisniewski
I mean, that's like, I know the bankers out there listening to this will be like, oh. What what is happening here? But I it's so important. I think it shows what's been missing in financial services, which is empathy. viewed through like even even a mobile app. Because, like, if someone's logging in and seeing that negative net worth and it can be quite negative, like how do you why would they want to sign in again?

00:07:20:19 - 00:07:31:14
Mary Wisniewski
So I'm, I'm curious about like the different ways that you try to cultivate a more positive experience when it's definitely like, you know, it's it's it's dark. It's, it's it's an area of shame for people.

00:07:31:16 - 00:07:50:06
Frida Leibowitz
Yeah. No, you're you're hitting the nail on the head because that's why users actually love logging into the app, because the first thing they see is how many rewards they earned. That's something you want to keep coming back to. You want to keep checking how much you are now. You want to keep earning more, right? and I think that's also why so many of the PFM apps didn't really do well and didn't really help people.

00:07:50:06 - 00:08:03:10
Frida Leibowitz
And we get a lot of our users coming to us and saying, like, I'm use those, but they just make me feel horrible with myself. Like, I see all these charts they're showing me like this. I believe that negative net worth or that my my savings is decreasing my debt is increasing like, I can't this isn't what's going to make me feel good.

00:08:03:10 - 00:08:25:04
Frida Leibowitz
And and the problem is old school, traditional financial literacy camp, right. There's this whole, like, kind of, you know, paternalistic approach that has been happening in financial services, especially in, like in the financial literacy space. And so we need to educate the people and they need to face the truth, and they need to know the numbers and like and the thing is, like, that's usually coming from people who've never struggled financially like, and that's what yen.

00:08:25:05 - 00:08:41:21
Frida Leibowitz
What I learned when I was in the industry, when I felt like most of the people that I work with were smart people, awesome people, like even compassionate. Not that they weren't. They just never been there themselves and they didn't understand what it like, how it works, and what you're going through in that moment. and forget about, you know, empathy just for the sake of empathy.

00:08:41:21 - 00:08:54:26
Frida Leibowitz
But if you really want to build a winning product, you want to get that loyalty. You want to get those, you know, the ones who are doing well to stay with you and the ones who are struggling to even be motivated to come out of that struggle and get back to on time payments. You have to think about the consumer's experience.

00:08:54:28 - 00:09:16:18
Frida Leibowitz
And it's not mushy stuff, right? Like them feeling good about it is going to actually translate the right. Like we've been able to like literally create data models around this. We show like all that mushy stuff. It translates to better on time payments. It translates to better financials. So 100% like building empathy into the product is not just important as a moral principle, but it's also important because we 100% like a built in in our business model.

00:09:16:21 - 00:09:26:18
Frida Leibowitz
We're actually like when we have more empathy, when the consumer does better, like our business does better. and I think it's important for financial services, all the financial services firms to think that way.

00:09:26:21 - 00:09:47:23
Mary Wisniewski
No, I completely agree with you. And it's curious too, because I've, I've definitely had a go of writing personal finance stories in previous years. And I'm like, wow, this is like, this is really not going to help anybody unless someone just has a quick question. Right? Like it's it's just not helpful. And I know one of the things you, you said somewhere, might have been another podcast even, but it was like, you know, I don't.

00:09:47:29 - 00:10:03:27
Mary Wisniewski
Yeah, the content isn't around. Like, what is compound interest? It's more like, you know what to do in a moment of your, you know, a moment, a decision moment. So you know, give us an example of what that kind of approach looks like, or, you know, what kind of content are you serving up to to users.

00:10:04:00 - 00:10:25:18
Frida Leibowitz
Like, I love it. I feel like you could just do this podcast without me. You know, everything better. I don't know everything at all. I could just be like, Mary, ask a question. Mary answers the question. but no, no, that was So that's the thing that we talk about all the time, which is. Right, like the traditional financial literacy is very educated on like, getting, you know, our very focus on educating you with the numbers.

00:10:25:18 - 00:10:42:03
Frida Leibowitz
Right. So traditional financial literacy will say exactly what you were talking about. Like what's compound interest? How does a PR work all these like right. Like you need to know your, your stuff like the technicals. when in truth is the technicals aren't going to help you make better decisions. Just like knowing how many calories are in a cookie aren't going to stop you from eating a cookie.

00:10:42:03 - 00:11:03:11
Frida Leibowitz
Like that's just not what moves the needle for people. For most people. and so and for us, the curriculum really is a lot more about what did you see at home growing up? How do you control your impulses? Right. Like different, literally different mental strategies for how to trick your brain, and how to think about, like we give people tips like and money from yourself, like.

00:11:03:13 - 00:11:17:19
Frida Leibowitz
So these are real things that I did when I started. I literally would just take some portion of my paycheck, move it to a different making house. That was really hard for me to access, and I purposely made it hard for me to access and like, that's how I played tricks on my mind to return the money isn't there and put it away.

00:11:17:21 - 00:11:38:03
Frida Leibowitz
And those are real things that people actually use, and that actually gets them places right and moves the needle for them. So so I think the, the focusing again on these things that were previously seen as mushy, oh, like, you know, emotional behavioral things is more and more proving to be what statistically moves the needle people.

00:11:38:05 - 00:11:52:01
Mary Wisniewski
And I think that's I mean, it's just really cool. And I think here's a perfect place to talk about customer acquisition, which still has to be tricky as it is for any startup. But, you know, how do you how do you go after, this particular market?

00:11:52:06 - 00:12:18:13
Frida Leibowitz
Yeah. Great question. So we are a B2B discipline. we partner with, financial institutions, primarily credit unions right now. and so some of our, some of our users actually come directly from their credit union. If they referred to preferred by them in credit news. We also have like, many times like really strong, you know, kind of presence in their communities and, and local like, so we have like university, for example, or others.

00:12:18:16 - 00:12:39:00
Frida Leibowitz
so like Michigan State University, Federal Credit Union is one of our partners. And so they have access to the campus. So sometimes like we'll get people that way. but we also do, a lot of our own direct to consumer acquisition. and there, you know, I know there's been like this big scary thing in fintech in the last couple, especially since, like, you know, since everything kind of collapse.

00:12:39:00 - 00:13:05:15
Frida Leibowitz
Everyone's like, so scared this and that. but the truth is that, you know, when you figure out how to create a better working capital model and low and create a really low cost by reaching product market fit earlier and we were squeezed, this is going back to like that idea of having a little resources, like we had to figure out how to get a lot of users cheaply quickly and get them paid for, you know, fairly quickly and have a better, a more efficient working capital model so that we could reinvest the money and get more.

00:13:05:18 - 00:13:26:29
Frida Leibowitz
So how works is, first of all, our cap is pretty low because we're telling people they can earn free money. We figured out how to offer them free rewards like straight up free cash, for good behavior. And we sponsor, right. The, the the financial institutions actually pay for it. So we figured out this model where you're getting all this benefit for free and the financial situation is sponsoring you, and they're getting right.

00:13:26:29 - 00:13:49:14
Frida Leibowitz
And we're figuring out how to like we have also the alignment incentives there by selling consumers free money is difficult. Like that part. We've gotten the cash to be really low and then on the working capital model piece, the way it works is that from the second you enter Derby, you will be paired. If you don't already come through one of our partner credit unions, you'll be paired with a credit union or network, and they're going to pay for that acquisition immediately.

00:13:49:14 - 00:14:11:18
Frida Leibowitz
So that means as soon as you sign up gets paid back up. So we spend money, we acquire users, we get them in, but we immediately get them sponsored, by a party that's really creating a more efficient marketplace model where like that match happens immediately. and so that's helped us, you know, we, we since we've moved to this model that helped us grow a lot faster, able to turnover.

00:14:11:21 - 00:14:27:00
Mary Wisniewski
And I imagine you're solving I mean, we haven't talked about what's your average here, but like, credit union, I know is well known for having older members. I think our data shows like late 40s. but I mean, is that this is a need you'd be solving for your credit union.

00:14:27:02 - 00:14:44:03
Frida Leibowitz
Partners 100%. Yeah, exactly. So what happened was when we start talking to credit unions, we realized, like they're they're awesome. They're not for profit financial institutions. They offer all these great services. their tech isn't so awesome, but they're working on it. But they're marketing like they have nothing to say.

00:14:44:09 - 00:14:45:21
Mary Wisniewski
Yes.

00:14:45:23 - 00:15:00:26
Frida Leibowitz
I mean, no, but some of them are. Some of them are getting really good. Our partners, I would say, are doing like a much better job now, with their with their digital, presence. but exactly. You're saying the average age of the staff that I have is at the average age of a credit union burst 53.

00:15:00:28 - 00:15:14:06
Frida Leibowitz
and they've really been struggling to figure out how to get those different consumers. So tech is one piece of it. But the other thing is credit unions need to figure out how to be more special and how to play their game. And their game is like, you know, their whole thing is that they care about people. They're not for profit.

00:15:14:06 - 00:15:38:16
Frida Leibowitz
They have they want to invest in people's financial wellness. And so we're like perfect. Like this is like, you know, match made in heaven. Like the young consumers need help right now. They need someone to care about them, is going to sponsor their financial education and, and all this other stuff. Right. Or and when I say financial education, I mean that like more behavioral side and improvement and right, and getting to get into a place I think means really want to access those young swimmers and that that's how we get it done.

00:15:38:19 - 00:15:42:09
Mary Wisniewski
Yeah, that is how you get it done. Would you ever work with a bank if they were?

00:15:42:15 - 00:15:58:24
Frida Leibowitz
Great question. Yes. Yeah. it definitely it's an it's in the you know, it's on the world maps. you know, I think if the right partners come along, I would say that it has to be a very mission driven bank. and it's not because, you know, we're not a not for profit like we are for profit.

00:15:58:24 - 00:16:18:13
Frida Leibowitz
We care about that. but we really do believe at our core that the mission driven piece is why our brand has been so strong. And even though we're small, we're we're mighty. and and really, it's like, it's the reason why I wake up in the morning to build this thing. I think that, like, the data that we will stand for, the mission is a day that I will not be motivated to do this anymore.

00:16:18:19 - 00:16:22:05
Frida Leibowitz
Like, I know that the rest of our team probably could see the same.

00:16:22:07 - 00:16:37:23
Mary Wisniewski
Right? Right. Now I get that. I get that when I'm working on certain projects, I'm like, yes, this is this is what's working. Well, what about I mean, mint just closed down. And I know we were kind of saying the gaps in traditional PFM, but did you find, I mean, did you get customers that through that left mint?

00:16:37:25 - 00:16:55:14
Frida Leibowitz
Great question. We're not really an alternative to mint actually for use. We're using it as a complementary service. we don't really offer as many of those PFM services. we're we're more and more our users are asking us for it. So we're probably going to build more and more of it. But I don't see us becoming like, we'll probably partner for that.

00:16:55:14 - 00:17:10:19
Frida Leibowitz
I don't think it's a different, different business. Yeah, I think that's another lesson learned from from Marcus stays stay focused like build one thing and build it really, really, really well. and don't try to become the one stop shop for everything.

00:17:10:22 - 00:17:25:20
Mary Wisniewski
Well, let's talk about that more because you've mentioned it like the limited resources being actually kind of a benefit. let's unpack that a bit. What what have you found from, you know, working at Goldman Sachs to now building Debbie what's, you know, how how are how was the limited resources helping.

00:17:25:23 - 00:17:42:11
Frida Leibowitz
Yeah. Great question. So it keeps you focused. Like when you have limited resources you don't have a choice. You have to do one thing. You have to do it really well. And it's that thing you're doing. And either way I any point in time you're small teams and you're working on like 1 or 2 things at most, and if those things aren't working, you switch very quickly.

00:17:42:11 - 00:18:01:00
Frida Leibowitz
You don't have time to like you. Right? Like we're startups, we have we're literally looking at our like, burn and our runway, like, you know, like every, every week we're like, go get this. How much shall we have left? And so something isn't working. You're going to move very quickly and switch it up. and I think that very well funded startups or Marcus did even a higher degree.

00:18:01:06 - 00:18:18:21
Frida Leibowitz
When you have all this money, you have a lot of time for your mistakes to keep, like sitting there and maybe waiting and like, you're not you're not really as motivated. And then the other thing is, right, what happened to Marcus is that there wasn't really a focus. Like we started like I joined, we just had like really one product to market and that was the consumer personal loans.

00:18:18:24 - 00:18:37:12
Frida Leibowitz
And before we even had a chance to become really good at that, we had already acquired clear money and we acquired like we started doing savings accounts with GE, which is and those are it's not that they weren't good products, it's just that you can't you're not going to become an industry leader in any of those categories. If you are doing all of them at the same time.

00:18:37:15 - 00:18:48:23
Frida Leibowitz
Right. It's just it doesn't matter how much money you have. But no, that was crazy to me. Like and and it's something I'm sure that we talk about a lot. Doesn't matter how much money we have in you can't like, you just can't do all of that same time.

00:18:48:26 - 00:19:00:04
Mary Wisniewski
Yeah, well, I mean, it's like one of those things that totally makes sense, but I'm sure, like, it's it's still sounds surprising, right? Because you think, you know, resources is usually the thing that helps something. succeed.

00:19:00:04 - 00:19:21:02
Frida Leibowitz
Yeah. But no. Because because focus like, right as an organization, like, yeah, you have to stay focused. And by the way, at some point more resources doesn't actually help, but actually creates a lack of focus and it creates too much going on. I'm not surprised this happened at Marcus Market. Listen Marcus came out of Goldman. Goldman is run by some makers who want to close deals like that's their model right?

00:19:21:06 - 00:19:38:21
Frida Leibowitz
They're like okay we call deals. So like let's let's do acquisitions. Let's partner with Apple. Let's buy some, you know like so let's acquire things. Let's partner with like big companies. They weren't really were. It's a different mentality when you're building a startup you can't think like that. Yeah. You're not constantly running, making deals and partnering with everyone.

00:19:38:23 - 00:19:40:10
Frida Leibowitz
You're seeing very focused.

00:19:40:13 - 00:19:55:11
Mary Wisniewski
Well and staying really focused. One thing I was reading about that's a really cool is your community of like, people like trying to help each other. through Debbie have tell me some of the stories that have happened there of like how the you know, I guess they're sharing tips, right? Is that my understanding that right.

00:19:55:14 - 00:20:16:01
Frida Leibowitz
Yeah, they're sharing tips. And this is like one of the proudest moments, I think, that we've had as a team because when we started it's very hard. Anybody who's tried to launch a community knows it's very, very hard to launch. There's also so many communities out there already. People have so many different apps, social media, forums like, you know, WhatsApp groups, whatever else they're in.

00:20:16:04 - 00:20:29:25
Frida Leibowitz
So it's very hard to create that organic interaction. And I remember like now I can admit this because it's a it's a while later. But like in the beginning, I literally created multiple profiles like Facebook profiles. And I made them talk to each other, you know.

00:20:29:28 - 00:20:30:15
Mary Wisniewski
Like.

00:20:30:18 - 00:20:43:16
Frida Leibowitz
You know, like what it was like talking to myself, like, and just started seeing that it looks like people are talking in the group, like, that's what it takes, the beginning. Listen, like, if anybody wants to hack it like that's how you I think that's what worked right for you.

00:20:43:16 - 00:21:03:04
Mary Wisniewski
That's really funny. I, I have a quick aside. I used to have to run a debt collection. Social media sites. So this was this was like a bad thing that they did versus what you did with totally makes sense. They would like pose as attractive women to get someone to extend their friendship. So that was just that's just another oh.

00:21:03:07 - 00:21:19:02
Frida Leibowitz
No no no no no no, I never asked like those, those, you know, all of my fake friends or just mine. no, I didn't, I, you know, I only had them actually linked to my Facebook profile and talk to my Facebook profile, or to each other. Right. So, so.

00:21:19:02 - 00:21:24:13
Mary Wisniewski
You're illustrating your illustrating how to, like, have a conversation and how to be vulnerable and something that's probably. Yeah, I.

00:21:24:14 - 00:21:37:28
Frida Leibowitz
Know is one of those. I, I it's funny because like I tell my team this like I am like I can do I can I can be a good lawyer like short term. But I always have to eventually, like confess, you know. So eventually I always was like, I have to tell everyone, okay, these were not real people.

00:21:37:28 - 00:22:04:14
Frida Leibowitz
And it was just I just had to create them so you could start having a group. I want to feel like a little bit relieved when I confess that I'm like, okay, I took, you know, I told the truth. So now it's better. Yeah. but though it ended up happening, which is super cool, is like a few months in, our users just started talking to each other and helping each other and being there and and even like to the point where someone had a question about the product or they had a bug, another user would answer them like someone was like, hey, I'm trying to link XYZ, the accounts are working.

00:22:04:18 - 00:22:22:20
Frida Leibowitz
And the other user was like, okay, you have to do these steps. And this is how I was like, this is that's the power of building a community. And you could be as as a platform, as a company, so much more powerful if you figure out how to really leverage your user base and make them your best advocates.

00:22:22:23 - 00:22:49:21
Frida Leibowitz
The other really cool thing that's happening in the community is that we have a couple of these super users now who are actually, like, pretty much started on their own, becoming these local ambassadors for them and sharing it with like a lot of people in their neighborhoods and, and especially ones who are engaging in community activities. and so like that, that's that's like once you watch that take off, you're like, whoa, like, this is like I feel like like a really proud like teacher.

00:22:49:23 - 00:23:01:01
Frida Leibowitz
I'm like swatching, like my, you know, everyone else, like, just do the thing and then become even, you know, even better and be able to to be, well, way better than my little fake profiles. Like they're doing a way better job than.

00:23:01:04 - 00:23:24:17
Mary Wisniewski
Well, what about I'm curious, do you have one piece of advice for it? Well, probably more of a credit union than a bank of like, you know, they sincerely want to help people improve their financial outcomes. I know there's been a lot of attempts in the past that have definitely, spectacularly failed and they've spent all kinds of money, you know, like with these two things, sort of like weighing on each other, you know, what?

00:23:24:18 - 00:23:31:21
Mary Wisniewski
What would you what would you say to the credit union that still wants to do something, but maybe feels a bit defeated at this point?

00:23:31:24 - 00:23:47:12
Frida Leibowitz
Yeah. And a lot of us are going to feel defeated. and like, there has to be a few delusional founders like us who are just going to be like, well, we're going to still try to solve this problem and we're going to figure it out. And I think we are we're figuring it out. So it's really promising, like our users really are, are paying off three times more debt.

00:23:47:14 - 00:24:15:20
Frida Leibowitz
They're adding more like 15 times more money to their savings account. Like these things are real and it's working. but I think if you are, if you're feeling defeated, just like with any failures, like, really try to understand why things failed. And if you and this is what I go back to the point, if you've never been in debt yourself, that you've never struggled financially, if you've never been in a place where you had, you know, not not enough money in your savings account to be able to, you know, for a, for an emergency, then at least go out there and talk to people.

00:24:15:20 - 00:24:34:09
Frida Leibowitz
You have access as a credit union. You definitely help people in your community, in your membership base who have been there and try to understand, like, why would they or would they not do something. And really, it all ties back to behavioral economics. It's very simple concepts. It's not rocket science. And as soon as you understand we have like omics incentives and where the incentives are today.

00:24:34:09 - 00:24:57:11
Frida Leibowitz
And also think about it from a young person's perspective. Right. Because I think that's the other question that I actually at a, I was at a conference last week at Carnegie conference and I think some of the older population couldn't understand why young people like really need to travel all the time, like put yourself in the young person's shoes, like what they're doing, what they're experiencing, like what their friends are doing, what's interesting to them right now, those are, I think, just really.

00:24:57:13 - 00:25:11:12
Frida Leibowitz
And once you get there, I think because, like, failure is frustrating when you don't really understand why you don't know how to come back from it. The more, at least from, from my perspective, like the more I have like dug into my failures and understood them, the more I felt in control again. And then I felt that I could fix it.

00:25:11:14 - 00:25:31:18
Frida Leibowitz
Right. So I think the more you understand why existing solutions or older solutions have failed, and why you know, what people are feeling and what's motivating them, and kind of tie that back to like I said, like just basic behavioral economics concepts. The more you'll see, like, okay, you know, what can work in the future?

00:25:31:20 - 00:25:49:03
Mary Wisniewski
Yeah. I feel like one of the disconnects, too, is I, tell me if this is your customer base too, but, a lot of gig workers out there in a, like, typical bank or credit union really doesn't know how to offer tools that helps someone with volatile income. it's been a problem for a while, but since the gig working started.

00:25:49:03 - 00:25:54:05
Mary Wisniewski
But, I mean, do you do you feel like this heightens the disconnect.

00:25:54:08 - 00:26:14:13
Frida Leibowitz
100% about income, but also more and more complex situations like we have we're adding like, another question to answer. And this this keeps coming up for us. Right. But we're adding question to rambling about relationship status. Right. And there's so many different relationship status now than like way more than there were 30 years ago. And that is important because it actually impacts people's finances.

00:26:14:13 - 00:26:31:29
Frida Leibowitz
Like significantly like it matters if they're in a, you know, we have one of the options is it's complicated. If you're in an it's complicated like you are going to have other considerations, other things. So there's so many more variation situations. And some people have, you know, gig economy jobs and regular jobs or they have that plus an hourly job.

00:26:32:02 - 00:26:49:28
Frida Leibowitz
and I think, you know, even though where I know we're getting very advanced with this, I smell blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know. Great. So I to tell like I am a little I'm a bit of a skeptic on and just the extent of how far those can go. I think they can be tools to empower people, but I don't think they can know everything.

00:26:50:01 - 00:27:04:01
Frida Leibowitz
And I think that at the end of the day, we still need to figure out how to empower people to make their own decisions because they understand their situation best. You won't understand it well. You need to do a certain role for success. Put the right incentives in place, stolen the path right, like be able to offer them solutions for different things.

00:27:04:01 - 00:27:12:18
Frida Leibowitz
But you got to empower them to guide themselves because only they know all the intricacies of whatever is going on in their lives. I love that.

00:27:12:20 - 00:27:22:00
Mary Wisniewski
I love that because you're removing the patronizing thing that often happens. It's like, yes, the person does know best. Yeah.

00:27:22:03 - 00:27:37:06
Frida Leibowitz
Exactly. I'm like and also you're removing all this like pressure from yourself. Like I think if we had to like figure out exactly what everybody needs to do and buildings really like there's, I think that right now we're just not there where we're able to like fully understand someone and everything that's going on in their lives and all the situation.

00:27:37:08 - 00:27:58:22
Frida Leibowitz
Like we also get people who tell us that they're dealing with mental health issues directly tied to their finances directly. people who deal with, disabilities. and I just, I actually was just had a user feedback call and he gave me this whole like, overview of how disability benefits work. And they're actually really complicated. And it takes a long time to get your, your money.

00:27:58:22 - 00:28:12:29
Frida Leibowitz
And sometimes you have to wait a long time to get there. There are payments. so all these there's so many factors that fall into like, you know, like impact someone's financial life. so, yeah, more and more in the camp of empower the.

00:28:12:29 - 00:28:33:11
Mary Wisniewski
People, empower other people. I'm glad you mentioned the mental health thing, too, in the disability thing, because I feel like that's that's slowly but surely bleeding into fintech and probably digital banking in years to come, which will be a curious experience to witness. But I feel like that's going to be important. Emerging trend. And, I know we're coming on time, but I wanted to open up to you.

00:28:33:11 - 00:28:39:07
Mary Wisniewski
I have one last question, but anything else you'd like to share with the listeners while we're on today?

00:28:39:09 - 00:28:55:12
Frida Leibowitz
no, I think that, you know, it depends. If you feel like that will be helpful to you, you can always go sign up, join w.com. I'm still paying off debt and still working on, you know, my habits. So I'm sure there's a lot of people who could benefit. And if you just want to educate yourself, then go for it.

00:28:55:15 - 00:29:22:12
Frida Leibowitz
If you are a bank or credit union, please reach out to us. We're already we actually just today signed our fifth credit union partner. and that's, Yeah, we we started off the year two, and so now we're like more than that. It's very exciting. So we're really growing, and any bank or credit union that's looking to attract and engage, consumers, please reach out to myself or find, you know, find us on the website.

00:29:22:15 - 00:29:27:24
Mary Wisniewski
what's the best way should they go on LinkedIn? Should they go on your website? Is that contact info there?

00:29:27:24 - 00:29:34:17
Frida Leibowitz
Any best of the best. But the the easiest way to book a demo is just go to join w.com/partners.

00:29:34:19 - 00:29:40:21
Mary Wisniewski
Well okay. Last question then for you what is the image on your phone's lock screen.

00:29:40:24 - 00:29:45:00
Frida Leibowitz
Oh that's a great I don't even remember now. Oh I got to check that.

00:29:45:00 - 00:29:47:12
Mary Wisniewski
I know check that this will be a big.

00:29:47:12 - 00:29:52:24
Frida Leibowitz
Reboot actually in in work mode. It's it's a picture of my motorcycle, I think.

00:29:52:29 - 00:29:56:16
Mary Wisniewski
I love it that in your work mode photo. Yeah.

00:29:56:17 - 00:30:01:05
Frida Leibowitz
I don't know why, but let me see if I can, like, ever pull it up. If it'll show it.

00:30:01:09 - 00:30:02:04
Mary Wisniewski
A motorcycle.

00:30:02:06 - 00:30:04:02
Frida Leibowitz
I did. I guess you could see it now.

00:30:04:05 - 00:30:06:00
Mary Wisniewski
Oh yeah. Oh, cool. So you.

00:30:06:00 - 00:30:06:25
Frida Leibowitz
Did.

00:30:06:27 - 00:30:08:23
Mary Wisniewski
You drive a model? You ride a motorcycle.

00:30:09:00 - 00:30:10:15
Frida Leibowitz
I, I didn't, I was like, I.

00:30:10:15 - 00:30:19:09
Mary Wisniewski
Love I said, I drive it just like my lack of so far. Yeah I'm a roller skate. So. Okay.

00:30:19:09 - 00:30:23:12
Frida Leibowitz
So yeah that that works. Yeah. So something on wheels.

00:30:23:17 - 00:30:25:17
Mary Wisniewski
Something on wheels. You're definitely.

00:30:25:20 - 00:30:32:04
Frida Leibowitz
What what is there, like a linear ride with roller skating is like the one with, is a roller skating blading. Like, is it four wheel or four wheels.

00:30:32:11 - 00:30:35:12
Mary Wisniewski
Yeah. Four wheels. Yeah. So, you know, we could one.

00:30:35:12 - 00:30:36:03
Frida Leibowitz
Day and then.

00:30:36:04 - 00:30:38:03
Mary Wisniewski
And you'll win. Yeah, yeah.

00:30:38:05 - 00:30:48:25
Frida Leibowitz
Actually I'm like, I'm like a grandma rider. I always, I always say like I'm such a like I'm like careful rider. I like, just, do my thing. I'm like going slow, you know, I'm, I don't, I don't go crazy at all.

00:30:48:27 - 00:30:58:05
Mary Wisniewski
Well, that's probably safe. So. Yeah. So Frida, thanks so much for being on. Money is. And everything has been a true delight. so thank you so much.

00:30:58:07 - 00:30:59:05
Frida Leibowitz
Thank you for having me.