Building a Legitimate, Profitable FinTech Unicorn Using AI: Cynthia Chen, Founder of Kikoff (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Okay, but that’s not the company we are talking about today, right?

Cynthia Chen: It’s not. I was at Figure for almost two years. I was the founding Chief Risk Officer and then became Chief Revenue Officer. Then I saw this opportunity for building a private company, and I started Kikoff with my co-founder in November 2019. It was such a great opportunity that I could not miss it.

Sramana Mitra: You wanted to be a CEO?

Cynthia Chen: No. I never really thought about being a CEO. Earlier in my career, when some people like my friend or my investor asked  me whether I wanted to be a CEO, I always said no, because I knew how hard it was. I witnessed how hard my CEOs worked. I knew it was not a lifestyle that many people would want. I wouldn’t wish this kind of entrepreneurship on anyone. So, I always told people no, because it was too stressful, too hard.

But when I had this idea, I couldn’t find anyone else who would carry it forward or who would turn that into reality. So, I had to do that myself.

Sramana Mitra: So, what was the idea or what was the opportunity?

Cynthia Chen: The idea was that one out of three Americans did not have a credit score above 600. You need at least 600 to do essential things, such as getting an apartment lease or getting a card loan approval, or refinancing a student debt, or even passing an employment background check for a job opportunity.

One out of three Americans don’t have a score above 600. Life is super expensive and difficult if you don’t have that. I researched the incumbents in the market, found them very expensive and not very user friendly in terms of user experience.

I wanted to build something that was 10 x better so that we could help millions of underserved consumers build credit and realize financial security.

Sramana Mitra: Was the premise that you were going to offer them credit and help them build back their credit score to the above 600 range?

Cynthia Chen: Right. So we did a number of credit building tools over the past few years. Our products include an unsecured line of credit, a secured credit card, and a savings based credit bureau account, as well as rent and utilities payments reporting to help consumers add a lot of positive payment records to the credit bureaus so that their credit reports will look better and their score will be higher.

So that’s how we do it.

Sramana Mitra: So, you created bridges with the FICOs of the world.

Cynthia Chen: Yes. We provide data on which scores like FICO and Vantage are built. By influencing the input variables in the scoring models, we help consumers improve their scores.

Sramana Mitra: What is your business model? Who pays you and how?

Cynthia Chen: Our business model is pretty simple. We are a subscription-based business, and consumers pay us a monthly subscription fee to use our credit building products. Our pricing tiers start from $5 per month, which is very affordable – literally a cup of coffee.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Building a Legitimate, Profitable FinTech Unicorn Using AI: Cynthia Chen, Founder of Kikoff
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