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I enjoy all my guests on Barefoot Innovation, but if someone forced me to choose my favorite episodes, this one would be on the list. It\\u2019s partly because my guests, the co-founders of Bee, were so fun to talk with, and so thoughtful. And it\\u2019s also because they are addressing one of the objections people raise to fintech \\u2013 the notion that it\\u2019s only for millennials.

Bee\\xa0was founded in June of 2015 by Vinay Patel and brothers Max and Alex Grasner as an outgrowth of One Financial Holdings, a \'venture-backed laboratory for innovation in retail financial services\'. In pioneering an innovative capital-light model using pop-up kiosks and street teams to sign up customers in-person, Bee is able to offer top quality financial services at a significantly lower cost than traditional brick-and-mortar bank branches.\\xa0Bee is specifically targeting the lack of quality services for low-and moderate-income underserved people (although my guests point out that \'underserved\' and \'underbanked\' are not words people use to describe themselves). The product is intended to function as an alternative to checking accounts, structured as a prepaid card paired with a mobile app.\\xa0Bee partners with Community Federal Savings Bank to offer alternatives to checking and savings accounts to its customers in New York and California.\\xa0

Part of what makes this interesting is Bee\\u2019s specific hybrid model of personal touch and high tech. They\\u2019re trying to put the human beings where customers need them the most \\u2013 in explaining and opening the account. And then they\\u2019re trying to drive down costs overall by not providing branches and tellers for routine functions. Bee\\u2019s team goes in person into underserved neighborhoods in New York and San Francisco, and they set up eye-catching mobile kiosks, which they compare to food trucks. They get people interested and then help them through a thorough process of thinking through their needs; opening an account; setting up and learning to use the app; and then, often, letting the new customer stay on to take advantage of the Bee wifi hotspot.

The in-person signup process also helps guard against money laundering, since people are seen face-to-face.\\xa0

I think you\\u2019ll be fascinated by Max and Vinay\\u2019s insights into these consumers, including their huge financial savvy -- how thoroughly they know their money situations, and how they optimize their spending on their phones (and the challenges of working with such a wide array of phones that may be old or broken). Vinay and Max talk about their customers\\u2019 worries about both pricing uncertainties and payment delays (issues that are being tackled by other innovators as well). \\xa0\\xa0

One repeated theme is the company\\u2019s commitment to treating these customers with respect by providing a product that is obviously high-quality, right down to the thickness of the card, and providing a truly fantastic user experience on the app. They say customers often take selfies with the Bee team, at the end of setting up an account.\\xa0

Bee\\u2019s CEO, Vinay Patel, has a joint law degree and MBA from NYU. He spent 5 years teaching at NYU Business school and at Columbia Public Policy Business School. He then moved on to McKinsey and Co. as a consultant to banks and government.\\xa0

Max Gasner has a background as an investment stock broker on Wall street from 2007 \\u2013 part of what motivated this work. He has also worked in the Bay area at an AI company \\xa0-\\xa0Prior Knowledge, and then moved on to a tech company which eventually morphed into Salesforce.\\xa0

We recorded this episode several months ago. Since then the company has grown. It also won national recognition in New Orleans in June at the Emerge Conference, as one of the winners of the Financial Solutions Lab competition run by the Center for Financial Services Innovation and funded by JPMorgan Chase.

Max and Vinay are eloquent on the need for regulators to allow space for robust innovation \\u2013 just one startup might create the 10X breakthrough that can change people\\u2019s lives. They\\u2019re also thoughtful on their commitment to earning compelling returns for their investors, including\\xa0Blumberg Capital,\\xa0Fenway Summer Ventures\\xa0and AXA Strategy Ventures.\\xa0\\xa0They aim to do this with their unique formula of delivering personal attention and high value to a huge, largely untapped market, at very low cost.

\\xa0Enjoy my conversation with Bee.

More Links and Information

• One Financial Holdings Blog
• Bee card website and access to kiosk locator
• CFSI
• CFSI research on consumer financial health and the financial situations of underserved families
• Blumberg Capital
• Fenway Summer Ventures
• AXA Strategy Ventures
• My blog post on CFSI\\u2019s research on underserved consumers,\\xa0\\u201cUnderserved and Underestimated\\u201d\\xa0

More about Vinay

Prior to Bee, Vinay spent five years at McKinsey & Company, where he advised leaders of US banks and public sector organizations on executing large-scale IT modernization programs. Vinay is a faculty member at both NYU Stern School of Business and Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, where he has taught courses on Enterprise Strategy, Game Theory, and Data Visualization. Vinay holds a J.D. and an M.B.A from NYU, and a B.A. with honors in Economics from the University of Chicago. He is happily married and lives in Brooklyn.

LinkedIn

Twitter: @patelpost

More about Max

Prior to Bee, Max built and sold a machine learning company to Salesforce.com and traded equities in NY and London. Max holds a B.A. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, where he graduated after spending two years at Deep Springs College. He lives in West Oakland.

LinkedIn

Twitter: @gasnerpants

More about Bee

Bee is a financial technology startup built on the principle that all Americans deserve convenient, high quality retail financial services. Bee has pioneered an innovative capital-light model using pop-up street teams and kiosks to sign up customers in-person for financial services at significantly lower cost than with traditional brick-and-mortar bank branches. Bee partners with Community Federal Savings Bank to offer alternatives to checking and savings accounts to its customers in New York and California. Bee has ambitious plans to expand its product offering and geographic footprint over the coming years.

Its major investors are Blumberg Capital, AXA Strategic Ventures, T5 Capital, Fenway Summer Ventures, and Western Technology Investment

Websites:\\xa0www.onefinancialholdings.com\\xa0and www.beecard.us

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