How we are building BorrowingWell

When Tom approached me in late December with the idea of creating a commercial credit brokerage I was immediately interested.

I knew that with my experience working at several of B2B SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) startups in the United States and with Tom’s experience on the credit committee of a non-bank business lender and being a Fellow Member of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), we could radically change the industry by relentlessly focusing on the customer and providing an exceptional end-to-end experience.

Failing fast and launching ASAP

Starting a company has never been easier, cheaper, or quicker, and gone are the days of writing a lengthy business plan as no business plan survives first contact with a customer. It’s often quoted that 9 out of 10 businesses fail, but according to data from the Office of National Statistics, the actual number is 10% in the first year, rising to 42% in year five. The solution is to fail fast and to validate your business idea with real customers in as short a time frame as possible.

“an organization built to search for a repeatable and scalable business model” — Steve Blank

We needed a name, a website, and we set a goal of booking a meeting with one prospective borrower after launching the site.

After a few days of brainstorming and checking available domain names, we had come up with the name BorrowingWell. We think the play on words with Well lends itself quite well (redundancy intended). Well — meaning wellness, and a Well, giving access to water which is essential for life. Representing financial health and access to capital.

Be sure to check back as in my next post, I'll be talking about the steps we took to rapidly develop the website, which included our mission, values, branding, positioning and most importantly, our go-to-market and distribution strategies.