Revolutionizing Business Banking by Empowering Entrepreneurs with Jason Garcia

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Made Simple. Today, we'll be breaking down how to revolutionize business banking by empowering entrepreneurs. To drop these value bombs, I brought Jason Garcia into EO Fire Studios. Jason is CEO of Holdings, which is revolutionizing business banking with high yield. After starting his career at Goldman Sachs and KPMG, he held leadership roles at Mercury and Divi. And now, Fire Nation, we'll be talking about going from traditional banking to fintech entrepreneurship.

0:40We'll talk about disrupting business banking with high yield solutions. We'll also talk about the future of business banking and the challenges and opportunities in fintech right now and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jason and our sponsors. The next wave, your chief AI officer hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lance is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business.

1:14Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Fire Nation, you have a book inside you and it's time to share your message with the world. That's why I created Author 100, a 100-day program where I will personally guide you one-on-one to create, write, publish, and market your book. If you want daily guidance and mentorship from me, JLD, then head over to author100.com to sign up for a free call with me to chat about the details. Jason, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hey, everyone. Thanks for having me, John.

1:54I think what's important when you think about business plan, a lot of times we think about the numbers, the product, the customers. But what's really important a lot of times is how we take care of ourselves or the mental health that we go through. I think that's something that often gets overlooked, that we are focused on grinding and trying to do as much as we can for the business. And sometimes you can sacrifice yourself, which ultimately will come back to impacting your business plan. So having self-care and mental health be a priority is important to the success of your business. Revolutionizing business banking by empowering entrepreneurs.

2:34That's what we're focused on today, Fire Nation, with Jason. And Jason, you went from traditional banking to fintech entrepreneurship. Tell us about that journey. I grew up kind of at the heart of financial services. I was in public accounting at KPMG and then did investment banking at Goldman Sachs. Learned a ton. um also saw how uh a lot of those large kind of financial providers really focus on the largest of businesses um and a lot of times it can it can overlook uh the most important parts or even the largest number of businesses in the u.s which are kind of the small to medium-sized businesses ended up going into commercial banking at spb um and uh they were dedicated to focusing on startups.

3:20But even at startups, I mean, the focus for us was companies that raised more than$5 million or had more than$5 million in revenue. And so a lot of businesses don't get there, especially, you know, ones that are more focused on owner operated. And a lot of businesses don't have aspirations to get there. And so started working in fintech, worked at Divi, which is now Bill.com and Mercury. A lot of those solutions initially focused on kind of the smallest of businesses. And naturally, what ends up happening is they start chasing larger and larger businesses because the margin or the pay is better.

3:58But unfortunately, that ends up kind of creating the cycle where small businesses have good solutions for a period of time, and then they kind of get left behind. So what I was drawn to in the fintech world is really helping the everyday a business owner and business kind of succeed. And unfortunately, we've gone through this cycle many times where there hasn't been a fintech that's really kind of focused and stayed there. So starting Holdings, that's really kind of what we've focused on. And that's why we started it. And I did mention in the intro that you are the CEO of Holdings, which, you know, your goal is revolutionizing business banking with high yield.

4:33So what specifically was your inspiration with founding Holdings? What is its mission? Yeah, we're really dedicated to trying to provide the operating system for most businesses in America. Every business has to have a bank as you get incorporated or even as you're not incorporated and just taking on clients for the first time as a side gigger or a freelancer. You need to have a bank account to be able to take in payments from customers or pay for your expenses. And that element of it, the just holding your money or just making payments is not enough anymore. there should be more value in the banking system that really kind of helps businesses succeed.

5:15And so that's kind of been the inspiration is to try to build the operating system that businesses can be built on top of when it's already a necessary piece of your business. And that includes giving you all the necessary financial tools that help you succeed. And we believe that those financial tools should reward you for the business that you're bringing to the bank rather than prioritizing profit over the customer relationship. And one way we do that is by sharing the yield. We're launching a debit card here soon that also has cashback elements to it, which is pretty unique for debit cards.

5:49And so we want to make the most rewarding banking and operating system for businesses to succeed. Well, you do that with disruption. And Holdings is actually disrupting business banking specifically with high yield solutions. Tell us what high yield solutions are and how you're doing it. The largest of businesses have had access to these types of products for a very long time. And basically what happens in the financial system is you provide deposits to a bank and the bank ends up parking that at the Fed or using some of those deposits to generate yield through lending programs or investment programs.

6:25And in most cases, your checking account doesn't pay you anything back as a reward. but the bank is earning money on every dollar that you give them. And so one thing that we've done is these large programs, they've had access to this where they go to a bank and they say, hey, we're going to move over a half a billion dollars for the largest of businesses. And the bank says, great, we'll pay you a rate for that because you're giving us so many funds. The cost to administer that for the bank is really kind of the same, whether it's the smaller business or the largest business. But the smallest of businesses maybe don't have the relationship leverage to be able to kind of push into that type of product.

7:08So what we've done is we've just tried to make it accessible to everyone. So you can sign up. You're not having to negotiate or convince us to share yield with you. We have a program where we automatically share that to our customers. We're not taking those funds and investing them in any investments. It's sitting just like it would at any FDIC insured bank. and you're just getting some of the pass-through of the revenue that a bank would typically kind of keep for themselves, we pass that on to you. Fire Nation, there's a lot of inefficiencies in this world. And when a company can come in, when an individual can identify those inefficiencies and say, you know what?

7:49I'm going to make this world more efficient. I'm going to make this operation more efficient. Or I'm going to make this more fair and more distributed. And I'm not going to try to maximize profit. I'm just going to try to do what's right for both sides of this equation. Opportunity lies within. And we have a lot more to talk about around this concept and around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Picture this. You're at a party and someone asks you what you do as a marketer. How do you even begin to describe it? Not only do you brainstorm new campaigns, create compelling copy, dream up landing pages that will actually convert and generate leads, you also have to gather all the data to make sure it's even working.

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10:59I've also traditionally published with HarperCollins, so I know a lot about the book publishing world and where most authors go wrong. I created Author 100 to share my experience and the lessons I've learned along the way, and I can't wait to share it with you. If you're interested in learning more, head over to author100.com and sign up for a free call with me. That's author100.com. Jason, we're back, and obviously what you're doing is getting some traction, but there are some challenges and opportunities in the current fintech landscape. So talk about both of those, both the challenges and the opportunities.

11:37Yeah, there's unfortunately been a lot of bad actors in the financial world, And obviously, we've all gone through some pretty significant financial turmoil over the last decade or two that has made us weary of new financial products. Even with us, where our back end, where your funds are held, they're held at the largest of financial institutions. It's earning yield in the same way that even if you put your money at a no yield kind of money center bank, it's doing the exact same thing. That, unfortunately, creates some concern because we've seen what's happened in cryptocurrency. We've seen what's happened with different banks failing.

12:18Unfortunately, one of my previous employers, SVB, you know, over the last couple of years, as we know, hit headlines and they had a failure themselves. And so it's caused this skepticism around new financial products that can make it difficult for businesses to know where it's safe to place their money. The advantage is that like for us as a fintech provider, the old kind of guard and previous institutions haven't been innovating a lot. And that's the advantage that we have in FinTech is we have the ability to do this, which is like, you know, the program that we're running has been around for decades.

13:03There's nothing new. We're just opening it up and sharing it more freely with people. You know, every bank to a certain degree has that ability to do the exact same thing. But their business model and their technology and the size of their business makes them kind of immobile. So the challenge is the lack of trust, but the opportunity is that the incumbents are not really changing the game at all. Give us some of your top advice for those who are looking to maximize their business finances. I mean, we have listeners that are entrepreneurs, that are small business owners, and they don't really necessarily know the best paths and opportunities to maximize their business finances.

13:48So what would your advice be to them if they're looking to do just that? First, a lot of business owners and businesses, one of the largest veins of their existence is taxes. And setting that money aside, sometimes it's hard to know how much you should be setting aside, but sometimes it's hard not to dip into that. When you do set that money aside and it ends up becoming kind of like a piggy bank or a savings account that you dip into quite often. Having a separate account that's dedicated to just having those taxes set apart is important. And acknowledging that that money is going to be sitting there for a period of time, it's really important that that's sitting in something that is earning yield for you.

14:31Even if it's small dollar amounts, our account pays a couple of interest points. So you're getting a good amount of return back on an annualized basis. Today we pay 3.5 % on our accounts. And it's completely liquid. So the moment you need to pay taxes, you're not having to time it. You can pull it out, you know, you can put it in today and pull it out tomorrow if you wanted to. So really important that you're looking for ways to kind of optimize that. Other ways to maximize your business finances is separating those business finances, making sure that your, you know, kind of personal accounts and your business accounts are kind of separated.

15:12so you know how much you have to work with and that's not impacting your personal finances or taking undue risks that you might not want to. High yield accounts like ours, a good way to do it. Debit cards that have cash back like we're launching is another way to do it, especially when you're maybe a new business that doesn't have access to credit cards that have high rewards programs. But most of your financial moves that you make in your business should be rewarding you because the financial system is taking profit or earning revenue on payments that you're making. Finding a way to get brought into that is important.

15:53Those little edges are important to helping you succeed as a business. Now you have your finger on the pulse day-to-day on business banking and what's happening right now. Of course, what's been happening over the past months to years. Let's look ahead. Let's look to the future. What, in your opinion, is the future of business banking? I think most businesses are going to be able to run their business out of a business bank. I think that's the future. 30 % of businesses in America don't use the ancillary products at their bank, like invoicing or other types of tools. They have 10 different tools to run their business.

16:37They have a separate business credit card. They've got a bank account. They have an accounting platform. They have an invoicing. They have a tax provider. I think what we're going to see is a consolidation of those tools into one simple system. We, you know, early in 2025 are launching an embedded accounting platform. So as you're actually making payments, as you're holding funds there, we're taking that data and we're automating your accounting so you're not having to use a separate accounting solution. So your back end, your back office, so to speak, can be your bank rather than five different tools, different software tools that don't speak well to each other.

17:21Instead, you're going to end up having this operating system that you can run the entire business on. These are exciting times, Fire Nation. And you shared some of Holdings' role in shaping this future and this exciting industry. What would you say is another rule you haven't mentioned yet for holdings in this specific industry? When you think about most business owners, they get thrown into kind of two different buckets at banks. You end up working with what's called commercial banking, which is just another way of saying like the really, really large business type banking. And you end up with these complicated tools, bad login experience, sometimes not mobile experience.

17:59or you're a small new company and you get thrown into the retail side of banking. And this is all probably pretty boring banking speak, but you've got these two different, you know, platforms that you get thrown into and neither one of them are actually really architected or built specifically for most businesses. It's either too complicated or it's too consumer that doesn't have the tools like invoicing or bill pay to really satisfy the business. And on the retail side, you're going into a branch to get problems fixed. or calling a 1-800 number that doesn't quite have the urgency around you running a business.

18:34At the same time, when you're working in the commercial banking, you might be a small customer relative to where their bankers are spending time because they're chasing the big, big fish. And so you get deprioritized down. For us, we want to play that role in between that understands that there is a personal aspect of your finances that play into this. So that's doing your taxes are not completely separate. They're filing individually and for business. And you need the tools to run your business and invoice clients or take in payments online. But you need the attention and you need the experience that might be mobile native or easy to use for most business owners that don't want to have to learn this complicated, clunky kind of banking system.

19:24And so for us, we're trying to redefine what business banking means that has the friendly experience of a consumer type banking product, but all of the features and functionality that you get out of the kind of commercial banking products. So Jason, give us one key takeaway from everything we talked about here today that you really want to make sure our listeners get, that they understand before we say goodbye. Financial literacy in general as a business owner is really important for us to make decisions. But also the types of tools that you choose help you increase your financial literacy and also help make sure that you're on top of your game without you having to study to become an MBA or CFA qualified person.

20:14there are a lot of tools out there specifically focusing holdings being one of them that is dedicated to trying to make your life easier and to allow you to run your business efficiently without spending too much time doing these chores that might not be as exciting for you relative to building product shipping product or selling and working with customers so jason if fire nation wants to connect with you with holdings and learn more what is your call to action for our listeners today? Yeah, feel free to email me, Jason, J-A-S-O-N at getholdings.com. You can also sign up at getholdings.com. We have a chat window in there as well.

20:53You can always get a hold of our team 24-7. You can also call our line that's on our contact us page. We'd love to work with you guys and for, you know, entrepreneur on fire and EOF, um, community members, we would, we would love to have you list, you know, EOF as a, as a referral source. And we're happy to offer a hundred dollars as companies kind of onboard and fund their accounts. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with JG and JLD today. So keep up the heat for links to everything we talked about. Visit EOfire.com type Jason in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up.

21:36And Jason, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Jason for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days, and we're talking step by step, visit thefreedomjournal.com. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side.

22:27wherever you get your podcasts. Fire Nation, you have a book inside you and it's time to share your message with the world. That's why I created Author 100, a 100-day program where I will personally guide you one-on-one to create, write, publish, and market your book. If you want daily guidance and mentorship from me, JLD, then head over to author100.com to sign up for a free call with me to chat about the details.

22:58Thank you.