The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 17 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Levchin: Affirm is the only BNPL provider doing multi-year installment loans
“So we are the only company in the industry really, there's plenty of competitors who are trying and some degree of success, but mostly not really, who will go into longer term loans. And by longer, I don't mean mortgage or, you know, 15 plus years, but like th…”
Rampell: Affirm operates with negative customer acquisition cost
“And like, I think to me, one of the coolest things about a firm to this day is it has negative customer acquisition cost. I mean, it is paid to acquire a customer.”
Levchin: Affirm does not charge late fees to consumers
“And if you're late, we're not going to charge you a late fee because that's our fault. We didn't remind you correctly. And when we made the underwriting decision, we made the choice to take you on as a risk and that that's, we're going to have to stick with.”
Levchin: Affirm exited online education financing due to terrible quality
“A firm briefly flirted with being a payment provider to the online educational facilities, which we ran out of kicking and screaming because the reason they're willing to pay these enormous MDRs is because the quality of education is largely terrible.”
Levchin: Affirm will never charge late fees or use deferred interest
“There will never be an asterisk on a firm zero. That, that is the origin story of why we don't charge late fees, we don't do deferred interest, all the sort of gimmicks and gotchas that the industry loves to throw at people.”
Levchin: Affirm drives a 30% sales increase for most partner merchants
“We see about a 30% increase in sales for most of these merchants.”
Levchin: Affirm is competing to become consumers' primary financial advisor
“We're certainly in competition for that, the opportunity there is not just to be the thing that's in your head and you're using it every day, but the thing that in your head that you know is your trusted advisor is actually your helper.”
Rampell: Affirm Achieves Zero Customer Acquisition Cost via Merchants
“Affirm, our insight was We'll use merchants to get distribution. So our cost, cost of customer acquisition is zero because we partner with merchants”
Rampell: Active searchers for emergency credit represent high credit risk
“But if you go on Google and you say, like, I'm out of money, need money, credit, credit, credit, like you're probably a bad credit risk. So kind of going back to the general store concept, People that aren't looking for credit, that might not have their wallet…”
Levchin: Up-funnel Affirm installment options drove a 30% conversion increase at Beautylish
“And the only difference that Beautylish Did as they implemented Expedite, I think by then it may have already, I think it was named the firm by then, was that they told their shoppers up funnel basically as they were selecting their shampoos and perfumes that …”
Levchin: Long-term installment loans serve as touchpoints to upsell financial products
“These long term loans, which are actually quite hard to manage and quite hard to maintain reasonable default rates and delinquency rates on, is the price you pay as a provider of financing to upsell consumers on more and more services.”
Levchin: Repeat Affirm purchases are 80% larger on average
“So second purchase is 80% larger than the first one on average.”
Levchin: Affirm has transacted with over 50 million Americans across four countries
“We've transacted with roughly 50 plus million Americans alone, and we're now live in four countries and growing pretty quickly.”
Levchin: Affirm's original goal was building a credit score, not lending
“As a person recovering from doing lots of machine learning in the service of social media, which was, you know, good and well, but wasn't really what I was meant to do, and lusting for the days of doing machine learning to fight fraud, my MO was, I just want t…”
Levchin: Affirm uses USAA's corporate history as a precedent for branding
“So every time we sort of asked ourselves, what is the right next branding move for us? We sort of Search for a precedent in USA's history.”
Levchin: Affirm does not perform hard credit pulls for instant loans
“We don't do a hard pull as they call it in the industry. So you don't really, we don't ding your credit record.”
Rampell: Affirm underwrites loans in half a second using five fields
“This is actually a company that's in our portfolio that actually I co-founded called Affirm. We just need name, email, mobile number, birthday, and the last four of your social security number, and within about half a second, we can underwrite a loan.”