The Ledger
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Kesserwani claims banks cannot shut Cushion down without blocking their own customers
“The way we're updating the product such that the message comes from the user, this can't get shut down, because essentially, the banks would be blocking their own customers.”
Manus questions if competitor Albert could replicate Cushion's fee negotiation
“Then why couldn't Albert do this? They probably could.”
Kesserwani: Cushion secures fee refunds for 80% of users
“80% of the folks who we fought fees for have gotten money back in some capacity.”
Kesserwani: Cushion recovers 30 cents per disputed dollar
“For every dollar that we're fighting, we're getting 30 cents back right now, but we're being very aggressive because we're trying to train the model and figure out what works and what doesn't.”
Diamond prefers to wait 12 months and pay double for proven data
“And so I can sit back and wait eight to 12 months, see how this develops, see the new implementations. See how the customers are responding. Really get some accurate data here and see what the real numbers are. And then I'll pay more. I'll pay double.”
Manus retracts her pass on Cushion and offers to join syndicate
“But I would like to see the lead. So I'm going to hop on the fill on the mic, and maybe it's even the Howie wagon, which is, I'm not going to pass because I've learned so much more, and I've learned that you don't pass prematurely when some of the key parts, w…”
Kesserwani says bank fee negotiation is only Cushion's initial product wedge
“I don't plan on being in this bank fees product for the whole company. This is just our wedge. That's working very, very well for us.”
Nadel: Cushion's valuation range is very high for pre-revenue
“The valuation sort of range that you're talking about is very high, especially for pre-revenue.”
Kesserwani: Cushion's existing waitlist represents $1M in potential revenue
“Just our waitlist today, if we were to monetize this, represents a million dollars in revenue. If you were just to, like, scale this out.”
Kesserwani: Two companies failed attempting automated fee negotiation as a feature
“And that's why two companies tried to do this and failed because they tried to build it as a feature.”
Diamond argues valuation caps do not matter when investor conviction is high
“Whether it's six million, whether you're raising at a five million cap or a six million cap or a ten million dollar cap right now, if I have that conviction, I'm not too concerned.”
Hyatt commits to invest in Cushion, pending lead investor and valuation
“I'm in if I can get comfortable with a lead and comfortable with the valuation after the show.”
Kesserwani says Cushion automatically executes financial actions instead of giving advice
“Unlike other consumer finance companies out there that are just giving you advice, we're actually doing the work.”
Manus: Passes on Cushion over early scalability concerns
“So I'm gonna, I'm out. And it's just because I think it's too early for me to really understand how this is going to scale.”
Nadel says he is likely to invest if Cushion finds a lead
“If the number is reasonable, the terms are reasonable, and it's a good lead investor, then I'm likely in.”
Kesserwani: Cushion charges a 25% fee on refunded money
“Our business model is super simple. We take a 25% cut of the money we're recouping for our customers.”
Cushion has 16,000 waitlisted, 3,000 users, and fought $300K in fees
“We've built up a wait list of over 16,000 people. We've onboarded 3000 users. For those 3000 users, for only three banks and across only the last three months, 1.2 million dollars in fees that we found. So we fought 300,000 dollars of them. We've waived a 100,…”
Kesserwani says Cushion has over half its funding round committed
“Over half the round committed from folks who want to participate. Like I said, I'm negotiating with one potential lead right now, but also talking to a few other lead funds.”
Kesserwani: Half of Cushion's cap table is Twitter executives and former colleagues
“That's where half our cap table is angel investors from the Twitter executive team and folks I've worked for.”
Kesserwani seeks $2.3M to expand Cushion's bank integrations and product line
“So I'm here today raising 2.3 million dollars to grow Cushion By adding support for more banks, and building out our next set of products.”