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Alex Bean

Founding & Managing Partner, Tandem Ventures · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderinvestorexecutiveauthorLinkedIn ↗tandeminvest.com ↗

Alex Bean co-founded the spend and expense management platform Divvy in 2016, serving as Chief Business Officer through its $2.5 billion acquisition by Bill.com in 2021. He now invests in early-stage startups at Tandem Ventures and authored the book Factory for Good: The Pitfalls of Prosperity and How to Avoid Them.

15statements → 6claims → 3claims resolved → 67%fully supported → 3.8/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 2said about them ↓

2 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 3 assertions · 1 opinion · 4 insights · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 3 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Alex argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Bean: The vast majority of Divvy's revenue comes from interchange fees
“Almost, almost all I would say majority of that is on interchange.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 10:30 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up
Alex Bean: Divvy will easily top 20,000 customers by year-end
“I mean, I think we'll easily top 20 and even with some growth pay on that, so we'll see, but we're going over a hundred percent, so we expect that to continue.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 12:53 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
0% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Alex Bean on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Alex Bean said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure
Bean: Divvy offers free software by monetizing card interchange fees
“We make money just like the banks would. And then we give you the software that Expensify and others are giving you. So we really combine it into one platform.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 4:50 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Insight
Bean: Co-founders can be true partners without a 50/50 equity split
“And the advice I would give a non CEO co-founder is you have to understand where you sit for me. I always knew Blake was the quarterback and I was the running back to use a football reference, meaning we were partners and he, I don't think he could have done i…”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 7:44 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Assertion Supported
Bean: The vast majority of Divvy's revenue comes from interchange fees
“Almost, almost all I would say majority of that is on interchange.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 10:30 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Insight
Bean: Underwriting skill minimizes loss rates rather than increasing revenue
“Underwriting just minimizes your losses. It doesn't actually add you. If you're really good at underwriting, it doesn't add revenue. It minimizes your loss rate.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 10:51 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bean: Divvy Maintains Annual Churn Rate Under 5 Percent
“Yeah, it's very fair. So which is crazy on a free product that people can walk away, right?”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 16:32 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Opinion
Bean: Brex Innovated on Credit While Divvy Innovated on Software
“Brex drove innovation on the credit side and they deserve a lot of credit for it. We drove innovation on the software side and we deserve a lot of credit for it.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 18:19 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Insight
Bean: Secondaries Done Right Give Founders Motivation to Keep Building
“Secondaries done right, can give motivation which allows, you know, early founders and early employees to keep going as opposed to, you know, stop, right? Cause it's easy to say, oh, I've been grinding away for however many years and I just need something out …”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 22:16 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Disclosure
Bean: Divvy targets Main Street SMBs rather than just VC-backed companies
“Luckies of the world, but just SMBs, you know, we kind of have two audiences. I say like one to 50 and 50 to 500, slightly different use cases for the most part, but SMBs in general, that that's, we're going after the mom and pops of America, Main Street Ameri…”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 4:10 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Insight
Bean: Companies need $200M to $300M in revenue to go public
“So if you're going to go public now SPACs do make it a little bit different, but I think you see a lot of companies that go public and we would look at it and say, Hey, you gotta be doing like two hundred million of revenue, you know, three hundred million of …”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 13:51 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Prediction Held up
Alex Bean: Divvy will hit a $100M run rate within two years
“No, I'm very confident that we will achieve that.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 15:06 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bean: Major Banks and Startups Will Emulate Divvy's Budgeting Features
“You're going to see the market, whether it's the big companies like Chase, Wells Fargo, Amex, et cetera, or other startups. Copying suit. Budget is one of those things that we've held to and we're super proud of, and it's super powerful for our customers. And …”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 18:34 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Disclosure
Divvy paused its SMB lending product during COVID-19 and plans to relaunch
“Well, we do have that set up. We are not Fully launched on it simply from a product standpoint, we actually launched it pre COVID. We pulled it obviously with COVID. And now we're, you know, going to start launching it again.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 11:52 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Alex Bean: Divvy will easily top 20,000 customers by year-end
“I mean, I think we'll easily top 20 and even with some growth pay on that, so we'll see, but we're going over a hundred percent, so we expect that to continue.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 12:53 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Disclosure
Bean: Ingesting invoices serves as customer acquisition for Divvy virtual cards
“Every invoice is a new vendor that we can talk to and say, do you want to accept a virtual card? Or do you still want to accept the ACH? And there are ways for us to make money in that flywheel and get new customers.”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 20:05 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bean: Divvy captures 200 to 300 bps interchange on card spend
“Clearly, if someone's a hundred percent company spending a 100,000 dollars, you know, there's 200 to 300 bips, so you can do the math, right? Like, now, there's a lot that we have to account for, though, right? What people don't forget is we are giving rewards…”
Alex Bean May 17, 2021 ▶ 21:10 Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in GMV

The other half of the tape: Alex Bean's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on Top Founders. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 2

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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2021 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Divvy Founder Sees Clear Path to $100m, 20k Customers, Most Revenue from CC fees, $1b+ in May 17, 2021 15m
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