Empowering Financial Literacy: The Kredit Academy Revolution Transcript

More Elephant Intro

[00:00:38] Jason Rudman: Welcome to the latest More Elephant podcast, where we talk with idea agents and change makers who are rethinking the world and ultimately helping us listen, learn, live, better. 

Today. I'm joined by two bright stars rethinking what it means to have a better financial future. Evan Leaphart and Mike Gross, are shaping tomorrow's financial leaders today with their organization called Kredit Academy. Kredit Academy equips teens and young adults with the tools they need to have an optimal credit health today and in the future. So it's all about education, financial literacy, and creating a pathway to living better financially today, tomorrow, and in the future.

So, Evan and Mike, thrilled to have you on the podcast. Thanks for taking the time to tell us a little bit about your story.

[00:01:33] Evan Leaphart : Thank you for having us. You nailed that intro, man. Thank you.

[00:01:36] Jason Rudman: Hey, I love what you do, so the audience should know we met about two or three months ago at a conference. I'm all about improving financial well-being and ultimately creating a system that works for everybody—not just the privileged, the people who have access and can afford it.

You're in my wheelhouse. I'm enamored with what you're doing, and I can't wait to share it with the audience. So yeah, it was easy for me to nail all the great work you're doing, I guess.

[00:02:05] Evan Leaphart: Thank you.

[00:02:06] Jason Rudman: So how did you guys meet and what led you to Kredit Academy building this business and ultimately help young people think through their financial experience?

[00:02:17] Evan Leaphart: Yeah. I mean, it goes all the way back to 12 years old, man.

So, I was born in Pittsburgh but I grew up in a city right outside of Baltimore, called Columbia, Maryland. Mike and I have been best friends since then. How we got to where we are today is just kind of an accidental conversation. I always like to say with your friends, you talk about everything, kind of like what you do but work because you're kind of the escape for your day-to-day.

So when Kredit Academy came to be, it really just stemmed from my personal journey with credit. I was that kid who turned 18, got a credit card right away, and messed it up. In my businesses along the way, this is my ninth company and the first tech startup, and I said if I could do anything, I would love to just be the vitamin and not the pain pill when it comes to education on credit.

So, the first product we launched with Kredit Academy was a platform for under-teens called Kiddie Kredit, which helps you learn about it through chores. But I was like, man, if I'm saying teach, I'm not really the master educator. So was kind of just brain dumping on Mike, and he was like, man, I've done that my whole adult life.

You know, he can talk a little bit about his experience, but it's cool to kind of be on the other side of this, and not just the friendship is always there and always will be. That's my brother at this point. But to be doing it in business is really cool. And I think it's important for both of us too because we're trying to show that sometimes they say friends in business can't work together. And we're really trying to show folks that you can. It's been exciting.

[00:03:38] Jason Rudman: The vitamin, not the pain pill. I mean that is.. 

[00:03:41] Mike Gross: The one.

[00:03:41] Jason Rudman: We would say vitamin in England, but I went with the audience. So, the vitamin, not the pain pill. And so, Mike, Evan is unloading about, oh my goodness, and then you're saying, but I'm here, this is what I do. 

[00:03:55] Mike Gross: I thought it was a joke. So, I didn't know he was being serious. So, going a step back, we met, let's say around 12. By high school, we were inseparable. We went to different high schools, but if you saw one, you likely saw the other. And then college happened. Evan went south to Miami. I went north to Philly. And then from there, we had kind of just stayed in communication because we were just close. We both started doing our own things and then realized we needed what the other had. And it just kind of naturally worked out.

I think God works in mysterious ways and puts you in the right position and we had just been preparing for this without even knowing that we were preparing for this. So, I spent a good number of years teaching young people about personal and professional development with an emphasis on entrepreneurship and financial literacy. Evan spent a great deal of time building startups.

And then the skills that he needed were the skills that I was building, and the skills that I needed were the things that he had already been doing, so it just became this natural match. What's interesting about working with your friends is we have like this shared knowledge and shared language. So, we don't really have to finish sentences, but we also know all the right buttons to push to get on your best friend's nerves and lighten the mood or change where things are going.

So, it's a really interesting way to work. And what's been the best for me is it's probably about 15 to 18 years since we lived in the same place. And we ran the business virtually for the first few years. Everyone was virtual during COVID. But even before that, we were virtually trying to run this business. So to be back together in one singular location in a place like Buffalo makes it that much better and allows us to be that much more productive and really be on the ground with the impact we're looking to have with the people we're looking to serve. 

[00:06:04] Jason Rudman: I love that. So, Evan you're a serial entrepreneur, Mike you've got this educational bent, and you're a teacher at heart. That's what I would say as I listen to your story, as you want to teach to make life better. How does that then come together in terms of Kredit Academy and take a moment to describe for the audience what's Kredit Academy? What’s it trying to do? Who is it trying to impact?

[00:06:25] Evan Leaphart: Yep. So, thinking about what Mike was saying, essentially building the business, the big emphasis on what we're saying is education.

Financial education has continuously been an afterthought, and what we want to do is make sure it's at the forefront of what we do and not on the back burner. And, it's just a big part of our rationale. So as a company, we realized that if we're going to start talking about finance, we need to start about it earlier. Financial studies show that your habits are formed around money as early as seven years old.

So,, even though we're making tremendous steps in the right direction with high school mandates – I think we're up to about 25 states now that require one financial literacy course mandatory in high school prior to college – we’re still talking about it too late. Our first product in market, Kiddie Kredit, really takes that proactive approach that we mentioned specifically for under 12s and we do it through chores.

So, Kiddie Kredit, think of your everyday chores, everyday activities, and rewards, that get tied into this mock FICO credit score. So, you miss a chore, it's like missing a payment. The longer you've had a chore, the longer you've had a ‘credit card’ – any time a kid's asking for something, “Hey mom, can I get this? Hey dad, can I get this?” – it’s like an inquiry.

Our go-to market on this. I think when we started, we were kind of naive, like who wants their kids to learn about credit? Everybody. Right? So had this build it, and they will come approach. And then we realized that by building this product specifically and just saying, Hey family sign up, and maybe families pay five, 10 dollars a month, we're going to start shifting away from the folks that really need to learn about this stuff, but don't necessarily have the resources to get our services.

So that's when we started shifting towards a B-to-B-to-C model. Ultimately, we allow organizations to get in on the fun too, because we truly do feel that it takes a village to raise a child. So, alongside the Kiddie Kredit app for organizations is a SaaS platform where they can interact, add activities, and rewards.

So, instead of that kid saying Evan clean room, Evan make bed, it could also say Evan ask mom to sign permission slip because the after-school program that your kid is in or the rewards could be ten dollars in Robux or it could be actual ten dollars. It totally depends – 40% of parents don't pay an allowance, so we didn't want to strictly make an allowance app. And that's a long-winded story, but just kind of explain the continuation, the feedback we got from the families and the organizations we work with what happens when they outgrow Kiddie Kredit.

No 15-year-old wants to use something named Kiddie, right? So, we like to say that, at Kredit Academy, we offer a suite of financial wellness solutions. That's what led us to launch Kredit Quest, which ultimately takes an all-ages approach toward financial literacy. And that's essentially what we're launching now. We white-label it for brands too.

And our entire approach is basically saying, how do we make sure that we educate but also provide real-world usage? So the phase from there to a saying, ‘Hey, can we give folks actual usage of a credit card and do it responsibly?’ I'd go that in more detail, but I want to keep blabbing.

[00:09:17] Jason Rudman: So, in my experience, that tends to be as a starter card, more of a secured card. So, just for the audience, you'd start with a secured card, enable somebody to learn how to responsibly use credit, and ultimately, at some point, you're going to graduate, right, if you figured it out.

And then, the B-to-B to C platform that you have, that's for institutions ranging from a community bank to a credit union to a bank that is seeing, in their universe, the ability to serve this community differently and then you figured out how to unlock that from a literacy to a management to a utilization of the credit product.

[00:10:00] Evan Leaphart: Yeah, hundred percent. So, think about it like this. I am the use case. Like I said, 18, got a card right away and maxed it out and spent my 20s paying for it.

[00:10:08] Jason Rudman: Let's talk about that later. Like, how did you get there? But not right now. 18 – maxed it; I think we all did that, my friend. I am a walking advertisement for not learning because I wasn't taught, and then figuring like, Oh my goodness, you're giving me this, it's mine to spend, then the world comes crashing down when you got to pay it back.

[00:10:25] Evan Leaphart: For sure. No, so it was to rebuild it, my credit went into the product design because I set up a secured card to reestablish my credit. So, yeah so the secured card funds go into a high yield savings though, so you get to build savings and credit simultaneously, which is a little different.

And then we incorporate that education piece. So, you get to earn rewards not just based on how much you spend, like your traditional card products, but also based on how much you learn in the process. So, we take the learnings from the Kiddie Kredit product and bring that same approach towards behavioral science into our core card product.

[00:10:54] Jason Rudman: So Mike, how does the education overlay connect to the product?

I understand the product and I'm thinking about some of the challenges that we've seen with moving adults along an education curve, which is you're going to take a little bit of your medicine every day, I'm taking you along a journey, and then, invariably, not unlike losing weight or taking your pill regimen every day, people fall off, right?

So how does the educational model work? And what have you learned that might point to how this will showcase a different outcome for the people that use it?

[00:11:31] Mike Gross: Great question. To take a step back, as much as I love teachers and I value the work that they do, I am not, and I could not do what they do on the daily. I love and respect the work that they do, but if you forced me to sit in a classroom for that long, I'd probably go insane. I've always considered myself a glorified camp counselor. And, as an organization, we focus on creating experiences.

Our focus is on introductory credit experiences and emphasizing experiential education to allow a user to now not only go through this personally but see how it works best for them. There are a number of different models when it comes to behavior change but it's really hard to pin down ‘was it something I did? was it something you saw on TV? was it something someone else said to you?’

Our focus is really on the attitudes, emotions, your cognition around financial topics. If I can help you understand these things, and I can help you see what the vision is, and then I can help you relate to this while you're dealing with these things, you have a much higher likelihood of creating positive outcomes for yourself.

We learned very early on with Kiddie Kredit that children today, like children at any age, love instant gratification. The goal is not for me to have a great FICO score thirty years from now. The goal today is for me to get some more candy, to get some money, to get something that I want now.

So, when we first started with the app, we wanted to have you earn your rewards weekly. At the end of every week, we were going to pay out what you were earning. Kids said no, what I make, I want now!!

[00:13:16] Jason Rudman: I have two of them. It's like, why can't I have that now? Oh, yeah, we have a whole different conversation about how money gets made, but that's a whole separate, whole separate conversation.

[00:13:24] Mike Gross: To be fair, the next generation has been trying to push for immediate payouts, even in employment roles. They want to be paid at the end of the day for the work they did earlier that day. I understand it, but that's not historically what's happened.

So, somewhere in between, we need to figure out how to make these things work. What we started with, simply enough, is within Kiddie Kredit; when you complete an activity, you earn the Bamboo Bucks, our internal currency, and you earn for that immediately. You get an immediate payout for what it is that you've done. You can then redeem those rewards for something, but our goal is to help you envision that ‘if you save a bit more of the Bamboo Bucks, you can get something larger that you actually want’ as opposed to like I did whenever money came in it immediately went out – money in, money out!

So, I'm trying to help you understand this from a younger age. Again, by having you go through these experiences, you now start to understand it in a different way. There's a very important, I'd say, influential behavioral science approach called COM-B. C O M B: Capabilities, Opportunities, Motivations, Equal Behavior Change. So, if you have the capability and the capacity to do it, the opportunity to practice it, and the right motivations, that will lead you to the behavior change we're after. So that's how we design all the activities and the work that we do.

First, I need to provide you with the capability. So, you have done these things to be able to earn your money. Or you have now this credit card, so you now have the opportunity to be able to do this. Then I need to help you create a vision for the future. If I can help you make those things, then you have a much higher likelihood of following through on these activities.

Where many times we go wrong with the diet and any other saving for that matter is we lose sight of the big picture. The day-to-day struggle pulls us out of the mindset of the big picture. And the more I can keep the big picture focused while still having some celebration along the way, there's a higher likelihood that you will stick with it.

If my diet is all just about abstaining and never enjoying my life, I'm not going to stick with it. If I can only eat bread and water for the next 30 days, by day 10, I will lose my mind. I'm going to eat cake.

So, I'm trying to help you understand at a much younger age, building habits takes time. You have a goal for the future and can still celebrate along the way, but we're focused on that big picture for the future. So, plan for today, plan for tomorrow.

[00:16:04] Jason Rudman: I appreciate that so much. I think we're fathers of kids. I think my kids are a little older than yours. I've got an 11-year-old and an eight-year-old. And we're in that moment right now. So, my 11-year-old has a bank account and actually makes money. That's a whole separate conversation about how that happens but makes legitimate money.

[00:16:24] Evan Leaphart: Love that. 

[00:16:25] Jason Rudman: Our conversation at the moment is that we opened up a Roth for him, and a portion of the money goes into the Roth because he earned it. It's actually a vanilla debit card. So, I'm looking at Kiddie Kredit after this, for what it's worth, because I think we're at that moment where we're teaching them about chores that need to be done, and things need to happen and being able to tie that.

Evan, to your point, like you and I never learned that, never learned that. In my household, there was not much money sloshing around. So, all of the money came in, and all of the money went out. I remember at one point in my teens, I think I was working three different jobs because I just wanted things. But Mike, to your point, the money came in. And then the new sneakers got bought, or the money came in, and the Sergio Tacchini, because that's what I was rocking back then.

But there was no conversation about investment, compounding interest, or how a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow if you just keep it. So, I think that connection point and then teaching it at a younger age, when I think statistics would probably tell us it sticks, more so than if you're trying to unlearn as an adult.

So, I also know that both of you, I think, at least Evan, for sure upped sticks and moved to Buffalo. So, I know there's actually joy connected to that because it's tied to an incubator and a grant to build the business. So, two questions - what is it about entrepreneurship? You mentioned that you've started nine variations of a company. What is it about that that fuels you? And then, how did you get to Buffalo?

[00:17:59] Evan Leaphart: Yep. So, for me, when it comes to entrepreneurship; so outside of entrepreneurship, I've been in sales. Twenty (20) years plus of sales experience too. And I've always felt that those two career pathways can be a direct correlation to how much I'm compensated. I think, in addition, to that, I've always liked to create things. I was the kid with the lemonade stand. I was the kid who basically built a computer from scratch. I could burn CDs and sell them to my friends. It's like twenty (20) years now, so I don't think I can get in trouble anymore.

[00:18:28] Jason Rudman: You couldn't do that anymore because people would look at you and go what is a CD…we don't know what you're talking about?

[00:18:32] Evan Leaphart: And pulling out the visor and all that!

But how we got to Buffalo? So, we've been on this journey for a little bit of time, and there's a program that I always had admiration for called 43 North. What it's developed into today – we won in year nine, year 10 is around the corner for them – so, it’s the world's largest startup pitch competition.

If you win, you receive a million dollar investment in exchange for five (5) percent of your business. And then, they have the People's Choice Award, which, if you win that too, is an accompanying twenty-five thousand dollars.

So we applied in 2022 but didn't get it. 2023, we made it to the semifinals. You make it there, it's like 15 of you, and they select five. So, the odds are decent. You make it there. You go to the finals, and then you have eight. So, it's five out of eight; like you don't win, it's going to be a tough flight home, right?

So, we really just kind of locked in on it. Fortunately enough, we won last year and also took home the People's Choice Award. And, with that comes relocation of Buffalo for a minimum of a year.

What I will say we found a lot of value here in this city. They call themselves City of Good Neighbors. Everybody's been super welcoming. My wife is loving it here. A tough adjustment at first, but now she's the one. ‘it's like, nah, like we're staying.’ That makes me happy. So that's kind of how we got here. Mike, how's it been for you?

[00:19:45] Mike Gross: Yeah, it's been good. How I got here was…I literally drove from Philly. 

[00:19:51] Jason Rudman: He's like I am going to be very literal with you. It's how I got here. I packed up the car, and I drove. 

[00:19:56] Mike Gross: Yeah. It was a six-hour drive with two kids in the back, a dog in the middle, and my wife at my side. So, it's been a really enjoyable experience. Short of the snow, it's been great. I have no complaints. It's been beautiful to be able to connect.

And one of the things that I love about entrepreneurship is the start is like, blank canvas, fertile ground. You now have the opportunity to plant the flag and create something new. So, moving to a new space is something that kind of scared me, but also, I also relish that opportunity to be able to start something, create a new future, and define a future, and then go build it…is something that I’m really excited by.

Buffalo as a community has both this grit but tight-knit, supportive community vibe, which kind of speaks to me. To be able to put in a lot of hard work, but then also wrap your arms around and just be really hospitable and welcoming to people you don't know for no other reason than you want to, is a beautiful thing that I don't take lightly. I really appreciate how they've wrapped their arms around us, whether they knew we were in 43 North or not. People have just been welcoming and supportive, which is a beautiful thing that you don't get everywhere.

[00:21:26] Jason Rudman: I think that's right. Past life, I worked for KeyBank, headquartered in Cleveland, and we merged with First Niagara, which is in Buffalo. So, I've done the Cleveland to Buffalo, and Mike, in the snow as well, which is an adjustment to your point.

But you said a couple of things about Buffalo that really ring true: They're remaking themselves, which I think creates opportunity; and, what you do is needed and necessary in that community, and I think that's why you get a sense of this welcome.

Your ability to go there and feel like you can have impact. So, I think there's a meeting of the moment, given what I know about Buffalo and what you're trying to do, that I think makes a lot of sense, as you described it.

So Mike, outside of Kredit Academy, you are connected to the Rise Up fund, which is somewhat of a connection, I think, to financial literacy and financial health, tied to building generational wealth. Would you give the audience some insight into what the Rise Up Fund is attempting to do and why that meets your purpose?

[00:22:29] Mike Gross: Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, the Rise Up Fund is an organization specifically focused on providing opportunities for generational wealth through first-time home ownership. We provide grants and education for folks to be able to not only identify their goals for the future but get to work on building those dreams of homeownership.

We know that homeownership and real estate ownership is probably one of the largest wealth-creating vehicles in our country, but unfortunately, it has been denied to many people due to lack of opportunity, lack of capital, and lack of understanding.

So, we kind of jump in and help provide not only full first-time homebuyer education. I am a HUD-certified housing counselor, so people can take our certificate to any first-time homebuyer organization and get our grant or theirs. Then, help connecting them to resources to be able to better understand how they can own this home more affordably.

I think that this organization best fit me the same way Kredit Academy and literally everything else I've done in my career. I am someone again, glorified camp counselor, but the focus is always what are the things I wish somebody would have taught me and how would my life have been different if someone had told me about these things in advance.

And that's what I've been focused on literally since I've been a child. If I found something cool, I want to tell somebody else you need to go find out about this. So, that's really just translated into different aspects of financial education and entrepreneurship. Kredit Academy is the focus. Kredit Academy is where I spend my all day, every day. But what someone can do with a better understanding of credit can sprawl in a number of different ways.

So, what we focus on here has the real potential for folks to be able to build their own businesses, to be able to buy their own homes, to be able to afford college in a new way, and obtain new careers. So, there's all these potential opportunities that come when you have the correct understanding of how credit works and how to use it effectively.

The work at the Rise Up Fund is informed by the work that we do here. Credit is a major barrier for folk to be able to buy their own homes, more often than not, because we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy our own homes in cash. Having to utilize credit and be able to take out a mortgage, you need to know what it takes to be able to get a mortgage. You need to know how this works for you effectively. So, we start with this understanding of credit. And then, you can do whatever else you want to do with your life. That's really how we think about the work we do here, in this, and then outside of it.

[00:25:24] Jason Rudman: I think it comes back to your – I called you a teacher, you scratched that out, and you said, no, I'm actually not, I'm a camp counselor. I mean, I called you a teacher, and you were like, I'm not taking that on…

[00:25:32] Mike Gross: I'm scared of the idea of being a teacher. 

[00:25:34] Jason Rudman: Look, it is such a hard job. Let's say, I mean, we could go off on a tangent on that and glorify the folks who teach our kids and attempt to help us.

[00:25:44] Mike Gross: We want to add that I also don't blame our schools when it comes to a lack of financial education because we have tasked them with far too many things to do in the first place. And, I don't know about you guys, but I don't remember half of the things that they taught me in school. Maybe they did. Maybe they tried, and I just wasn't paying attention that day.

So, it's possible that these things may have happened, and I just wasn't paying attention. So, it's not all their fault. We definitely have to take some personal responsibility. I think within the home is where this is most essential. Others can support, but within the home is where these lessons need to start.

[00:26:25] Jason Rudman: But you'll appreciate it, right, the unlock there, and I'm going to connect it to where you went with the Rise Up Fund – the unlock there is, as a parent, I also need to know what to teach.

So, like both of you, I'm self-taught. I made some mistakes and to the degree that, you know, my parents today will still call me about, ‘Hey, I've got a pension. I've got this, what should I do?’ So, I feel like my kids have benefited from my rocky journey.

But I learned good, hard lessons early, which Evan, I think is your point at eighteen (18), I learned a really, really hard lesson that was helpful for me to learn early that I was able to correct. Then I also think about Mike, where you went with the Rise Up Fund, because it's not only about the power of credit and how you get good credit, right? We know that your FICO score, the higher your FICO score, the less you're going to pay interest. But I also think it is helping people understand how to get on the housing ladder and that far too many have been denied, to your point, due to institutional racism, one, and then lack of information to know even where to start, [point] two. I say that because it all comes back to education and information that creates the art of the possible.

[00:27:43] Mike Gross: Indeed.

[00:27:44] Jason Rudman: And then, there are grants and facilities out there to enable you to get that. And we've got to be teaching people affordability as well. If you look at the housing crisis of ‘08, we put way too many people in homes that they couldn't afford.

[00:27:57] Mike Gross: Yup.

[00:27:58] Jason Rudman: Because we were high-on-the-hog of mortgages and we can't repeat that again. That is, we will set back generations to come if we repeat that again. So, I love the work you're doing, I love the connection to Kredit Academy, which is mission one, but also, the connection to the power of literacy and education to get people on the journey of home ownership.

And then Evan, Black Men Talk Tech. We had invited Alphonso David, the President of the Global Black Economic Forum, late last year, and we were bemoaning the fact that only one (1) percent of venture funding goes to Black founders. And then, you've been part of an organization for, I think, at least five (5) years about which is on some level, bringing together a community to uplift and create opportunity.

Would you take a moment to talk about Black Men Talk T, the intersection with Kredit Academy, as that makes sense, and more importantly, what that collective attempts to do?

[00:28:57] Evan Leaphart: Yeah, for sure. My involvement with Black Men Talk Tech started because of my journey with Kredit Academy. When I came into the space, there were just certain nuances about, one, what it takes to be a tech founder. Building your MVP, wireframes, and how to properly source a CTO. I didn't know where to start on a lot of those things. So, it was kind of a trial by fire.

The other piece was just venture capital, the world of venture capital, as you mentioned. I didn't even know you could ask people for six-figure or seven-figure amounts to really get your idea off the ground.

I just would come to this with a blue-collar mentality of you spend what you have, and you maybe get a loan or line of credit, but you need the credit for that. And that's essentially why we're trying to teach what we're teaching in the first place.

So, just as I learned more about the space and the Black Women Talk Tech program – I think they're going on year nine right now – was already in existence, and we partnered with them to create Black Men Talk Tech. A friend of mine brought the opportunity to me, and then we kind of all started out; so it was a group of us.

And, when we started in 2018, in Miami, Miami was not a tech club at all, anything at that point. I remember when I first started Kredit Academy, folks were like, ‘Hey, if you want to really run a tech startup, you need to leave Miami. This isn't the place for it.’ So fast forward to where we are today.

So, what it is by design, it's a place where technologists, entrepreneurs, investors, can all really just gather together and share fellowship. And it's not necessarily to talk about the numbers, which we know, which aren't necessarily in our favor, but it's more so to be celebrated. It's hard to hire and find black talent. Absolutely not true. 

[00:30:33] Jason Rudman: Absolutely not true. You just have to go to places and spaces.

[00:30:38] Evan Leaphart: Exactly.

[00:30:38] Jason Rudman: That you either don't know or you're bloody uncomfortable going, but you got to go there because it exists. It is a fallacy. It is such a fallacy that Black and Latino or LGBTQ talent doesn't exist in the world. You just have to get uncomfortable and go to places and spaces you don't normally go to.

[00:30:58] Mike Gross: You can't find it with your eyes closed.

[00:31:01] Jason Rudman: Yes, yes. Say that again for the audience. You cannot find it with your eyes closed. Or you need to find somebody who knows where it is and be led to it. Some of this is the ecosystem you're talking about, Evan. 

[00:31:15] Evan Leaphart: I’ll give an example. So, in 43 North, they funded a couple of years ago, they funded a company called Squire. They've raised over a hundred million dollars at this point, and they focus on software for barber shops to Black founders.

But this is why it's important to have representation in all aspects of the journey. If that type of opportunity comes to an investment community at a VC firm and there’s nobody in there that's necessarily of color, they may not point out the importance of the barbershop within the Black community.

One of the first things I asked when moving to Buffalo was like, ‘Hey, where's the Black barber, you know what I mean? So, they go into how you hire, they go into how you invest and they go into how you build a business. If you don't necessarily have all points of the equation, I'm not just saying black, like everybody, you're going to have a hive mentality around things that you shouldn't have, especially if you're trying to build a product or fund a product that you feel should be for a wide audience. So yeah, like Mike said, you can't find something with your eyes closed, and we just really need to get out of our comfort zones to find real opportunities. 

[00:32:11] Jason Rudman: I'm thinking back to the conversation with Mical Jeanlys-White who founded Wealthmore. She talked on the podcast about how she had credentials. She had worked for JPMorgan Chase, but she felt that, in every space she walked into, she had to re-prove her credentials because she's a woman of color. And it was consistent every single time in the early days. It was like, ‘I [she] had to knock down doors, and eventually I [she] had to find, I think, what Black Men Talk Tech represents, which is a collective that I think you said would provide support. It's also about access, inclusion, and ultimately relationship-building. And who do you know that is going to appreciate my lived experience? When I walk in the door, it's one less thing that I have to convince somebody about because they get it.

We should also not skate past when you said, where's the barbershop? I just want to be very, very clear. Not any barbershop will do. Alright, it's not, point me to Supercuts, I want point that out.

[00:33:14] Evan Leaphart: I wasn't going to quote them, man, but they were firmly in my head. 

[00:33:17] Jason Rudman: So, you're in Buffalo. Congratulations on winning 43 North. It's remarkable. And I think we should take a moment together to celebrate the recognition because we're so often so busy in our lives.

We're like, oh, we're on to the next thing and I think that it's remarkable.

So, you're in Buffalo, you've got this period of time, you've won this award, purposeful in Buffalo; what's the next phase of Kredit Academy in terms of what the funding enables you to do and what you're experimenting with or building out at this moment.

[00:33:53] Evan Leaphart: So, when we came here when you start a pitch, and you kind of craft your pitch…I looked at a lot of the previous ones, and they really spoke to how many jobs they plan to bring. And, we definitely do and will do some hiring here, but I was like, I don't know if that's necessarily our North Star.

What I do know is that the biggest bank here is M&T Bank, a top-15 bank. The program here is called 43 North, and I stumbled across the number 43 as it pertains to M&T. What I saw was that they have a 43 billion-dollar initiative to improve the economic outcomes of low-to-moderate-income households across the country. I was like that we can get behind.

Saying all that to say, when they say, ‘Hey, what would be a win for you and Buffalo?’ It's like really deepening the work with them. And I'm happy to say that a lot of that has begun to the point where I can actually talk about it in a podcast. To the specifics of what, I'd leave that for another day, but it's been moving along like really nice. And that is the opportunity that I think we can go with. As soon as you said KeyBank, I was thinking of them as well, too.

I would say the core win, deepening with the community, is important too, be it whether we're here for a reason, season, or lifetime. I just want to make sure that we left our imprint in a positive manner. I mean, overall growth of the company.

We have three key metrics that we're focused on hitting: black or white, did we win the year, yes or no, and we're all pretty agreed to it. So, one's a product, one's a revenue goal and then one is a brand positioning type of thing. We're on pace to do all three, but that's really when we wake up in the morning and you look at the board and kind of see what's there when you get into the office, we know what that is.

But yeah, I would say very happy with progress so far. And then now that it's a little warmer, it'll be easier to just be out. 

[00:35:29] Jason Rudman: Yeah. When it snows, it snows in Buffalo, my friend; when it snows, it snows.

For the audience, to make sure that everybody appreciates that this is a national movement that you're trying while you're in Buffalo. This is not Northeast-centric. You've talked Miami to Baltimore to Buffalo. So, I don't want anybody to think that you're only concentrated on the East Coast. It is national and indeed could be global because I think understanding and building for a better financial future is a global issue. 

[00:35:56] Evan Leaphart: Honestly, what we say is, if we do this right, we can essentially be the company that helps introduce the concept of credit to markets across the world where credit is either new or nonexistent and do it the right way. 

[00:36:08] Jason Rudman: And I'm going to change one of your words – when you do this right! Not if, when you do it right!

For each of you, what's the one thing that keeps you up at night, like serial entrepreneur, move the family. You've got momentum. What's the one thing?

[00:36:24] Evan Leaphart: I get asked that all the time. And what I always say is that what keeps me up at night is nothing. What wakes me up super early is that I genuinely want to make sure that Gen Alpha goes into this world and makes a transition into young adulthood, really understanding credit the way that we understand the basics of math. The way that understanding the fundamentals of reading…nobody should turn eighteen (18) and be confused about the average age of accounts and how it weighs on your FICO score. Understanding the inquiries, you need to monitor how you use them. If those fundamentals are just as basic as the fundamentals of math and reading, I'm good.

[00:37:09] Jason Rudman: And Mike?

[00:37:10] Mike Gross: My side, it's similar, but it's really around the efficacy of our approach and ensuring that what we're doing is actually resonating with the audience we want to serve. Evan always gets on me because my favorite word is ‘ensure.’ And I will say it because I'm always trying to ensure what we're doing is actually effective and I'm ensuring that you understand what I'm saying. I am always focused on ensuring that what we're doing actually serves the audience that we're looking to impact in a positive way – so that is children and families.

One of the quotes that we often hear is it takes a village to raise a child…so the child can raise the village is the other half of that. And, the important thing is that if I can help one understand, they can help all understand. So, the approach that we have is one that we hope works and we are looking to prove works, but that's what keeps me up is ensuring what I am seeing is resonating, what we are doing is resonating, and that somebody gets it on the other side

[00:38:12] Jason Rudman: I think your other challenge, but I think it's a good one, and I know you're up for it, is if you think about the modalities of learning as well. I'm thinking about, again, we talked about the models we've seen around weight loss or even PFM (personal financial management) and trying budgeting and all of those. I think we have to recognize that part of the challenge is that we all don't learn the same way and we have different ways of taking in information, distilling information.

And then, you've got modalities of how I get motivated, which, again, my motivations are different than yours. And then how do you put all of that into a working model that actually can be operated at scale and then drive the type of outcomes you're looking for?

So, I know you're up for the challenge, but we should acknowledge that it's not a cookie-cutter approach if you do one thing and everybody's going to accept it and take it on and come out of the other end with the right outcomes.

[00:39:07] Mike Gross: Thanks, Jason. Now I'll never sleep!

[00:39:10] Jason Rudman: I'm here for you. I'm here for you. You know that. All right. So how do people learn more about Kredit Academy and the great work that you're doing?

[00:39:20] Evan Leaphart: Keep it simple. Go to Kredit Academy.com. That's kredit with a K, so K-R-E-D-I-T-A-C-A-D-E-M-Y.com. You can learn all you need.

[00:39:29] Jason Rudman: Awesome. And I'm sure people can find you on LinkedIn, which we'll put in the show notes because that's the other way to find you.

Thank you. I'm inspired. I'm going to Kiddie Kredit as the next thing I'm going to do today.

But I will just say for the audience when we met, there was just an instant connection based on not only because you're two cool brothers, there's a warmth and an openness that I think invites people into your journey and what you're trying to do, but I think what you're trying to do is so important for Gen Alpha because we've lived that experience and we know the pitfalls. And, if only we can prevent those pitfalls from happening, we will put thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Gen Alpha on a path to actually being able to build lasting generational wealth. Not just fleeting generational wealth, that sometimes it's gone in a generation.

[00:40:24] Evan Leaphart: Thousand percent.

[00:40:25] Jason Rudman: Awesome. Appreciate the time. I have a feeling we might be talking again and come back like in a year and we'll chart your progress and see what's going on.

[00:40:33] Evan Leaphart: Where are they now? Let's do it. 

[00:40:34] Jason Rudman: Where are they now? Oh, no, no. What are they doing? Where are they now suggests that you fell off the map. We're not going to go with where are they now? We're going to go with what more have they gotten into in a year?

All right. Awesome. Thanks, Evan. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate the time.

[00:40:48] Evan Leaphart: Thank you, brother. 

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