TrustLeaf.com, the social lending platform for small business, today announces the new TrustLeaf Finance Finder, a free online tool to help small business owners and entrepreneurs find loans and financing options that fit their needs, from a variety of trusted sources, including Kabbage.
How The TrustLeaf Finance Finder Works:
Customers answer a short series of multiple choice questions about their business. Then, they are provided with a unique rating, their TrustScore, which indicates how well a particular type of funding matches their needs. A customer’s TrustScore is a unique, personal evaluation that helps assess and rank a customer’s potential finance options. The score calculated via machine learning techniques based on the information the customer provides as well as industry data.
“This new financial tool from TrustLeaf is all about empowering the American dream of entrepreneurship,” says Anson Liang, Founder and CEO of TrustLeaf. “by encouraging entrepreneurs to find and explore different types of small business financing. Knowledge is powerful enough to motivate people to think outside the box and even raise money from their pre-existing social networks. For the people who have already leveraged their social capital, we want to help them find additional funding to continue their growth.”
The Market Need
“We looked at the personal finance market and saw a lack in both transparency and tailored financial options,” Liang continues. “While other personal financial product review sites offer reviews and descriptions, we noticed a shared flaw in their assumptions; that most people already know which type of financing best matches their needs. The newTrustLeaf Finance Finder is a more evolved product, that actually helps people find financing options that fit their specific needs and qualifications. It’s like Yelp, but for small business financing.”
While other online lending platforms often emphasize the loan categories they specialize in, TrustLeaf is a self-service funding platform that helps borrowers explore different types of loans that they may not have otherwise known about or considered. In this way, TrustLeaf provides transparent financial-product overviews that guide borrowers on their quest for funding through two simple steps:
1) Answer 5 simple questions.
2) View your TrustScore to compare your funding options.
“In addition to providing capital to small businesses together, we’re also excited to use this unique opportunity to educate more small business owners about valuable goods and services they can use to fuel their business growth”, says Pete Steger, Head of Business Development at Kabbage. Steger continued, “Kabbage is an industry leader in content for small businesses and in working with TrustLeaf we will pool our collective resources to ensure those business owners are armed with the knowledge and confidence to make smart business decisions as they grow. We want to help answer the common question business owners face when they receive capital, which is, “what do I do now?”