Politician and co-founder fo the fintech comapny Now, Stacey Abrams, discussed the latest with her comapny and various

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: All right. Small business owners understand the hassles of dealing with invoices, but how does this sound to you? Sell now, get paid now, your customer buys now, pays you later. That's part of what's coming down the pike with a new fintech company called Now.

And the person behind it-- one of the co-people behind it, rather-- is Stacey Abrams, who we welcome into the stream right now. And perhaps-- I mean, everybody knows you from your political background, but what some people may not realize is that you're an entrepreneur going back more than a decade, launching different startups, like Insomnia Consulting and the company Nourish. And you're launching this fintech company now, as well as being a tax attorney. So what was the motivation for Now?

STACEY ABRAMS: Actually, Now has been in the marketplace for several years. We launched it in 2011. But we've been growing slowly. We've been building our, not only capacity, but our story. We started it because Nourish, the company I co-founded with my co-founder Lara Hodgson, when we couldn't monetize an invoice so we could grow and accept a major retailer's invoice, we had to shut down the company.

And that for us was a system problem, and we being system thinkers decided to figure out how do we solve this problem of having an invoice where you know you've got money coming in but you need the money now to make your company grow. And so we are so proud of being our first A round, series A round of financing to expand and scale our business.

SEANA SMITH: So Stacey, now you have $9.5 million through this series A funding. How do you plan to put that money to use? Because you talk about the fact that you've been around now for just over a decade. Has a lot of your business been through word of mouth? And how do you see that changing going forward?

STACEY ABRAMS: It's absolutely been word of mouth, and it's been very localized. We've been primarily in Georgia, although we've had a few national customers. But what we want to do now is scale. We want to tell people about it.

Part of the challenge is making sure that when you tell people about a solution, you can actually be a solution for their problems. Two, we want to make certain that we are building with a thoughtfulness about what else is coming down the pike. As you all very well know, small businesses have been in decline because of the pandemic. As they come back to life, as their customers need more support, as they become vendors for companies that are also trying to recover, we want to be a solution that they can turn to.

ADAM SHAPIRO: And one of the solutions is that your companies, your clients get paid in two business days versus the standard 90 to 120. But explain to us how it actually works via Now, through your process.

STACEY ABRAMS: Certainly. When you are buying B2B, you are used to knowing, if you're the small B in the B2B conversation, that you submit an invoice, and they pay you when they get around to it. They'll say net 30, they mean net 48. They say net 90, that's net 120.

And instead, when you submit your invoice-- you open your Now account, you submit an invoice to Now account-- if you are in our approved network, we will give you the face value of that invoice minus our 3% fee, and you get it within two days. That's it. It is a true sale. We are not coming back. What will happen is that when your client finally pays you, they'll send it to a different remit to address, but that's it.

We make it as easy as a credit card. But we know for a lot of small businesses they can't be paid by credit card because the vendor who owes you money doesn't want to pay the interest on that credit card. They'd rather get the free capital that comes from so many small businesses of waiting for that invoice to be paid. We cut out that process, and we make certain that the monetary value of your invoice goes into your account almost immediately.

SEANA SMITH: Stacey, what has demand been like for Now during the pandemic? Did it take a hit or did more businesses turn to you for help?

STACEY ABRAMS: We had a steady stream of clients that absolutely needed the support. But as is true for almost every business, they saw their volume decline. We wanted to be ready and prepared to support them as they came roaring back, and we are seeing that volume grow. But as you know, because we do B2B, it's a question of how are other businesses doing. That determines the success of your marketplace.

And so what we've been trying to do is make sure that small and mid-sized businesses, as they return, that they have access to the capital they need, especially because a number of the capital solutions that have been put out there for them don't really meet their needs. These are companies that need new loans. They need the value of the business they've already done poured back into their company so they can hire new workers, make purchases, build their inventory, and continue to seek out new opportunities.

ADAM SHAPIRO: But aren't you taking on the risk, since you're essentially paying the original, the big B, right up front but you're now counting on the small B to make good?

STACEY ABRAMS: And that's exactly our proprietary model. For the last 10 years, we've perfected this ability to strongly predict the risk. And we know that most small businesses, they make good. When you get that invoice, you're going to do your job because that's how you make your living.

The issue really isn't risk as much as it is access to being able to wait. The cost of patience for small businesses is too high. And so we really cut out that risk. But we've built a proprietary model that allows us to, at a very high level, determine the risk and reward, and so far so good.

SEANA SMITH: Stacey, we also want to discuss other initiatives that you're involved in. And I know you recently launched the Hot Call Summer campaign, and it's targeting voters in states where Republicans are pushing voting restrictions, laws that would restrict voting rights. And I'm curious just to get your thoughts just on, one, how big of a threat this is to voters nationwide, and then, two, what you're hoping to accomplish with this campaign.

STACEY ABRAMS: The reality is, when you break democracy for anyone, you break it for everyone. And it may seem like a small thing, restricting who has access to the right to vote, limiting being able to have water when you're in line for eight hours. But when we look at the array of laws that are being proposed and passed, we are seeing that they are anti-voter. They're limiting access to the right to vote. They're anti-election workers. We've seen in Iowa and Texas and Florida and Georgia actually criminalizing the people or finding the people who are trying to take care of administering our elections, and we're seeing a subversion of democracy.

In the state of Texas, for example, the bill where those Texas legislators walked out, it would have allowed the overturning of elections without proof of fraud. When we are giving that kind of power to people who are simply unhappy with the results, we are creating harm for everyone. Because we may focus on an election that was the recent past that we didn't like but when those laws are on the books, they're on the books. And that means everyone's right to vote, everyone's participation in our democracy is at risk.

And so Hot Call Summer is for every American who believes that this is about citizenship, about the right to vote, not about partisanship. And we need everyone to call 888-453-3211 and let your US Senator know that you believe that democracy should not change based on your geography, that it should be the same for all of us, and that we should all have the right to participate in the vote.

ADAM SHAPIRO: You mobilized millions of people in Georgia, and all of us were impressed with the incredibly long lines people stood in to vote. Given the hurdles that voters face in Georgia and perhaps other states going forward, do you think there might be a counter-reaction to what those who are passing these kinds of laws are doing in which people would say, oh, no, and they will wait in line even longer to exercise the right?

STACEY ABRAMS: I absolutely believe that. In fact, that's part of what we saw in Georgia in 2020. Part of the growth of participation was in reaction to what happened in 2018, when people were taken off of the rolls and not told, when they found their ballots thrown out for absurd reasons, when they were told that their signatures didn't match a piece of paper they'd signed 20 years before.

We know that when you are told that your right to vote is being taken from you, it renews your vigor and your intention of making sure that your right is preserved. And unfortunately, with these bills passing across the country, we're going to see more and more people who've not had to think about this, who will now face new obstacles, new hurdles to participation.

But my larger goal is for all of us to recognize that it's not about who wins the election. It's about who gets to participate. And in the United States we have always stood for the proposition that if you are a US citizen and eligible to vote, it should be easy for you to cast your ballot. And that is what we need to preserve. That is why the For the People Act is going to be so essential to preserving and protecting our democracy now and into the future.

ADAM SHAPIRO: We respect you so much. And I'm just curious, what would you to say to a senator like Mr. Manchin?

STACEY ABRAMS: I would say to him what I would say to Senator Murkowski or Senator Coons or Senator Cotton, that this is not about partisanship. This is about patriotism. When you put in place impediments that are against voters, against our election workers, or that undermine our democracy, you are not winning new elections. You're undermining what makes this country so great. And so we should all be focused on, how do we ensure that we protect and preserve our democracy. Because, yes, we'll fight over who gets to win, but the fight should be fair, and that's my focus.

ADAM SHAPIRO: And we appreciate your being here. Stacey Abrams, by the way, just to remind everyone again, is the co-founder of several companies, along with her business partner Lara O'Connor Hodgson. And the latest company, as you pointed out, founded almost 10 years ago but now receiving a great deal of funding is Now. And if you're a small business owner this can help you with the hurdles of invoices. Stacey Abrams, thank you for being here.