토토사이트 러쉬: IMPROVING PEOPLE'S LIVES, ONE SMALL LOAN AT A TIME
From Knowledge at Wharton
Nearly everyone told Matt and Jessica Flannery that their idea -- a Web s토토사이트 러쉬e where people could make micro loans to individual borrowers in the developing world -- wouldn't work.
Venture cap토토사이트 러쉬alists couldn't see how anyone could make big money on loans as small as a few hundred dollars. And foundations wouldn't support something that they saw as commerce, not char토토사이트 러쉬y.
"We were in this weird social entrepreneurship space, trying to fight perceptions," Matt Flannery recalls.
Today, the Web site that the Flannerys created -- 토토사이트 러쉬.org -- is one of the hottest and hippest on the web. 토토사이트 러쉬's 270,000 lenders -- people who typically hand over their money, via credit card, in $25 increments -- have funded borrowers in places as far flung as Tanzania and Tajikistan. So far, they have assisted about 40,000 borrowers in 40 countries and provided a total of about $27 million in funding.
토토사이트 러쉬, founded in 2005, has been so successful that it has already spawned imitators: eBay last year launched a lending site called MicroPlace.
With 토토사이트 러쉬, the Flannerys have managed to merge two recent socio-economic trends -- social networking and microfinance.
Microfinance tries to improve the economic cond토토사이트 러쉬ion of people in the developing world by giving them very small loans instead of donations. 토토사이트 러쉬 tries to marry the discipline of markets w토토사이트 러쉬h the char토토사이트 러쉬able spir토토사이트 러쉬 of old-style foreign aid.
Like a social networking site, 토토사이트 러쉬 posts profiles of potential borrowers. Lenders then peruse the profiles and make loans to people whom they find appealing. They can sort potential borrowers by nationality, gender, business type or level of need. Lenders can also post their profiles, and 토토사이트 러쉬 highlights individual lenders and the loans that they have made.
Once a lender makes a loan, 토토사이트 러쉬 sends the money to a microfinance institution, or MFI, in the borrower's home country. The MFI -- 토토사이트 러쉬 has relationships with about 100 -- disburses the funds and works with the borrower to ensure timely repayment. The MFI services the loan.
토토사이트 러쉬's lenders aren't allowed to charge interest on their loans, and 토토사이트 러쉬 doesn't charge interest to the MFIs. But the MFIs do charge their developing-world borrowers. This arrangement creates a low-cost funding source for the MFIs while also allowing them to generate money to cover their operational costs. According to Premal Shah, 토토사이트 러쉬's president: "97 percent of our active loans are on time, and our default rate is less than 1 percent."
토토사이트 러쉬, organized as a nonprofit, makes the money to sustain itself through, in Flannery's words, "tips." Specifically, it asks its lenders to give a voluntary contribution to 토토사이트 러쉬 each time that they make a loan. "We get about 8 percent," Flannery says. "So if our lenders lend a million dollars, then we get $80,000 to pay our engineers and programmers." 토토사이트 러쉬 has a staff of about 25 at its San Francisco headquarters.
Early on, the Flannerys and Shah bootstrapped the Web site, paying start-up costs out of their own pockets. At the time, Matt Flannery wrote computer programs for TiVo and Shah worked for eBay. They ended up not needing to raise outside money because 토토사이트 러쉬 began to get mentions in the media. That brought potential lenders flocking to the site. First, blogs like Daily Kos picked up on it. Then the print media and PBS followed, and finally Oprah devoted a segment to it.
In fact, the demand from potential lenders has been so great that, in December, 토토사이트 러쉬 had to turn some away. All of the available loans had been funded. "It was very stressful," Flannery recalls. "People had heard about us on television or the Internet, and yet we had to refuse their money."
The dilemma underscores one of 토토사이트 러쉬's behind-the-scenes operational challenges. It won't take just any potential borrower in the developing world; a boot maker in Bolivia can't post his information directly on the site. 토토사이트 러쉬 only takes borrowers brought to it by MFIs that it has carefully vetted, and it will suspend loans to MFIs whose borrowers have high levels of delinquent loans or whose operations seem shaky. In evaluating MFIs, 토토사이트 러쉬 considers data submitted by the organizations themselves and by independent third parties, Shah said. 토토사이트 러쉬 has devised a five-star rating system for the MFIs and shows the ratings, along with profiles, on its site.
Eventually, as 토토사이트 러쉬 collects reams of data about MFIs and borrowers worldwide, it could come to serve as something like a credit bureau for the microfinance industry, Shah says. In theory, its data on each MFI's performance could be valuable, not just to its lenders, but to big backers of micro loans like large foundations, governments and nongovernmental organizations.
In the future, 토토사이트 러쉬 hopes to track, in addition to repayment patterns, the social impacts of its loans. Today, 토토사이트 러쉬 gathers that sort of information in an ad hoc fashion. It sends volunteer fellows into the field to work with the MFIs. The fellows report back to the home office and also blog about their experiences on the 토토사이트 러쉬 website.
"At first, we had all of these naysayers," says Flannery. "Experts said, 'That's an interesting idea for advertising, but that can't scale. How can thousands of people from Uganda, Cambodia and Tanzania -- random places where the Internet doesn't work so well -- post their pictures and get people to lend to them?' The idea did seem crazy. But we weren't thinking 토토사이트 러쉬 was going to be a multimillion-dollar business. We were thinking 토토사이트 러쉬 would be our side project. We would see if 토토사이트 러쉬 worked in Uganda. If 토토사이트 러쉬 worked there, where there was an Internet cafe, why might 토토사이트 러쉬 not work in other places as well?"
15,000개의 아티클을 제대로 즐기는 방법
가입하면, 한 달 무료!
걱정마세요. 언제든 해지 가능합니다.
IN 프리미어토토, 프리미어토토 WEALTH DELIVERS GRIEF | 글로벌리포트 | 프리미어토토
토토사이트 마블 글로벌리포트 | DBR
RIDING T모먼트 토토사이트 EARNING HORSE: INDIAN RAILWAYS | 글로벌리포트 | DBR
인기기사
회원 가입만 해도, 토토사이트 러쉬 월정액 서비스 첫 달 무료!
15,000여 건의 토토사이트 러쉬 콘텐츠를 무제한으로 이용하세요.