How Accrue Savings Disrupted BNPL
A non-technical founder had a vision to revolutionize fintech. The last piece of the puzzle? Finding an elite banking technology team.
Picture this: you're an ambitious entrepreneur with a brilliant idea to transform the world of online shopping. You want to empower consumers to save for their purchases instead of burying them in debt. You've even got a catchy name for it, "Save Now, Pay Later," which turns the idea of BNPL on its head.
Meet Michael Hershfield, the founder of Accrue Savings. Hershfield believed that if merchants genuinely cared about their customers, they needed to offer payment options that didn't rack up debt.
His vision was simple: Embed a free, FDIC-insured savings account at the retailer's checkout, allowing shoppers to save money toward specific purchase goals—incentivizing saving with cash rewards from participating merchants.
The only missing piece of the puzzle? An elite engineering team to kickstart Hershfield's vision to life. That's where A.Team came in, with their expertise in banking technology and a roster of talented product builders. Although Hershfield expanded his team quickly after his seed, A-team were the first engineers and designers in house, and help rapidly get the product up and running.
In the latest episode of Build Different, we look at how Accrue Savings' rise to become one of the hottest apps in fintech.
Interview with a former Pepsi brand VP: How CPG marketers can build an AI advantage competitors can’t buy
Angelique Bellmer Krembs spent 23 years in marketing at PepsiCo. She shares where marketing leaders should start with AI, why using it only for efficiency is settling, and why proprietary data is what sets a company apart.
How Unilever is using AI to improve the way its marketing teams make decisions
Unilever’s EVP Future of Marketing Kathleen Dunlop explains how the company is starting with real business problems, redesigning workflows around people and AI, and building new capabilities that can scale across its marketing organizations.
The tail you cut was holding the shelf
A SKU that ranks in the tail nationally can be the second-best seller in one retailer's set. Rank the list, cut the tail, and you delist the product that was holding the shelf.