business-financing
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NerdWallet Small Business learned that a loan needs a translator
A comparison table can show you a loan. NerdWallet’s small-business operation adds the human help needed to choose one - and earns its living when that choice becomes a funded deal.
SpotOn Spent $415 Million Going Wide. Its Restaurant Reset Is the More Interesting Bet
The payments unicorn tried to own everything from neighborhood dining rooms to NFL concessions. Then it sold the stadium business, kept the useful code, and returned to a harder, cleaner question: can one system give independent restaurants their margin and customer relationships back?
Brock Blake Bet the Company on the 98%
He took a $10 million business to zero on purpose, rebuilt it for Main Street, and learned that the smartest founder in the room is often the one willing to abandon the wrong answer.
Joe Camberato Built a Lending Business by Treating Speed as a Form of Respect
He began in a spare bedroom before fintech had a fashionable name. Nearly two decades later, Joe Camberato is still translating capital into something entrepreneurs can actually use: time, options and room to grow.
Lendio Killed a $10 Million Business - Then Built the Loan Marketplace Main Street Needed
The founders traded a working $10 million company for zero revenue because 98 percent of its customers needed loans, not venture capital. Fifteen years later, Lendio is turning that hard-won marketplace into lending infrastructure for banks and business platforms.
Biz2Credit Put the Bank in a Browser. Then Speed Became Its Most Expensive Promise.
The Arora brothers turned a small-business credit gap into a two-sided fintech: funding for owners, lending software for banks, and a data loop connecting both. The useful lesson is not simply to move faster - it is to make sure operations can cash every promise marketing writes.
GlossGenius
GlossGenius is a New York-based vertical SaaS and fintech platform that gives independent beauty and wellness professionals - hair stylists, nail techs, estheticians, spas and medspas - one app to run the whole business. It combines online booking, a built-in card-processing POS, client CRM, marketing automation, payroll, inventory and AI agents, replacing the patchwork of spreadsheets, paper books and generic tools that solo operators and small salons relied on. Founded in 2016 by Danielle Cohen-Shohet, it crossed roughly $100M in revenue, serves tens of thousands of businesses, and reached unicorn status with a reported $1.12B valuation after its January 2026 Series D.