Jan 22, 2020
About this nugget:
This nugget was pulled from episode 250 from an interview with Perry Rahbar, founder & CEO of dv01. This nugget is on how Perry went from a disastrous pitch to $28 million in funding.
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Most of us have experienced the fear that something bad is about to happen soon. Sometimes we're right and it does, but most of the time nothing happens, making all that worry, a total waste of time and energy. To most fears, the financial meltdown during 2008 actually happened. The day Bear Stearns closed its doors, Perry was there. He was getting his career started and then it happened. During the full interview he shared in detail how it all ended, in one day Bear Stearns went from a bustling business to a ghost town. Post the news, he stayed around to assess the exposure. Then, as it relates to the existence of Bear, it was all over.
While he was assessing total exposure post-Bear he found something odd.
Here are his words:
-“So I stayed around and helped my boss at the time try to figure that number out (total exposure), keep in mind like Bear was pro, it was known to be really good with their risk, which is crazy when you think back to it. We had a really difficult time just figuring out what was the total exposure, every system was spitting out different numbers. We had to put everything in a spreadsheet and to me it was just mind boggling that, you know, you're talking about what was eventually over $50 billion in exposure.”
----------------Perry Rahbar during his Bank On It podcast interview
This was the beginning of what dv01 would become, his worst possible scenario became became the beginning of his biggest opportunity.
We live in an exciting time in fintech due in part by the financial meltdown in 2008. That meltdown impacted so many, which became the spark of people in finance to build and fund fintech as we know it today.
Perry found this massive problem which he needed funding to build. So he pitched the idea to a handful of top VCs and he blew it. In this clip you’ll hear how he went from a disastrous pitch to $28 million in total funding.
What is a nugget of the week?:
The host John Siracusa has recorded over 280 episodes as the host of the Bank On It & Before the A fintech podcasts where he interviews founders building the future of fintech and the VCS/Angels who fund them.
With each interview there’s this wow moment when the person interviewed has shared something really special, unique or a reminder on how founders or investors should think. So, here we are delivering those moments to you in the form of a bite sized nugget.
About Perry Rahbar:
Perry is founder and CEO of dv01, the reporting and analytics platform that provides institutional investors transparency into lending markets, starting with marketplace lending. He founded dv01 to solve the challenges he encountered during his decade-long career trading mortgage bonds at Bear Stearns (Managing Director, MBS trading) and J.P. Morgan (Executive Director, Co-Head of CMBS trading).
To date, dv01 has offered investors insight into over $35 billion of securitizations and more than $105 billion of consumer, small business, real estate, auto, and student loans from the largest online lenders, including LendingClub, Prosper, and SoFi.
About the host:
John, is the host of the ‘Bank On It’ podcast recorded onsite in Wall Street at Carpenter Group, and 'Before the A' podcast recorded onsite in Flat Iron at Barclays/Techstars Rise NYC. He’s a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He’s in the center of the fintech ecosystem, keeping current with the ever-innovating industry. Stay in the fintech know by subscribing to ‘Bank On It’, ‘Before the A’