Esusu's Wemimo Abbey turned 326 investor rejections into a billion-dollar fintech that's unlocked $50 billion in economic opportunity—by making rent payments count toward credit scores.
Wemimo Abbey immigrated from Lagos, Nigeria at 17. When he and his mother tried to borrow money, they were turned away by a major bank and sent to a payday lender charging over 400% interest. His mother sold his father's wedding ring to get them started in America.
That experience became the foundation for Esusu, a fintech platform that reports rental payment data to credit bureaus—helping millions establish or improve credit scores. Before Esusu, less than 3% of the $1.4 trillion renters pay annually showed up on credit reports.
Wemimo shares how he and co-founder faced 326 rejections, got kicked out of a Denny's for being $100,000 in credit card debt, and still pushed forward. They created a win-win-win model: landlords get more on-time payments, renters build credit, and lenders can better assess risk. The result? Over $50 billion unlocked in economic activity, bipartisan support in Congress, and partnerships with Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Zillow.
What you'll learn:
Wemimo:
"Life is too short to work on win-lose. I am just not interested. It doesn't get me out of bed. Money does not motivate me. Impact gets me on a high."
"We always say think outside the box, but we never let people outside the box engage. That tells you how lopsided access to capital really is."
"Be caught trying. In life, you're gonna be knocked down. People will tell you no. Your ideas won't work. You're gonna have heartache in life. You just gotta show up and be caught trying."
Links & Resources:
Keep the conversation going at smallbusinessunscripted.com
Timestamps:
01:50 – Early Life and Education in Nigeria
04:05 – Entrepreneurial Beginnings and Early Ventures
08:10 – Corporate America and the Birth of Esusu
11:25 – The Power of Rental Data in Credit Scoring
17:15 –Scaling and Impact of Esusu
21:25 – The Importance of Win-Win-Win Scenarios
22:35 – Overcoming Challenges and Rejections
27:30 – The Co-CEO Structure at Esusu
30:00 – Partnerships and Customer Focus
0:00:00.2 Wemimo Abbey: How do we create a win, win, win scenario? Life is too short to walk on win, lose. Yeah, I am just not interested. It doesn't get me out of bed. Money does not motivate me. Impacts gets me on a high. I'm just... It's just something. To be able to have an impact in people's lives is just really key for me. So, a win, win, win for all stakeholders is hard, but when you find that virtual cycle, you have to capitalize on it.
0:00:31.5 Everett Sands: Welcome to Small Business Unscripted. Today we've got Wemimo Abbey, co-founder and co CEO of Esusu. Wemimo was 17 years old when he got here from Lagos, Nigeria. He was able to take his own issues with credit reporting and build it into a major fintech platform that's helped millions of Americans establish credit through rent reporting. I'm Everett Sands, your host and the CEO of Lendistry. This is Small Business Unscripted. Welcome to Small Business Unscripted. As I bring different leaders in here, I kind of start with the same basic question. Let's put these three things in order for you right now. Just as you think about life, career, compensation, quality of life, what type of order would you put those in for yourself right now?
0:01:18.5 Wemimo Abbey: Career.
0:01:19.4 Everett Sands: Okay.
0:01:20.1 Wemimo Abbey: Quality of life and compensation.
0:01:22.5 Everett Sands: All right. So why'd you choose career?
0:01:24.6 Wemimo Abbey: I love what I do. Yeah. I spend a lot of time prioritizing, the work that I do.
0:01:32.0 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:01:32.3 Wemimo Abbey: The reason I get out of bed every day.
0:01:33.9 Everett Sands: Yeah, that's great. That's great. So let's tell the audience a little bit about you. You got here at 17 years old from Lagos, Nigeria.
0:01:42.4 Wemimo Abbey: Right.
0:01:42.7 Everett Sands: You've now built a fintech platform. There's a lot in between getting here at 17 and where you are today. So let's go a little bit earlier here. So tell us a little bit about what brought you to the US.
0:01:54.3 Wemimo Abbey: Well, my journey started in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria. I grew up there.
0:01:58.6 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:01:59.4 Wemimo Abbey: I lost my father at the age of two. I was raised by my mother and two sisters. And one thing my mother always believed in was the power of education.
0:02:08.2 Everett Sands: Interesting.
0:02:11.3 Wemimo Abbey: She afforded my school fees to one of the finest high schools in Nigeria, despite having less than a nice good degree herself.
0:02:15.7 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:02:16.3 Wemimo Abbey: And she worked at the post office for over 21 years. But she always believed that education was one of the most important investments any child could have in their life. So I was afforded a very good high school education, going to school with the governor's kids, the minister's kids. So when those kids were going to the United States and Europe, I thought they didn't have four heads or six eyes. So I did exactly what they were doing. So I got into the local university, self-studied for the SATs, passed. And then I applied to one of the cheapest universities I could find, which happens to be at the University of Minnesota. And I immigrated from 80 degree weather in Lagos to negative 22 degrees in Minnesota, which was a character-building experience. And yeah, that was my journey. But during that transition to the United States, something important happened. My mother and I did not have a credit score. We walked into one of the biggest banks in Minneapolis to borrow money. And we're turned away and had to go borrow money from a payday loan lender at over 400% interest rate.
0:03:34.2 Everett Sands: Wow.
0:03:35.2 Wemimo Abbey: My mother sold my dad's wedding ring. We borrowed money from church members. And that's how we got started in the United States. So really inspired by that experience, we started Esusu on three core premises.
0:03:37.0 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:03:37.5 Wemimo Abbey: No matter where you come from, the color of your skin and particularly your financial identity shouldn't determine where you end up in the world destination God has ever created.
0:03:47.6 Everett Sands: That's awesome. This incredible story before we get to Esusu, because I think that's obviously, why you're here. And the main thing I want to talk about. Talk to me a little bit about like clean water for everyone and OpenAid Initiative. A couple of things you did earlier in your career.
0:04:03.4 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah. So I've always known I want to be an entrepreneur.
0:04:08.8 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:04:09.4 Wemimo Abbey: I think this experience started when I was in high school.
0:04:14.0 Everett Sands: Okay.
0:04:14.3 Wemimo Abbey: And I saw my mom's pay slip. I don't know if people know what pay slip are but you do have pay slip back in Nigeria. And I saw how much she made.
0:04:24.1 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:04:24.5 Wemimo Abbey: And back in the day, I used to be the guy that smuggled Game Boy cartridges to go sell to the boarding school students. And I used to make like 300, 500% margin.
0:04:35.3 Everett Sands: Wow.
0:04:35.8 Wemimo Abbey: And I saw my mother's pay slip and I said, wow, this thing I barely spend 10 hours on. I make more money than my mother in a month working at the post office. So I've always known the power of... At a very young age, because I grew up with my father, the power of capital and labor. And that early in my journey, I learned that labor would never outrun capital. I've always been an entrepreneur. So when I came to the United States, I was 17 years old. I joined a club called Students and Free Enterprise. It's called Enactus today. And I created a company out of the club providing affordable water infrastructure for developing countries. The reason why that was, when I was growing up, I almost lost my life to malaria and typhoid. Yeah. So everything I have started or co-founded has to do something I have experienced because that's what gets me out of bed every day. And that institution ended up providing access to clean water for like quarter million people in seven countries. And we ended up a lot of our operations to the local government, especially in Ghana and other educational institutions in Nigeria.
0:05:46.4 Wemimo Abbey: And the whole idea was to build infrastructure where people, especially kids, a lot of the infrastructure were built in schools. So, people could come to the schools, make it a gathering spot, but they also buy the water and the revenue generated from buying the water then maintains the oil infrastructure. And then when I went to graduate school, I was working on a lot of data initiative, and I thought I was going to go work at the UN but when I was studying a lot in school, I noticed there's a lot of duplicates projects funded by international development dollars on the African continent. And I wanted to create a map all the international development dollars. So if you are working in Nigeria and I'm working in the same region as you and we're doing the same projects, we should share ideas and resources and have a one-stop shop to look at that data. Fortunately, that was acquired and I made my way to corporate America and co founded Esusu, with my co-founder Samir.
0:06:50.5 Everett Sands: So clean water for everyone. You're working in seven different countries. You're relatively young. Give me one or two leadership lessons you learned on that journey.
0:06:59.7 Wemimo Abbey: It's important. Nothing worth doing is what during alone. When I think about clean water for everyone, it actually started by a group of 17 to 22-year-old students that really wanted to change the world after the Haiti earthquake.
0:07:15.1 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:07:15.7 Wemimo Abbey: And being able to galvanize the community in the northwestern corner of Minnesota. A small town called Crookston.
0:07:23.2 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:07:23.6 Wemimo Abbey: And then builds a company, an institution where folks in the northwestern corner of Minnesota could believe that it is worthwhile investing and empowering people outside of the country.
0:07:37.4 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:07:37.8 Wemimo Abbey: Was something that was incredibly valuable. So that experience taught me three major things. The power of collectivism. Nothing worth doing is worth doing alone. I couldn't have done it alone. It took a lot of students. It took a lot of my colleagues. I learned a lot on that journey. And then number three, the ability to have perseverance and to act local, bring people together local, but then global.
0:08:01.8 Everett Sands: That's interesting. Really interesting. What would you say about the OpenAid initiative? What type of leadership lessons there?
0:08:07.4 Wemimo Abbey: I would say I learned a lot of things that actually laid the foundation for what we are doing at Esusu.
0:08:12.8 Everett Sands: Interesting.
0:08:13.5 Wemimo Abbey: OpenAid initiative was sort of my first foray into technology.
0:08:17.3 Everett Sands: Okay.
0:08:18.5 Wemimo Abbey: And I sort of understood quickly was sort of a class project.
0:08:23.6 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:08:24.4 Wemimo Abbey: That then led into working at a fellowship at one of my professors lab. And then that project turned into an initiative I was working with a company with and then it was eventually like turned over to them as an acquisition because it was a big fund that I wanted access. So this infrastructure.
0:08:42.7 Everett Sands: Infrastructure, are you saying the data?
0:08:45.0 Wemimo Abbey: No, it was essentially a database built with different taxonomy of continents, region. So, like continent, Africa region, West Africa, country, example, Nigeria, state, and a whole bunch of strata of data. And then you essentially use Google Maps and other mapping tools to map exactly where these initiatives are, and then the key attributes of those initiatives.
0:09:16.7 Everett Sands: I got it.
0:09:17.4 Wemimo Abbey: It taught me back then there's a lot of things that we're trying to do that with AI you can do in a twinkle of an eye. But back then you had to set up a database, you had to like do descriptions, you had to geotag, check the longitude and latitude. You don't do that anymore. But it was sort of my foray into technology and I was one of the ways, I said, wow, technology could really change the world.
0:09:39.5 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:09:40.0 Wemimo Abbey: I'm fortunate. I got to meet my co-founder, Samir. Here we are, building Esusu.
0:09:45.2 Everett Sands: So talk to me a little bit about corporate. Completely change of pace. I mean, you're an entrepreneur, clearly, whether it be motivated by your family circumstances, your call it socioeconomic circumstances. But you go to corporate. I mean, you probably just pushed a button and the FedEx was delivered. Like, what's that transition like, first of all?
0:10:05.0 Wemimo Abbey: I always thought back then I was going to go work at the United Nations and be in politics and do all those things and try to...
0:10:14.1 Everett Sands: I can see that.
0:10:14.8 Wemimo Abbey: And try and try... I love what I do at this, but I also think institutions matter and...
0:10:22.7 Everett Sands: Absolutely.
0:10:23.3 Wemimo Abbey: It's sort of growing up trying as much as possible to understand different perspective. I like talking to people that are fundamentally different than I am, even if I don't agree with them, because that's where I learned the most. I don't enjoy being in the room where there's a lot of echo chambers.
0:10:39.4 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:10:39.9 Wemimo Abbey: I think Minnesota taught me a lot about that. But my journey into corporate America was really funny because every time in international development, you always hear folks in the business community saying, well, you really have to think about it from a business perspective. I'm like, well, I've run a lot of revenue-generating businesses. I really wanted to learn in corporate America.
0:11:06.4 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:11:07.0 Wemimo Abbey: So, but the tipping points for me was, I was at NYU for graduate studies. Mayor Bloomberg came and sort of talking to the class and he said something really profound which was, the best way to have an impact is really to have this intersection of business and then the public sector. And the public sector that collaboration.
0:11:31.8 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:11:32.9 Wemimo Abbey: Plays a key role. So a lot of my friends were going to Wall Street and I said, how hard can it be? And in undergrad I had studied the impact of the Great Depression and understand the drivers of the 1929 crash. And then what happened in the '70s with inflation sort of skyrockets and what happened in the '90s and then what happened in the dot com boom leading up to stars and a financial crisis or sort of a student of economic history, a market boom and bust. And that was my interview, quite frankly, because I was studying development finance and graduate school. That was not necessarily my path, but I understand power finance, and my old premise was how do we essentially make sure this doesn't happen again. And after talking to 12 people, got my job in a bank. I was just... I actually just spoke at last week. The CEO there always talks about the fact that he focuses on the 99%. He spends his time obsessed about the 1%, not the 99%.
0:12:44.2 Everett Sands: Interesting.
0:12:48.2 Wemimo Abbey: And so at Esusu, those are some of the values I actually brought with, which is like, we don't care about the 99% of what goes right. It's the 1% that can ruin our reputation. We focus on. So that was my journey to... In a big bank on Wall Street. And then I eventually went to go do mergers and acquisition. Doing buy side, sell side due diligence.
0:13:10.6 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:13:11.5 Wemimo Abbey: Buying companies, divesting companies did that for many Fortune 500 companies, but started from a technical perspective of like, due diligence. So you can... Before a company gets acquired, you have a special group of people that do the deal. They create a data pack. They do all the board book.
0:13:31.1 Everett Sands: Sure.
0:13:31.6 Wemimo Abbey: The deal gets to sign and close and eventually it's announced to the world. So it's always exciting for me to see the pipeline of what's going on. And I'm like a deal junkie. So I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun doing that. And did post announcements and post integration work for the most iconic brands, which I will not mention, just out of respect. And did that for over $50 billion in deal value.
0:14:01.3 Everett Sands: Nice.
0:14:04.2 Wemimo Abbey: And my co-founder and I, Samir, had a conversation in 2015 and it was this really grounded conversation and said, would we ever have to ask ourselves, what if in our life.
0:14:15.4 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:14:16.1 Wemimo Abbey: And do we want to create solutions that could really impact the world? Samir was running a different company. I was running a different company just at like the small exit. From that technology company. And he was working... I don't know that technology institution in corporate America. I was there in my own. And we met and I think that meeting at a coffee shop, Max Brenner's and Union Square fundamentally changed our life, because at that point we agreed we were going to do something together. Christmas day of December 25, 2015, we made a commitment to ourselves that we're going to create a company that fundamentally impacts our communities. And almost 10 years later, here we are.
0:14:58.6 Everett Sands: So what made you land on data specifically? I think. And then the lack of use of data is almost what I would say. Your fintech platform effectively provides not only data solutions, but essentially it's taken what is known this unreportable data and making it reportable.
0:15:16.5 Wemimo Abbey: Right. Yeah. I think when we look at the data.
0:15:21.1 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:15:21.7 Wemimo Abbey: There are over 110 million people that rent in the United States. They send on an average $1100 to their landlords. If you do that math. That's close to $1.4 trillion that is sort of moved from renter to landlord every year. And the focus for us is do we use that data as price risk? So when we get this business, less than 3% of that data showed up on the credit score.
0:15:49.3 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:15:49.7 Wemimo Abbey: Your credit score is one of the most important attributes to be able to price risk and get access to finance.
0:15:58.0 Everett Sands: Absolutely.
0:16:01.8 Wemimo Abbey: So we asked ourselves a fundamental question. What if we have a world where your rental data is commonplace and reflects it in your credit Score? Why it's 30 to 50% of folks monthly expenses, especially loads of median income people. And we thought if you pay your mortgage, you get credit for it, but if you pay rent, that data doesn't show up. So we created the plumbing. We are like data plumbers.
0:16:23.6 Everett Sands: That's right.
0:16:24.0 Wemimo Abbey: Take it from the landlords, transform it, make sure it's compliant and shepherd it to the credit rating agencies. So when you pay your rent, it shows up on your credit score. And that was the old play. And number two was when people can have that data reflected in their credit score. We wanted to create a virtual cycle. When you report rental data, research shows that seven out of 10 renters tend to pay their rent on time.
0:16:53.4 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:16:54.0 Wemimo Abbey: Number two, which means if people pay their rent on time, the landlord will have more on time cash to pay their mortgage. Then renters, when they want to go borrow from Lendistry, for example, will get access to a good credit score that actually reflects the true measure of their character, not just a subset of their debt obligations. So it was a win, win, win outcome for us. And ultimately, there was a bigger play. The average debt in this country is over $98,000. There are 45 million people that are considered credit thin on scored.
0:17:28.7 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:17:29.0 Wemimo Abbey: If you do that math, you can unlock over $4.1 trillion to the American community... American society. That's not charity. That's good for GDP. That's good for businesses. And that unlocks opportunities for each and every one of us and hopefully, generates great economic stimulation in the marketplace. So we wanted to create that virtuous cycle and that's what we're able to do.
0:17:55.2 Everett Sands: So sometimes we sit around here in Lendistry, we break a glass ceiling. Not like yours, yours is a big glass ceiling. But did you ever sit around and be like this too? Like somebody tried to do this before. Somebody thought they could put Lendistry on credit reports. Did you find the person? Or did you like... Is it this mysterious person that doesn't actually exist and you guys are the first ones that ever thought about this?
0:18:18.0 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah, I think when it comes to ideas like ours, timing is really important.
0:18:21.6 Everett Sands: Absolutely.
0:18:22.3 Wemimo Abbey: So there have been folks that have attempted to do this on a direct-to-consumer level. So Everett rents at apartment 2A. You want to go get 1 million Everett? There's something called Cacti LTV, right?
0:18:36.8 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:18:37.1 Wemimo Abbey: How much is it going to cost you to acquire Everett as a customer? Is that scalable? Your go to market is really powerful there. So different business models that launched that we learned from and then when we looked at it, I've always come from the school of thoughts that you need to have one to many business model and build a platform.
0:18:53.0 Everett Sands: Interesting.
0:18:57.6 Wemimo Abbey: Right. So our approach was, hey, let's create a win, win, win. Who do the renters need to make their obligations to? Wow. The landlords. So let's go work with the landlords. And who do the landlords answer to? Their lenders. Huh? What do their lenders, when they securitize the deal needs to work with? The government-sponsored agencies. Wow. Who do the government-sponsored agencies care about? Congress that makes laws to make sure it's more easier for Americans to get access to financing and drive economic policies. Who are those people accountable to and set macroeconomic policy? The Treasury. And then who are we all accountable to on a macro? The American people. So when you do that stakeholder mapping, you see, you ask yourself a quintessential question.
0:19:49.7 Wemimo Abbey: Where do we... Where's our entry points and where do we want to start from? And our entry points were simple. It was, hey, let's work with the owners and operators of real estate report data. Show them that this could drive on-time payments. Show them that their renters can improve credit scores because when their renters are not paying high interest for having a poor credit score, it could cost you over a quarter million dollars in interest if you have a poor credit score over your lifetime. So if we're helping them save money that they otherwise won't spend on interest, maybe they'll pay their rent on time. So we focused on that subcategory. We also started selling to lenders. We started selling to governments. And then now have a macro data piece that we share across board. So that's stakeholder mapping.
0:20:34.7 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:20:34.9 Wemimo Abbey: Sort of thought us that we're not only going to start with the renter, we're going to have different approach and spend a lot of our time on the most effective go-to-market channel. So that's how we were able to figure it out and do something radically different that has been done before, and partnered with government. So we convinced Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to say, hey, you if renters can report their rent, this data would also help, hopefully the securitized.
0:21:03.4 Everett Sands: Absolutely.
0:21:04.3 Wemimo Abbey: Mortgages that you have perform better. And you know, they played a key role introducing us to a lot of people they lend to. And that drove us to have incredible scale.
0:21:16.4 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:21:16.9 Wemimo Abbey: In the marketplace. And we're immensely grateful for that. And it was also a drum beat in Congress. So Congress then tried to pass a legislation, the Credit Inclusion Act. On a bipartisan basis by Republicans and Democrats.
0:21:31.6 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:21:32.1 Wemimo Abbey: Everyone all agree on this even till today.
0:21:34.5 Everett Sands: Yeah.
0:21:34.9 Wemimo Abbey: Democrats and Republicans agree that credit... Rental data should show up on your credit score. It's one of the few bipartisan things we have in our country today. So we also leverage that tailwind to tell very, very compelling stories of what's happening in people's lives and above all, the impacts of what happens. So we work with owners and operators with over $5 million. They are 15 million... 12 million renters that reside in their housing, and they have combined just under $100 billion in gross list volume.
0:22:04.5 Everett Sands: Wow.
0:22:07.7 Wemimo Abbey: And we've established credit scores for like, 200,000 people improved credit scores for millions of people across our ecosystem. And all those people have gone on to unlock $50 billion in economic activity, good debt, $30 billion of which is mortgages. The tried and true way to build wealth in America. 10 billion in auto loan, so people can drive their kids to good schools and get jobs. Some of them went student loans, some of them went credit cards. So we've been able to unlock opportunities, expand the credit box, give people more leverage and hopefully good leverage to continue to live the American dream.
0:22:50.9 Everett Sands: So we will hold that thought. Now a quick word from Lendistry's boss, our customer.
0:22:55.5 Wemimo Abbey: We'll be right back.
0:22:56.5 Christina Uzzardi: My name is Christina Uzzardi, and I'm the founder and CEO of Cheeks + Co. Cheeks + Co is a facial and brow spa with two locations in Los Angeles and a line of clean beauty products. Working with Lendistry has affected my business and my personal life in many ways. On a business side, I was able to really establish our name as a brand with more than one location. And on a personal level, I don't have to stress worrying that I can't afford the second location. Lendistry really worked with me on finding an affordable loan, and I also didn't have to give away equity. So I don't lose sleep at night knowing that I gave away a lot of my business. I own 100% of it still, thanks to Lendistry's help. I would absolutely recommend Lendistry to other small business owners. I feel that Lendistry understands the unique problems that small business owners face.
0:23:48.0 Everett Sands: Coming back, you said so many important things. I want to do a little bit of translation for our audience because I think what we hear sometimes from businesses, I have an idea. Is my idea big enough? And one of the things I think that's really important that you said is kind of the commercialization of the idea. Not necessarily... Not the product, I'm sure that too. But to make a decision that the landlords had to win the WIFM. What's in it for me? The consumer had a WIFM, the government agencies, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac had one. And then even, Congress had a bipartisan issue that I could go out and say, look, I did this for you. And then the billions of dollars that you unlocked, like that's really, really impressive. I mean, I'm assuming part of that kind of the infrastructure and thought process of that is part of your IDF background has to be. Because you had to think about, how does the sort of the individual win and call it the country win and maybe even the continent in some way shape or form. Am I thinking about that right?
0:24:53.2 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah, you are. Every idea I have worked on in my life is always... Has three core principles. Number one, how do we create a win, win, win scenario? Life is too short. To walk on win lose. I am just not interested. It doesn't get me out of bed. Money does not motivate me. Impacts gets me on a high. I'm just... It's just something to be able to have an impact in people's lives is just really key for me. So a win, win, win for all stakeholders is hard. But when you find that virtual cycle, you have to capitalize on it. Number two, that is important is just my background. I grew up very poor and we always ask people that... We always have the saying that think outside the box, but we never let people outside the box, engage. It tells you how many... When you think about folks that get access to capital, it's a really, really lopsided stat. That's a different podcast we can talk about later. But we had the good fortune of getting access to capital. Despite immense struggle, despite 326 people saying no to us on this journey, we're still able to create solutions, but for people in our communities and as external values, are all Americans that especially rent can get quality financial products. And then number three, that is really, really important for me is impact. We want to create solutions that is not only going to be a win, win, win. It's not only going to have a profound difference, but from an impact perspective, what are you going to do that's going to fundamentally change people's life, positively? So that's one thing that we focus on and doing all those things the best you can, playing the Hippocratic role. Do do harm. Yeah. So that's the guiding principle. That's the compass that we've sort of navigated. Creating Esusu that extends beyond all the Ideas I've worked on throughout my life. For me, that's what gets me excited. That's what gets me out of bed. Knowing what I do not only makes a difference, but can fundamentally change the cost of someone's life.
0:27:20.7 Everett Sands: So when you guys are starting, you and your co-founder, obviously, you guys have been in the company before, you've got some synergy and chemistry. But you just said one thing that I picked up on. 326 people said no. Well, first of all, what was your pitch? And then, I'm sure it's evolved, but what was coming the first pitch and why were they saying no? Just curious. What was it?
0:27:40.7 Wemimo Abbey: They thought that this was not a big enough addressable market for us to... And number two, it was such a hard thing to do. It involved changing mental models and hearts and minds. Look at the stakeholder market I shared with you. Renters, owners and operators, lenders, government sponsors.
0:28:04.5 Everett Sands: They were like, yeah, right?
0:28:08.5 Wemimo Abbey: Government... How do you convince those people? Okay, let me open up the report card. The report card now is owners and operators of real estate, $5 million, 12 million people, $100 billion in gross list volume. Number two, lenders. We work with the most powerful lenders with assets over north of $2 trillion across the United States and operating across the world also. Number three, the government-sponsored entities. We worked successfully with both of them to introduce this idea and democratize access across board. Number four, government. We have legislation in Congress that passed, the Credit Inclusion act was one. And then number two, we have bipartisan bills. By Republicans. By Democrats that have been introduced in governments. Make sure this works. And if you ask both sides of the aisle, they agree on this particular matter. And number five, is policies on the local level. It's actually law in California to make sure your rental data shows up on your credit score, especially if you're living in any government-funded properties. So the things we said we were going to do we've executed against. And the government... This administration came out and said rental data should not be reflected in mortgages. That is incredibly powerful. It's just like when FICO was... When the government said FICO will be the ultimate way to look at mortgages and other loan. We've been given that watershed moments now whereby rental data will be quintessential to mortgage underwriting and eventually other debt obligations.
0:29:41.5 Everett Sands: Absolutely.
0:29:49.8 Wemimo Abbey: So we've done what we said we were going to do. The numbers speaks for itself. People were doubting the impacts on the first person. And number two is, is this a commercial idea that could stand the test of time? Like I told you, 326 people said hello to us, at the dark part of this journey, my co-founder and I were kicked out of a Denny's because we're $100,000 in credit card debt. I couldn't afford an hotel room.
0:30:13.4 Everett Sands: Been there.
0:30:14.2 Wemimo Abbey: And wanted to like crash in a Denny's. But we made our way. We kept fighting. We kept asking people at an institution bet on us and the other bet on us. And today Esusu has raised 145 million valued at a billion dollars. And we're just getting started.
0:30:31.0 Everett Sands: Congrats. I remember when I met you two years ago on stage, I feel like you had either just closed the deal or you just hit unicorn status. So congrats.
0:30:39.2 Wemimo Abbey: Well, unicorn status is a mortgage. You have to back it up with performance.
0:30:42.7 Everett Sands: It doesn't pay the bills.
0:30:48.6 Wemimo Abbey: It doesn't pay the bills. But I'm really grateful for what my colleagues at Esusu do day in, day outs, and the best is still ahead for us.
0:30:56.8 Everett Sands: That's awesome. So let's talk a little bit about that journey to unicorn status. You got a co CEO structure. What's that like?
0:31:03.5 Wemimo Abbey: Well, Samir is like my brother and best friend, was best man in my wedding. I was the best man in his.
0:31:12.8 Everett Sands: Nice.
0:31:13.0 Wemimo Abbey: And we just have a very unique relationship. When we started Esusu, we had a pledge to each other to check our egos at the door. But we understand we have egos and we need to leverage. It's in the best interest of the company.
0:31:26.5 Everett Sands: Interesting.
0:31:30.7 Wemimo Abbey: So being a CEO is hard. This is my third rodeo. And selfishly being my third rodeo, I wanted someone I trust I can bounce ideas off of. I did not want to be lonely on the journey...
0:31:43.3 Everett Sands: I totally get it.
0:31:44.2 Wemimo Abbey: So Samir, if I'm having a bad day and I have someone that knows exactly what I'm feeling, I can vent to and have my therapy session. And when he's having a bad day...
[overlapping conversation]
0:32:10.7 Wemimo Abbey: You just have conversation. And Samir also loves the saying that, nothing worth doing is what doing alone. And that's what sort of links the power of what we do at Esusu. Esusu the name of our company is a West African name that come from the Yoruba culture that says if you want to go fast, you go alone, but if you want to go far, you go together.
0:32:20.2 Everett Sands: Nice.
0:32:20.4 Wemimo Abbey: So this idea of collectivism has been in the DNA of the company. And a lot of investors said no to us. Like we don't believe in co CEOs, but now everyone has co CEOs. I think Oracle has co CEOs, at some point. Salesforce had one and the big, big private equity institutions have one. We think it's a good redundancy plan.
0:32:46.9 Everett Sands: Yeah, absolutely.
0:32:48.9 Wemimo Abbey: We think it's a good mental health thing to do because something good happens every day and something crappy happens every day. We just got to keep a smile on and keep chalking along. So we really believe in this idea. It's imbibed in our values. One of the things we do at Esusu is called Forward Together. And it's built on this premise that we have to fundamentally, as a collectivist society, at least in Esusu, try as much as possible to address person challenges not alone, but as a collective. And what myself and Samir has been able to do and continue to do, we hope is an example in society and not just outliers to move pressing, impactful and successful business ventures forward.
0:33:29.9 Everett Sands: That's awesome. That's awesome. So we know that you're... One of your strategies, and I would almost call it like a channel strategy, is to reach the landlords and obviously large landlords here. Do you have other strategies that would you try to get to the renter.
0:33:43.8 Wemimo Abbey: Fantastic point. So the initial strategy was work with owners and operators, whether the landlords or housing providers. The next thing we've launched actually was making sure that we can also partner with fintechs and anyone that aggregates fintechs banks, any other app that's focused on financial health of folks in the country and hopefully eventually around the world. So a big partnership we recently announced two weeks ago was with Zillow.
0:34:15.9 Everett Sands: I saw it.
0:34:22.7 Wemimo Abbey: [0:34:22.5] ____ company. Thank you. So if you go on the Zillow app, whether you're within Zillow's ecosystem or not, you can sign up to leverage your rental data to contribute towards your credit score. And they have 228 million people that visit them on a monthly basis. So we have a great deal of respect for them. We were highlighted on their earnings call by their CEO and we're just really excited to add value, continue to move the frontiers of this idea forward. And Zillow is a starting point. We have a lot of announcements that will come up in coming weeks and the best is still yet to come.
0:35:00.1 Everett Sands: Now I also saw you at the LAFC stadium. First, are you a football/soccer fan?
0:35:08.4 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah.
0:35:09.8 Everett Sands: Am I going to see you [0:35:10.8] ____ in FIFA, like at the World Cup? Are you going to still be a spectator?
0:35:13.6 Wemimo Abbey: Oh, man. Football in the United States, otherwise known as soccer, was my first love. I thought I was going to be a professional, soccer player. And that necessarily didn't happen because my mother said I must go to school. I couldn't go play in Spain for a youth academy that I was recruited to do, but I don't think I turned out that bad. I love the game. I am a big, big. Arsenal supporter. Okay. It's a club in North London.
0:35:45.8 Everett Sands: We just lost half our audience.
0:35:47.3 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah.
[overlapping conversation]
0:35:49.6 Wemimo Abbey: It's a great club. I've been supporting the club for over two decades, probably coming up on three decades...
0:35:57.3 Everett Sands: I can't take you to a Manchester United unless they play Arsenal.
0:36:00.3 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah, yeah, that's gonna be tough. But provided it's not Tottenham, Manchester United...
0:36:10.4 Everett Sands: You could deal with that.
0:36:10.4 Wemimo Abbey: See, I have a great deal of respect. The great Alex Ferguson was the coach. And the Theater of Dreams is quite an incredible stadium in Old Trafford. So I love the game. And we have a very unique partnership with LAFC. We think the game... We always think about places that bring different people together and whether you're white, black, Latino, whatever creed you come from, football or soccer in the United States really creates this connection. And that's one of the reasons why we decided to be one of the partners at LAFC, to make sure that we continue the spirit of what we talk about at Esusu, which is this idea of collectivism. So we want our products to not only impact people in Los Angeles, we want it to be in South Dakota, North Dakota, Oregon, New York, across many places in the United States. And we think the soccer stadium does that. And our partnership has been quite remarkable. And when people... When our clients bring their kids and they get to interact with the players, it's a moment they'll never forget. And that's one of the customer experience that we are hopefully aspiring towards, which is when people engage with us. Say, wow, those folks feel like my family member. And being family is not just about having the same blood that runs through you. It's all people that care about you.
0:37:40.6 Everett Sands: That's interesting.
0:37:43.6 Wemimo Abbey: So making sure that translates and giving that people that awesome experience is something that we care about.
0:37:47.3 Everett Sands: That's cool. I mean, speaking of the customer, obviously, you help them in terms of proving their credit profile. Hopefully, that is a wealth exercise. Regardless of the asset that they choose to use it on. What's the customer been like in terms of your own leadership journey? How's it changed you or molded you or... You've always had customers per se. But I feel like this one's a little bit different than some of the other businesses you run.
0:38:10.5 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah, it's absolutely different. I think you have to have a maniacal focus on your customers. I still have accounts I manage today.
0:38:20.0 Everett Sands: Who is it?
0:38:22.4 Wemimo Abbey: I manage one of our biggest accounts and it's been my baby since... Wow. They've been working with us for probably close to six or seven years now. And the first time we walked into... It's big real estate owner and operator in New York City, they own arts and yards correlated companies. And the first time we walked into the office was a no. They actually dressed us down and said we didn't know what we're talking about, but we asked the question. We had a gentleman there called Jeff Brodsky that sat us down and said, hey, this is how the industry works. We learn from him, got the best security, put the right business processes in place and actually felt the pain and the value proposition. And he's been in the industry for over three decades at that point. So we learned from him. We use rejection as a learning point. And then it became one of our biggest clients for years, consistently. So if they text me at 2:00 AM in the morning, I'm going to respond. If they call me, whenever I'm there, I'll fly to New York because I do value that relationship and I do value learning from our customers. Another person I have a great deal of respect for is the CEO of Avanath and founder, actually Daryl Carter. Incredible human being, you know, from Michigan, very tall.
0:39:41.3 Everett Sands: Yeah, he's my fraternal brother, so I know him.
0:39:44.5 Wemimo Abbey: The world is so small.
0:39:46.1 Everett Sands: Super small.
0:39:49.3 Wemimo Abbey: I was just with him last weekend. I just have such a great deal of respect for him. I remember I went to a conference during the early days at Esusu and he was just dragging me around, introducing me to people.
0:40:00.0 Everett Sands: That's Daryl.
0:40:00.8 Wemimo Abbey: And I tried to do that for other people coming behind us at Esusu and just showing them the way, making sure we don't make the same mistakes they made. Introducing us to people, walking with us, helping us be better. I think that's what we need in society.
[overlapping conversation]
0:40:22.0 Wemimo Abbey: Like just someone that can show you the way, someone that can set you up for success. And I am really, really obsessed with our customers. I value them a lot. I learned from them. Now Esusu, who has a huge customer theme, and the books I carry, I give the rewards to someone else, obviously. But what fills me on this journey is some of the things I get to do. That's not really talked about a lot. As I go to the properties we work with, I talk to real residents. And I hear their stories. And it's very similar to what my mother and I went through in Nigeria. And for me that... When I hear those stories, when I have conversations with them, when I hear their struggles, it just inspires me and I try to share that with, attempt to deliver for them and also learn from them on the next ideas that would actually generate revenue. And deliver for out stakeholders.
[overlapping conversation]
0:41:24.8 Wemimo Abbey: So that's what we do. We had a skill now whereby if we listen to our customers and execute, it's going to be really hard not to be successful except we do something fundamentally wrong. I really enjoy talking to our customers and particularly the folks that are having the impact. I can spend all day with them because I just feel inspired...
0:41:43.3 Everett Sands: So what's next? Do you add another data point to the credit bureau? I mean credit reporting? Like what are the customers telling you they need?
0:41:51.8 Wemimo Abbey: Yeah. So I think, that's a fantastic point. The three things we focus on at Esusu, where I think about the pillars, it's a navigational journey. How do you take someone from financial identity. They've not been seen by the American Financial System. How do you take them through stability? So provide a platform where if someone needs rental insurance, life insurance, they need a auto loan. Give them differentiated products that's fairly priced to make sure they are stable. And if they fall short, there's also products that can help them out. And eventually, when someone is stable, then we can start thinking about wealth building. Do they want to buy a house? Do they want to have other assets that's accretive? Do they want to invest? So that's the three-step journey we're on in the identity side and a little niche. We've made a dent and the numbers speaks for itself. And the impact we've had speaks for itself. I believe when people think about rent reports and they probably think about us and the partnerships we've made in the marketplace...
0:43:02.8 Everett Sands: Amazing.
0:43:02.9 Wemimo Abbey: With more publicly traded institution sort of speaks for itself. But the most important thing now we're focused on is and we learn from our customer. We've had inflation. But income hasn't kept up with the pace of inflation, we've had a different radical way of working whereby we have geek workers now that flexibility to work. And some of the unique ideas that we're working on is how do we make sure people can get access to products that makes it a little bit flexible for them to pay their rent, for example. So we have a lending product so people can borrow at zero interest, get access to it. We pay their landlord and they can pay us over time. So iterating on that product is something that we're really, really excited about. The partnership with Zillow was also a customer feedback and say release APIs and make sure it's accessible to everyone and create a plaid for rent reporting. And that's what we've created. And Zillow is one of many that you're going to be hearing about.
0:44:01.8 Everett Sands: Nice.
0:44:06.8 Wemimo Abbey: And ultimately what we care about is how do people get access to the American Dream? Rental data is not going to be part of mortgage underwriting. How do we make sure we make it easier for people to get mortgages? Because we can tell what their credit score is. We can tell if they are ready because in some cases they give us access to their bank accounts and then we can use that data to create what I call an ideographic solution for them, unique for them, tailored to make sure they get access to wealth-building solutions. That's what we are focused on right now and spending a lot of our time on. And you're going to be earning a lot of product releases in weeks, actually not months.
0:44:43.9 Everett Sands: I'm excited for that. I'm excited for that. So last question for you want to go back whether it's the 17-year-old coming to the US or any part of your younger self, what's the advice you would give to your younger self? Now three-time CEO, been through multiple capital raises, lots of journey, tremendous amount of impact. What do you tell yourself?
0:45:07.9 Wemimo Abbey: It's the advice President Clinton gave me 11 or 12 years ago in Arizona, which is be caught trying. In life, you're going to be knocked down. People will tell you no, your ideas won't work, you have failures, you're going to have heartache. In life you just got to show up and be caught trying. That's after battle, just showing up knowing you're going to get knocked down. Just be caught trying. You want to create a business that you think can impact the world, but you stumble. Be caught trying. You go to investors and 326 of them say no to you get up and be caught trying. And there's an African American saying that says, if you hang around the barbershop, sooner or later you're going to get haircut.
0:45:59.2 Everett Sands: That's right.
0:46:00.6 Wemimo Abbey: Provided you're caught trying. It's not a matter of if. At Esusu, we always say it's a matter of when. So, be caught trying.
0:46:05.7 Everett Sands: That's awesome. Appreciate having you on the show. Thank you for your time. Means a lot to us. It means a lot to the audience.
0:46:13.3 Wemimo Abbey: Thanks a lot for having me. And we're really, really excited. And keep up the good work at Lendistry.
0:46:17.9 Everett Sands: Thanks, man. Thanks for hanging out with us on Small Business Unscripted. Want more? Head to smallbusinessunscripted.com, where you can have additional episodes, helpful resources, and to keep the conversation going. See you next time.
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