Case study
REPLACING A BAD CONTRACTOR
How Fundera Faced Crisis Head On
…and Overachieved to the Point of Acquisition
The Urgent Need to Replace an Unsatisfactory Vendor
Fundera needed to upskill the team and position the company for acquisition while navigating a rapidly changing financial landscape. Challenges were exacerbated by an unsatisfactory vendor.
COVID-19 Impact: The pandemic halted traditional loans for small businesses, and Fundera needed to pivot to provide access to government funding and context-appropriate financial advice.
Market Urgency: With small businesses facing potential closures, Fundera had to quickly adapt to meet the urgent financial needs of their clients. It's userbase would potentially shrink.
Underdelivering Provider: The previous contractor consistently underdelivered. The team was unhappy with the low quality, over-the-wall development, lack of visibility, and the need for multiple revisions and extensive re-work by the in-house team. There was no budget for extra hands.
Ubiminds' Strategic Solution: Rethink and Implement a Result-Driven Team Culture
To address these issues, they replaced six contractors from Africa and the Caribbean with four more senior Ubiminders at the same cost. This change allowed them to pivot successfully amidst the COVID situation, achieve their roadmap goals, increase their valuation, and eventually sell the company to NerdWallet.
High-Quality Candidates: Ubiminds sought candidates who exceed explicit requirements and take extra effort in questioning the scope and understanding the product and process well enough to propose innovations.
Proactive and Communicative Team Members: In the hiring process, Ubiminds provided ambiguous and vague tickets to test candidates' ability to push back and ask questions. We greenlit candidates who engaged with the team to gain perspective beyond the specs.
Fundera by NerdWallet in a nutshell
Fundera: A marketplace for small business financial solutions, empowering business owners with expert insights and tailored options for loans, credit cards, and bank accounts.
NerdWallet: A financial institution offering banking, insurance, and credit cards, simplifying financial decisions for individuals and businesses.
850 team members
Market Cap: $772.6M (NASDAQ: NRDS)
“There's this mindset of what else can I learn? What else can I contribute? One engineer moved from one business line to another for a chance to work on new things. And we have another who's acting as a lead in a triad of product, design, and engineering where he owns the business outcomes on par with the product manager. ”
Kaitlyn Clark
Product Lead @NerdWallet
The Right Ally Makes All the Difference.
Fundera and Nerdwallet have joined forces with Ubiminds to upskill their teams with business-savvy, critical thinkers. Here's what you get with high-performers that are mission-driven:
Team Upskilling
Achieved higher seniority and autonomy within the same budget.
Pivot into Fruition
Quickly and systematically adjusted the product to ever-changing scenarios.
Successful Acquisition
The product's engaged user base contributed to the Acquisition by Nerdwallet.