Paintbrush - $50k funding at the idea stage - yes, really

@alec_zaharov Thanks!

Hey @kat_kennedy1, thanks for checking us out! Right now we’re focused on businesses in industries that have a reasonable chance of getting to revenue within 6 months, primarily software, hardware, consumer goods, ecomm/dropshipping, locally-based businesses, consulting, and side gigs. You can see the full list of businesses we do and don’t support here.

Hey @salah_eddine_bendyab, unfortunately right now, yes. We would love to offer this internationally, and hopefully we will be able to at some point! Right now we're partnered with an amazing sponsor bank, Continental Bank, to make these loans possible, and their license is based in the US, so we are only able to lend within the US for now.

@nlsanders The income-driven repayment option means that if your business fails and the loan hasn’t been repaid fully, instead of having the same payment each month regardless of your circumstances, you can have it fluctuate as a percent of your income. So if it takes you a while to find a job after your startup fails, you don’t have to pay anything (15% of $0 is $0!), or if you’re in a sales role where your commission varies, you don’t have to worry about not being able to make payments. (Also, if your income is below $50k/year, repayment is paused.) More info here: http://support.getpaintbrush.com...

YESSS @kaela_worthen @heathwblack

@gabe_moronta More companies are being started every day than ever before, and the bar for getting funding is only getting higher. Hopefully we can help bridge that gap. 🙏

Thanks @tannerhp! So glad to hear you mention those words—transparency has been a big focus since we started out. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for first-time founders who don't have a CFO yet to know exactly what their options are and what they're getting into. Which is why they can see all the criteria before even applying, know interest over the life of the loan, monthly payment amounts, everything, without giving us a single piece of personal information. It's all public on our site.

Thanks @sturbovsky! Yes, that is absolutely on the roadmap for us. One step at a time :)

@michael_zaro The Paintbrush Loan is ideal for founders in these areas:

Software

Physical product innovation

Consumer goods

Local business

Ecommerce/dropshipping

Consulting

Side gigs Click here for a full list of businesses we can and cannot support at this time: http://support.getpaintbrush.com...

Thanks so much, @michelledearxox! Two big themes for us stood out: 1. The majority of businesses that get created aren't venture-scalable, and if you can't raise money through equity, there's nothing available at the idea stage. That just seemed so stupid that over 99% of businesses had no options available to them. 2. We really wanted to figure out how to reduce barriers to entry in a scalable way—no worrying about warm intros or if you meet someone's idea of what a good founder looks like or anything else. We're not solving either of those problems perfectly yet, but we continue to obsess over them every day and we'll continue working on them until we have!

@kaela_worthen love it! makes a ton of sense