Tim Chen (entrepreneur)
| Tim Chen | |
|---|---|
| Residence | San Francisco |
| Education | Stanford |
| Known for | NerdWallet |
Tim Chen is an American entrepreneur who is co-founder and CEO of NerdWallet, a personal finance startup. Chen is the majority owner of NerdWallet, which according to Crunchbase has a valuation of $550 million.[1]
Early life and career
He was born to Taiwanese parents, who were computers scientists that emigrated to the US to study at the University of Oklahoma.[2] He grew up in Atlanta and went to the same high school as childhood friend Jake Gibson, who would go on to co-found NerdWallet. He went to Stanford for undergrad and after worked for a hedge fund in New York, where he lived in the same Murray Hill intersection with Gibson, at the time another finance professional.[2] During the 2009 global financial crisis, Chen lost his job during a wave of layoffs on Wall Street.[2]
NerdWallet
The inspiration for NerdWallet came after he was asked by family members about personal finance decisions and found advice online to be unsatisfactory. With $800 he founded NerdWallet with Jake Gibson in 2009 as a website to advise consumers on personal finance.[3] The website has sought to distinguish itself from competitors by having a "newsroom" of journalists who write journalistic type articles on personal finance that help the website appear in search engine results, and also listing unsponsored credit card options.[2][4]
A feature piece by Inc. magazine on Chen and his management style called the organizational culture he created "transparent, glaringly self-critical, not always comfortable."[2]In the initial days, Chen looked to "hire smart people; let them figure it out".[2] This meant hiring other former Wall Street professionals who resembled the co-founders but Chen found the result to be a company with shaky teamwork.[2] To reset his company, he fired 20% of his workforce at the end of 2013, calling it an "extremely gut-wrenching" decision.[2] Chen then restructured the management organization to move away from silos to a matrix that "requires near-constant communication among NerdWallet's leaders".[2]
In raising capital, Chen has favored waiting for the company to grow before taking major financing.[3] Six years after the founding the company held its first round of investment, raising $64 million from investors and $36 in bank lending from Silicon Valley Bank in 2015.[3]
References
- ↑ "NerdWallet". Crunchbase.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Aspan, Maria (February 2016). "The $520 Million Company That's Solving All Your Financial Needs". Inc..
- 1 2 3 Shieber, Johnathan (May 11, 2015). "Scorching FinTech Market Keeps Attracting New Players As NerdWallet Raises $64 Million". Tech Crunch.
- ↑ "Interview with Tim Chen, Founder of NerdWallet". Good Financial Cents. April 20, 2010.