💳 Why CRED is simply great?

Ever wondered why CRED is one of the greatest Fintech apps in India and how it targets its consumers?

If you had ever followed my previous blogs, you would have probably known how much I love the CRED app and its founder Kunal Shah. I would have spoken about either of these two at least more than in one blog. Why does this Fintech startup company excite me this much?

CRED is one of the most fascinating startups that India has ever witnessed. In just 2 years, CRED went from 0 to 2B in valuation. But CRED has been incurring losses right from its inception and in fact, it incurred a loss of -490% in 2020. Stating this, if given a chance, I would definitely invest in CRED. But why would I invest in a loss-making company which is sitting on huge debt right from its inception?

That's because CRED's business model is designed in such a way that it will change the behavioural design of society. This strategy is called UBP (Unique Bragworthy Proposition) and was theorized by the CRED and Freecharge founder Kunal Shah. This is the same strategy on which Reliance's Jio and Ola function. I will explain what UBP is, in another blog. As of now let's deep dive into what CRED does.

💳 What does CRED do?

CRED is a fintech app that helps credit card users pay their credit card bills on time. So what is fascinating about this fintech app?

Well, people who have 2-3 credit cards stopped using the conventional method wherein they had to go through the long list of their statements or put effort into digging in and finding out what the hidden charges and these people switched to CRED which did these things effortlessly. As a CRED user myself, I feel extremely easy-peasy to pay my credit card bills on time without a hassle.

And here is the best part - You get exclusive perks for paying your credit card bill on time when you pay through CRED which includes cashback, discounts on products at the CRED store, discounts on air tickets and much more.

The Real game-changer

Here is where the CRED business model lies. So the CRED has changed the credit card bill payment to a large extent that I won't even turn back to the past system. This is one of the key factors in the UBP strategy.

The motive of CRED is very clear. Kunal once stated -

"There are only a few people that can be monetised."

And these people are none other than the premium users who use a credit cards. The customers of CRED are by default the richest 1% of the country. These people are the dream customers of any company and CRED has already started to capture this segment.

A few other soundbites of what CRED does -

• CRED has a store that throws recommendations based on your credit card spending.

• They give out loans with an interest rate.

• They track your credit score and show a detailed report of why it went low and high.

👩‍👩‍👧‍👧 Customer Acquisition

Imagine it is a Monday and you are working on your day shift job and suddenly out of nowhere, you receive a cake as a reward for paying your credit card bill. Excited, aren't you?

That's what CRED is known for. In 2019, the team attempted this customer acquisition move and targeted colleagues of existing users. All it did was send a cake to the user's workplace, and cake is a dish that you can't eat alone or take it home. So the users are forced to share the cake with their colleagues, making colleagues eventually ask "Who sent you this delicious cake?" to which users would naturally reply - "I paid my credit card bill and got a cake 😛". This is the phenomenal customer acquisition strategy that CRED followed with its existing users.

💎 Talent Recruitment

With so much of nouvelle ideas and strategies, getting into CRED is not as difficult as you think. Because they don't care about your education, your certifications or your experience. All they watch out for is whether you have real stuff and if you can add value to the company. One such case is when a 21-year-old boy made an innovative pitch for an internship on LinkedIn and guess what, the video went viral and he was hired within a few mins as an intern. This means that CRED doesn't hunt for talent, talented people want to work at CRED (including me 😛)

All these stand out from the usual and show how different CRED has been in the Indian startup ecosystem. I am also pretty sure that everyone would have watched their marketing campaign making Rahul Dravid go crazy on the streets of Bangalore and ads featuring Neeraj Chopra. They took celebrity endorsements to a whole new level. And Gosh! The CRED app design. Being a UI/UX designer myself I always get fascinated by their user experience and CRED users know what I mean by their user experience.

So now you know why I am so crazy and bullish about CRED and its growth. Even though it is a loss-making company if given a chance I would love to invest in them 😁