Founders Feature #050 - Noggin HQ
The Credit Reference Agency for Gen Z and Millennials
Happy Sunday!
Welcome back to Founders Feature, a weekly newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders.
For this week's edition, I interviewed Evangeline Atkinson, Co-founder of Noggin HQ, a Credit Reference Agency built for Gen Z and Millennials based in the UK.
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Here’s what Noggin HQ is all about:
🏠 The Basics
The Problem:
Young people are disproportionately rejected when applying for credit. This is because traditional credit reference agencies rely heavily on data that young people just can’t have. This can leave young people without access to basic services, such as mobile phone contracts, or pushes them to use higher-cost alternatives.
The Solution:
We have designed a credit score specifically for Gen Z and millennials, using data that young people have in abundance. We’ll then connect our users to companies that accept this alternative credit score via our marketplace. Our mission is to unlock fairer access to credit for younger people.
The Team:
We are two co-founders, Laura and I. I graduated from the London School of Economics in 2017 and then specialised in Data at a French scale-up, and Laura has a background in strategy and innovation, where she was leading large scale reform projects in the public sector. Noggin HQ was founded on our shared passion for financial justice.
🚀 The Journey
How did you come up with your startup/solution?
I experienced the problem we’re solving first hand when I was rejected trying to access a mobile phone contract. It was a surprisingly uncomfortable moment that really stuck with me. I didn’t know anything about credit scoring before it happened and had no reason to believe that I wouldn’t be able to get a simple phone contract for 20 pounds a month. Following this rejection, and after a bit of research, I discovered that I actually didn’t have a credit score at all, which is a situation a lot of young people find themselves in.
At the time I was working in data, so I took a very data-driven approach to looking at the problem. During my research, I discovered that there were all these alternative data sources that can be used to predict risk, and there was growing research around this. It made me think long and hard about how these alternative data sources could be used to fix the way we calculate credit scores for young people.
I ended up speaking to Laura about the idea, and we instantly knew this was something we wanted to work on together.
Why is this the right time for this problem to be solved?
Firstly, from an economic perspective, Gen Z and millennials are facing a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis, and spiralling student debt. Young people are being squeezed to the absolute max and the need for affordable credit products is sky high. Then from a technological perspective, new sources of data and research are becoming available, enabling us to better assess the risk posed by younger people. For example, open banking and psychometric testing are still in their infancy. These two factors combined open up new opportunities for a product like ours.
What is a recent success you are proud of?
We were recently rejected from a programme we really wanted to get into. Previously, when something like this happened it always knocked my confidence. This time, however, I was super impressed by the way that I handled it and I noticed that I've become so much more resilient. As a young female founder in fintech, it’s quite easy to second guess yourself. This is something I’ve been working on, so it felt like a big win.
What is a recent challenge you have faced?
An ongoing challenge is around our business model being a marketplace. We’re creating a marketplace where we’ll connect consumers to companies that accept our credit score. We’ve been facing the classic chicken and egg problem, who do we get onto the platform first and how can we add value without the other side being there. But after a lot of advice about this, plus and a lot of time strategising and brainstorming, we’ve found an alternative approach that we’re really excited about.
What do you wish you knew before you started and is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
People tell you that founding a startup is hard, and I was fully expecting it to be hard. What I wasn’t expecting though, is the amount of unfiltered feedback you have to hear about yourself and your business by putting yourself out there, and that is something I wasn’t ready for in the beginning. In hindsight, I would have started tapping into founder communities earlier and talking to people who are going through the same thing. Speaking to other founders is one of the best things I’ve done recently, and I wish I had started sooner.
🧠 The Lessons
What is the best advice you have been given recently?
“Don’t take any advice.”
What I took from this piece of advice is to trust my instincts, especially in these early stages, and remain convinced and convicted about what we’re doing. If someone gives you advice but it doesn’t sit right with you, you don’t need to follow it. Be selective about the advice you follow and whom you take advice from.
What advice would you give to other young founders?
Use being young to your advantage. Young people have different perspectives, and we often want something different from services and companies. This is a unique advantage because we have an insight into an audience that a lot of established companies don’t fully understand.
What is the biggest lesson you have learned so far?
Things can and will seem impossible, especially when you look at the big picture. To not get overwhelmed by this, break everything down into smaller pieces and focus on doing the next thing you can do that fits into the bigger picture. Don’t worry about how you’re going to do the part down the line. Just keep taking steps forward toward a larger goal, and things will come together in the end. At each of those steps, keep reflecting back on your why, to keep motivation high and not lose sight of why you’re doing this.
✨ The Inspiration
Who inspires you?
Anne Boden, the founder of Starling Bank. I’m obsessed with her book "Banking on it". It gave me the push to actually start building Noggin HQ. One of my favourite quotes from her book: “no one can label you a failure when what you’re trying to do is audacious. Botching something easy is a failure. Failing in an attempt to achieve something huge is just courageous”.
What book do you think everyone should read?
Good to Great - James Collins
Defining Decade - Meg Jay