Jerren Willis: Tell me a little more about SpenDebt.
Kiley Summers: SpenDebt is a financial technology company providing a micro-payment debt solution to help consumers reduce their debt as they spend. The website application enables consumers to apply a micropayment (i.e. $1.00) toward repaying a debt every time they make a purchase. As users spend, the specified amount is added to the purchase and then directly applied toward a debt, such as student loans, credit cards, mortgages, etc.
JW: What inspired you to start your business?
KS: After we became debt free, my wife and I felt liberated. With the vision coming from GOD, we wanted to create a financial technology tool that would allow people to spend and payoff their debt at the same time. On our 8-year journey to becoming debt free, we manually applied the “extra” to every bill using the debt snow ball. So, we wanted to find a way to automate that process through everyday transactions.
JW: What do you hope people get out of it?
KS: The intent for SpenDebt is to assist people in accelerating their debt payoff and/or committing payments to their debt using an automated process which discipline is built in. If you are person who is striving to becoming debt free or want to make a commitment to your creditor, SpenDebt can help. Also remember, it’s not about what you make, it’s about what you do with what you make!
JW: Any words of advice for anyone who wants to start their own business?
KS: If I could provide any bit of advice to anyone starting their own business, I would challenge everyone in the idea phase to complete a business lean canvas before proceeding to the next step. This is essentially an abbreviated business plan which forces you to think about every aspect of your business. Also, understand your financials such as the unit economics, pricing model, funding the business long term, etc.
Kiley Summers, Founder of SpenDebt, is an Electrical Engineer from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. He has 8 years of experience working with a fortune 100 company as a Manufacturing Engineer. His experience covers leading people, processes, and technology to produce premium products while managing billion-dollar brands and million-dollar projects. Also, he led a successful $62 million facility startup of an automated warehouse, 4th in company’s history at that time. Mr. Summers founded SpenDebt after his family and he paid off $100,000 plus of debt, including student loans in 2015!
Kiley has also been featured on many publications, including blackenterprise.com. You can go visit his website at spendebt.com
