Business
Guava founder: Why I launched online bank for Black-owned businesses
At first, Kelly Ifill had no interest in following in her family’s footsteps.
Her father has a long-running contracting business. Her grandmother ran a cleaning service. Her aunt, uncle and even some cousins have experienced the highs and lows of running a small business.
“I had no interest in being an entrepreneur,” Ifill, 37, said. “I was like, ‘I don’t want that. It looks hard!'” Instead, she was a schoolteacher, then an MBA candidate and a staffer for seed-stage venture capital firms.
But things change. Ifill – who is Black – watched businesses in her Brooklyn, New York community struggle to stay afloat, their frustrations with traditional banks front and center. Black business owners are much less likely to be approved for commercial checking accounts and bank loans, often paying higher rates when they do land a loan.
In January, she launched Guava, an online banking platform aimed specifically at Black small-business owners.