When Deepak Rao set up his first startup, in 2011, he put his entire business on two credit cards, along with a cash prize of about $ 3,000. “They were always lost,” he says. To date, my credits have not been found. “Even after four years of working on Twitter with the salary of a sales manager, Rao still has not been able to get credit cards and the types of things he wants: those who pay for vacations, or offer him a place in his favorite places. to buy.
With his second start, Rao is trying to solve the problem. The X1, a new credit card, was designed for people looking for premium benefits — with or without credit interest rates. It uses a book registration method, which links to a user’s bank account to determine credit limits depending on financial performance. The card promises to repay five times as much credit as a regular card.
The card itself is made of stainless steel – a type of a piece of art that’s it to announce like making a fun string when you leave it – but it is used with numbers, such as the Apple Card. It has a smooth application that gives users the ability to create “almost” cards, block duplicates and clicks once, and create random events without giving a real name or card number. Its content can be redeemed from a list of merchandise that is frequently found by professional children: Peloton, Patagonia, Allbirds, and Airbnb.
Perhaps for this reason, the X1 has become Silicon Valley’s favorite object, with a population of over 350,000, say the founders. Its advertisers include Affirm CEO Max Levchin, Box CEO Aaron Levie, and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. “I think it’s Silicon Valley’s response to American Express, which is really that of an old guard at the moment,” says David Sacks, a fundraiser and student at PayPal, who sits on the X1 board and uses the card.
Some credit card companies want to fill the void in the market. Brex, now valued at about $ 8 billion, created a working card for startups who had money but did not earn any money. Karat he did the same for manufacturers who were locked out of the traditional economy. Both of these cards solved the experimental story of a different type of business, and provided the essentials for their needs. X1 expects to do the same for consumers, especially those who are young, earn a lot of money, and stay on their phones.
X1 will start offering cards to subscribers this week, having tested the card in beta for the past six months. One of the X1 beta testers, Akhil Bhandaru, told me that he was spending his money on several cards so that he would not misuse his credit. Although he was a well-paid engineer in the Amazon, his best cards were worth $ 4,500 a month, because his credit history was so low. (He graduated from college in 2020.) X1 gave him six times as much credit, as well as better credit than all other entry cards. For the first time, he was able to use his credit card to pay for flights home to see his parents.