If you are part of the 61% of Americans carrying credit card debt or one of the 43.5 million with a student loan balance to pay off, you’re going to want to know about a new startup building in Atlanta Tech Village.
As the name suggests, Ditch is on a mission to help consumers ditch their debt. Founder Luis Andino (pictured in featured photo above) told Hypepotamus that while the AI-powered startup platform is only a few months old, it is creating a niche within the debt management world by helping users avoid mistakes associated with managing and repaying debt.
Andino said the subscription-based platform looks to be an “ally” for people struggling to pay down debt. It is all about helping consumers both understand the behaviors that lead to debt accumulation and the action items that can help them pay it off faster.
The app can help a user understand what items to pay off first and facilitates those payments from within the app. Ditch’s new AI-powered feature, DASH, serves as a “financial concierge” for users can ask questions about their money at any moment.
The World Of B2C Fintechs
The market the startup is going after is massive. Americans have over $15 trillion in consumer debt, with the average American carrying a $5,700 balance on their credit cards, according to a TransUnion’s report from over the summer. And that’s before factoring in student loans, which The US Department of Education resumed payment requirements on last month after a 42 month pause.
The average student loan borrower has to repay a balance of over $28,000.
Ditch is building in a pretty crowded business-to-consumer fintech world. Apps like YNAB, PocketGuard, and the soon-to-be-defunct Mint all look to help consumers set up budgets. But there are inherent flaws in how these budgeting apps work, said Andino. In fact, Andino intentionally doesn’t use the term budgeting when talking about Ditch, since it sounds like a dreaded chore. And for Andino, ‘set it and forget it’ style budgeting apps aren’t going to help consumers change their mentality towards debt and finances.
Instead of focusing on budgeting and credit score tracking, Ditch looks to help users make behavioral modifications through personalized financial insights. By focusing on paying down debt, users can find ways to decrease interest payments and ultimately achieve their financial wellness goals faster.
An Atlanta Fintech Story
Andino grew up in the Dominican Republic and studied computational mathematics at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Upstate New York. He interned at a hedge fund before making the move down to Atlanta to work as one of LendingPoint’s first data scientists in 2020.
He credits his background in consumer lending for giving him a front-row seat into what it takes to build a successful consumer fintech.
Since launching in the early part of 2023, Andino and the Ditch team have wasted no time getting ingrained in the local tech community. The team was part of the latest cohort of the Techstars Atlanta Powered by JP Morgan program (you can watch their Demo Day pitch here). Andino set up shop inside of Atlanta Tech Village, a move that he said has been “critical” for the early-stage startup.
The team right now is made up of two software engineers, a social media coordinator, a part-time Head of Product, and a fractional CMO.
User growth is top of mind for Andino and the team as they move into 2024. But so too is securing partnership with banks, credit unions, and large employers that can benefit from providing Ditch to their customers.
