It was the best thing that could have happened to me.
It was January 2020 and I had just left the bank I was working for at the time.
I took a couple weeks off and then agreed to a project doing competitor research and commercial strategy for a friend who was CEO at a bank.
We agreed on the scope of work, 1 month timetable and I got to work.
3 weeks went by so I reached out about a time to meet.
…Crickets…
I copied his assistant, explained what I was doing and offered times for me to come present.
…Crickets…
Another follow-up to her 3 days later and I finally got something.
“Let me get you in touch with this other guy.”
“Other guy??”
“Yes. He should be able to answer your questions.”
Turns out, this “other guy” was the new acting CEO.
And the former CEO was under an NDA and couldn’t tell me about it.
So I send “other guy” my work and got a very simple reply:
“No thank you. We aren’t interested in this.”
I let him know there was a signed contract and payment was owed.
He let me know they wouldn’t be paying it.
That was that…
But I had just gathered a lot of data on 10 different banks and used it to compile reports…
Would it be possible for me to do this for ALL the banks??
Then I could just sell a subscription to the service and I wouldn’t have to deal with more banks refusing to pay.
So that’s exactly what I did.
I found someone with the technical skills I would need and we built Visbanking.
It scrapes the web for banking data, cleans and compiles that data, uses it to create reports, then you use those reports to make better decisions.
Exactly what I wish I had while I was running a bank.
—
Digging deep on banks is what I do.
🔔 Follow Brian on Linkedin: Brian Pillmore
