[Finance1]

Only if you put out competitive offers. If you are conservative with your offers BECAUSE it is your own money, kind of defeats the purpose, no? You will stay small and will forever live in fear of getting stomped out by the "more visible" MCA's

I guess it depends on the business model. If you have 3M and only need to run 250+/- active advances turning then it's not hard to keep the machine turning. 250 active advance is a drop in the ocean. Plus, the larger and more visible cash companies do a good job stamping themselves out. At least half of our book is ex MCC/AMI merchants. Once we get a merchant on our books you can keep them indefinitely by not double factoring on renewals. 1.20-25 on new money is a much better deal than the same factor on the whole balance.

It all comes down to what you have and what you want to be. Run a good business model and properly manage risk and you can succeed alongside any of the big players. To be honest, our direct competition is companies like Swift. Their 1.1499/6 month is very real. Lost more than a few to them. Rarely lose to the top 5 unless it is a 75k+ deal and those are in the minority anyway. We syndicate on larger ones when they are solid.

Merchants like the feeling of a relationship too. That is something TBB has done a really good job at. We do the same just on a smaller scale. If we relied on ISO business we would most likely fail. Can't compete in that space and we don't need to. Our cost to acquire is cheaper than paying commissions. And less labor intensive too. If we needed a book of 1,000+ active merchants we would have to have a strong ISO channel. There comes a breaking point for direct acquisition. I think Empire/Paramount has hit that ceiling. They are actively pursuing outside sources of biz to grow their portfolio. They are still 80%+ direct origination though.