[cardinalequity]

Jotucker1983: As much as I appreciate your usual well written and sophisticated posts, I completely disagree. Perception is projection and I can assure you not only are the stats of businesses much larger than quoted but there is absolutely a very large percentage of small business that we speak to that have not heard of this sort of funding. I think the distinction is based on how you(meaning brokers) are locating these merchants. (UCC, etc) Logically if everyone came on DF and purchased leads from the same 5 marketing companies that come on here constantly soliciting then saturation inevitable.(Although I know many that still do well with UCC leads)

As a side bar I think lack of creativity and vision is one of the biggest obstacles for newer people in the space. Brokers ask, where can I get the best ucc leads, where do you go to send out the best mailers?!?? Everyone wants to duplicate, which at times works (why reinvest the wheel) however no one looks for the path less traveled and/or thinks outside the box. As I always say, all entrepreneurs can sell but not everyone that can sell is an entrepreneur. The big changes everyone is experiencing and/or will experience will definitely separate the wheat from the chaff.

[FUNd]

Jotucker1983: As much as I appreciate your usual well written and sophisticated posts, I completely disagree. Perception is projection and I can assure you not only are the stats of businesses much larger than quoted but there is absolutely a very large percentage of small business that we speak to that have not heard of this sort of funding. I think the distinction is based on how you(meaning brokers) are locating these merchants. (UCC, etc) Logically if everyone came on DF and purchased leads from the same 5 marketing companies that come on here constantly soliciting then saturation inevitable.(Although I know many that still do well with UCC leads)

As a side bar I think lack of creativity and vision is one of the biggest obstacles for newer people in the space. Brokers ask, where can I get the best ucc leads, where do you go to send out the best mailers?!?? Everyone wants to duplicate, which at times works (why reinvest the wheel) however no one looks for the path less traveled and/or thinks outside the box. As I always say, all entrepreneurs can sell but not everyone that can sell is an entrepreneur. The big changes everyone is experiencing and/or will experience will definitely separate the wheat from the chaff.

OK granted, then I want the numbers of these merchants that have never heard of an MCA. I will call them myself, and market the **** out of them. I have 2 million data records, sorted by SIC, NAICS, revenue, and location. Not UCC's. This is raw data. We market to a large percentage of this list on a quarterly basis through different means. It's very rare someone has never heard of "one of these high interest daily payment deals..."

Update: In the past day, I've seen 1 On Deck commercial, 20 internet banners, 5 talk radio working capital live reads, 2 square commercials, 2 robo calls, and a direct mail piece in my business mailbox for MCA (and I'm an ISO).

[jotucker1983]

Cardinal Equity,

I'm totally with you on the lack of creativity in the industry, with everybody seeking to do the same thing. I think this is a good discussion we are having here, because my point of view is to try to truly "estimate" how big is the "real market" for MCAs in the US?

Yes, there's 28 million entrepreneurs, but only about 5 million would qualify generically for an MCA product. But how many of those 5 million would ever truly entertain a product with very high costs and short payback cycles?

Is the reason for there being so many virgin MCA merchants (never took an advance out prior), because they have never heard of the product? Or is the reason because the product is too high and the payback cycles are too short?

I tend to side on the camp that says it's because the product is too high, which means of that 5 million that generically qualify, how many of these businesses would realistically under certain circumstances, take out an advance? I say the range would be no higher than 2% (100,000) to as low as 0.5% (25,000).

But I could be wrong though.