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by RobPfeifer 1936 days ago
I had a friend who worked there and we discussed potential solutions to this after the 2019 spike (I worked at a BNPL fintech and now at an insuretech). It was really a lot for a startup to do and no third parties would take on a program at that scale.

Technically this company was trying to fulfill the market need driven by the deregulation, and trying to provide lower cost solutions to the consumer, but they needed to build something to help with these spikes. They could have eventually I think, but just a tough business frankly!
2 comments
creato 1936 days ago
> but they needed to build something to help with these spikes. They could have eventually I think, but just a tough business frankly!

You mean, like, they could charge a slightly higher price most of the time, so they can shelter their customers from rare wild price fluctuations?

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cinquemb 1936 days ago
> It was really a lot for a startup to do and no third parties would take on a program at that scale.

No one wanted to take the other side of a tail risk trade?

I wonder if they could have made tail risk bets that prices could spike during seasonal occurrences that had small fixed upfront costs, but high enough payout to absorb losses while still keeping prices lower than competitors. If they could have, none of us would be talking about this now (except maybe "How one energy company won big betting that energy prices would eventually spike").

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