* COMPANY: Clockout
* FOUNDERS: CEO Juan Jurado-Blanco, COO Anthony Tardugno and CTO Vladimir Dumitrean
* YEAR FOUNDED: 2021
* WEBSITE: joinclockout.com
* KEY FOCUS: Providing people with access to their earnings before payday
What is Clockout?
Jurado-Blanco: We’re an earned-wage access company, getting people their pay before payday.
How did Clockout get its start?
Jurado-Blanco: I was waiting tables (in 2021), getting my wages and tips bundled in one check. One week I knew I had $750 coming, but I had to handle some expenses before payday. I asked a co-worker how much she’d be willing to pay to get access to her money in that situation, and she said 20%. So we launched a model that was connected to employer payrolls. We wanted to scale up, so we decided a year ago to pivot to sell to banks and credit unions. Our product is white-label – financial institutions put their brand on our service and sell it to their account holders.
What’s on the horizon for the company?
Jurado-Blanco: From March 2023 to March 2024 (in the old model), we advanced about $450,000 to workers and collected about $2,000 in transaction fees. We’re going to announce our first bank customer this month, and we anticipate $600,000 to $700,000 in revenues, and eight or 10 customers by the end of this year. We anticipate $2 million in revenues by the end of 2026, and that’s a conservative estimate with a lot of upside.
Tardugno: Add to that the impact factor our product brings to minorities and lower-income earners who don’t always have the best access to banking. They’ll be relieved from the pressure of financial obligations with the liquidity (they’ll have with Clockout).
You’ve signed on with Brickyard and just moved to Chattanooga. How’s that going?
Tardugno: Amazing. It’s been a blessing for us. We come from Miami, (and are finding) Chattanooga a perfect place to work, focus and find piece. But it’s also got a lot of great stuff to do — nature, good food and very affordable. It’s a perfect retreat from the big city to focus, grind and make this vision possible. It’s also the perfect strategic location, with Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville and Birmingham all about two hours away — and filled with credit unions and banks.