Jimmy Chen, Founder and CEO, Propel

Startups for Good

Jimmy Chen is the Founder and CEO of Propel, creators of the Providers app, which is used by over 5 million Americans to manage their SNAP benefits and banking. Propel was founded through a fellowship at the Robin Hood Foundation, and has raised over $80m in venture capital funding from investors including the Financial Health Network, Andreessen Horowitz, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams. In addition to his work at Propel, Jimmy is Vice Chair of Technology at the eGovernment Payments Council, an industry task force around the future of government payments, he was an advisor to President Biden's Tech Transition Committee, and he has testified in front of Congress on the topic of modernizing America's safety net. Prior to Propel, Jimmy led product teams at LinkedIn and Facebook and studied Symbolic Systems at Stanford University.

“Start from a clear consumer pain point, start from talking to people who are navigating those challenges in their day to day lives, gain as much empathy as you can for their experiences.” - Jimmy Chen

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• Market opportunity to serve low income people
• Measuring your positive impact
• What makes a product respectful
• How a feature can evolve into a business
• Revenue through advertising
• Choosing advertisers that are aligned with company values
• Managing fifty different state government regulations
• Dealing with competition
• Willingness to have frank conversations

Connect with Jimmy on Twitter or find out more from the Propel website

The Paul Graham article that was mentioned

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