Premal Shah: Sure, sure.
Premal Shah: Yeah, yeah.
Premal Shah: Exactly.
Premal Shah: The only validating thing about being a management consultant is you can create killer charts like this, I feel like.
Premal Shah: But, you know, I donít wanna bag on it too much but it wasnít for me.
Premal Shah: Yeah, the leading name that we had was grassroots capital dot org Premal Shah: And I loved it cause it describes
Premal Shah: Yes.
Premal Shah: Yeah, so I remember I left PayPal and Matt Flannery, the co-founder of Kiva, left his job at TiVo, he was in computer programming and he jokes about heís pausing
Premal Shah: And even they hadnít used it.
Premal Shah: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Premal Shah: And it hits on the East Coast and all the sudden the traffic goes down to 0 and what happens is our site crashed
Premal Shah: Cause we were on this 22 dollar a month server plan, you know?
Premal Shah: And it was so painful for the next 4 days our site couldnít get back up.
Premal Shah: Yeah, we raised 130,000 dollars from the internet community Premal Shah: And thatís what allowed us to get everyone on healthcare, actually do real due diligence on these organizations
Premal Shah: around the planet and get off the 22 dollar a month server plan Premal Shah: So that was that moment in time that then, from that point, you know,
Premal Shah: I was in a penguin costume and Gary Briggs: A penguin costume?
Premal Shah: Sure, just by show of hands how many of you folks have made a loan on Kiva?
Premal Shah: How many of you actually have money sitting in your Kiva accounts that you have to respend or relend to someone?
Premal Shah: Sure, so Kiva today has reached 800,000 small businesses, entrepreneurs, students in 62 countries, um, the total amount that has flowed through the website is about 320
Premal Shah: Yeah, itís more women than men and thereís a 98.9 repayment rate on the website.
Premal Shah: Yeah, yeah itís, we did a graph between, I think, the S and P 500 over the last 5 years and kind of did a Kiva portfolio and the working poor are outperforming.
Premal Shah: Some other classes, yeah.
Premal Shah: Yeah, so just to, just to show a few features on the website.
Premal Shah: So itís really amazing.
Premal Shah: Yeah we only have 58 members of the Google team here.
Premal Shah: But you guys are, yeah, I mean, itís 40,000 dollars lent.
Premal Shah: Yeah, you know, thereís so many amazing stories throughout the year and, I mean, I just love reading through the site every day.
Premal Shah: So, itís amazing and youíre literally right there doubling the farmerís dairy income, right?
Premal Shah: More fuel efficient Premal Shah: So basically itís mixed with a European strain that is just a higher producing cow in terms of milk.
Premal Shah: Yeah, resilient.
Premal Shah: The fumes from kerosene kill more people every year in the developing world than malaria.
Premal Shah: Exactly.
Premal Shah: Well, I think, um, the two biggest challenges, one is, you know, for anyone thatís read about microfinance in the last couple years, itís not perfect.
Premal Shah: What we see if women fund two times faster than men on the website.
Premal Shah: Yeah, you know, one thing weíve done that was pretty interesting is Reid Hoffman, who is the founder of LinkedIn and heís made a lot of money recently and
Premal Shah: And we both worked with him at PayPal and Gary Briggs: I see him on TV all the time now
Premal Shah: Yeah, heís on Bloomberg, heís got his own thing, yeah.
Premal Shah: Yeah, I think the coolest thing in terms of financial services for the poor; the big game changer is mobile finance.
Premal Shah: And everyone talks about the Silicon Valley and whatís happening out here but I wonder why Kenya is so far ahead in
Premal Shah: Well, you know, itís a game changer.
Premal Shah: Sure.
Premal Shah: No, I mean I say this from a place of, we were counting up, the other day, the number of services we use from Google and, you know, uh, you know, from Google Apps
Premal Shah: Yeah.
Premal Shah: Thatís where the local field partner eats the loss and thatís the risk.
Premal Shah: Yeah.
Premal Shah: Exactly.
Premal Shah: Yeah.
Premal Shah: Itís important to keep in mind, one of the best books Iíve read on microfinance and financial services for the poor is called Portfolios of the Poor and
Premal Shah: Thatís right.
Premal Shah: You know thatís a really great idea.