The Solution We Seek
- Peter Johnson

- Dec 5, 2023
- 6 min read

A particular scene in the 1993 movie Demolition Man highlights the issue that bckers is working to address.
The storyline details that Simon Phoenix, portrayed by Wesley Snipes, was cryogenically frozen in 1996 and emerged in 2032. In this era, San Angeles, the combined cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara, had been transformed into a peaceful utopia with no crime.
It is evident that Phoenix is able to elude captivity and renew his ruthless reign of terror, consequently establishing an oppressive criminal underworld in San Angeles. Since they find passive attempts to contain him fruitless, law enforcers search for an imaginative way to settle the issue, and the answer comes in the shape of John Spartan, an ex-cop who apprehended Phoenix in 1996, only to be coldly frozen himself for a wrongful crime.
The police bring Spartan back to life, causing mayhem as he joins forces with Lieutenant Lenina Huxley, portrayed by Sandra Bullock, in an attempt to recapture Phoenix and reestablish tranquility in San Angeles.
The special element of our business is brought to the fore when Huxley takes out Spartan, who is wearing formal attire, for a luxurious evening out featuring dinner and dancing - at Taco Bell. As Demolition Man has proposed for 2032, in this faux-utopian setting, all eateries are Taco Bell.
Huxley remarks, in a manner that conveys the idea that the characters in the movie have lost the capacity for meaningful communication, "Taco Bell was the only one to make it through the franchise conflicts unscathed."
"Ah, so that explains it," the audience muses. "That's why only one restaurant chain exists."
The year 2032 is eight years from now. has been fixed
The issue has been resolved.
Absolute brand monopolies do not rank highly as one of the looming dangers to society. I would go as far as to say that they are not a threat at all. Even if, down the line, every eatery turned into Taco Bell, it would not result in the extinction of humankind.
But an overload of brands can have a detrimental effect on our shared human experience if the population is only given a few faceless corporations as alternatives. In the film Demolition Man, a seemingly perfect world is actually a dystopia to the people living in it. The movie seeks to demonstrate that a culture that avoids conflict entirely is actually pretty awful and undesirable; part of this environment is pervasive brand conformity.
The future's grim, according to what is being said, and the only option for food is Taco Bell.
No additional metaphors from the arts are required to demonstrate the tedious uniformity of being inundated by brand ubiquity, as that effect is already occurring in reality. The game is rigged against small businesses, and the actual facts back up that assertion. For example, Amazon's current market capitalization ($1.47T) exceeds the total value of all domestic small business loans ($1.4T).
It's not too unlike the dystopian world of Demolition Man. I'm not denying that Amazon and small corporations can exist together. Amazon has been beneficial for numerous smaller businesses, giving them the platform to widen their horizons. It's disquieting, though, that the market capitalization of one massive company surpasses that of over 33M individual companies combined.
What is the cause of this unjust disproportionality? It's not essentially that Amazon has too much money. Rather, it's the fact that small businesses don't have enough funding.
It is widely known that the majority (80%) of small business owners seeking bank financing are denied. Without access to institutional finance, these business owners search for other forms of financing, such as personal loans, personal credit cards, home equity lines of credit, and predatory lenders, which can be disadvantageous. As a result, small businesses experience a discrepancy between their financing needs and the financing that is available, making it difficult to satisfy their requirements.
It has been proven that in the last quarter of a century, small businesses have been responsible for two thirds of the newly created jobs in the economy. The majority of the financial incentives are given to large corporations, yet these small ones are the ones that are leading the job growth. A strong economy should benefit everyone, not just the wealthy.
There is a discrepancy between the status of small and large businesses in terms of power. Small businesses play a crucial role in driving the country's economy, yet they do not have access to sufficient financial assets that should accompany that part. They are mostly left to fend for themselves. When compared to the well-funded retail outlets in airports which are like thoroughbred horses, small businesses which contribute to the character of the local areas are like street-cats, surviving in spite of the difficulty. This inequality is unjust and needs to be addressed.
What is the cause of this situation? While it may not be a popular opinion, it is not due to the fault of major banks.
Banks are exceptionally skilled in making judicious monetary choices that give them profits, and the reality that four out of five small businesses find it challenging to live up to the necessary requirements is not the result of any malicious, underhanded plan dreamt up by wealthy people in suits plotting to make life complicated for company owners out of their own amusement. Banks make decisions based on data. At the moment, they simply don't have enough data about the creditworthiness of small businesses — especially when looked at as a group.
Banks have shifted away from their earlier approach of engaging with local business owners and feeling obligated to help them. It is true that at one time such a community-based approach to lending was the norm; however, it is counterproductive to criticize the system rather than finding solutions to assist small businesses. This is the present state and it is necessary to find way to help them rather than simply complaining. is not the only one.
Our answer is not the only one.
Our company focuses on realigning incentives that are increasingly disconnected when it comes to loans for small businesses.
Small businesses often necessitate financing to resolve their unfulfilled needs. They possess steady cash flow and have loyal customers, likely due to their long-standing presence within their local areas. An immense amount of their respectability is tied up in everyday experiences; such as a bar buying a customer a shot, a cafe providing a complimentary cup of coffee to someone in need, or a dry cleaner repairing a tear in a pair of jeans at no cost. These are the stories I hear from my neighbourhood.
For these establishments, the customer rapport is exceptionally close. They become close acquaintances. The level of confidence in one another is extremely high. The analogy with feral cats illustrated earlier was not a one-time affair: If you stop by regularly and are respectful, the typical small business will trust you forever.
In comparison to banks, profit is a prime motivation. This results in many different financial engineering operations as opposed to taking deposits or granting loans to small businesses. Banks can make plenty of money through various methods, though small business lending is not one of them. This is made evident by their lack of involvement in it, as if it was profitable, they would be doing it extensively.
Still, banks will lend for small sums as long as the information is valid and concrete. It's similar to if I encountered a few coins out on the ground and chose to take them. That's how a bank would view a profitable small business loan.
Without taking into consideration what motivates the small businesses that require financing, there isn't a practical approach to bring the incentives of those entities into harmony with the incentives of banks that possess funding. Nevertheless, by introducing the motivation of the customer into the equation, a formerly insolvable problem suddenly becomes a feasible one.
There is a total of $15 trillion in cash being held by consumers, an exorbitant sum of wealth. Every day, tens of millions of people who possess some of these funds take the time to patronize small businesses that are meaningful to them as it fulfills an emotional requirement. Moreover, tens of millions of others turn to local businesses for shopping due to convenience, quality of products and services, cost-effectiveness, or a simple lack of choices.
Our platform provides small businesses with financial resources from their most devoted customers. It is not crowdfunding, as the businesses repay the loans, along with interest, in order to exhibit their creditworthiness.
We act as a conduit that allows small businesses to pass from purchasing small items with operating cash or using debt to making more substantial investments, such as opening a second location or buying out their landlord. For instance, if a café needs to purchase a new espresso machine, they can use our platform to raise debt to finance this small purchase, making it possible to involve themselves in a larger transaction down the line.
Our banking service is designed for small businesses, enabling them to present evidence of their creditworthiness to banks through customer-based underwriting.
We are constructing this so that, eight years from now, no restaurant will have to become a Taco Bell.
Andrew Graham is the communications lead at bckers.



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