5 ms·

Ask HN: What’s the best startup credit card?

2 points by brianruan12 5y ago

stevenalowe 5y ago
cash
davismwfl 5y ago
Depends on your situation. A bootstrapped company would be different from a funded company. As is a company with little revenue vs one with $1M+/year. Hard to answer without a lot more details, but the basic place to start is talk to your bank who you do business with now. And check out some small business cards from AMX, CapOne, Chase etc and see what might work best for your situation. Obviously I am being pretty US centric here as that is all I am familiar with when it comes to banking. Also, while I wouldn't use it as my only research, Reddit has some subs which give pretty good details on what it takes to get a specific card from each bank, e.g. credit scores etc. You'll almost certainly have a personal guarantee unless you get a secured card or the business is already fairly successful where it can stand on its own.
- brianruan12 5y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. This is super helpful. Two cards we have been eyeing are Brex and Ramp since they don’t require a personal guarantee. I’m curious if you have had experience with or heard anything about these two cards? We’re a seed startup going into Series A.
  - davismwfl 5y ago
    Nope, haven't heard of those. I've used AMX Blue (business), Chase and CapOne small business for credit cards in my startups. FWIW I also have used small community bank cards, one of my goto things is when I start a new business if I don't want to give a personal guarantee usually I can work with the smaller community banks and make it happen. One way I have used a few times at different banks (same company in some cases) is get a secured card from them for say $2-5k, usually secured with a CD or other investment vehicle they offer. You keep using it just like a credit card, build credit and in fairly short time you'll have a nice unsecured credit going with no personal guarantee. Done right you can build up some pretty substantial credit this way and you get your security back pretty quick if you don't have any problems. I have used Divvy (wonder if that is more like Brex/Ramp) at a startup and that worked well, but it was less credit card more "charge card", i.e. due each month in full. But from what I understand it did help with building credit and gave a trade line reference too. I wasn't the founder when I used it, but I will say it was really nice from an exec point of view managing budgets etc.
    - brianruan12 5y ago
      Gotcha, thanks for the additional insights! I never knew about using community bank cards. That's a super interesting strategy. I'll check out Divvy as well, they do seem to pretty similar to Brex/Ramp. Thanks again! Cheers.

2 points by brianruan12 5y ago

cash

Depends on your situation. A bootstrapped company would be different from a funded company. As is a company with little revenue vs one with $1M+/year. Hard to answer without a lot more details, but the basic place to start is talk to your bank who you do business with now. And check out some small business cards from AMX, CapOne, Chase etc and see what might work best for your situation. Obviously I am being pretty US centric here as that is all I am familiar with when it comes to banking. Also, while I wouldn't use it as my only research, Reddit has some subs which give pretty good details on what it takes to get a specific card from each bank, e.g. credit scores etc. You'll almost certainly have a personal guarantee unless you get a secured card or the business is already fairly successful where it can stand on its own.

brianruan12 5y ago
Thanks for the feedback. This is super helpful. Two cards we have been eyeing are Brex and Ramp since they don’t require a personal guarantee. I’m curious if you have had experience with or heard anything about these two cards? We’re a seed startup going into Series A.
- davismwfl 5y ago
  Nope, haven't heard of those. I've used AMX Blue (business), Chase and CapOne small business for credit cards in my startups. FWIW I also have used small community bank cards, one of my goto things is when I start a new business if I don't want to give a personal guarantee usually I can work with the smaller community banks and make it happen. One way I have used a few times at different banks (same company in some cases) is get a secured card from them for say $2-5k, usually secured with a CD or other investment vehicle they offer. You keep using it just like a credit card, build credit and in fairly short time you'll have a nice unsecured credit going with no personal guarantee. Done right you can build up some pretty substantial credit this way and you get your security back pretty quick if you don't have any problems. I have used Divvy (wonder if that is more like Brex/Ramp) at a startup and that worked well, but it was less credit card more "charge card", i.e. due each month in full. But from what I understand it did help with building credit and gave a trade line reference too. I wasn't the founder when I used it, but I will say it was really nice from an exec point of view managing budgets etc.
  - brianruan12 5y ago
    Gotcha, thanks for the additional insights! I never knew about using community bank cards. That's a super interesting strategy. I'll check out Divvy as well, they do seem to pretty similar to Brex/Ramp. Thanks again! Cheers.