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Story 9: My Uncle Doesn’t Owe You Sh*t

Welcome back to another episode of The Chirp. For our last episode, we started off the new year strong by having a great conversation with the founder of City Innovation Labs, Josh Barker. In spending time with Josh, he walked us through the realities of life and reminded us all that it's okay to struggle because life isn't always easy. Whether it be financial, relationally, mentally, or physically we all go through life facing ups and downs, thus why Story 8: Life Isn't All Sunshine And Rainbows was such a special one for us.

Out of all the conversations we've had thus far, this is certainly our wildest one yet. As you might have guessed from the title, this episode is full of explosive commentary. In talking with professional musician, Liam O'Brien we got a look into his world and how sometimes the music industry can cause more pain for artists than good.

Chasing your dreams is not all it's cracked up to be, especially if you can't put food on the table. Artists, actors, and musicians are no strangers to this reality, so going through the growing pains of trying to make it big can harden even the most resilient dreamers. In this episode, we talked to a resilient dreamer and LA musician Liam O'Brien. Littered with stories of financial expectations, commitments to following his passions, and so much more, this look into the unspoken world of the music industry is a brutally honest tale. 

Note: Listener discretion advised; explicit content.

You'll find this episode of The Chirp on:

Have a story to tell and want to be on our podcast? Let us know by sending an email to claird@pigeonloans.io.

The Chirp Story 9: My Uncle Doesn't Owe You Sh*t

Audio Transcript of Story 9: My Uncle Doesn't Owe You Sh*t

Welcome back everybody! Cameron here. Episode 9 on the Chirp. You are almost welcome. Cool episode for you today, I got a chance to talk to a professional musician by the name of Liam O’Brien this week. I was very keen to chat to Liam having made a go of being a musician myself up until quite recently and I understand how stressful it can be and how broke one can be if they are doing it full time. Family and friends play a huge role in supporting you financially and emotionally and Liam's level-headedness about his music career was very interesting and he's definitely doing it the right way.

I chat to Liam about intellectual property being stolen, how he’s kept himself financially afloat all through his musical career, and finding that balance as well between money and passion. Now as ever, we appreciate your support and I hope you enjoy this interview. Let's go. 

Listen, thank you so much for joining me today. We had a couple of technical difficulties, but we got there in the end. It's a pleasure to have you on.

No, no problem. And I was researching you and doing a bit of digging on your music. And I was very impressed with what I heard. So it's great to have a musician on The Chirp for the first time. One that's most impressive. But I suppose where did you get started? I'd love to know when you started singing, what has your journey been like? And it might be a bit of a weighted question, but where did it all begin? Let's start there. 

It all began when I was about three years old, I guess when I was learning to talk, I started learning to sing at the same time, my dad's singing around the house. He was a big, big singer. He likes...loves singing. He was in bands throughout his entire life. He basically prepped me for life like that.

And so I won't lie. Growing up I was a little bit of an outcast. My school district wasn't the most artistic, but I still thought singing all the time was normal because my dad did it. So I would just continue to sing. Wherever, whenever, anytime I wanted. I love singing and I love performing and I love being the center of attention a little bit. I won't lie. Not afraid to say it. 

Yeah, right? Otherwise what are we doing here? So yeah, I went and I got my first show when I was three years old. I got on the streets of Quebec and just started singing for people. And I don't know why. I just remember being applauded and I had a whole crowd.

It was exciting. And then it took off from there. I wanted to be in the school plays every year, just looking for any opportunity to be on stage and to perform. So that was where it all got going, and then I started writing my own music when I was 14. I was always creating different little things here and there, but my first actual full song wasn't completed until I was 14. I performed it.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go and how my life was going to pan out. College coming up, my parents are getting a little bit, like, “Hey, start, start thinking about where the f*ck you want to go. What do you want to do? You’re good at math. You're good at singing. You're good at writing. Let's figure out what you want to do.” 

So of course with that comes, “All right, well we still want you to get a good education.” They honestly were super supportive throughout all of this, but like, they didn't want to send me to Berkeley college because, no sh*t on Berkeley, but their dropout rate is super high. If you go to Berkeley college, you're going to be a musician. That's just what it is. And that isn't why I went to college if that makes sense. I didn't go to college to be a musician. I went to college to get a degree and be able to make money aside from music, which is making me in my life a lot f*cking happier.

And when I was 15, there was a little dinner theater show. It was one of my first times performing live for my high school. And, like I said, not really the biggest artistic place, so I didn't really think people wanted to hear me. I think people thought people were going to be like, oh, who's this weirdo singing, playing the piano?

And then I got up there, performed my original song, and got a standing ovation. And I was just in awe of the fact that people actually cared and wanted to hear what I had to write, wanted to hear what I had to sing. That they thought I had true talent. And that's what changed my mind going forward.

I actually took it and ran with it. I went to college for music. I studied music business. I studied songwriting. So I got a little bit of both worlds. I got the business aspect, I got a marketing minor and everything. So I had the things that I needed, the tools that I needed to get a job and to have ammo in an industry other than music.

And I'm so happy I did because I found out that working in the music industry, and I found out via an internship, I had a great internship with a PR company and the music industry, and it was a great internship, great experience. But I realized it wasn't for me because as long as I was working in music and in a space that wasn't creative, It made me not want to work in it in the creative space. And so it was killing...

Exactly. It made music really not fun for me. And I guess that along with doing weddings, doing private events, doing bar gigs, they pay well, they pay great, don't get me wrong. That's how a lot of people make their living in the music industry. They do weddings. They do these gigs. They go on cruise ships and all this sh*t. And that was another thing that was making me hate music. It made me not want to come home and write, it made me not want to go out so I was tired of it.

I need a lot of balance in my life, and that was definitely really obvious for me when I was in college and graduating from college, I just realized that the music industry wasn't a place that I wanted to work. So yeah, very happy that I got the degree I did. I ended up going into home building, but I worked for a video team. 

Yeah, right? I worked for a video team within the home builder, so it's creative still, but it's very much corporate. '

Your experience of the music industry as well. I'd love to hear some stories, if you have any, of payments that may not have gone through, or have you any good stories or bad stories where relationships within the industry have been affected by money or money that was promised. 

So the good news is I don't have any bad stories in the music industry. I have them in most other industries. I had a wild job. And I was like 17, 18, whatever the f*ck, I was coming back from college and working. I don't remember. It was over summer. I was working at a grill and didn't sign any W-4s and logged all my hours on my own. And just worked with the manager to make sure that was happening.

I got ripped off about $500 there. He stole a lot of money from a lot more people than just me. So that was like the biggest scam that I think I've ever been a part of. Luckily music just hasn't been! I've worked with good people. And then when I work with good people, I haven't had any absolute d*cks come along yet.

That's where I was going with this. Maybe it's the fact that I just haven't encountered that yet. It's a fact that, maybe with growth comes demand, comes a lot more attention. So with more attention, the careless things that I do occasionally, like, put out a feeler for the next EP, right? Like maybe just put something out into the world. That's like, oh, just an idea, puts it on an Instagram story. It's not labeled as anything. It's not copyrighted. Someone takes that, someone steals it and uses it as their own. 

I worked with a duo in Miami that they said, we were taking stories of one of the songs we had just finished. And one of the guys was like, “Yo, you can't put that anywhere”. I was like, oh sh*t. All right, cool. No problem. I asked why, and he was like, “We've had people steal our sh*t. They steal hooks, they steal sh*t.”

They know we're good. They know we're a little careless sometimes. And I mean, all artists are careless. It's not, not just them. Every artist is living in the space where… first off, it's a hard world to collaborate in, like when you're mixing social media and being an artist, the two they're supposed to go well together, right? 

Sometimes they really don't. It's not as easy. Not everybody's good at both, and it's not easy to be in this carefree world of being an artist of like, yo, I just want to put my emotions out into the world. Like people getting drunk in the studio, getting high as sh*t, whatever the f*ck. It's such an industry where drugs and alcohol are so prevalent and, and a carefree attitude is so important.

We were looking for a saxophonist for this big session that we were doing. We call a sax player and he goes, “I'm down, but can we have splits figured out before that?” 

Yep, he wanted that in writing before. And here's the problem with that? The artist's world, it might f*ck you over and you should be careful and you should want your split sheets and you should be doing what he did. People don't want to work with you if you do that. People don't want to work with you if your attitude is, “Yo, but what about the money? Yo, but how about business?”

It sounds greedy. It kills the vibe too. It's like, yeah, we don't even know if we're going to come out with anything. Just trust us, just trust the process If something goes out that you were on and you didn't get your sh*t, then that's where this conversation will come. Like if I'm part of a session where that song goes out and I didn't get my pay and I didn't get my cut and I didn't get my royalty, and there is no split sheet, then yeah I'd be on this call with you telling you all about it and being like, yeah, I got f*cked and I don't really know how else to say it. But unfortunately, it's hard to get in rooms with people. If you're going to be at a tight a**. 

And where do you stand on that personally? Because I think it's completely fair to ask for splits or, I think we call it points in Ireland and it's definitely coming from a place of fairness.

Do you think maybe he handled it wrong? Maybe his wording was a bit too forward and there was just a lack of trust there? How would you have handled this if you were said saxophonist? 

So if I were him like I said, this is the opportunity, you haven't done anything yet, they don't even know how you play yet. Like, they don't even know if you're good. There are so many musicians in this world. You are almost always replaceable. If you are a big-name artist, you're not replaceable, that's different. And you can ask for whatever the f*ck you want.

That's why working with artists is tough and that's why they have teams. That's why they have demands. That's why they have entertainment lawyers. It's all of that. And so when it comes to me, I'm not big enough to be asking for splits at the beginning of a session. That's not where I can go with it.

This saxophonist, he's not… I don't even know a famous saxophonist. I can't even name you one, but he's not that guy. He's not the guy that you're like, this is him, we need him. You can't get anybody else now. Now we also didn't need a saxophonist. It was just a shot in the dark. Yeah. Let's just see if he's around. See what's up. You got to know the situation. If you're walking into a situation where it's all laid out, Hey, we're doing a song with Rihanna. Rihanna is gonna use this for her album. This is going to be, this is going to be an album.

Chasing your dreams is not all it's cracked up to be if you can't put food on the table. Artists, Chasing your dreams is not all it's cracked up to be, especially if you can't put food on the table. Artists, actors, and musicians are no strangers to this reality, so going through the growing pains of trying to make it big can harden even the most resilient dreamers. In this episode, we talked to a resilient dreamer and LA musician Liam O'Brien. Littered with stories of financial expectations, commitments to following his passions, and so much more, this look into the unspoken world of the music industry is a brutally honest tale. Note: Listener discretion advised; explicit content.

Story 9: My Uncle Doesn't Owe You Sh*t

Story 8: Life Isn’t All Sunshine And Rainbows

Happy new year and welcome to the first episode of The Chirp in 2022! Just a couple weeks ago, we ended the year by bringing to you a special episode that was very opportune for the season of giving. A popular podcast host himself, Joe Casabona, joined us for a lovely conversation that you should certainly listen to entitled Story 7: Treat People The Way You Want To Be Treated.

To start off the year, we are coming to you with an amazing episode this week. Filled with stories of struggle, triumph, and an important lesson on the value of strong family bonds, Josh Barker joined us to take about his early days in Silicon Valley and how that time ultimately led him to take a risk and start City Innovation Labs.

Struggling is a reality we rarely talk about openly. People love a good success story. A man walking across the moon or an athlete breaking a new record - we gawk and awe at the success of others, but never really take the time to think about all of the struggles that lead up to those culminating moments. You may not be Neil Armstrong, but you are someone with your own achievements, your own accomplishments, and your own successes. Take a moment to think, however, have you ever stopped to reflect on the struggles you overcame to get to that point? In our conversation with Josh Barker, thought leader behind City Innovation Labs, we did just that. Building a successful technology company takes more than just ingenuity and grit, sometimes it requires a bit of humility and in this case a brother sticking his neck out for his family financially when Josh had no options left to turn to.

The Chirp Story 8: Life Isn't All Sunshine And Rainbows

Audio Transcript of Story 8: Life Isn't All Sunshine And Rainbows

Hello and welcome back to The Chirp: A Podcast by Pigeon Loans. Cameron Laird here with our first episode of 2022. I’m excited for this year, partly to see the world open up again but mainly to bring you more episodes and guests and more interesting stories to make those awkward tales of loans between loved ones a little more accessible and a little less taboo.

Had a great conversation with a fascinating gentleman, called Josh Barker, who runs City Innovation Labs, a tech company that builds custom software for other companies. Josh had some great stories about his own experience with personal loans, how it has always seemed to run smoothly for him based on his great family and their strong values, and how those values have transferred into his own working family in his company, City Innovation Labs. 

Josh talks about the aspects of a big move to a big city and a career change that can have financial implications, some positive some negative, but gives an honest, refreshing take on his journey up until this point. Hope you all enjoy and let's dive in.

Cool. Listen, Josh, thank you so much for joining me on The Chirp! And you are our first episode of 2022 which is most prestigious! No I joke, but it's great to have you on. I know you're obviously flat out before year-end. But yeah, I'd love to get to know your story. I was checking out your LinkedIn and I was very impressed with your previous roles and all that you've done in the past, leading up to City Innovation Labs. So would you mind taking it away and giving us a little bit of a brief rundown of your journey up until this moment?

Yeah, sure. So my background is mostly in engineering, so I was a software engineer, classically trained, and I started programming when I was 14 on my parents' Atari. So creating larger size asteroids and smaller size asteroids and all sorts of those things, for those that know asteroids. But yeah, as an engineer, I grew up in that space, so I can speak the development lingo and eventually where that brought me was at a company called KPMG. So I worked there as a Director of Innovation. And so my buddy had called me up out of the blue. I was there for about three or four years (he had moved to Silicon Valley the year prior) and he called me up and said, "Hey, Josh Barker I was out to breakfast with this accredited investor. I had no idea he had money, and I just pitched him on this idea and he just wrote me a $150,000 check!"

And he's like, "Whoa, I would love for you to leave your job and come with me." And I was like, "Well I know that sounds like a lot of money. It's not actually a lot of money, but I will help you learn how to use it in the best way possible". And so in the next couple of months I helped him figure out how to use it. And then he called me back up. I thought we were just going to talk about the project and it was about three months in. And so he's like, "I just raised over a million in seed funding, is that enough?" And I was like, okay, now we can actually talk about me leaving my stable job at KPMG and moving over to the startup.

So that's what I did. I moved over to Silicon Valley for about three years. Telecommuted over there, flew out there for a week or two at a time, would fly back and learned a lot out there. So I'd been, as I had mentioned, an engineer. I've been classically trained. The way I like to describe it is how to build the right thing. So you pop open the hood and you can make it run really, really fast. But out in Silicon Valley, I was taught not how to build the right thing, but how to build the thing right. And that's a huge difference, right? One is you pop open the hood and you can make it run quick and efficient. And the other one is, well, who cares if you make it run quick and efficient if no one wants to buy it! So that's where my career took a shift of learning about a lean startup. How do you find the right product-market fit? How do you build things that people actually care about?

And so for us, the next three years, I was out in the valley and, out of the three years, learning, working with people from Google Ventures and people working from Y Combinator, learning from all these really smart people, it eventually led into starting a firm called City Innovations.

And so what we do is we help people build the right thing. That's what I like to say because there's a difference between building the thing right and building the right thing. So how can we help organizations build the right thing? We work with entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs on how to build that right thing.

And it's much harder than you think, because if you take just Airbnb as an example, a lot of custom software development firms will just build it. And they'll say, “Here's the keys, go run with it!” And if you go and build Airbnb.com. Then, if it's a two-sided marketplace like Airbnb, you could build it, but what's the value in it? If there's no properties, like why would you use it, right? So there's something missing and that's what we help companies do is find that missing something. 

So you're really doing a deep dive on the story of a company and a product, because you can't leave any stones unturned. Would that be a fair assessment?

Yeah. I mean, if you, if you simplify it to that level, yeah. I mean, we help companies go through a lot of… - Airbnb started with spreadsheets and they rented out their own apartment and that's the part no one sees, right? They started out very scrappy and they grinded to get where they're at.

And so what people don't realize is, months into starting Airbnb, they were running the whole company off of spreadsheets and renting out other people's apartments on Craigslist. They had no Airbnb.com. And so that's the part that people miss. They just don't understand the origin stories of ‘how did they get to where they're at?’

And that's what we call that space: “zero to one”. And so we focus on that zero to one space of before, there's a story of, “have you visited airbnb.com?”

We help fill in the blank company. We help the pre-story. The background story, so to speak.

So yeah cool. Very interesting. And what was it like moving to Silicon Valley initially? Was it a big change for you? Was it very exciting? What were your initial impressions? 

It was a huge change. Yeah, exactly. So in moving out of the Midwest, which is traditionally very conservative, and so moving to Silicon Valley was a big difference.

I mean, there's huge differences between the two areas with risk appetite, right? In the Midwest, going out to breakfast and having someone write a $150,000 check, that just doesn't happen! So people just don't invest that early on. So going out to the valley and having that, those kinds of people that are willing to take a risk on a really good idea, there's a lot more of that appetite, a lot more innovation and that's what it fuels, right? 

Taking more risks is equivalent to… - the outcome of that is usually more innovation. So yeah, I mean, that's probably one of the biggest key differences. I mean, there's a lot of others, the differences of people and that come out of that, but that's probably the underlying key difference that we see that I saw.

Migrating there and starting your new life, any tales where you thought working relationships, or even you with your friends, were somewhat affected by money and lending? I imagine you were in a financially stable position from your nice job at KPMG. So what was it like going out there? Any stories where things were affected?

Oh yeah. Yeah. I can tell you all sorts of… It's a great assumption to say that I was very financially stable and I had no money problems. 

No, no, you're good! I mean, I think that's the whole purpose of this though, right? The whole purpose of Pigeon Loans is breaking down a lot of those barriers of people being open and honest. I can be real with how things happen because the origin story of how City Innovations started is not something I talk about a lot. I don't think entrepreneurs do! I don't think enough focus is put on it.

The analogy I give is like, you've seen those motivational posters where you're like, I don't know, “Perseverance!”, and it's a guy climbing a mountain or something like that. Well, one of them is like that and one that I really resonate with is “Failure!” And it's a picture of this iceberg. And underneath the water is the rest of the iceberg. And all people see is the top of the iceberg, right? So it's like the tip. So that's the thing is like, you looked at my resume and you started out with like, “Oh, it's a really impressive resume.”

But there were tons of failures to get to that point. And so going back to your question of like, what is that, what was that process and what did it look like? I remember when I left KPMG and one of the things that I looked at, I had a very cushy job and I said, “I know I'm going to have to make sacrifices.”

And as I moved over, one of the things I looked to do is to see if I could maintain the same lifestyle. And that's impossible when you're going from a very cushy large company to a startup. A lot of sacrifices had to be made. And so my wife and I made big… we took a big pay cut, right? Took over a 50% pay cut.

You need to go work at a startup. But I mean, obviously there's risk and there's rewards. So we looked at the reward and we're like, okay, the outcome could be a good thing, I remember distinctly there was a season of Winter we were going through. Middle of winter in Michigan, mind you, which is freezing!

If you don't know Michigan weather, it's freezing and so, and I remember my first. And in that moment, my furnace broke. I looked at the bank account because we made cuts and all these areas, you have to also make lifestyle cuts. Right. And so it was about a couple of years in, and we had been putting things on credit cards because we couldn't make it with just the salary cuts and all that stuff.

So we were trying to keep reducing. And so I looked at that and I was like, my furnace broke. I've got these credit cards and I have no way of paying for this furnace that broke. I don't have the savings we put into the business, and so I'm sitting here over-leveraged as an entrepreneur, and this is a story that people don't tell with entrepreneurs, right? And so you look at it and you go, what am I going to do? And I literally was on my knees, like praying. I'm like sitting here going, I don't know what I'm going to do. 

And so the next day my brother took me out to breakfast and he's like, “What do you need?” And I was like, “Honestly, man, I don't know what I need. I just need you to pray for me!” And he's like, “How about I just give a five grand loan to you?” And so this is where Pigeon Loans comes in because those early stories of entrepreneurs like myself, who you look at and you go, you could say I'm successful. You could say, mediocre. You could say whatever you say or however it appears. I am like, it's really different. The different story underneath for almost anyone that's true. Right? So, that's where I think tearing down those walls with Pigeon Loans and being able to have those stories be more normalized and having it be like, “Hey, this happens all across the world!”

These loans from your brother or your father… No, even rewind previous to that. I remember when my mom, we were in a situation where my parents were very financially strapped and my brother and I had jobs and we were living at home and we had really no financial obligations.

We did the same thing with my parents, right? It’s being able to loan them money as they needed it. And so the thing that I love about Pigeon Loans and that as a concept, because I get to work with you guys on a few different things, is I love the fact that I had to create my own mechanism for keeping track of my loans. My dad really wanted to make it a loan, right?

And so did I! When my brother is like, we're really wanting to make it a loan, we want to pay it back, right? And so for us, it's like, how do we keep track of the amount of money that we're loaning and the terms and all of those different things. And so we had a very janky spreadsheet mechanism. I'd have to remember, and I have to remind, and so it was both with my brother and my dad and me receiving money and having to pay my brother back and be with my father where he'd pay me back. 

So it just ended up being a mess, right? So it just was very difficult to keep track of. So. I admire a lot of what you guys are doing at Pigeon Loans because it's so needed in the area of all of that is happening behind the scenes, but bringing it to the forefront and saying, “Hey, we want to invest some time and energy into helping these people.”

Absolutely, great stories. There are a couple of questions on that, I suppose having that conversation with your brother, it's not the first positive story that we've heard on this show about family members giving dig-outs, or siblings looking after each other. Definitely, brotherly love has featured on The Chirp before. That, to me, is a good sign of a good family that has good financial values as well.

Obviously not just you and your bro, but you're your parents as well. Why do you think that's the case? Why do you think, for other people, it wouldn't be the case? Any examples of how you were raised and why that ethos exists within your family personally?

Yeah. It's a good question. And for us, I mean, it really boils down to priorities, right? Someone told me that if you look at someone's resources. And so resources, if you break that down, time is money, right? If you look at their resources and you go, If you've created a pie chart, where is the majority or where is the majority of that time going?

And if you were to break that apart, the biggest, I think, influence my father had on me and my family was, hey, when that happens and we do a breakdown, really, those should be bucketized. For us, we are a very faith-driven family as God. But family, to answer your question is like, that was a huge part of that pie chart and your family should be a big part of that pie chart of investing into your family.

And that means time and that means money. And so you should be able to look at someone. Bank account and put it into a pie chart and create categories and say, what does this person care about? And that tells a lot about a person, right? And so for me, I think that was super influential in that process to know that caring about other people and caring about my family and caring about even friends, right.

What does my pie chart look like? And I think for me, that's the thing that I look at as I go, how are my resources being, if someone took an insight into my calendar or someone in Pigeon Loan's case, took a look at my pocketbook and took a look at my bank account. Am I being what, what I would call a good steward of that money?

Am I putting that to good use? And so for me, I think, having more of those conversations. And I think it really starts with family values. I think what you were implying is like, for me, it really started there of having that instilled from a really young age of, these are really important things! Family really is really an important bond here. 

Awesome. And it's quite evident as I was reading an article or a blog post you'd put up on City Innovation Labs, explaining the COVID situation and how you were asking your staff to work remotely. It's quite evident that these family values that you're talking about have transferred as well into your company. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is that a fair assessment? 

Yeah, absolutely. So that's one of the things that we really want to instill and support our people in doing is giving. So I think that's a big thing. Like we just got off of a team week, a couple of weeks ago. There's an organization here in town called Alpha Ministries. So they were originally just a women's ministry, but they moved into men where those people are really in rough straights, right? And they’re maybe a single mom, a single dad, and they're really having a hard time financially, keeping up. And so they support those people through those hard times.

And so we give back our time, right? We gave back time. We volunteered and we helped clean. We helped really go around the facility and do whatever they needed us to do as hands. And then we followed that up. One of the cool things that we have on our team, a couple of team members put together a walking challenge, which is really neat.

And traditionally you have these walking challenges. I don't know if you're familiar with employee walking challenges where everyone gets in their steps. And so, a lot of times, you'll give the winner a gift card or whatever it is. And for us, the whole team decided unanimously, “Hey, at 100,000 steps, we want the winner to give Alpha Ministries a donation!” And so we actually made it, donation-based where it was like, Hey, we're going to add certain steps. We're going to add them all up and we're going to actually give this out to Alpha. And so it was pretty neat to see, to be a part of that. And to have me almost take a step back and just be a participant.

And it was neat to see our own people self-organize around their desire to do that. 

Story 8: Life Isn't All Sunshine And Rainbows

I guess this is the end of 2021 and just like the end of 2020 (remember that year *insert nervous laughter*) we’re looking forward and definitely not backward to the upcoming year. This year has stretched everyone to their limits so not to stretch you any further we’re gonna make this final newsletter of 2021 a short, punchy, and punny look forward to the coming year.

2021 was a funny year for Pigeon Loans because it was “technically” our first full year of existence. From January all the way until now (with only minor breaks of degeneracy in between) we’ve been working extremely hard to make our ecosystem the smartest way to make loans with your friends, family members, and loved ones, in the easiest, simplest, and safest way possible. With so much already developed, you might be wondering “hey Pigeon Loans, what more could there be left to create?”…well Judy, funny you ask, let us tell you 😏.

In 2022 we have a few new exciting, tantalizing, overly stimulating, spaztastic, outrageously amazing features which we will be building just for you! All of these new creations are obviously still things we are working on, but we’ll give you at least 1 hint as to what’s to come. So without further ado, let’s reveal the first (and only) hint we’ve got for you. In 2022, we’re going to be building something very credit score oriented. We know, we know, *gasp* another thing I can’t qualify for — haha, well silly reader, we aren’t going that route, we’re doing an about-face and finding a way for you to benefit from making loans with your friends and family on our platform in a completely new, but positive way!

We will, of course, roll out a more comprehensive outline of how this new feature works. But basically, Pigeon Loans has shaken hands with some very powerful people recently to allow you to do things that weren’t possible before in the world of interpersonal loans. In the United States, credit scores and credit history are a big deal to people’s financial journeys. So giving you all the ability to potentially do something credit score related on our platform, is going to be huge! But all of this is still a secret so don’t tell anyone 😉.

When we started this year, Pigeon Loans had moved a grand total of less than $1,000 in loans across maybe 6 people. Honestly, it was probably just us (your alluring authors/founders) making loans with each other and our grandmothers volunteering to be our earliest beta testers (thanks gram-gram). Well over the year, we added more grandmothers to our platform, and over the course of 2021, we moved a pretty significant amount of loans for all you amazing people!

In 2021, we saw over $400,000 in monetary value moved through our loan creation platform. A far cry and a huge increase from the humble beginning we started with at the onset of the year. In 2022 however, we expect things to get even better. So for the coming new year, we’ve done our projections, and quite honestly the numbers shocked us a bit. In 2022, Pigeon Loans is set to process over 1 million dollars in loan volume! That’s right, 1,000,000 smack-a-roonies. It’s going to be an amazing year for everyone in our community.

Soooo not going to lie, in 2021 we kind of Han Solo’ed this thing. We kept our internal circle very small, only asked for help when needed, didn’t really make a whole lot of ‘corporate friends’, and did our best to fly under the radar. However, all good solo journeys eventually come to an end, and in this upcoming year you’re going to be seeing our name pop up a lot in a lot of different places…like a lot.

In 2022, you should expect to see Pigeon Loans across your TV screens, guest staring on your favorite podcasts, in the news (hmmm maybe a spot on TMZ), on the social webs, in your real estate pamphlets, in your bank accounts, in your dentist’s office (???), in a verse in a Migos song (brrrd brrd), we’re going to be all over the place. How is all of this possible you ask? (Good to hear you're asking the tough questions still Judy). We’ll partnerships and friendships — that’s how all of this will get done 🤗.

Obviously, all of these conversations are occurring behind the scenes and with the utmost secrecy, but just know if you’re at the gas station in the next couple of weeks and see a pigeon waddle up to your car — that bird is one of ours, and we paid for that promo.

We’d like to leave you with one final tidbit of things to look forward to in the coming year. If you’ve been looking hard enough and have been actively refreshing our website, looking for new content every second of the day (shout out to the real ones out there) then you realized something pretty cool.

Have you noticed that we have been linking out to loads of fascinating articles via our socials, newsletters, and community outreach lately? Maybe like this one👇

Well, this is because we have been developing and growing our educational content significantly recently. The Nest home to all things finance, relationship, and loan-related is growing and will grow even faster in 2022!

In 2022, we plan to put out new articles, new podcast episodes, new videos, and even more editions of your favorite newsletter every single week! Now, we know that we’ve been pretty good at hiding all of these developments, but rest assured the moment we walk into the new year we are going to bombard you with loads and loads of awesome content — you’re welcome.

Well, there you have it, our “wrap forward” into 2022! Enjoy your parties, your celebrations, your jeers, and jives. Thank you for all your support in 2021 and we look forward to making 2022 an even better year than the last!

See you next year (haha we’re so funny).

December 2021: All The Latest News About Pigeon Loans

Instead of recapping 2021, we're going to switch things up and let you know about all the new and exciting plans in store for Pigeon Loans in 2022!

The Carrier: Wrapping Forward To 2022

Just about everyone has found themselves in a tight spot financially at some point or another. In these situations, you can't always be picky about where to get the cash you need.

But if you're considering a payday loan to cover your short-term expenses, you might want to consider other options. Here's why payday loans often do more harm than good — and what options you should look at instead.

A payday loan is a short-term loan with an often exorbitantly high-interest rate that’s often marketed to borrowers who don’t have enough money for an expense or need to borrow a small amount of money to tide them over before “payday” comes.

Payday loans are available both online and in person. To qualify for a payday loan, borrowers typically need to provide a pay stub or proof of income, legal identification, and checking or savings account information. 

Although they are high-cost loans, payday loans are popular because most do not require a credit check from one of the three credit bureaus or a look into your credit history. A payday loan amount is usually dispersed within a day after being approved. Naturally, this can sound very attractive, especially to people with lower credit who need quick cash, but taking out a payday loan can be a very dangerous financial decision. Each state has its own rules on how much you can borrow and in some states payday loans are flat out illegal - the limits for payday loans usually range between $50 to $1,000. 

According to a report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), more than 80% of payday loans are rolled over. When you roll over a payday loan into the next payday loan, the amount you accumulated in interest or loan fees is added to the principal, and in some states, you may even get charged late fees. The average consumer pays $250 in fees to take out a $375 loan (that’s a total of $625, almost twice as much as the loan itself).

Payday loan lenders charge the highest interest rates among all consumer lending products, some may argue, criminally high. The typical payday loan has an interest rate of 400% APR, while a credit card has an average annual percentage rate (APR) of 18%. In only a month, borrowing  $1,000 from a payday loan service would cost you $328.77 in interest - causing you to pay back almost 1/3 of the money you desperately needed in the first place.

Payday loans have a short repayment window, usually between two and four weeks. Most people can’t afford to repay a loan within that window or by their next paycheck, which forces them to renew their loan in order to stay afloat—thereby getting stuck in a cycle of debt. 

When you renew a payday loan, any unpaid interest is added to the principal. That means people in financial need in this situation end up being charged interest on a higher loan amount than before, making it even harder to pay off the balance!

Why You Should Be Cautious of Payday Loans Plus: Payday Loan Alternatives - Grid view

So if we take a step back and consider all of these facts, should we ask ourselves “are payday loans bad”?

Payday lending is supposed to help borrowers fix their financial problems in the short term, but it often has the opposite effect in the long term. Most people who take out payday loans can’t afford them, leading to a vicious cycle of inescapable debt. In fact, research shows that the average payday loan amount is 36% of the borrower’s income, but that the average borrower can only afford to repay 5% of their income. 

Just like it sounds, a payday alternative loan (PAL) is a similar product to a payday loan. The main difference is that it offers a lower interest rate. The maximum interest rate for a PAL is 28% APR, and the loan amount ranges from $200 to $1,000. 

The specific repayment term depends on the bank but generally ranges from one to six months. Because the rates are lower and the terms are longer, borrowers end up paying less interest with a PAL than a regular payday loan.

Only federal credit unions offer PALs. You can find a list of these credit unions here. To be eligible for a PAL, you must be a federal credit union member for at least a month to qualify for a PAL through them (although some credit unions may have longer requirements). 

A credit card can be a fast and easy way to access money when you need it quickly. The interest rates on a credit card can be higher than a personal loan (typically between 15% and 22%), but generally lower than a payday loan or PAL. 

If you have a credit score of 670 or higher, you may even qualify for a 0% interest rate promo offer on a credit card. These promotional offers usually last between six and 24 months. You can charge purchases to the card, only make the minimum monthly payment and not owe any interest. If you can pay off the balance before the promotional offer expires, then you won't have paid any interest at all 😉.

If you can’t qualify for a 0% interest rate, you can still use a credit card for emergencies. Always pay off your statement balance in full, otherwise, you’ll be charged interest on the remaining balance. While the interest charges on a credit card could be higher than a personal loan, they’ll still be lower than what you would owe with a payday loan.

When you take out a personal loan, the bank deposits the amount you borrow as a lump sum into your bank account. You can use the funds for almost any purpose, like rent, other debts, or medical bills, which is one of the many benefits of obtaining a personal loan. 

Unlike payday loans, personal loans have long repayment terms, usually between one to seven years. Personal loan amounts range from $1,000 to $100,000 — much higher than a payday loan.

Interest rates for personal loans range from 4% to 36% APR, depending on your credit score, the loan amount and the repayment term. If you have bad credit or poor credit, you likely won’t be eligible. You typically need a credit score of 600 or higher and a solid credit report to qualify for a personal loan, and if you do qualify for one, the interest on your personal loan may even be tax-deductible. 

If you have a credit card, you can withdraw cash from it by taking a cash advance loan. You can use those funds to cover an emergency or to pay your bills. Be careful though! Credit card companies charge a higher APR for a cash advance than for a regular credit card purchase, so you should only use it if you specifically need cash. 

For example, if you need to pay rent, your landlord likely doesn’t accept a credit card. Instead, you could take a cash advance and use those funds to cover the expense. The cash advance limit is usually between 30% and 50% of the total credit card limit. For example, if your credit limit is $10,000, then your cash advance limit may be between $3,000 and $5,000. 

Borrowing from a friend or family member may be a less expensive option than a payday loan, personal loan, or credit card. The person lending you money may choose not to charge you any interest, although we recommend you should always charge some nominal interest rate in order to avoid unintended tax consequences. 

Borrowing from friends or family is usually more flexible than any other type of loan. You can pick a repayment plan timeline that fits your budget, and it’s usually easier to skip a loan payment to a loved one—if absolutely necessary—than to a lender.

The downside of this approach is that a loan with a friend or family member could impact your relationship if you don’t pay off the loan as quickly as you promised. The person whom you are borrowing from may feel pressured to give you money because of your personal relationship, even if it interferes with their own financial goals. Regardless of these potential pitfalls, there are helpful services like Pigeon Loans out there to help you keep your relationship top of mind, and avoid any unnecessary pressures when dealing with this type of transaction.

Take a step back and consider these things the next time you consider a payday loan:

Look at lower-cost options, payday loan alternatives like - PALs, Credit Cards, or Personal Loans. 

Be smart and calculate any interest you may be paying before making a decision on a new loan.

Consider borrowing from friends and family if that’s an option.

Payday loans are arguably the most expensive lending option available and it can take months to repay these kinds of loans. Take the time to utilize better alternatives, and you may end up much happier with your decision!

Want to read more related content? Check out some more of our awesome educational pieces below:

The Top Benefits of Obtaining a Personal Loan

Lending Money? Borrowing Money? Avoid Tax Pitfalls

Balance Transfers vs Personal Loans: Here Is The Difference

Payday loans are often not a smart choice for any kind of borrower. They are riddled with high fees, predatory lending practices, and are not a recommended financial instrument to help yourself get out of debt. Explore some of the better alternatives to obtaining a payday loan.

Why You Should Be Cautious of Payday Loans Plus: Payday Loan Alternatives

If you are in the United States, obtaining a personal loan affects your credit score in several ways, both positively and negatively. How you are impacted primarily depends on two factors. 

The scoring models used by FICO and credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) to calculate your credit score.

The way you use your personal loan funds.

Personal loans are a great way to get some quick cash, and can even be used as a debt consolidation tool. Used the right way, personal loans can improve your credit score. If you make timely payments and build a reliable payment history, you’ll likely improve your credit report and thus increase your credit score over time.

One of the best ways to build a great credit score is to pay balances on time and consistently. In fact, Experian tells us it’s better to make smaller payments more often than large payments less often. Therefore, if you’re paying off a personal loan in a consistent and timely manner, it’s certain to improve your credit score over time.

However, if you are not careful, obtaining a personal loan can hurt your credit score. For instance, if you already have a mountain of debt, and you apply for a personal loan, you’ll increase your amounts owed (i.e., your total debt), which could hurt your credit score. Plus, with more debt, lenders will perceive your future loan applications as high risk and charge a higher interest rate, or reject your loan application altogether.

All things considered if you're finding it tough to get a loan from a bank or credit union, getting a personal loan from your loved ones can be a smart move. Although you may not be able to boost your credit score if the loan is coming from your best friend or brother, personal loans from people you trust are often a lot more flexible and can help you in a time crunch. Regardless of their effect on your credit score, you have many great options for securing your financial future by obtaining a personal loan.

Can A Personal Loan Hurt Your Credit Score?

Getting a personal loan when you're already under a lot of financial stress can often spell bad news for your credit score. For instance, say there’s an attractive discount available on a car you’ve been wanting to buy. However, the discounted price is outside of your budget. You consider getting a car loan to make the most of the discount, but since you don’t qualify for one, you apply for a personal loan. You buy the car, but when it's time to make payments, you feel stressed. You miss payments and hurt your credit score.

This is why it’s important to know how personal loans can hurt your credit score. Assuming your lender reports your personal loan to a credit rating agency (not all lenders do), several things during the application process and after you’ve secured the loan can put a dent in your credit report. Did you know that simply applying for a personal loan can also affect your credit score?

A hard inquiry occurs when you apply for new credit and a lender subsequently pulls your credit report at the time of assessing your creditworthiness via a loan application. In order to offer you the best personal loans, lenders look at your credit history to gauge your creditworthiness. Based on their assessment and your length of credit history, they’ll decide whether to lend you money and on what terms.

Hard inquiries typically stay on your credit report for up to two years, and during that time they will appear as a negative mark on your credit history. The extent of a hard inquiry’s impact depends on the applicant's financial position. Typically, a hard inquiry will result in a drop of five or fewer points. But if you have a strong credit history, the drop in scores may be smaller.

Too many hard inquiries in a short period of time can lead to poor scores when undergoing a credit check, this reality may yield a decrease in the loan amount you are looking for, and ultimately will convey to your lenders that you may be facing insurmountable financial challenges in your personal finance journey. 

This may seem like a sticky situation if you hope to go apply with several lenders looking for the best rate. But the good thing is, you can check your credit score before you apply for a personal loan by undergoing a soft inquiry and no damage will be done to your score unlike the consequences of a hard inquiry.

Your payment history is the most important factor impacting your credit score. Positive payment history and even negative payment history account for 35% of your FICO score. So when bureaus like Transunion, Experian, and Equifax calculate your credit score, they are focusing mainly on long-term payment history, rarely short-term. 

💡 Consistently making all the payments for an entire loan term is key to building a good credit score. 

Ideally, you should make your personal loan payments as they become due. While missing payments isn’t good, a one-off instance isn’t the end of the world. Your lender will typically charge you a late fee for the missed payment, and potentially a higher APR (interest on your loan), but a late or missed payment typically won't end up on your credit report if you pay off any amount due within 30 days after you missed a payment.

If however, you miss payments, usually monthly payments, beyond the 30-day mark, you could incur severe consequences. If a late payment makes it to your credit report, it may stay there for up to seven years! So bottom line - don't miss payments when paying off a personal loan.

Can A Personal Loan Improve Your Credit Score?

Yes, a personal loan can help you improve your credit score. Whether or not a personal loan does improve your credit score ultimately boils down to you being a smart borrower who can manage your finances well.

Personal finance in regards to these types of loans is a tricky topic that many people struggle with, but luckily there are some tried and true tips you can implement to increase your chances of boosting your credit score. If you're hoping to use your next personal loan as a tool to improve bad credit, you should know about the following factors that can positively influence your credit score.

Quite intuitively, you can use your personal loan to improve your credit score by making timely payments. Making timely personal loan payments helps you build credit and demonstrates to lenders that you are financially responsible enough to manage additional lines of credit. Research suggests that people who have a strong track record of making on-time payments tend to be more likely to pay their debts in full. 

As you can imagine, getting paid back is the most important thing for lenders; this is why timely payments carry a significant amount of weight on your FICO score. So no matter how large your student loan payments are, make sure you pay them off every month 😉.

If you didn’t know already, credit mix, i.e., the types of active credit accounts you have, is an important factor that influences your credit score. Your credit mix can include mortgages, credit cards, and yes, even personal loans. If we dig a little deeper, we should also note that credit can be of two types—revolving credit and installment credit. 

Revolving credit is a borrowing agreement that allows you to take money out or put it back into the account as often as you want, provided you don't exceed your credit limit. Ring a bell? This is how your credit cards and related lines of credit work. 

Installment credit is a borrowing agreement that comes with a repayment schedule that tells you exactly when you need to make payments over a predefined loan term. The disbursements and withdrawals for an installment credit account tend to be less flexible than revolving credit accounts and may even include origination fees. Examples of installment loans include mortgages, car loans, and personal loans…you get the idea.

So, why does this matter for your credit score?

Well, diversifying your credit mix can help improve your credit score, especially if you only have revolving credit accounts like credit cards. The reason? Credit scoring models look favorably upon borrowers who can manage various types of credit accounts - so mix it up!

You can use a personal loan for pretty much anything, from rolling over student loans to consolidating high-interest debt in an effort to reduce your credit card balances, personal loans are a powerful tool you should use in your personal finance arsenal.  Not only do personal loans provide you with financial flexibility, but they also can positively impact your credit score if used responsibly.  

Whether you go to a bank, create a personal loan with a friend or family member, or even seek financial opportunities elsewhere, make sure you consider all of the ways you may impact your credit score. Just following a few of our best practices will have you well on your way to that 800 credit score you’ve been dreaming of!

What Types of Personal Loan Interest Are Tax Deductible?

How to Write Off Bad Debt For Unpaid Loans Friends Owe You

Balance Transfers vs Personal Loans: Here Is the Difference

Trying to build your credit score? Obtaining a small personal loan might be the best way forward for you to achieve your financial goals.

How Personal Loans Affect Your Credit Score

Story 7: Treat People The Way You Want To Be Treated

Welcome to another episode of The Chirp. In our previous story, we got a chance to talk with Daniel Narciso - practically a human encyclopedia. If you didn't get a chance to check out our episode with Daniel, definitely give it a listen because we promise you'll learn something new - Story 6: Be Loyal To Those Who Loan You Money.

This week we flipped the script a little bit and brought in a podcast host (a little podcast-inception) as a special guest on our show. Joe Casabona, host of the popular podcast series How I Built It, stopped by to give us his insights on how he views work in the content world and how he dedicates time in his life to giving back to those that he can - financially and professionally.

We are all trying to do our best in this race we call life. Some people live an audacious life dreaming of one day becoming an astronaut or physicist, while others, unfortunately, have to desperately fight and worry each night about how to put food on the table for their families. Life and all of its ups and downs are full of many mysteries, but one thing is clear to us all, we're all human and we should all be treated as such. This week we got a reminder of exactly that - a motto & sentiment Joe Casabona lives by. A web developer, author, teacher, content creator, and podcaster, Joe takes us through the journey of his life and teaches us how important it is to give back and invest in those around you along the way.

Audio Transcript of Story 7: Treat People The Way You Want To Be Treated

What's going on everyone? Hello to everyone joining me for our last episode of 2021. The holidays are approaching, we live in anticipation for 2022 to be a better year than the last one. Maybe the one before that as well. 

But listen, let’s not focus on the past. Life goes on, as does The Chirp! I was able to grab a conversation with the genius that is Joe Casabona this week. 

Joe is a podcaster, a content creator, a teacher, he does live streams with his fans building websites with WordPress - which he is excellent at. He has a Youtube channel that is specific to podcasters getting started, so I was keen to pick his brain about that - he has a plethora of knowledge about everything content creation. And he also helps content creators build their business and brand and he has kindly given listeners of The Chirp some special offers which I will talk about at the end of the episode.

But I’ll let Joe do the talking now. He is a maestro on the microphone, it was great to chat to him and learn about his journey, hear his wisdom about content creation, and also a take on a scenario about relationships and money that I found very unique. So I will let you all listen.

Well, thank you so much for coming on The Chirp. It's a pleasure to have you, I’m a huge fan of your content. I know you're an educator, podcaster content creator, father of two, soon to be the father of three, as I heard from your live stream! So a big future ahead of you. So congratulations. I would love to know how you got started, where it all began, how you became able to do what you love so much, and the plans for the future?

Yeah, thanks. Thanks so much. I really appreciate that. So I got my start in high school. People who listen to my podcast will have heard this story probably many times before, but luckily I was always kind of into computers. And then my church came to me and they asked me if I could make them a website.

They're like, “Joe, you're good with computers. Can you make a website?” This is like 2001. 

And I don't know how to make a website. And they said, “We'll pay you”. And I was like, yeah, I can make a website. You'll pay me. Great. So they paid me 200 bucks. And it was. The first website I ever made, and I really liked doing that.

And so I decided then I want a career in computers. So that was when I was 14. I feel very fortunate that from an early age, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I went to the University of Scranton. I got a degree in computers. I got a master's in software engineering.