Q&A With Eric Youngstrom From Onramp – Growing Your Online Business

You launched a new online business but like many small business owners you soon realize to scale your business, you need capital.

Many small businesses never grow past the side hustle stage, or even fail because of a lack of funding.

Large banks have little interest to work with you because they are looking for multi-million dollar deals that look good on monthly sales charts.

For small business owners, it’s tough to find working capital that will help them grow their businesses so that they can fulfill their dreams.

Small ecommerce merchants and marketplace sellers also face the stigma of how will you compete with Amazon or other large sellers?

So, what is the answer? A working capital program that is specialized for small ecommerce businesses that takes a different look at how to help business owners achieve success.

Onramp Funds is just such a company. The company was founded in 2020 by Eric Youngstrom, a veteran in ecommerce and a profound experience in finding solutions for small businesses to scale their operations.

We were excited to take up the opportunity to speak with Eric about his vision of helping small business owners find the working capital to grow their businesses.

Q: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us about your new venture, Onramp Funds. After nearly ten years in various roles with what is today known as Auctane, you left the shipping and logistics technology solutions company to launch Onramp, offering working capital funding to online retailers and marketplace sellers.

What opportunity or pain points did you see that your new venture can solve for small business owners to help them succeed in ecommerce?

A: As the ecommerce market continued to mature during my time at ShippingEasy, I noticed a large gap with regard to purpose-built financing solutions for ecommerce merchants.

When building Onramp, we aimed to create a dedicated fintech solution fully aligned with the unique needs of the ecommerce business owner.

Leaning on deep experience in the ecommerce merchant space, Onramp leverages ecommerce ecosystem data with proprietary technology to simplify, automate, streamline, and synchronize financing dedicated to ecommerce sellers. We’re always priced transparently for easy adoption.

Our mission is to make our customers feel like partners, not financial transactions.

Q: How is Onramp different from other working capital funding solutions?

A: We’re exclusively focused on the ecommerce industry. The Onramp team brings deep ecommerce experience and an intimate understanding of the operational challenges facing ecommerce business owners.

We’re not Wall Street guys selling off-the-shelf products designed for traditional retail.  Our product synchronizes with the business using real-time data feeds, allowing us to partner with ecommerce business owners in ways no competitor can match.  

Q: Can business owners use the working capital funding for any expense, or is the funding limited to specific expenses?

A: We don’t dictate how the money is used, but we do time payments with expected Cost of Goods Sold expenses of the business necessary to drive sales.

Working capital powers sales turnover – misallocating working capital often drives businesses to fail.

Our approach structures the deployment and repayment of working capital funds the same way a dedicated CFO and finance team would. We make this available to small ecommerce business owners before the CFO joins the team.  

Q: Does Onramp have any minimum requirements? For example, a business owner’s credit score; the length of time the business has been selling online; or a minimum revenue threshold.

A: Onramp designed our core product to power the working capital cycles of merchants with monthly sales ranging from $15,000 to $1,000,000.

We also support just-launched businesses with our Launchpad product designed for ecommerce startups with as little as $3,000 in monthly revenue.

We check the business’ Experian scores, and our offers consider time in business, revenue, and other business metrics.

But we do all the work behind the scenes for the business owner—all they have to do is sign up, connect their accounts, and then our underwriting algorithms run.

We prequalify in just a few minutes.  Customers sign up, receive offers and have funds disbursed to them in as little as two hours.  

Q: Which online ecommerce platforms does Onramp support?

A: We currently support Amazon, Shopify, Bigcommerce, WooCommerce, and Squarespace.  We’re working to bring on Walmart, eBay, and more as we continue to grow Onramp.

Q: Since small business owners pay back the working capital loan based on future revenues, how long do you model the average payback period to be?

A: We customize working capital financing offers with terms ranging from 30 to 150 days. Our average customer repays the advance in 90 days.

We also allow customers to roll over existing advances if they need additional funds prior to fully repaying the current advance. 

We understand that sales, inventory, and supply chain cycles ebb and flow; Onramp supports ecommerce business owners through those cycles.

Thank You Eric Youngstrom From Onramp

Here at eSeller365, we believe in the entrepreneurial spirit. We like to thank Eric Youngstrom, founder and CEO of Onramp Funds, for his time and insights into his new venture.

Onramp is reimagining access to working capital for small business entrepreneurs, and the company is continuing to expand its services to more ecommerce platforms and marketplaces.

With a recent survey suggesting two-thirds of Americans are considering starting their own business in 2023—full time or as a side hustle—the need for an easy-to-access working capital solution could be the key to finding success and independence.

To learn more about how Onramp could help your business, please visit their website at onrampfunds.com.

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