Product Strategy Associate

Descrizione

About iwoca

We started in 2012, when we noticed a problem: on average, it was taking eight weeks (and a lot of paperwork) for small businesses to apply for a loan. Worse still, more often than not, that process was ending in a ‘no’.

We knew that bakeries, building firms, salons, and solicitors deserved better. They deserve to be able to grow – hire more hands, invest in stock, market themselves – without all the hold music and absurdly rigid criteria.

We’ve now been around for a decade, and in that time, we’ve:

• grown to a team of 290 iwocans
• worked with over 50,000 small businesses across the UK and Germany
• redesigned the whole business loan process from start to finish – our record is three minutes, 26 seconds.

It’s a good start, but it’s just the beginning. Our mission is help one million businesses who need us, so we still have a long way to go.

Here’s what we’ve learned about lending along the way:

• Technology is the way to change this space

From automated decisions to API integrations, tech has the potential to create the changes small businesses have been waiting for – so we can’t stop innovating.

• Embedded finance is the future

More and more, we’re reaching customers by embedding our loans within the apps and systems they use everyday. Our partners are people like neobanks, online marketplaces and accountancy software companies.

• Payments and credit are converging

Lots of small businesses struggle with cash flow; often getting invoices paid from their customers months after paying their own bills. Loans can help them pay these bills, but we also want to tackle the problem at its root by improving payment terms.

• New products are always possible

We’re working to create new loans of all shapes and sizes, and we’ve recently launched iwocaPay to help with these cash flow conundrums.

We work hard to make iwoca a place where everyone feels welcome - we want everyone to confidently be themselves. For us, diversity isn't an optional add-on. It's the thing that makes us great.

It's full of creativity, passion and ambition under our hood and there is oodles of stuff left to do. We are looking for people who bring diversity of thought and experience, have a passion for tackling big problems and want to build meaningful products and services for small businesses. If that’s you, then read on.

Strategy at iwoca helps chart the course of the business, working directly with our CEO and the broader leadership team. This is an opportunity to crack Board-level strategic questions, as well as get your hands dirty helping improve the solutions we offer to business customers. We’re building a world-class strategy engine to help us make the best decisions and take our business to the next level.

Requirements

At iwoca, we are constantly looking for ways to improve our lending products and features, so that we can attract and serve more small business owners with access to finance. We are looking for people who bring diversity of thought and experience, have a passion for tackling big problems and want to build meaningful products and services for small businesses.

As a Product Strategy Associate, you will:

• Identify improvements to our lending proposition. This could include changes to the mechanics of existing lending products or even the development of completely new products
• Analyse the potential impact of different propositions and model outcome scenarios, based on internal data and market research
• Build and execute launch plans for features or products, collaborating with distribution, product, engineering, risk management, finance and operations teams
• Structure lending proposition tests, thinking through the different ways to gather insights. Estimate resources needed to launch a test based on cross functional teams’ input, and opportunity costs associated with launching or delaying a test
• Monitor test performance, working with the relevant business and data analysts, and make recommendations on the lending proposition roadmap as a result.

You’ll work on a variety of fast-paced projects, learning from tests and effecting changes which really make an impact.

In this role, you will have significant exposure to senior management, as well as stakeholders from across the business (including Tech & Analytics, Risk, Marketing & Finance). Your mission will be to develop and test lending products and features. You’ll get a say in how things are done, the opportunity to make a difference to small business owners, and the chance to work on big and challenging projects.

• Experience in a high-performing role. You know about frameworks for analysing issues, structuring effective presentations and solving complex problems
• Someone who is strategic and has strong commercial instincts
• Analytical skills (we live, breathe and sleep data) and the ability to take on risk and make decisions with limited initial information, and then update your views as you learn what works and what doesn’t
• The capability to work with multiple teams to solve complex problems. People will be there to help you when you need it, but you’ll own the projects you’re working on and will be accountable for driving growth.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills. You’ll be able to concisely and clearly explain the benefits of new products or features - internally and to our customers
• Some experience working with digital customer journeys. You have a baseline knowledge of how to deliver a product through a digital channel and are able to work well with PMs, designers and developers
• Detailed technical knowledge of lending products would be a plus

Benefits

What’s life like as an iwocan?

We all enjoy:

• Bright, modern office spaces in Fitzrovia & Leeds. We have always supported flexible working however during the current pandemic the majority of iwocans are working from home. We have taken every precaution to keep our offices COVID-19 secure for those that need to use them.
• A calendar of ‘remote friendly’ events each week including Bingo, Comedy Nights, Escape Room challenges….
• Two company retreats a year (in places like the French Alps or Spanish seaside)
• Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments
• Virtual Yoga classes every Tuesday and Thursday morning
• An ever-growing number of clubs including climbing, chess, football and boxing
• Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen

Just for you:

• Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership
• We take your well being incredibly seriously, so you’ll have instant access to emotional and mental health support services via our partner Spill
• Share options
• Enhanced maternity and shared parental leave
• A workplace nursery tax benefit scheme. Save £££ on your nursery costs
• 25 days holiday per year and an extra day off on your birthday
• All the equipment you need to set up your home working space up
• Paid volunteering time for you to support your chosen charity
• Extra leave if you want to travel or study
• Special celebrations for anniversaries and long service including sabbatical
• Flexible working arrangements
• Cycle-to-work scheme

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

• L&D budget including a book budget to encourage you to keep learning
• Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers
• A calendar of meetups we host at our office
• Access to learning platforms like Treehouse if you want to learn to code.