In 2014, a report from the Federal Reserve Board indicated that an increasingly large number of people are making point-of-sale purchases on their smartphones, and among those, 17 percent paid for a product or service with that device while shopping at a retail store. Our next guest says this trend motivated him to make sure that his consumer finance company is mobile-friendly. Mike Switzer interviews Mike Dugas, co-founder of Credda, based in Spartanburg, SC.
After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.