Onsetto: Winning 30+ new clients from ICBA’s ThinkTECH Accelerator
Solving a Community Bank Problem
Onsetto, a commercial banking operating platform catering to community banks, solves a key community bank pain point: streamlining the account movement process for business customers.
With complex infrastructure and back-end systems, on average, it takes small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) 90 days to a year to move bank accounts. Onsetto simplifies and accelerates that process through a guided, white-label experience, helping community banks activate relationships faster and grow operating deposits.
"It has long been a huge bottleneck for a business to move their deposit relationship from their old bank to a new bank,” explained Onsetto Founder and CEO, Cale Johnston. “A business may open up an account, but then they realize it's too complex to get their accounts receivable, accounts payable, and payroll moved over. So, we built a solution that can essentially automate that entire process."
ICBA Innovation Impact
10 weeks of direct market validation
Through the ThinkTECH Accelerator, Onsetto worked directly with ICBA and its member banks to validate its product strategy, sharpen its positioning and align its messaging with the priorities of community banks.
Reaching 100s of bankers in one forum
The ThinkTECH Accelerator enabled Onsetto to speak directly with hundreds of community bank executives and capture direct feedback to better shape their solution specifically for community banks.
Winning 30+ clients in under a year
The ThinkTECH Accelerator helped Onsetto convert market interest into more than 30 signed clients in under a year demonstrating the impact of collaborating with community bankers through the accelerator program.
Gaining Access to Community Bankers
Even armed with a tool that could grow deposits for community banks, the Onsetto team found they were fighting an uphill battle in gaining an audience with bank leadership. With a massive number of competing priorities, community bank decision-makers weren’t readily accessible for new product meetings.
“When you're launching a new company, it's hard to get in front of banks. Banks are getting called on all day, every day, from different service providers, and even though we had a team that had some legacy, it still fell on deaf ears,” said Johnston. “And so, when we found out about the Accelerator, I thought it would be a good opportunity to actually be able to present our product in front of a number of banks and get their attention.”
"Joining the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator is, by far, the best thing that we've done for our business."
- Cale Johnston, Onsetto founder and CEO
And garner attention they did. During the course of the 10-week ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator program, Onsetto worked closely with the ICBA Innovation team to refine its communication strategy, allowing the fintech to offer a more tailored pitch while maintaining universal appeal, eventually earning Bankers Choice Award honors during AP10.
“The ICBA team does a good job of saying, ‘This is where what you do is interesting to community bankers, and you should lean into that,’” said Johnston. “They help you shape the message in your presentations, and they also get you in front of a ton of banks.”
Garnering Results
Following the deep banker engagement they had during the ThinkTECH Accelerator, Onsetto boasted a community bank follow-up rate of 70%. That interest led to sales. In less than a year, Onsetto signed more than 30 new clients, which its founders attribute directly to their participation in the ThinkTECH Accelerator, with many more in the pipeline.
"The ThinkTECH Accelerator changed our life over a two-and-a-half-month program. It grew our pipeline, it made us relevant, it made us real, and it allowed other banks to talk about us to their peers. There’s not much more you can ask for from a program," said Johnston.
Learn more about the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator and other ICBA Innovation programming at icba.org/innovation.