John Waupsh was attending college in Chicago in 1997, when he decided to turn his love for funk and soul music into his own DJ business. While he was just looking for a way to pay some of his tuition bills, he wanted to keep his business finances separate from his personal finances, to present more professionally to his clients. When he landed his first paying gig, he walked into a local bank branch to open up a business checking account. The bank teller took one look at his business situation, laughed, and promptly told him to leave.
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\u201cI remember crossing the street, so irate and embarrassed,\u201d says Waupsh. \u201cIt was as if I had asked for a $100,000 loan as a college kid. That scene in my mind has probably replayed itself subconsciously for the last couple of decades.\u201d
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Flash forward those couple of decades, and Waupsh become a leader at the financial services company Kasasa, an author, and the owner of a record label, The Preservation Project<\/a>. Although that bank in Chicago instilled in Waupsh a resolve to manage his money more effectively, he still ran into the same problems that he did as a young DJ. \u201cI don\u2019t understand why on earth it is still so hard for me to get a business checking account for a company, or for a startup, or for myself,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of fire to fix that problem so I figured, \u2018let\u2019s do it first where the most passion is\u2014the music space.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Waupsh teamed up with fintech engineer and Kasasa colleague, Ben Morrison, to create the world\u2019s first musician-focused online banking app, Nerve<\/a>. It\u2019s free, it\u2019s FDIC-insured through Piermont Bank, and it only takes about a minute to open an account. You simply download the app, fill in your name, address, and social security number, hit accept, and you\u2019re in\u2014next thing you know a sleek white debit card is on its way to your mailbox. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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