Business Lending
‘Face-to-Face is a Must In This Industry’: How Julian Hernandez of Idea Financial Earned a Trophy Along The Way
November 24, 2025
“Face-to-face interactions are a must in our industry, and not only through conferences but even though we’re based out of Miami, I’m very familiar with the Long Island Railroad,” said Julian Hernandez, Director of Revenue at Idea Financial.
On multiple occasions, Hernandez has gone from New York City to eastern Long Island and then back again to meet with referral partners. It’s part of his job, meeting face-to-face with ISOs, and working with them to maximize the spread of Idea’s business line of credit products. He says through this experience he’s actually become “best buddies” with the LIRR.
“It’s good for morale, it’s good for relationships. It’s good not only for the reps internally on my end, but I’m sure for the reps on [the ISOs’] end to see and put a face to the lender that they’re always working with,” he said.
Hernandez will go wherever it’s necessary. Just last month that initiative placed him on the opposite side of the country, in a room full of ISOs and competitors that had gathered to play poker on the eve of the big B2B Finance Expo at the Wynn in Las Vegas. For Hernandez, who was born and raised in Colombia and only ever plays poker in a casual setting with friends, he had not gone in with any expectation of winning the friendly tournament. He wanted to network.
“That’s probably one of the main reasons why I wanted to join the tournament,” Hernandez said. “It’s just an opportunity for us, for anyone really that goes to the conference, to connect with either people that they know from the industry, or branch out or meet with new faces in an environment that isn’t so corporate.”
As the cards were dealt and the hands played, Hernandez found himself at the final table of the night and walked away with 2nd place overall, a title that garnered him a trophy and a small prize.
While he was happy to earn the rank of #2, it was the social setting of it all that he felt was the best part.
“It’s more of a relaxed environment where people are just having a good time, playing a game, having a drink, and really just getting to know each other on a personal level,” Hernandez said. “That’s the best kind of way to make relationships, right? It’s kind of like when people always say the best kind of business is made on a golf course.”
But in the two days that followed at B2B Finance Expo, Hernandez and the Idea team that was there along with him were in business mode.
“97% of our business is through ISO channels and through all the relationships we’ve established with brokers in our industry, and we’re looking to expand that further,” Hernandez said, noting that there are big growth plans in the works for 2026.
Idea’s line of credit is not like an MCA or the term loans commonly found around the industry. It’s a true revolving line. After every payment made, it replenishes the line. The process to get approved is quick and easy. Hernandez said that some brokers are shocked by how good it is and that larger businesses, ones that tend to be the most rate sensitive, find it very attractive.
When deBanked first covered Idea Financial in 2019, Hernandez had not yet joined the company. He came on board the following year during covid and started in an entry level position. He’s since moved up the ranks and now oversees the entire sales and marketing department, which includes anything from ISO relations to marketing. He cites the team and the structure of how it operates as being the key to success. One of the things he first learned when he started was that Idea Financial was always looking to help businesses one way or another.
“I found my way to Idea Financial and have loved it ever since,” Hernandez said.
And while business and networking are important parts of the job, regardless of where that takes him, he is proud of how well he did in that poker tournament at B2B Finance Expo.
“I was happy with my 2nd place trophy,” Hernandez said. “It’s actually right there,” he exclaimed while pointing at it. “It’s back in my office!”
B2B Finance Expo 2025 Recap
November 12, 2025B2B Finance Expo 2025 was a tremendous success! This conference featured a larger number of attendees, exhibitors, and speakers from across the spectrum of commercial finance and small business lending than the previous inaugural year.
B2B FINANCE EXPO 2025 PHOTOS HERE
VIDEO INTERVIEWS FROM THE RED CARPET HERE
If you want a copy of your interview video file, email events@debanked.com.
To learn more about the Small Business Finance Association, contact Stephen Denis or visit: https://sbfassociation.org
A special shout out to the Diamond and Platinum Sponsors: Rapid Finance, Kapitus, Bitty, and Ocrolus.
Also a shout out to Nexi (WiFi Sponsor), AMA Recovery Group (Breakfast Sponsor), Shoreham Bank (Lanyard Sponsor), and Vox Funding (Key Card Sponsor).
NerdWallet: Organic Search Result Leads for SMB Financing Still Down, LLM-Generated Leads Converting Better
November 7, 2025This quarter, NerdWallet repeated that its SMB financing deal flow continues to lag significantly below last year’s levels because of changes in organic search. Similarly, the company reiterated that the conversion rate of leads coming from LLMs has looked very promising. During the Q3 earnings call, analysts finally asked if LLM traffic meant ChatGPT.
“I’d say the primary driver to think about is actually AI overviews within Google Search,” said NerdWallet CEO Tim Chen. “So because search is becoming more useful, people are searching a lot more. And so we are seeing traffic come through from AI overviews. ChatGPT and Gemini are also driving an increase there. So those are kind of the 2 major drivers in terms of the LLM traffic. When people come through that way, they’re really high intent typically, they’re really held in on finding something in a marketplace, for example. So I think that’s what’s driving some of the higher transaction rates there.”
Though, LLM conversions are promising, they are currently not enough to replace the organic search conversions they were previously generating. CFO John Lee said they expect a continued degradation in SMB in Q4.
Square Loans: Also Repeat Originations Performance Quarter over Quarter
November 7, 2025Square Loans put up $1.7B in originations in Q3 2025. That’s “up” from $1.68B in the prior quarter. In context this is not an unusual lull in growth as Square Loans originations from Q2 to Q3 in 2024 actually dipped by 4%.
Square also put in the footnotes of its earnings that it actually recast its quarterly origination figures going back to Q3 2024 because they had introduced a new short term loan product that was not previously reported in included figures.
Square Loans is the largest online small business lender that deBanked tracks volume for.
Square Loans is a subsidiary of Block so its commercial lending program rarely warrants discussion on its earnings calls since the focus is on payments, Square, and Cash App.
The editor of deBanked has previously theorized that Block CEO Jack Dorsey is the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin but that has not been proven. Block reported $1.96B in Bitcoin revenue in Q3 but the margins on this are extremely slim as it represents Block acquiring Bitcoin on the open market and selling it to buyers on Cash App.
Shopify Capital: Repeat Originations Performance Quarter over Quarter
November 4, 2025
Shopify Capital originated ~$1B in business loans and merchant cash advances in Q3, the same as the previous quarter. The total for the first nine months of 2025 now sits at ~$2.8B, which means they will surpass 2024’s total of $3B. deBanked has been tracking originations of more than a dozen of the largest online small business lenders since 2014.
Shopify Capital is not limited to the US and in Q3 it added Ireland and Spain to the list of countries it funds in.
Technically speaking, “Certain loans and merchant cash advances are facilitated by the Company and originated by a bank partner, from whom the Company then purchases the loans and merchant cash advances obtaining all rights, title and interest or discount,” the company explains in its SEC documents.
A snapshot of payment status from their Q3 report:
Enova: $1.4B in Small Business Loans in Q3 2025
October 30, 2025Enova continued to set a new internal quarterly record for small business loan originations with $1.4 billion in Q3.
“Since our acquisition of OnDeck five years ago, we’ve not only maintained our strong profit margins, we’ve done so while cutting our consolidated net charge-off rate in half,” said Enova CFO Steven Cunningham during the recent earnings call. Cunningham is scheduled to replace David Fisher in the CEO role this coming January.
Meanwhile, all the major indicators they review continue to show that small businesses are doing well.
“Insights from internal and external sources reflect solid underlying trends for small businesses,” said Fisher. “In conjunction with Ocrolus, we released the eighth iteration of our small business cash flow trend report earlier this week. This offers key insights into the state of small businesses and highlights ongoing trends observed over the past year. Small business confidence is high, as tariffs remain manageable and the economy, and in particular consumer spending, remained strong.”
OppFi: ‘Bitty is a Great Partner’
October 29, 2025Bitty generated $1.4 million in equity income for OppFi in Q3. OppFi, publicly traded, owns a 35% stake in Bitty.
“Bitty is a great partner that we have enjoyed working with and learning from in the SMB space,” said OppFi CEO Todd Schwartz during the company’s Q3 earnings call. “The company shares OppFi’s business principles and corporate values and consistently uses technology to enhance operations and the customer experience. Bitty has identified significant additional growth opportunities and continues to capitalize on the ongoing supply-demand imbalance in the small business revenue-based finance space.”
Overall, OppFi said it had delivered another strong quarter that had outperformed expectations. It raised earnings guidance for the third time this year.
‘Like Family’: How Critical Financing Became One of the Fastest Growing ISOs
October 17, 2025When Farmingdale, Long Island-based Critical Financing (CFI) showed up as the 2,671st fastest growing company on the Inc. 5000 list this year, it was a testament to the company’s many years of hard work. Founded in 2017 by its CEO Brandon Garcia, CFI connects small businesses with a variety of unsecured working capital products.
“[Getting that recognition] was great,” said Garcia. “And I think it’s also a testament to the group that we have. It excites the people that work here too. This is a very stressful job, it’s not easy.”
In CFI’s day-to-day, the sales team finds itself competing against multiple companies on almost every deal that comes across their desks. Small businesses regularly put the pressure on them to get the best rate, the fastest funding, or a combination of both. They say this only increases their drive.
“It has definitely helped us in a way,” Garcia said of it. “I mean who doesn’t want a deal that doesn’t have competition, you can kind of take your time with it, right? But I think when there’s urgency, our guys perform better.”
In the very beginning it was just Garcia himself who had worked in the industry since 2012. He was soon after joined by a former colleague, Robert Menzel, and the two set off to really build up a company. That’s easier said than done, especially in a business where trust is paramount. So they looked within their own circle of friends and family to create a solid foundation.
“I felt it was best that we take care of our own,” Garcia said. “Let’s take care of people that we know that are looking for a new opportunity, and we train them the way that we want them to be trained. We want to give that experience and push it over to them.”
Among those they’ve brought on board to their current headcount of sixteen has been Garcia’s own mother, who works as the company’s head processor. And while they are still actively looking to bring on more people, Garcia said that the number of employees isn’t the ultimate metric of success, but rather the abilities of the ones you do have and the relationships they have with everyone else is the key. On this point, CFI is on pace to surpass $100 million in funding this year. It’s because of their continuous progress and results that they finally got the confidence to apply into the Inc. 5000 and were successful in making it.
“To be able to put that Inc. 5000 sticker in your signature, on the website, it just has a different swag to it,” said Garcia’s partner Menzel, “where it just carries a lot of weight, and even the merchants see that.”
When asked if the end goal was to become a lender themselves, both Menzel and Garcia say they’re happy with what they already do now, which is connect the merchants to the most appropriate source.
“While many competitors chase the close, we lead with transparency and real strategy,” Garcia said. “We act as consultants first. Even if a client doesn’t move forward with us, we want them to walk away smarter and more prepared than when they came in.”
“When you are a lender, you don’t really have that close relationship with other lenders because you’re your own lender,” Menzel said. “You’re not talking to them about deals, how to get deals done, ‘what are they doing? What did they change this month compared to what they’ve been doing, what’s working, what’s not.’ I think having those relationships with the lenders and the lenders’ reps, it’s huge and it makes the job fun, because they’re really all great people that we deal with.”
That closeness is what it’s all about for them.
“We are a group of people who genuinely care about each other,” Garcia said. “We’ve celebrated marriages and welcomed new babies. We hang out on weekends, show up for one another, and create a work environment that doesn’t feel transactional.”
The outcome of that are months where the company is exceeding $10 million a month in funding, and they’re now even more fired up after the Inc. 5000 placement.
“You don’t need this massive shop to be successful in this industry,” Garcia reiterated. “It’s really that simple. You just need the right people. You need to be loyal and just really be truthful with everyone. And good things happen. That’s a big thing for us.”
