How have each of the Silo Core users performed historically? Is Capital a good fit for the Silo Core users today? Why or why not?
What actions would you take to improve the performance of ginger?
General Context: Silo’s product is a complex Enterprise Resource Planning tool (ERP) where users manage most of their businesses. Silo’s core users are Wholesale Produce Shippers and Distributors. They are businesses who buy and sell wholesale produce and are located around most major cities. Our software is mission-critical for their day to day operations.
At the end of 2021, Silo began offering financial products, including payment processing, AR collection, invoice factoring, cash advances, and accounting solutions. Silo’s financi al tools connect our existing inventory management software to company accounting data and workflows which in turn enable vendor payments and customer collections.
These transactions allow Silo Capital to extend financing at lower risk given line-of-sight to inventory, quality control, accounting, and payment data. These new offerings have rapidly grown and require greater operational structure and rigor to serve Silo as it scales.
Key Notes:
Silo has two primary user types:
Core users that access Silo’s software and tools; and, Non-core users that use Silo’s financial services but do not use Silo’s core software platform / ERP system [Assume that we can get data from a user regardless of whether they use our ERP or a 3rd party ERP via an automated data integration]
Currently, users of Silo’s capital offerings (Instant Pay and Credit Line) are sellers of product to businesses downstream. Buyers in these transactions may or may not be users of Silo, although we may still have data on these buyers through other Silo users.
Instant Pay advances up to 90% of an invoice value to the seller 2-3 days after an invoice is created, then collects the payment from the customer directly (usually between 30 and 45 days after the invoice) via check or ACH. Silo withholds the amount originally advanced to the seller, plus our fee, before disbursing the remaining amount back to the seller.
Credit Line uses historical sales data to forecast future sales over the next 6 months and uses those projected cash flows to size an available credit amount.
The user can draw down (receive an advance on future sales) up to the available amount and select how long they want to repay (up to 6 months).
The fee is determined based on the duration of the repayment period (e.g., 2.75% for 3 months, 5% for 6 months) and weekly payments are collected by Silo via direct debit from the user’s bank account.
Customers also make payments to through Silo’s collection tools which Silo can use to offset amounts owed if a direct debit fails for any reason.
Take Home Exercise
Format: 20-30 minute presentation to the Silo team – feel free to use whatever tools you prefer (e.g., a document, slide deck, stop motion video, diorama . . . )
Exercise:
Please review the sample data and answer the below prompts.
Prompts:
How have each of the Silo Core users performed historically?
Is Capital a good fit for the Silo Core users today? Why or why not?
What actions would you take to improve the performance of ginger?
What additional data would you want to deepen your analysis?
What questions do you have about Silo, the industry, and how we capture payments data?