Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - How Small Business Owners Win in 2026

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

Today, Nicole is teaming up with U.S. Bank to unpack the state of small businesses and what entrepreneurs can do right now to get ahead.  Nicole sits down with Shruti Patel, U.S. Bank's Chief Product Officer for the Business Banking segment, to unpack the findings from the bank's fourth annual Small Business Survey and what they reveal about the state of entrepreneurship right now. Shruti breaks down why small business optimism dipped from 93% to 83% this year even as resilience holds strong, why only 3% of owners are currently considering a sale or exit, and what that signals about the massive wealth transfer coming as Boomer-aged owners hand off their businesses to the next generation over the next decade. Then the conversation turns to Gen Z founders specifically: their appetite for bold, calculated risk, and the surprising trend of delaying life milestones like marriage and family to build their businesses… a bet that, according to the data, is actually paying off in faster growth. Nicole and Shruti also get tactical: how business credit actually works (and why your personal credit score matters more than you'd think) and the real documentation lenders want to see. Plus: how small businesses are using AI to cut costs (even when the ROI math gets murky), where digital currency payments stand today, and why frictionless checkout is a bigger deal than most owners realize.    Learn more about U.S. Bank's Small Business Banking solutions at: usbank.com  Check-out the results of U.S. Bank’s Small Business Survey: https://www.usbank.com/business-banking/business-resource-center/small-business-survey.html Here's what Nicole covers with Shruti: 00:00 Are You Ready for Some Money Rehab? 00:43 Meet Shruti Patel, U.S. Bank's Chief Product Officer 01:20 Inside U.S. Bank's 4th Annual Small Business Survey 02:16 Why Optimism Dropped from 93% to 83% 04:45 Why Only 3% of Owners Are Considering an Exit 05:18 The Great Wealth Transfer and Succession Planning for the Next Decade 06:31 Inside Gen Z's Bold, Calculated Approach to Risk 07:37 Delaying Marriage and Family to Build a Business 09:03 "You Can Have It All, Just Not All at Once" 11:07 How Gen Z Defines Success 12:10 The Death of the "Shark Tank" Fundraising Dream 13:45 Debt vs. Equity: Rethinking How to Finance Growth 14:17 What Banks Look for Before Approving a Loan 16:08 Do Businesses Have Their Own Credit Score? 17:38 Personal Guarantees and the Documentation You'll Need 19:06 The SBA Loan Process 19:38 How Small Businesses Are Actually Using AI to Save Money 21:16 The "Digital Target Checkout" Problem with AI Costs 22:39 Where Digital Currency and Crypto Payments Stand Today 24:15 Why Frictionless Checkout Is Everything 26:03 Inside U.S. Bank's Business Essentials Launch 29:32 U.S. Bank's Partnership with the NFL and the Financial Edge Program 33:45 Shruti Patel's Tip You Can Take Straight to the Bank All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Always do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any financial decisions or investments.

I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money. Business owners, side hustlers, W2 employees who are thinking about making the entrepreneurial leap, this one's for you. Because between macroeconomic factors and new AI tools, there are a lot of new opportunities for founders. Yet optimism in founders is down from last year. But you guys, we got this. Our partners at US Bank put together an annual small business survey, to understand the challenges facing businesses right now and ultimately help and build solutions.

So to dig into what they learned this year, I'm talking to Trouti Patel, US Bank's chief product officer for the business banking segment. We talk about small business growth strategy, what Gen Z entrepreneurs specifically should know about scaling, and the small payment method switch that could make a big difference to your bottom line. Trouti Patel, welcome to money rehab. Well, thank you for having me, Nicole. I'm so excited.

No, no, I'm so excited to talk to you. you because I have actually never talked to a chief product officer of a bank and I have so many suggestions and so many ideas. Well, I'm glad I have my not bad because I'll be making a lot of points. I think it's so, so cool. So thank you for being open to taking my suggestions. I have many of them as a business owner myself. I would love to see like a cash flow chart or something. I would love to see something go over to Texas so I don't touch it. Anyway, I have many, many ideas. But I want to dig into the survey that you guys put out because so much of what you're doing is data-driven and we're all data nerds here. So what was the finding that you saw that businesses are really focused on now?

So many insightful findings, I would say, you know, this is our fourth year. We do an annual survey of small businesses across the country. And it's not really just U.S. Bank customers. Our intent is to really get close to the sentiment small businesses are feeling at the time of, you know, the survey is taken. Small businesses are feeling immense stressors and macro-environment pressures right now. This comes as no surprise to anyone. Given the steady inflation we have been in the last few years, consumer spending and sentiment is evolving.

The recent energy crisis continues to add pressure to small business operations. And so I would say, you know, the number of businesses who reported their business as successful still remained high, but we did see both the way they are reporting growth and optimism softened year over year. But what is also good is the contrarium to all of that sentiment, which is almost all of the small businesses continue to remain super resilient. And, you know, it demonstrates the durability because they continue to invest in their businesses, whether it's hiring new staff, expanding their products and services. And so, you know, I would say entrepreneurship still very much remains.

the backbone of the economy while they're feeling the pressures, the optimism to invest in, you know, their businesses remains very high. I think you have to be optimistic to be an entrepreneur or crazy or both or I've had a traumatic childhood. I don't know. Like here I am living it day to day. You have to be an irrational optimist to be an entrepreneur. And what I saw really interesting in the survey was that it went from 93% to 83%. So while you said it was softening, like that's still pretty optimistic to me. Pretty optimistic. And, you know, I would say for a lot of these small businesses, it's not just business. It's very personal. The success of the business is what they're counting on, you know, to continue that livelihood. So I would say definitely a great finding for us. Yeah,

it's completely personal. I started this business with my life savings. You know, US Bank helped us rebuild from the palisades fire. Every dollar that comes in and out of the business is so, so personal. And stress is so high. So what did the survey show? about stress levels. I'm assuming those are not softening. The stress levels are not softening, but we've also seen some of those stress levels show up year over year. I think the small businesses have figured out a way to navigate under this immense pressure, whether that's inflation, rising cost. You know, last year we observed tariff uncertainty. This year, tariff uncertainty was replaced by the energy crisis. And so I do think that we're,

one of the reasons why you're seeing the resilience is because they're figuring out new ways, whether that's adopting new digital tools to drive innovation. But they're determined on running their operations more effectively, more efficiently, with less capital, with rising costs. And I think that's where a lot of the resilience is really coming from. And I think it's so important to not just guess what the customer wants. Obviously, testing, testing, testing. It's, I mean, it took me many, many years, maybe more than a decade to figure out that I can't just go based on my gut as a business owner.

I need to see what the customers want. I thought it was really interesting, though, that only 3% of business owners want to consider some sort of M&A activity or exiting their business in this environment. Is that because there's not as much MNA activity? I think we're seeing a lot of that CAPEX at the top around the bigger companies. Or is it that there's just a bigger sample? size. There's just more businesses popping up. I would say probably both. Yeah, I think, you know, we are going to see a great transition happen over the next 10 years. You know, last year we reported that almost half of the small business owners are age of 55 or more. And so as they think about

succession planning, transitioning, the newer demographic, like the millennials and the Gen Z stand to inherit or acquire a lot of these businesses, and we're seeing the desire to do so. So I would say it's the sample size, but also I think, you know, the MNA, but a lot of them are thinking about succession planning and transition, and there's more to come in the next 10 years as the current population thinks about, you know, stepping down and passing it on to airs or other successors. So passing it on to Gen Z. And I know you guys focused specifically If I could get in the head of all the Gen Zs, I think that's a business in and of itself, also decoding their jargon too. That would be really helpful.

But was there some finding specifically to Gen Z as they're looking to inherit or potentially acquire the businesses that are going to be trading? We found very interesting insights from the Gen Z. So you're absolutely right. We oversampled Gen Z small business owners in our survey. And the intent was exactly what you said. We want to get into their heads. How are they thinking about new innovative technologies, how they think about approaches to entrepreneurship. And I would say compared to the previous generations, whether that's the millennials or baby boomers,

they have a very different approach to both entrepreneurship and how they think about business risk. They are willing to take very bold, calculated risk to pursue faster growth and acceleration. They are also putting less emphasis on steady, predictable revenue and more on. on cultural relevance, social media visibility, and, you know, partnership-driven growth. And one of the biggest findings we thought is that they are willing to set aside some of the personal sacrifices. And what I mean by that is a lot of them are willing to delay starting their life, whether it's getting married or starting a family, because business feels so much personal to them in the current economy. And, you know, what was really surprising is that actually

it's paying off. The Gen Zsys who reported having taken very bold, calculated, risk-based decisions are also reporting faster growth. And they're seeing faster success in their businesses. And they're also more likely to use innovative technologies like AI and digital tools, which is a very promising sign given the journey and the excitement we are feeling about both not only digital tools, but also AI. Well, as an elder millennial myself, what I thought was really interesting, thing that you said specifically was bold and also calculated. So I've taken a lot of bold risks, but not all of them have been calculated. So what do you think that means? Is there more caution going into business? Is there more planning going into business? Or how is Gen Z looking at success

differently than us elder millennials? I would say they put less weightage on the downside risk. So yes, they are taking very bold calculated risk decisions. But I think as I mentioned, you know, the emphasis on steady predictable revenue is much less. And they're willing to accept the downside of that risk decision. And so I think it's a mix of both. It's obviously the passion because a lot of their businesses are coming from side hustles or passion projects. But it's also placing the big bet on a decision to deliver the faster growth. And what do you read into the idea that Gen Z is delaying more milestones? I think that millennials are also delaying milestones too. I mean, I I got married, I had a baby, all the things at 40.

And so, you know, as a millennial generation, I feel like we're also, we delayed milestones, got married later, had babies later. I think women in their 40s having babies is surpassing women in their 20s at this point. Absolutely right. You know, we've seen that happen in the small business sector for a few years now. I think part of it is just how the economy has evolved over the few years post-pandemic. you know, we have seen a lot more stresses and pressures for small businesses as they're thinking about entrepreneurship, which is as a result delaying a lot of their personal decisions. And so, you know, that's, I would say a growing trend from the post-pandemic era, which we've continued to see rise.

I mean, I think you can have it all, just not all at once. Or a girlfriend of mine, Randy Zuckerberg wrote a book. I'm going to butcher this. But she said, I think, like, pick three. You can only have three at once, like family, work, health, working out friends or something. Like you can only have a couple of those at a time. I would tend to agree with that. I think you can have it all, but not all at once. Yeah. Or define what it all means because it looks different for everybody.

Exactly. You have to prioritize. And I think when you're running a small business, which feels also very close to home, you constantly do have to prioritize and juggle between what at the time makes the most sense for growing your business, versus, you know, investing in your personal life. I've also thought that, you know, I forgive myself for what I'm not focusing on.

Like right now I'm a terrible friend. Like absolutely terrible. And I do not go to the gym like ever. But, you know, I'm focused on my business and I'm focused on raising my 18-month-old daughter. And those are my priorities right now. So I think in the past I probably would have beaten myself up. Like, I'm not doing enough to do other parts of my life.

But like right now I'm not focusing on that. And I think there's a season for all of this. That would agree. So for Gen Z, What specifically have you guys found they determine as markers of success if the milestones look different? A majority of their Gen Z businesses were reporting less than 100K in annual revenue. So they're still pretty small passion projects. And I think for them, the marker of success is going back to what they're putting their emphasis on,

which I mentioned earlier. It's the cultural relevance. It's the social or the visibility in terms of, of how they are placing their business within the current environment and the relevance from a cultural context perspective. I think the biggest marker for Gen Z, I would say, is how do they map out their next five to 10 year growth cycle and the kind of risk they're willing to take in spite of that. And so more to come because, you know, that segment is still evolving from an entrepreneurship perspective, but their approach is so different. And we're already seeing very early science,

compared to the older generations. What I'm seeing just anecdotally is that, you know, our generation really thrived on this idea of fundraising. It was like the shark tank effect, right? So like you start a business, go ask the sharks for money or go raise money or you see these big funding announcements. Like somebody just raised money. And it never really clicked for me as somebody who bootstrapped my business where you're

like, you're starting a business to be your own boss and you're taking money and now you have a boss in effect. So what have you guys found in terms of what? funding looks like for Gen Z, or their idea of what that looks like for success. So that's a really good question. You know, historically we've always found more traditional route. So that's either personal capital, you know, entrepreneurs used to invest their personal capital or rely on debt financing tools to really jumpstart their business or continue to invest

in a very growing established businesses. I think Gen Zs are going a few different ways. we continue to obviously see the personal capital and debt financing, but we also see them looking for crowdfunding sources, venture capital investment, you know, really relying on some of these different ways to interact with banks and other, you know, private credit is another example where a lot of the startup community is willing to take the risk on that front. So definitely very innovative ways of getting access to capital,

then historically what we have seen. So not as loud it, I guess. as the idea that raising money was so impressive for the generation before. Yes, I would agree with it. And when you're thinking about taking a loan, because if you really calculate the ROI of raising money, you're giving away part of your business, in some cases, it's actually smarter to finance it through a line of credit, through a small business loan, maybe even credit card debt.

A lot of new entrepreneurs start with credit card debt. and feel ashamed by that, if that business takes off, that's actually not the worst decision. So how do you advise small business owners to think about lines of credit or even getting those lines of credit? Yeah. So we, you know, we have small business specialists and our business banking teams which work across the country, you know, with a lot of the small businesses or even, you know, the newer population, which is thinking about starting a business.

We start with the fundamentals. You know, it's so important to get the fundamentals right, which is having a really strong personal credit score and having some history that you can manage liquidity or cash flow successfully because that gives a lot of the banks and small financial institutions sort of the confidence that even if your business goes through a few rough bumps, you have the ability to manage your cash flow in a very disciplined and measured way. We also make sure that, you know, our bankers work very closely with a lot of these startup entrepreneurs to help them with verifiable documents. You need to have very comprehensive and well-documented tax returns because that

tells us the history of your personal financial wealth. So I would say there are a few ways, you know, having a great tested product concept is important before you are starting a business. But in addition to that, I would also say, you know, work with your banker on figuring out what your cash flow held, your personal credit held, your liquidity held, whether you have tax returns and other financial statements readily available. I would also say, you know, look at all of the different facilities available, whether that is the SBA lending facility, which the government, you know, provides to a lot of small businesses who are, you know, growing their businesses or, you know, starting with a small start alone.

You know, something really small to jumpstart, a proof of concept or product. And the last one is, you know, always test your product before you take a big scale. that's a personal advice we give to all of our small business entrepreneurs. Honestly, I don't even think I know this. Do businesses have a credit score? Businesses do have a credit score. Really? Like their own up to 800?

Tell me. It's more about KYB. So, you know, that happens more once the business is established and growing. We try to make sure that this is a legitimate business. It's, you know, we understand better the products. and services it is providing and the health of the business through its tax returns and cash flow statements. So that's more for established businesses because that gives us more view into the health of the business once it has started. But for somebody who's starting a business, the personal

credit score plays a much more bigger role than for somebody who's already had a business. Cool. So to set yourself up in the best way as an entrepreneur to get a business on, what would be the one recommendation you have? Really measuring and keeping a close-out. on your personal credit score. That's so important because as you're starting a business, you have to deal with a thousand other things that you often put yourself in your personal life last. So say it loud, our shruti, for the people in the back who are neglecting themselves as they're running through entrepreneurship life.

Yeah, I would say for anybody who is thinking about entrepreneurship or thinking about starting a business. It is really important to keep a really good eye on your historical personal credit score. Is there any words of caution that you would give to business owners who would have to be personally guaranteed for something like that? You know, having comprehensive documents is really, really important. So many times in our day-to-day operations when small businesses enter our branches or talk to our small business bankers, they are actually quite surprised by the requirement for comprehensive documents, whether that is their tax returns, cash flow statements, their own personal credit score. And so I would say, you know, it's really important for small

businesses to keep an eye and continue to measure that with discipline. Oh, yeah. I am living proof You have to really want it. You have to really, really want that loan. It's not easy, you know. True. Which makes sense. Like you're lending money to a business and most businesses aren't successful in those early years.

So you want to make sure that you're getting your money back. I get that. But it's not easy. It is not easy. But we also, you know, want to make sure that the small businesses who are, you know, essentially looking to access, working. capital or apply for a loan, we want to make sure those businesses are healthy. They're not high risk and there's not much volatility and that we have confidence on those small business

entrepreneurs to actually manage their cash flow more efficient. Of course. And it's funny that you say healthy because I would always joke when I was going through the SBA process that it felt like a financial colonoscopy to me. It's a government guaranteed loan. So, you know, that is why They put you through the rigor because it's completely guaranteed. There is no downside risk. And so I think when you go through the SBA process, you do feel it's a colonoscopy because of the guarantee. True story. I'm glad I'm not alone.

I thought it was just weird. No, no. Okay. Let's talk about AI because you mentioned it briefly, but I want to dig into it. What were the findings in the survey around how AI is now being used by business owners? it sounds like it's not just for the fun of it, but it's actually 84% said that AI saved them money. For me, I'm spending a lot of money on AI. It hasn't saved me money just yet, but it sounds like a lot of people are finding that.

So you bring up two really good points. Number one was, you know, in our survey findings, three quarters of the business did report that they are adopting AI and they continue to see both. And most of them actually reported that AI helped them save money. They are, you know, it's very measured in the way they are determining ROI on the investments they're making an adoption of the technologies. And end-to-end operation efficiencies are being, you know, realized for those businesses. But a lot of them also said that it's too expensive or overrated, and they do not know whether the industry they operate in or the vertical they are operating in actually has relevant adoption for AI. You know, there's a lot of buzz around just the amount of data centers being built for AI and, you know, how expensive the technology is. But we continue to hear, you know, small businesses who are adopting some of these tools still reporting back in efficiency.

So I would say both. While the verdict is out there around, you know, what the cost of that investment looks like, a lot of businesses are still finding benefits. I mean, I was just talking to your colleague before we were getting rolling and I said, it makes me feel like I'm going to get a digital version of Target where I think it's all very cheap until it becomes very expensive at checkout. Yes, yes. I would agree with that. And I think that's because there's still much to be told in terms of how businesses measure

the ROI on the investments you're making and whether it's effectively helping them save money versus the cost of human labor. And I think that's because that technology, you know, nobody knows what's the fully loaded cost of that technology or adoption of the technology. I know because we're running so fast and you're like this new feature came out. We got to get it. It's going to scale us so fast and it's going to save on all of this stuff. And then it's a little bit here and it's more compute here and it's more usage there. And now I'm just like, how much are we spending every month on AI?

This is insane. So it's similar to like checking out at Target where I'm like, oh, it's just $5 here, $7 there. $1,000 at checkout, you know, how did this happen? Yes, exactly. And I think part of it is also because companies sometimes don't even realize what is the cost of the human capital investment, right? Because when you're investing in labor, you don't sometimes effectively measure how much of that is costing you versus like the digital tools and all the new tech you keep innovating

or investing in. And I felt like there was a moment that crypto had for business. I mean, it was led by like the Teslas of the world using Bitcoin as a form of payment and the rest of it. But I feel like it's kind of tapered down. You guys dug into this a little bit more in the survey. We personally don't take crypto for payment, but how many businesses do? And is that helpful? Yeah.

You know, we expected a much higher number, honestly speaking in our survey. We saw some businesses, so I would say about, you know, a quarter of the businesses reported that they're already investing in ways to accept digital currency as a form of payment of customers choose it. However, from the ones who haven't invested in digital currency, almost half of them actually expressed the need to invest in either stable coins or crypto or tokenized deposit over the next 12 months. And what we also found is that I think there's a little bit of a, is this going to help drive higher impact to my business? A lot of the businesses who don't accept digital currency today weren't able to really articulate in the survey on whether customers choose to, you know, use this as a form of payment or whether they're going to see more increased revenue or impact either by accepting it or a downside by not accepting it. So I think the verdict is still out there. I think some of the more innovative businesses have started thinking about that as a form of payment. But it's very early and we're not seeing a lot of customer adoption just yet based on the survey findings.

I mean, as you know, and I think you think about this all the time, there's a great art product-wise to the checkout. And when there's friction, like there's been times I've loaded up a car and then it makes me sign up for a profile and do all this other stuff. And I'm like, I'm out. Goodbye. We're done. how are you seeing that come into play? Because it's so important to have a frictionless checkout, especially for small businesses. 100% agree.

You know, one of the biggest things small businesses keep an eye on, especially for e-commerce related businesses who are online, you know, cut abandon is super important to them. They want to offer a very frictionless, non-chunky, non-clunky checkout. out. And so as we think about digital currency, the idea is exactly that, whether it's an easy swipe or a tap or an insert. That's what it should look like for anybody who's willing to use digital currency. And I think as we think about driving that adoption from a bank perspective, whether it's through our merchant business or empowering our consumers, we want to keep that in mind, which is very

whatever form of payment it is that we offer, it needs to be super seamless. I was just talking to somebody who works at Amazon and their team at checkout, like, over-analysis. I mean, they have a huge team to, like, nanoseconds of how fast you can do, like, the one-click checkout and how many millions or billions or, I don't know, dollars go based on, like, nanoseconds of how slow that is is so fascinating to me. That's obviously on a much bigger scale. And specifically because e-commerce is such a huge part of how consumers interact today when it comes to shopping behaviors. And so as you're looking at all of this data, again, we're in great nerd company here.

So you're going through all of this research, all of the insights. By the way, my husband started a whole Insights company. So we're like a nerd insights family. Was there any takeaway here from product perspective that you found? We found a few takeaways. You know, the survey always gives us very good insights in terms of how we want to think about custom solutions for our small businesses. You know, with the last couple of years at US Bank, we've been on this journey where we want to bundle as many products as possible. Our small businesses constantly tell us that they're very overwhelmed by the number of software solutions in the marketplace.

And they're overwhelmed by everything, by the way. But yes, continue. Subscription charges, right? Whether it's payroll, you want to pay your employees, you want to manage. your payables and receivables in the back end, whether you brought it up at the start of the show, you want a genius cash flow statement, you know, smart assistant who can tell you about your inflows and outflows and smart budget decisions. So that has helped us a lot as we think about new products and services. We launched Business Essentials last year, which essentially helps any

small business to open a quick checking account with us with no annual fees. we offer fraud protection. And with that, we've coupled a payment acceptance product. So we give them a little terminal or a Mobycard reader where they can start accepting card payments. And again, you know, it's all free. So we are trying to take away some of these small costs with small businesses really, really struggle with.

When you have a U.S. Bank small business credit card, we are offering spend management solutions, which will help you monitor the spend on your card, apply controls. if you want to give more cards to your employees, we can delegate certain spend limits. So the more we think about it, you know, our journey from the survey findings is always going to be more about how do we perfectly intersect our banking solutions, our payment solutions and software. We have invested tremendous amount of capital in the last couple of years in our digital capabilities,

you know, account payables, receivables, payroll. So that, you know, all of the small businesses, when they bank with us, they can do whether it's pay a bill to a vendor or a supplier, paying an employee, paying their credit card bills, or just managing their cash flow all within the app or our online banking suite. Not that you're asking for my advice at all, but I would love to see it. Like when there's funky words or jargon or something, like some sort of pop up that explains what that is or maybe even my face, like where I'm the avatar and I just pop up and

I'm like, let me tell you about the sweep account. Like, this is what this means or something like that. Anyway, just... It's a really good one. We are beginning to look at what does the chat board or a smart assistant look like, which can help small businesses make smarter decisions. And we do have smart assistant capability, by the way. Just not with my face yet.

Not with your face, but we can take that feedback. Our smart assistant definitely reaches, you know, millions of our consumers and small business clients and helps them do very small jobs, whether it's transferring money, whether it's, you know, changing their password, getting access to their statements without having to call our operations service team. Okay.

Just throwing it out there, like, voice to, you know, just. We'll take that. Throw in my hat in the ring for it if you're looking for somebody. We've loved partnering with U.S. Bank. I actually did a video with my husband around U.S. Bank, being the new official bank and wealth management sponsor of the NFL. Did that come from survey data? What was behind that decision to do it?

Or was it just a bunch of football guys at the top thinking that was really cool? You know, our partnership with NFL speaks to sort of the collaboration we've had with the NFL over the last 20 years. We work with a lot of the sport league's team already. We offer financing for stadium operations and league teams. And we are the official sponsor for the Minnesota Vikings team and the San Francisco 49ers. and were very invested, both from a finance perspective as well as from a lead bank perspective, when those stadiums were being built. So the history has been there.

We're super proud that we are now the official wealth sponsor for the NFL team, and our intent there was how can we actually reach national awareness and consideration from a brand perspective in the minds of our consumers and small businesses. And as part of that, we actually launched a fully custom, personalized personal guidance program called the US Bank Financial Edge. And it's to work one-on-one with our players, the professional league players,

both as they are thinking about saving strategies and creating long-term wealth, which is super important for a lot of these players, not just when they're entering the league, but also life after the game. Whether they're thinking about starting a small business or entrepreneurship, you know, understanding their earnings more and keeping a very disciplined approach to cash flow.

And this is both one-on-one access to our financial experts, but also we are, you know, really looking forward to tapping into existing NFL players who can also talk about from a peer perspective how they went about in the private wealth management area. So overall, super excited about the partnership. You know, we have actually some really cool sponsors as well, if you're interested. We are partnering with Fernando Mendoza and George Kiddell. And the idea to pick both of these really experienced and tenure players was we wanted to actually offer the full arc starting from entering the league to somebody who's been in the league and has taught about creating long-term private wealth really well. And so, yeah, looking forward to a lot of really good successes out of that.

It's so important because we've just seen story after story of players who make great much. money, or some of them that don't, by the way, that are just starting out, but aren't properly managed over a relatively short career lifespan and need to have that for the rest of their lives. But unfortunately, in a lot of cases, aren't equipped or don't have the tools or the right team to do that. You're 100% right. You know, personal investing strategies and creating our access to tools or experts is so important for a lot of the professional league players as they're thinking about, you know, creating more lifetime wealth, but also just how do you think about philanthropy or entering entrepreneurship, choosing sort of like the right small business to start or sponsor.

And so we're really bundling all of that personal advice as, you know, they either think about, you know, a new player like Fernando Mendoza, who's going to be starting his professional league to somebody more experienced like George Kittle. Well, I appreciate that you're doing the educational component. Obviously, we are too, but it's the educational component plus the action that really matters the most because there's a lot of options for education out there and so much information that you can get, but that's just not enough. You have to do that. You actually have to act on that. And they can also listen to a chatbot if they want. Just wrote it out there.

With your voice and face. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you came up with this great idea, Shruti. Wow, it's genius. I thought you'd never ask. I'm making a note of it. I thought you'd never I'm asking. I sure do we end all of our episodes by asking our guests for a final tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. Is there something else around small businesses that you would recommend based on all of this data that you just collected? Businesses should absolutely talk to their small business bankers, whether they're thinking about growing their business or starting a business. What kind of access to working capital options do they have or, you know, just access to loans overall? A lot of small businesses are beginning to rely on both AI and digital. tools. So I would encourage all of those entrepreneurs out there to play with some of these

capabilities because we are hearing such positive feedback in terms of how it's helping small businesses streamline back-end operations, make them more efficient or say money. And then last, but not the least, for all the Gen Z entrepreneurs who are thinking about starting their journey, I would say, you know, yes, the reliance on AI and digital tools is super important. And we like the fact that they're evolving entrepreneurship through bold calculated risk. But we also want to make sure that they're keeping a really close eye on their personal credit scores and their personal liquidity as they think about accessing some of those debt financing or loan products. That's a great, a really important reminder. Thanks, Rudy. Thank you.