Lucible

What do they actually do

Lucible is building a combined spending and investing account. The current public site is a waitlist, which suggests they’re still in private beta/early launch. YC lists them as a Summer 2024 company with a two‑person team and no public user stats yet luciblefi.com Y Combinator.

The product concept is: you connect an existing checking account, new deposits are automatically invested in an S&P 500 allocation, and when you make a purchase, Lucible issues a real‑time margin loan secured by your investments to cover the transaction. The homepage shows an example margin APR of 8%. This aims to let customers stay fully invested while keeping day‑to‑day spending liquidity luciblefi.com Y Combinator.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Employed professionals with taxable brokerage accounts: They keep cash idle in checking for bills and dislike selling investments (and triggering taxes) to fund spending. They want a way to stay invested while still paying for everyday purchases.
• Consumers who carry revolving credit card balances or use short‑term loans: They face high interest costs and fees. They want cheaper, on‑demand liquidity without liquidating investments.
• Freelancers and gig workers with variable income: Irregular cash flow forces them to hold low‑yield buffers or scramble for liquidity. They want fast access to funds for bills or large purchases without moving money between accounts.
• Mass‑affluent investors who already borrow against portfolios: Existing broker margin or pledged‑asset lines can be fragmented or paperwork‑heavy. They want a simpler, integrated checking+investment experience for spending and borrowing.
• Fintech‑savvy younger savers: They prefer automation and dislike manual transfers. Low yields on checking balances feel wasteful, and they want investing by default with frictionless access to cash when needed.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Founders onboard friends, colleagues, and YC network contacts via 1:1 concierge sessions, connecting accounts and running a live payment + margin loan test; offer waived fees or small credits for feedback and testimonials.
• First 50: Expand to warm communities (YC/fintech groups, LinkedIn, Slack/Discord) with referral fast‑passes and weekly live demos/webinars granting private beta access; provide early‑adopter incentives (e.g., reduced APR) and conduct short follow‑up interviews.
• First 100: Open a larger private beta with a visible banking/custody partner to build credibility, then run tightly targeted LinkedIn/search ads and sponsor freelancer/personal‑finance newsletters; maintain high‑touch support and manual risk checks as pricing and automation are refined.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

About one‑third of U.S. households hold taxable brokerage accounts; applying ~33% to ~127.5M households implies roughly 42M households that fit the core use case FINRA Foundation U.S. Census QuickFacts. A broader view that includes any stock market exposure is ~60–75M households (Gallup/Pew), and the high‑cost revolving debt pool Lucible could displace is ~$1.1–1.3T Gallup Pew Research Federal Reserve G.19 Experian.

Bottom-up calculation:

Starting from ~42M taxable‑brokerage households, assume ~50% keep meaningful cash in checking and 10–20% are willing to use collateralized borrowing for spending; that yields a serviceable market of roughly 2–4M households initially (back‑of‑envelope).

Assumptions:

• U.S. households ≈127.5M (Census) and ~33% own taxable brokerage accounts (FINRA).
• Roughly half of brokerage households maintain non‑trivial checking balances they’d like to invest by default.
• 10–20% of those are willing to borrow against investments for everyday spending if the UX, pricing, and risk controls are acceptable.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• M1 Finance: Consumer investing app with integrated spending and portfolio‑backed borrowing (“M1 Borrow”) and a debit product—an adjacent model combining investing, loans, and payments.
• Interactive Brokers: Full‑service broker offering low‑rate margin loans and a debit card, enabling customers to access liquidity against portfolios—popular with active investors.
• Robinhood: Retail brokerage with margin (Gold) and cash management/debit features; while not positioned as real‑time margin‑at‑POS, it competes for the same investing‑plus‑spending customer.
• Wealthfront: Automated investing with a debit‑enabled cash account and a portfolio line of credit for eligible clients—close to the “invest and borrow” use case, though not POS‑instant.
• Charles Schwab: Large broker with margin lending, checking/debit features, and pledged asset lines—incumbent alternative for customers comfortable borrowing against investments.