The Free Toaster

thefreetoaster
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Insights and interviews at the intersection of consumer lending, marketing, and technology. Hosted by Carlos Caro, co-founder at The Free Toaster and Managing Partner at New Market Growth, a growth agency for consumer lenders.

  1. 1 DAY AGO

    News Pod #18 - NerdWallet's Q1 '26 Earnings: Why Is The Stock Down 30%?

    Carlos and Nick break down NerdWallet's Q1 2026 earnings, the first full read on the company since the stock dropped 32% post-print. Headline numbers look fine on the surface. $222M in revenue, 6% YoY growth, $34M in non-GAAP operating income at a 15% margin. Look one layer down and the story turns. A major insurance carrier pulled back. Small business was down 15% YoY and got zero analyst questions. And the cards business, which NerdWallet said it would stop reporting at the segment level, showed up on the investor relations site anyway. It was down 33% YoY from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026.   Today's Pod expands on our Newsletter coverage: https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/nerdwallets-q1-26-earnings-why-is ***** The Free Toaster is hosting the Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders on September 23rd & 24th in San Francisco. Save the date! More details coming soon.   ***** The Free Toaster Newsletter ships every Wednesday at www.thefreetoaster.com, curating the biggest stories at the intersection of consumer lending, marketing, and technology. ****** To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:   New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com   Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr Fintel Connect Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine. https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast   Bulldog Media Group: Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche.  https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/

    20 min

  2. 8 MAY

    News Pod #17 - SoFi's Q1 2026 Earnings Report - With Special Guest Rachel Lauren, Co-Founder and COO at Debbie

    Wall St. sold off what seemed to us like a killer performance from SoFi in Q1 2026. Carlos, Nick, and special guests Rachel Lauren react to the earnings report. This news Pod expands on our reporting from this week's Newsletter. https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/sofis-best-quarter-yet-disappoints ***** The Free Toaster Newsletter ships every Wednesday at www.thefreetoaster.com, curating the biggest stories at the intersection of consumer lending, marketing, and technology. ****** To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:   Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr   Fintel Connect Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine. https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast   Bulldog Media Group: Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche.  https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/   New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    16 min

  3. 6 MAY

    E049 - Deep Dive With Zak Ali, General Manager of Finder's US Business

    Zak Ali runs the US business at Finder, the financial comparison site that started in Australia in 2006 and launched stateside in 2015. Lending now drives roughly 40–50% of Finder US revenue across personal loans, business loans, and earned wage access. In this conversation, Zak pulls back the curtain on how a major comparison publisher actually thinks — about Google's SEO meltdown, the reality of CPA negotiations, why YouTube has become Finder's secret weapon, and what separates the lenders who scale into category leaders from the ones who fizzle out. We also get into the part most operator conversations skip: building a personal brand while running a P&L. Zak shares his routine, his stack (he's a Claude Code power user), and how he measures whether any of it is actually working. ***** If the B2B founder-led marketing event we talked about is up your alley, register here. It's happening next week on Tuesday May 12th!   https://luma.com/aic-ny-5-12 ***** Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter: www.thefreetoaster.com ***** To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:   Bulldog Media Group: Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche.  https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/   Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may   Fintel Connect Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine. https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast   New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    1hr 32min

  4. 4 MAY

    E048 - Q&A on Application Friction - Nick interviews Carlos

    Nick Madrid interviews Carlos Caro live at the Fintech Summit in NYC on April 28th.   On the heels of a Curated Table Event on April 27th (sponsored by Spinwheel), Nick bumped into Carlos at the Fintech Summit and did a short Q&A on how lenders eliminate friction from their application flows. ****** To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:   Bulldog Media Group: Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche.  https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/   Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=may   Fintel Connect Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine. https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast   New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    12 min

  5. 1 MAY

    News Pod #16 - OnePay, Credit One x Bright Money, and Aven's BTC Play

    Carlos flies solo this week (Nick is wheels-up from NYC to SF after FinTech Week) to break down three stories from this week's newsletter: OnePay's no-deposit credit builder card, Credit One Bank's embedded integration with Bright Money, and Aven's new Bitcoin-backed Visa with credit limits up to $1M. He also opens up the floor on five format ideas for the September 23rd Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders event in San Francisco and wants your vote. The Free Toaster publishes every Wednesday at thefreetoaster.com, curating the strongest stories at the intersection of consumer lending, marketing, and technology, so you can stay informed without slogging through ten newsletters and an off-topic LinkedIn feed. ****** To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:   Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr   Fintel Connect Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine. https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast   Bulldog Media Group: Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche.  https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/   New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    10 min

  6. 24 APR

    News Pod #15 - OpenAI Acquires Hiro Finance

    Carlos and Nick expand on the headline story from this week’s Newsletter. And they speculate on what this might mean for consumer lending distribution platforms. https://open.substack.com/pub/thefreetoaster/p/openai-doubles-down-hiro-finance?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web   ***** To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:   Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr   Fintel Connect Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine. https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast   Bulldog Media Group: Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche.  https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/     New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    19 min

  7. 17 APR

    News Pod #14 - Wells Fargo Books 631,000 New Credit Card Accounts in Q1 2026 - How Did They Do It?

    Carlos and Nick try to make sense of Wells Fargo's 60% YOY increase in new credit card customer bookings. They covered this story in Wednesday's Newsletter and they dig deeper into potential sources of their growth: https://www.thefreetoaster.com/p/wells-fargo-books-631000-new-credit     Sign up for The Free Toaster Newsletter (www.thefreetoaster.com) to get our curated news at the intersection of consumer lending & marketing, published every Wednesday. And then come here on Fridays to get our hot takes on a select story (or two) from that edition.  The events they mentioned on the show: Private Dinner - Eliminating Friction from Marketing Funnels: https://luma.com/733al355   FTW: The Official New York Fintech Week Conference | April 28–30 https://luma.com/FTW_NYC26     ***** To support The Free Toaster Podcast, please visit our sponsors:   Spinwheel:   Reduce friction in your lending application with just two fields—phone number and birthdate. Spinwheel’s APIs boost application rates by 20-30% while also providing real-time credit data and seamless payment processing. Want to see it in action? Connect with their Head of Growth for a demo! https://spinwheel.io/partner/?utm_source=freetoaster&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apr   Fintel Connect Drive thousands of new accounts and billions in deposits with the only partner marketing solution built for fintech and banking – your all-in-one affiliate platform, partner network, agency, and marketing compliance engine. https://partner.fintelconnect.com/get-to-know-fintel-connect?utm_campaign=13897733-2025%20Partners&utm_source=The%20Free%20Toaster&utm_medium=podcast   Bulldog Media Group: Bulldog Media Group is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in online customer acquisition for clients in the financial services industry. Since 2000, they have focused on financial services digital marketing as their core niche.  https://www.bulldogmediagroup.com/     New Market Growth:   New Market Growth helps fintech consumer lenders generate explosive growth on affiliate marketing channels like Credit Karma, Experian Marketplace, LendingTree, and others. Affiliate marketing involves marketing & credit risk expertise, and NMG's founders bring this with 21+ years of lending experience and 8+ years experience as executive affiliate operators. If you'd like help planning or implementing your affiliate marketing strategy, email us at carlos@newmarketgrowth.com

    11 min

  8. 15 APR

    E047 - Eliminating Friction in the Lending Funnel, with Rachael Olson, Former Head Of Product Strategy at Discover

    Rachael Olson spent years running product strategy on Discover's $6 billion personal loan business, and she joins the show to walk through a real lender's application from marketplace click all the way to the hard pull, screen by screen. Using a hypothetical billion-dollar lender for round numbers, Rachael shows why the highest-leverage work isn't always at the top of the funnel. A 3% lift in soft-pull submit is worth $50M. Another 3% at hard-pull submit adds $80M. That's $130M+ of upside before anyone touches the credit box. The teardown gets specific. Forced email verification before any offer is shown. Rent-or-own and vehicle questions that the soft pull will answer anyway. A long pre-soft-pull confirmation page surfacing stale data the borrower doesn't remember entering, including education and net worth. After the offer, a wall of tooltips, footnotes, and filters that could induce decision paralysis. And the origination fee: a $16,900 loan that funds at $14,872, is disclosed towards the end of the process and came as a surprise. Carlos and Rachael also dig into why mobile starters finish on desktop, why "more data is always better" breaks down once you account for the customers you scare off, and how to actually A/B test your way through changes that touch credit, compliance, and engineering at once. ***** Want to meet Rachel and Carlos in New York? If you'd like to discuss eliminating friction in application funnels with your peers, The Free Toaster in hosting a private dinner in New York City on April 27th to facilitate that discussion. And we'll be there! Register for the event here: https://luma.com/733al355 ***** Find Rachel Olson on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachael-olson-7b13525/   Find Carlos Caro on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-carlos-caro/

    1hr 9min
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About

Insights and interviews at the intersection of consumer lending, marketing, and technology. Hosted by Carlos Caro, co-founder at The Free Toaster and Managing Partner at New Market Growth, a growth agency for consumer lenders.

Information

  • Creator
    thefreetoaster
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    67
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Free Toaster

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