Prosper People

Last Monday and Tuesday my daughter Elaine and I attended the Prosper Days conference. It was enlightening in a number of ways. One of the surprises for me was the people we met.

The conference was on the fourth floor of the Parc55 hotel in San Franciso, a rather ugly newer hotel that provides all the amenities for such conferences. Spread around the open area were circular tables and chairs, where we sat between sessions and when we ate breakfast and lunch. This arrangement encouraged the meeting of others, and Elaine and I did meet new people each time we sat at one of these tables. People came to the conference for different reasons and brought with them very different experiences and intentions.



We met Sam at the breakfast on Monday. Stan is a doctoral candidate at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He is doing research on Prosper lender patterns - what types of loans lenders prefer, when they bid, a number of other quantifiable patterns. He asked me my preferences and how I went about lending on Prosper and my answers were very much in line with "typical" lenders. To do this research he and his advisors are using Prosper-provided data that is freely available on the Prosper website. Prosper provides open access to its programming and data (not including, of course, actual Prosper member identification by name), known as its API (application programming interface). One of Stan's advisors was on a panel on API usage, illustrating the academic purposes for which this resource can be used.



We met Stanley a number of times during our time there. He is a gregarious, friendly guy who is disenchanted with his retirement plan. He is looking to find other ways to invest that provide a better return. After attending the Prosper keynote session he realized another way he could use Prosper: to lend money to his sons. They can register as borrowers, asking a ridiculously low interest rate, and he could be the only bidder. Keeping it all in the family. This way there would be clear records of his loans to his sons and if they pay them back on time they will establish credit for themselves. Win-win all around.


The Scotts were also interested in finding better ways to invest their money. Michael already had an account with Prosper and was knowledgable about the company and the experiences of others. His wife came along for the ride, essentially, and is considering investing some money of her own but wants her capital to be more liquid. She doesn't want to wait for the loans to be paid off to be able to use the money again. At this conference she learned that the loans are paid back month by month and many people pay off their loans early so she is looking at it more seriously.

We met other couples similar to the Scotts, where one was already a member of Prosper who wanted to introduce the concept to the other. One man we met is actually in the lending business and has taken an interest in bringing it home. When I commented on the outrageous interest rates banks and credit card companies charge he was ominously quiet.

The friendly and open nature of the other conference attendees we met turned out to be indicative of the group as a whole and of the company as well. And no, I wasn't paid to say this - although I freely admit that my attendance at the conference was free, because I registered as a blogger.