19 years old - Second business in the works - Opinions?

I started my first business when I was about 15 and had a pretty good run with it. Things didn’t get serious until I graduated high school; shorty after I was able to generate a substantial income from that business. Unfortunately, due mostly to my lack of experience in many aspects of owning a business, especially with managing finances, I decided it was time to cut my losses after I was roughly $40k in debt and pursue other ventures. The business was stagnant for a couple months and I didn’t see the potential to scale it anymore due to some constraints. It was a great learning experience, and I’ve gained a lot of knowledge from it. I am still on the hook for the business debt, and business bankruptcy is not an option since I am a personal guarantor on the loans. The way I see it; the knowledge gained is more valuable than what I lost.

I was living on my own at that point, I’ve mostly been financially independent for a years before, and I decided to finally pull the trigger move from Houston to Los Angeles - something I’ve always wanted to do. Something about Houston always left me feeling stuck, and lacking something. So I’ve been living in Los Angeles since April, which has had it’s ups and downs. It’s been an interesting experience, as I’ve had no fallbacks as I did previously. As some of you may know, Los Angeles isn’t the best destination for a 19 year old with $500 in his pocket and a business that now generated a negative income. I also had no car and home starting out, struggles I overcame without a month.

The second business is something I’ve always wanted to work on. It’s a card with benefits that I plan to rival American Express with. Payment cards are one thing I’ve always had a strange obsession with. I’ve never been satisfied with a lot of the banking solutions out today, both the online interface and the actual physical card were less than satisfactory to me. So I designed Vertex - a card made out of metal (specifically stainless steel). I focused on a premium feel and design for the cards, and I’m still working on an interface. I’m working towards offering in-house banking solutions like credit and checking through a bank like Bancorp - they seem to cater to companies with a similar objectives. But as for now, we allow users to link their current card to ours, basically making a copy to use as a replacement to your ordinary card, while enjoying the same benefits. I am also currently working on a way to display basic info about the user’s bank account like available balance or credit limit, along with some useful analytics on their Vertex dashboard. The company is still in it’s infancy. I’ve invested a lot of time and money so far, both of which I am not abundant in right now, lol. I am also still in the process of growing the list of benefits - which is small at the moment. But right now I’m bringing all that together to provide users with a great experience throughout - both digitally and physically.

The website is getvertex.com, I’d love to hear any thoughts on it - negative or positive. If you’d like to reach out to me personally, my email is [email protected]. Looking forward to reading some outside thoughts and opinions.