Why patience, precision, and reputation are the real competitive edge in private credit

By Ilona Limonta-Volkova

1. What’s the problem you saw that others underestimated, and how did it first show up in your life or work?

Inside the infrastructure powering the next 401(k) revolution

By Ilona Limonta-Volkova

"Quiet work compounds — even when no one is watching."

That is what I kept reminding myself during Sunday’s sprint triathlon. In spite of a snafu with my tracker, I was genuinely proud of the outcome: 7th in my age group, well beyond what I had expected considering my only goal was to finish in the top half.

By Ilona Limonta-Volkova, Forbes Contributor.

Most Americans are preparing for retirement with yesterday’s tools. The rules of retirement planning are changing, but few have noticed. Financial innovation often promises greater access and equality, yet adoption rarely keeps pace with aspiration.

A recent Harris Poll found that nearly 40% of Americans have never heard of private-credit funds, a class of alternative investments that Wall Street is racing to bring to 401(k)s.

October 3, 2025

by Kriste An from businesstoday

In the ever-evolving world of finance, few industries remain as traditional as private credit. Yet, one executive is looking to change that by applying innovative technology to streamline processes that have long been manual and inefficient. Nelson Chu is the Founder and CEO of Percent, a private credit marketplace that is transforming how investments are sourced, structured, and managed.

Here’s the journey I went on as a founder and what I learned at each stage. Most founder advice tells you to delegate fast and focus on your strengths. After six years of building Percent, a private credit marketplace, from $80,000 in credit card debt to a Series B, I believe the opposite: The founders who win are the ones who do wear every hat as they go through their journey.

In 2018, my company had a marketplace with investors lined up, no borrowers and 60 days to close a deal or lose our equity funding. That scramble taught me the toughest truth about marketplaces: Getting both sides to believe in something that doesn’t exist yet matters more than the launch itself.

If you're building a marketplace from scratch, here's what you’ll likely face before launch, and what you need to know to make the market believe in your product.

The startup playbook that built Uber, Airbnb, and DoorDash is becoming obsolete in real-time. As AI compresses jobs that once required hundreds of employees into algorithms, we’re witnessing the birth of a new company archetype—capital-efficient, immediately profitable, and surprisingly small. With a variety of software to use for all aspects of building a business—from Shopify for e-commerce to Stripe for payments—and low operating costs, innovation just keeps making everything that much more efficient.

When you’re building a company from the ground up, you will make many mistakes. Learning from them and building core mantras from the lessons you glean will define how you think and operate during your journey. Mantras are born out of your experiences when scaling your company and from surrounding yourself with people who have been down this path before, imparting wisdom from their experience onto you.

Small businesses are already being hit hard, but here’s what these tariffs could mean for the global economy in the long run. Since the Trump administration took office on January 20, immense changes have overwhelmed business owners of all sizes. Perhaps most impactful are the tariff policies President Trump was touting before election and is now enacting—theoretically to prioritize American business, but possibly upending businesses of all sizes.

Choosing who sits on your company board is one of the most consequential decisions you'll make as a founder. The individuals you select will shape your company's future through critical decisions—from funding rounds and strategic pivots to expanding option pools and setting company direction.

The gap between the president-elect’s claims and market expectations may offer temporary reprieve, but small businesses should prepare for turbulence.

A stark reality check looms for America’s 33 million small businesses: While campaign promises suggest dramatic economic shifts, market indicators tell a different story. This disconnect—between political rhetoric and market expectations—creates both uncertainty and opportunity for SMBs, which represent 43.5% of U.S. GDP and employ nearly half of private-sector workers. 

In 2018, I'm tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, frantically trying to get Percent off the ground. Fast-forward to 2022, and we're staring at a bank account with barely anything left and a $350,000 payroll looming in just days. Yet by 2023, we closed an oversubscribed series B round, found our product-market fit and saw our marketplace take flight. This roller-coaster ride is not an unfamiliar story.

Private credit has rapidly expanded beyond its Wall Street niche, drawing in everyone from seasoned titans to wide-eyed Main Street investors. However, the sector’s meteoric rise hasn’t gone unnoticed by the establishment. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase’s CEO and Wall Street’s perennial voice of caution, recently sounded the alarm on private credit’s potential default risks, making headlines in the process.

Anchored by high yields, shorter-term investments, and being newly open to all accredited investors, the rise of private credit is still climbing. Doubling in size as an asset class over the past 5 years, private credit assets are expected to hit $2.3 trillion by 2027. Booms like this almost always pose questions: Is this sustainable growth?

We often compare founding a company to raising a child. There's pride, a refusal to admit we don’t know everything from the start and a whole lot of growth—not just for the company but for us as founders.

The founder journey is fraught with challenges, primarily because a founder’s role evolves out of necessity as the company matures. From bootstrapping an idea to a successful exit, founders constantly adapt their focus and apply their skills—both technical and emotional—to meet the company’s needs at each phase.