Press Release

Kim Kaselionis’ Story

September 19, 2014—Kim Kaselionis is the founder and managing partner of Breakaway Funding LLC, and the former CEO/chairman of Circle Bank.

This is her story.

I have always been entrepreneurial, although not in the traditional sense of starting “new ventures” as an avocation. Most likely, I inherited the “gene” from my mother, Kit Cole, who was a true pioneer among women in the financial services industry.

In the mid-60s, as far as I recall, she was the first female stock broker at Dean Witter (California), and went on to start three successful financial services companies while raising 10 children. After I obtained my degree in accounting, I went to work for her investment advisory services company where I was exposed to a host of investment activities from commercial real estate acquisition and management to oil and gas activities to traditional high new worth investment portfolio holdings. Later, I accepted a position at New West Thrift & Loan Company (Circle Bank’s predecessor), which at the time I became CEO, was a failing community bank on the brink of closure by the FDIC.

The regulators allowed me to assume the role but only after asking me how they could be confident that my mother wouldn’t control me. Surely, if it had been a father-son relationship, the conversation might look something like “isn’t it wonderful that Mr. Smith is mentoring / allowing Johnny to follow in his footsteps.” Within nine months of my arrival, we produced our first of 53 consecutive profitable quarters, which continued until late 2012, when the company was sold at a nice premium to book-value to Umpqua Bank.

Over my 16 years there, we performed not as simply a community bank but as an innovative, entrepreneurial enterprise that introduced new loan products, grew from one branch to six and to more than $325 million in total assets. We did this in an environment of intense competition from much larger banks and where many of our competitors had failed. Serendipitously, when we were completing the sale of Circle, I attended an economic summit where I was exposed to the concept “equity crowdfunding.”

I was immediately struck by the significant impact this funding vehicle would have on the banking industry (in fact, if I had stayed in the banking industry, I would have rolled this program out as means to get more capital to the jobs creators of this country – small businesses). After assessing my future career options, I decided to create a company to introduce a new capital funding model marrying equity crowdfunding and traditional bank financing.

The goal was to provide the mechanism for businesses to grow without banks needing to absorb all of the risk. I believe that equity-crowdfunding provides a clear path to sustainable, economic growth through partnerships and engagement by investors, entrepreneurs and local financial institutions, and because banks sometimes overlook emerging trends, I realized that I would have to bring it to them.

In my mind, securities-based crowdfunding was a classic entrepreneurial play for someone like me, looking at a traditional industry through a “different set of glasses.” I talked to participants on all sides of the equation (banks, investors and businesses) and confirmed that the opportunity was there and no one was addressing it the way I was.
I believe the words “obstacles” or “challenges” only have power if you obsess over them or let them take you down a path of negative thinking. You know that old saying “thoughts become things…make them good ones.” Starting a new enterprise can be scary and, at times, you’re not sure how you might make it through the month, but at the same time it’s very exciting and with each new interaction you become invigorated all over again. The key here is to keep “obstacles” and “challenges” in context.

They are simply situations or ruts in the road that you are faced with in a business (or personal) environment and you deal with them one digestible issue at a time. And if you’re lucky, sometimes you can even leverage them to your advantage. It’s a matter of attitude. Some days are better than others, but you need to show up and do the next few things ahead of you. As long as you’re marching forward, you’ll get to where you want to go.

For instance, trying to figure out how to introduce crowdfunding to the entire banking universe seems, at times, a Herculean task. But when I remember I need only tackle those appointments “this week” or “this month,” the seemingly insurmountable endeavor becomes more manageable and actually achievable….this perspective enables me to breathe more freely.

Frankly, for any entrepreneur raising money and opening the door for business are the most important first steps because it presupposes that your concept is doable and understood by your audience. Beyond that, “closing” our first few deals will be significant. When we added these opportunities to our website and started making them available to potential investors, we knew that were officially in business. That and of course, payroll, which comes around every two weeks.

For more information about Breakaway Funding, visit www.breakawayfunding.com.