A few months into my time at Umpqua Bank, my car's check engine light came on. Naturally, I called one of my closest friends, Chathu. I said,
"Hey! My check engine light just came on. Can I swing by and use your check engine checker thingy?"
Chathu, a lifelong tech guy and fellow car enthusiast (though far better at fixing them than I am), lived in the South Waterfront and was always happy to help.
That evening, after work, I drove over. Chathu hooked up his diagnostic tool, read a few codes, and reset the light. As we wrapped up, he said something that changed everything.
Without hesitation, I said, "Heck yes."
We began brainstorming, throwing around ideas and searching for problems worth solving. One night after work, I called him and said:
"At the bank, we still use this outdated 'All Clear' process to open branches in the morning. It feels unsafe. What if we built an app and sold it to every bank in America?"
After understanding the entire process, Chathu was fully committed. I designed the interfaces, and within a few weeks we had built a working version. We then submitted it to Apple for approval.
As we waited for App Store approval, I called him again:
Once again, Chathu said yes. That was our lightbulb moment.
Chathu and I then worked on Branch Balancing, a process that takes about 5 minutes daily for the tellers. ABM and BM were competitors using our system in one second. While the actual time is probably 8-10 minutes, when we did the math using 5 minutes per branch daily, we found that all 350 Umpqua branches would spend 29 hours every day balancing branches. Our system could balance all 350 branches in under 15 seconds.
"We would love to take a closer look under the hood and identify areas where we can improve efficiencies, ultimately helping your bank grow."