> But one thing strikes me as odd about this whole arrangement. The better a business performs, the quicker it is able to repay the loan, and the higher its effective APR becomes! It's essentially a prepayment penalty in disguise. So you'd better make sure the loan doesn't help your business too much, or you'll end up getting hosed by the loan fee.
Yes, this is right -- if your business suddenly starts doing a lot better, your effective APR will be higher.
What we heard overwhelmingly from customers, though, is that the downside risk of credit obligations they can't meet (liquidity problems are asymmetrically damaging!) substantially outweighs the theoretical "risk" of a higher effective APR caused by significant outperformance in the business. (Stated differently, we're taking the risk of your business underperforming, in return for you paying us back somewhat faster -- but still at a capped rate -- if things go better than you expect.)
I think the model we have makes more sense for most businesses. But there's no dogma; we'll certainly revisit this over time if we find that a lot of customers seek a different risk profile.