In this discussion, Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium, interviews Archna Carlstone, Head of Product at Carputty, about building, scaling, and evolving SaaS platforms, with a focus on Carputty’s journey from an internal finance tool to a white-labeled SaaS product for partners and customers.

Carputty’s Origin and Product Evolution

• Carputty was founded in October 2020, with Carlstone as an early team member, focusing on building both consumer-facing and internal tools.
• The company’s flagship product, the Carputty Flexline, offers a line of credit for car purchases, underwriting consumers rather than vehicles, flipping the traditional dealership financing model.
• Initially, the platform was built to serve Carputty’s own finance operations, but as the product matured, the team recognized broader industry pain points and began offering the platform as a white-labeled SaaS solution for other businesses.

Transition to SaaS and White-Labeling

• The decision to transition into SaaS was driven by market demand and the flexibility of being a startup, allowing Carputty to move quickly and adapt the platform for external partners.
• Early challenges included abstracting out company-specific features to make the platform scalable and universal, such as removing Carputty-specific labels and building a more modular, customizable system.
• The team implemented an abstraction layer for integrations (e.g., different banking providers) and a global design system to balance customization with maintainability for partners.

Product Team Structure and Development Approach

• Carputty’s product and engineering teams operate in lean, cross-functional pods focused on core areas: consumer applications, transactions (asset management), and data.
• This structure supports focus, knowledge sharing, and agility as the company grows and adapts to new partner needs.

Integrations and Partnerships

• Integrations are central to Carputty’s strategy, with an API abstraction layer enabling flexibility in vendor selection and servicing partners.
• Carputty partners with various organizations, including banks and companies like Turo, offering tailored solutions based on partner requirements rather than a one-size-fits-all package.

Core Values and Customer Focus

• Carputty’s core values include being data-driven, tenacious, thinking big, empowerment, and transparency, with transparency being especially central.
• The company emphasizes transparency in financing, aiming to disrupt the traditional, opaque dealership model and empower consumers with clear information about rates and valuations.

Advice for Product Managers

• Carlstone advises product managers transitioning internal tools to external products to continually question scalability and universality, recognize and address internal biases, and be willing to push back on internal requests that do not align with long-term vision.
• She emphasizes the importance of admitting mistakes, iterating on architecture, and balancing speed with building a sustainable, scalable product.

Closing Thoughts

• The discussion highlights the complexities of evolving a fintech product into a SaaS platform, the importance of abstraction and modularity, and the ongoing trade-offs between customization and product stability.
• Carputty’s journey offers valuable lessons for teams considering a similar transition, particularly around organizational structure, integration strategy, and maintaining core values throughout growth.

For more insights on tech partnerships, integrations, and APIs, listeners are encouraged to visit Pandium’s blog and resources.