Login or Sign up
Start Now

Fresh Perspective Interview with Joel Ohman

Written by Aaron Pinkston, Mon, Mar 08 2010
This is about true stories

Recent Postings

Featured in Alltop The Yakezie Challenge

Topics

 

Each Monday, I post a new interview with someone who is or does something unique (sometimes both). This week, I was able to steal a few minutes of Joel Ohman’s time to talk about his company.

Joel is a Certified Financial Planner ®, serial entrepreneur, and the founder of the credit card comparison website Credit Card Chaser. He would encourage everyone to not just apply for any old credit card offer that they happen to find in their mailbox but read credit card reviews online and be proactive to find the best credit card.

AP: What was your inspiration for creating Credit Card Chaser and what makes it different from similar services?

JO: Thanks for the opportunity to do this interview. My goal in creating Credit Card Chaser was to first start off by building a very unique credit card finder that makes it easy for anyone using the site to take charge of their search for a credit card and really sit in the drivers seat so to speak as they select different criteria and filter through the many different credit cards based on things that they personally desire in a card.

Our main point of difference between other credit card sites is our unique credit card finder. We also have a comprehensive credit card FAQ section with over 150 in depth Q&A’s, our credit card reviews section where you can both read a review of each card but then also leave your own star rating and review as well as read reviews and ratings from other cardholders. You can also check out our cool selection of credit card calculators that can calculate anything from how much cash back each of the top cash back cards could potentially earn you per month to how much a tank of gas will really cost you if you use your credit card but carry a balance.

AP: What sorts of challenges do you face trying to get the right message out to the right people?

JO: The &35;1 challenge is in accurately getting the message out there that there is both a right way and a wrong way to use credit cards. We have a graphic on the site that we like to show that essentially says that our stand is to:

  1. Make credit cards work for you and NOT against you
  2. Pay off all credit card debt
  3. Use a rewards credit card and pay off the balance every month

AP: Okay, so then putting your vision together and implementing it so it works right must have been easy, right?

JO: It is certainly a lot of work building CCC but I had some great technical help from my super coder John and my great graphic designer Rachel and some writing and editing help from Michelle as our goal is to really create a lot of high quality content that makes for a great user interaction with the site.

AP: A little bit of the right talent can go a long way. Some of the writers for Credit Card Chaser run their own websites too. How has the experience of working with them been and how have their other projects helped your efforts?

JO: I enjoy working with other writers and especially writers that run their own blog or website as I think that many of them have a lot of unique insight into credit cards, debt, credit and the other main topics of the CCC blog. I think that it is also a smart thing to be able to leverage the success of various personal finance blogs so that we can all help each other out and cumulatively make each of our individual websites or blogs better.

AP: If you are anything like me, you keep an active list of things for your developers to work on, but what sort of big changes do you imagine for Credit Card Chaser in the future?

JO: We have a ton of really cools things in store for CCC. We currently have over 1,000 credit cards in our internal database that we are continually reviewing and releasing new card reviews to our credit card reviews section almost every day. We have some new ideas for credit card calculators that should be very helpful and a lot fun to use as well. And we have also partnered with some other great creative writers that will be helping us to launch a new series of feature pieces that could be anything from a humorous test for a credit card company so we can really learn the inner working of the various customer service programs at the different credit card companies to a credit related challenge or content that we hope can really engage our site users and of course further.

Our ultimate goal which is to provide everyone with the tool and the information to start “Chasing Down” the very best credit card for their individual needs in as easy of a way as possible.

AP: Thanks for taking the time to answer a few quick questions – owner to owner.

JO: Thank you very much for allowing me to do this interview!


Last week, I talked with Elle from Couple Money, about all the hard work she’s put in for her seemingly sudden success. Check it out.