My startup banking story (2023)

Funny to see this pop up again (I'm the author). The year is now 2025 and I still use Chase as a personal bank and I'm now discovering new funny banking behaviors. I'll use this as a chance to share. :)

My company had an exit, I did well financially. This is not a secret. I'm extremely privileged and thankful for it. But as a result of this, I've used a private bank (or mix) for a number of years to store the vast majority of my financial assets (over 99.99% of all assets, I just did the math). An unfortunate property of private banks is they make it hard to do retail-like banking behaviors: depositing a quick check, pulling cash from an ATM, but ironically most importantly Zelle.

As such, I've kept my Chase personal accounts and use them as my retail bank: there are Chase branches everywhere, its easy to get to an ATM, and they give me easy access to Zelle! I didn't choose Chase specifically, I've just always used Chase for personal banking since I was in high school so I just kept using them for this.

Anyways, I tend to use my Chase account to pay a bunch of bills, just because it's more convenient (Zelle!). I have 3 active home construction projects, plus pay my CC, plus pretty much all other typical expenses (utilities, car payments, insurance, etc.). But I float the money in/out of the account as necessary to cover these. We do accounting of all these expenses at the private bank side, so its all tracked, but it settles within the last 24-48 hours via Chase.

Otherwise, I keep my Chase balance no more than a few thousand dollars.

This really wigs out automated systems at Chase. I get phone calls all the time (like, literally multiple times per week) saying "we noticed a large transfer into your account, we can help!" And I cheekily respond "refresh, it's back to zero!" And they're just confused. To be fair, I've explained the situation in detail to multiple people multiple times but it isn't clicking, so they keep calling me.

I now ignore the phone calls. Hope I don't regret that later lol.

I read the whole story and I'm still struggling to understand what you did wrong here. You indicated many times "I know, that was a mistake" (or similar phrases), but each time I was baffled because I saw no mistakes. It was your business, and you had every right to move around the funds within your account. What gives anyone at Chase the right to say diddly squat about how you manage your business' finances?

TFA didn't really explain the mistake.

What I think it was:

1: Chase's business account wasn't appropriate for a tech startup; nor was it appropriate for the amount of money Mitchell was handling.

2: When your bank calls you after a very, very large money transfer, you should take the call.

That being said: In today's world where every other phone call is some telemarketer trying to scam you or otherwise sell you something you don't want or need, I can sympathize with why Mitchell blew off the first call.

Your answers are appreciated, but they beg further questions. Do you mind that I inquire further?

>1: Chase's business account wasn't appropriate for a tech startup; nor was it appropriate for the amount of money Mitchell was handling.

What properties make it inappropriate for a tech startup, specifically? What would be appropriate instead, and why?

>2: When your bank calls you after a very, very large money transfer, you should take the call.

He did take the call, but I take your answer to mean that Mitchell and Alex didn't have the right kind of conversation on the call. Is that correct? If so, what ought to occur on a call that follows a large transfer?

The bank account was appropriate for small businesses. IE, restaurant, laundromat, ect. This became clear when the article explained that there was education for tellers about what a tech startup is.

Mitchell didn't take the call. He ended the call as quickly as he politely could, short of hanging up on Alex.

Edit: I've had a few bank tellers advise me on how to adjust my bank account correctly in the past. I'm going to assume this is what Alex was trying to do.

I might also point out that, around this time, Wells Fargo tellers were very pushy and would make calls like this. (I got one) It later came out that they were under intense pressure to sell banking services that nobody wanted.

Thanks for answering!

So there is some set of services that are useful specifically to a tech startup but not a restaurant, but then there are a category of services that "nobody" wants, neither restaurant nor startup. Do you have an examples of any of those categories?

I am not asking because I disbelieve you. I am asking because I find this all fascinating, but it seems my imagination is lacking! What would I want from a bank account as a tech startup, versus a non-tech startup, versus a restaurant, that the bank wouldn't already give me when I sign up for a normal business account?

You said you were "advised to adjust" your account. Again, I apologize if I come across as ignorant, but what kind of adjustments?