Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang just launched Noble Mobile, a budget carrier that pays you back for using less data. The $50/month MVNO raised $10.3 million and aims to break Americans' expensive phone habits while undercutting traditional carriers by 40%.
Andrew Yang's betting Americans are tired of getting fleeced by their phone bills. The former presidential candidate just launched Noble Mobile, a budget carrier that flips the script on mobile pricing by actually paying you back for using less data.
"I'm as guilty of doomscrolling as the next person, but knowing that doomscrolling is actually costing me money makes me feel dumb," Yang told TechCrunch. "Now my wallet and financial incentives are tied to what I want to do, which is to look up more and use my phone a little bit less."
The math is surprisingly compelling. Noble Mobile's $50 monthly plan includes unlimited talk, text, and 5G data on T-Mobile's network. But here's the twist - use less than 20GB in a month, and you get "Noble Cash" back at roughly $1 per unused gigabyte. For context, Yang notes the average American drops $83 monthly on mobile service, making Noble's pricing seem almost suspiciously good.
The startup just closed a $10.3 million seed round led by Corazon Capital, with marketing guru Scott Galloway and other VCs jumping in. That war chest should help Yang compete against an industry he sees as systematically overcharging consumers.
"The business model of Verizon or AT&T in particular has gone from investing in infrastructure and network quality to keeping us frozen in place and hoping that we Americans don't notice that we're spending twice as much per capita on our wireless data as, for example, Europeans and Australians," Yang explained. The numbers back him up - Verizon alone paid $11.2 billion in cash dividends to investors last year.
Yang's inspiration came from an unexpected source: Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs. Cuban's pharmacy buys generic medications in bulk and resells them with a transparent 15% markup, undercutting traditional pharmacies by avoiding pharmacy benefit managers who typically inflate costs.
"I see what Mark is doing there," Yang said. "Maybe he's not profiteering to the same degree that some other companies are, but you can see he's got a fine business there. And so I looked around and said, 'Okay, what else can I 'Cost Plus' in American life that we all spend money on?'"
