How To Be Moderately Successful.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful' podcast. I’m your host Mike Scott, Co-Founder, and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products, and a better version of yourself.

We get a lot of messages to thank us and our guests for the content that we put out which I can only assume means that you are getting value from the podcast. 

If you’d like to support us then please do give us a rating and review, you’ll be surprised at how much each one helps us.

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital. Building a FinTech business is difficult and building the software that enables that business,  that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's hyper-competitive environment, getting your software built right really matters, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team, closing your next deal, and making the impact that you need to make. This is where Nona can help. 

With an excellent track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

We’re small enough so that you are always close to the principals but big enough to be able to deliver at the highest standards consistently without KPD’s.

We have deep expertise in FinTech, and particularly in blockchain application development.

We also have a proven track record of expanding and evaluating internal tech teams and capabilities for our partners.

So, if you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Head over to our website to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.

We are actively hiring senior developers and technical leads and are offering very decent bounties for any referrals. So, if you know any senior developers that might be a good fit for Nona, please get in touch and there might be a meaningful reward in it for you. 

And now, on to the show...

Today my guests are Dave who is no stranger to the show, he is one of my partners at Nona and our CTO and for his first appearance, we are welcoming James Smith today who is our Head of engineering at Nona.

Thanks for listening to the How to be Moderately Successful Podcast. 

If you have a FinTech project that you would like to accelerate with a partner that will take care of your design and development to allow you to focus on your area of genius, we’d love to help you. Head over to our website. 

I’ll be back next week with another episode to help you build better businesses, better fintech products, and a better you.

Welcome to the ‘How to be Moderately Successful’ podcast. I’m your host Mike Scott, Co-Founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products, and a better version of yourself. If you’d like to support us then please do give us a rating and review, you’ll be surprised at how much each one helps us. 

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital. Building a FinTech business is difficult. And, building the software that enables that business, that scales and that your users love is very difficult. If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you. Head over to our website to book a call with one of our principles. 

And now, on to the show...

Today my guest is Riccardo Spagni who is also and possibly even better known as Fluffy Pony.

Ric is I think most widely known through his role as the lead maintainer of Monero, a privacy-centric cryptocurrency project that aims to obfuscate the linkability of transactions across source, quantity, and destination. But his career spans a lot further than just Monero.

In 2016 he launched Globee, a multi-currency payment processor. In the same year, Ric also founded Tari, whose mission is to be the most useful decentralized platform that empowers anyone to create digitally scarce things people love.

And now, Ric’s most recent project is Yat which is a really interesting project that is censorship-resistant emoji-based online identities. This project has not yet launched but you can join the waitlist at y.at. I already have.

What struck me about Ric from the first time that I spoke to him was how open he was to meet with people. He is one of the biggest names in crypto and yet still has time for a lot of people which speaks to his character.

Welcome Ric, it’s great to have you on the show.

                                                                                                  *** 
Thanks for listening! 

We are actively hiring senior developers and technical leads and are offering very decent bounties for any referrals. So, if you know any senior developers that might be a good fit for Nona, please get in touch and there might be a meaningful reward in it for you. 

I’ll be back next week with another episode to help you build better businesses, better fintech products, and a better you.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the Co-Founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products and a better version of yourself.

If you’d like to support us then please do give us a rating and review, you’ll be surprised at how much each one helps us.

 https://ratethispodcast.com/howtobemoderatelysuccessful. 

We’ll drop this in the show notes too...thanks in advance!

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a FinTech business is difficult and building the software that enables that business,  that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's hyper competitive environment, getting your software built right really matters, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team, closing your next deal and making the impact that you need to make.

This is where Nona can help,

With an excellent track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

We’re small enough so that you are always close to the principals but big enough to be able to deliver at the highest standards consistently without KPD’s

We have deep expertise in FinTech, and particularly in blockchain application development.

We also have a proven track record of expanding and evaluating internal tech teams and capabilities for our partners.

So, if you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Head over to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.

And now, on to the show...

Today my guest is a serial FinTech entrepreneur. Andrew Anastasiou from Legion Pay.

Andrew has been involved in and founded multiple businesses in the FinTech space.

Andrew’s current focus is as co-founder of LegionPay, a high-risk payment consultancy firm focusing on digital payments such as crypto and card acquiring solutions.

Andrew also founded WealthKingdom, and TheFintechPost, a google news portal providing updates and insights on the Fintech industry.

Andrew has been featured in a bunch of publications, including The Statesman, MarketWatch, and International Business Times. 

Andrew is clearly a very capable entrepreneur with a ton of experience and at only 32 years that's really impressive. 

What struck me immediately about Andrew was how open he is and how he seems to genuinely want to build great products and help people.

Welcome Andrew, it’s great to have you on the show.

If you have a FinTech project that you would like to accelerate with a partner that will take care of your design and development to allow you to focus on your area of genius, we’d love to help you.

Head over to our website www.nona.digital to book a call with one of our principles or follow any of the contacts in the show notes.And, another plug that we are actively hiring senior developers and we’re offering a very tasty reward for any successful referrals.I’ll be back next week with another episode to help you build better businesses, better fintech products, and a better you.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the Co-Founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products and a better version of yourself.

We get a lot of messages to thank us and our guests for the content that we put out which I can only assume means that you are getting value from the podcast. 

If you’d like to support us then please do give us a rating and review, you’ll be surprised at how much each one helps us.

We set up a link to make it easier, just go to https://ratethispodcast.com/howtobemoderatelysuccessful. 

We’ll drop this in the show notes too...thanks in advance!

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a FinTech business is difficult and building the software that powers that business,  that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's competitive environment, getting your software build right really matters, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team,  closing your next round and making the impact that you need to make.This is where Nona can help,

With a strong track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

We’re small enough so that you are always close to the principals but big enough to be able to deliver at the highest standards consistently without KPD’s

We have deep expertise in FinTech, and particularly in blockchain application development.

We also have a proven track record of expanding and evaluating internal tech teams and capabilities for our partners.

So, if you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Head over to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.And now, on to the show.

Today my guest is Anthony Di Iorio who is one impressive human.

In 2013 Anthony funded and Co-Founded Ethereum which is, today, a decentralised blockchain protocol that in just the last 24 hours would have successfully processed over 1.2m transactions. 

The native cryptocurrency to Ethereum, Ether, now has a market cap of over $240bn.

Anthony has invested tens of millions of dollars in numerous industries including blockchain and has launched many companies himself.

His current focus and how he and I met is as the Founder and CEO of Decentral, a Toronto-based innovation hub and software development company focussed on decentralized technologies. 

Decentral is the creator of the Jaxx liberty wallet and platform which has had literally millions of downloads with zero marketing spend which is just mind-blowing.

Previously Anthony was the Chief Digital Officer for the Toronto Stock Exchange and held an Adjunct Professor position at the University of Toronto.

He has stacked up a slew of awards including:

EY’s emerging entrepreneur of the year award

Fintech leader of the year award

And

Toronto’s list of the 50 most influential people in 2018.

Apart from his razor-sharp mind and ludicrously impressive career, Anthony is a truly nice guy and someone that I really enjoy talking to. 

Welcome Anthony, I’m so glad you could make it.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the co-founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products and a better version of yourself.

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a FinTech business is difficult and building the software that powers that business,  that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's competitive environment, you just can't afford to get your tech wrong, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team,  closing your next round and making the impact that you need to make.

This is where we can help,

With an impressive track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we are a great choice of tech partner. 

We’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

We’re small enough so that you are always close to the principals but big enough to be able to deliver at the highest standard consistently without KMD’s

We have deep expertise in FinTech, and particularly Blockchain.

We have a proven track record of expanding and evaluating tech teams and capabilities for our partners.

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.

Today my guest is Lungisa Matshoba.

After completing a Business and Computer Science degree Lungi set out to build the world's first VoIP service that would work on a smartphone. They raised some investment and after two years joined the TelFree group. Keep in mind this was before the smartphone and this tech was running on Windows Mobile and Symbian OS phones so Lungi has been around for a while in the tech space.

In Feb of 2013 Lungi co-founded Yoco where he is the CTO today.

Yoco is one of the big African FinTech names. They build tools and services to help small businesses get paid, run their businesses, and grow.

To date they have over 120 000 paying customers and are on a massive growth trajectory.

Lungi is articulate, surprisingly calm for someone that's part of the leadership of a rocket ship like Yoco and also a  genuinely nice guy.

Welcome Lungi, it’s really great to have you on the show.

                                                                                    ******************
If you have a Fintech project that you would like to accelerate with a partner that will take care of your design and development to allow you to focus on your area of genius, we’d love to help you.

Head over to our website www.nona.digital to book a call with one of our principles or follow any of the contacts in the show notes.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the co-founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products and a better version of yourself.

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a FinTech business is difficult and building software that scales and that your users love is very difficult.

In today's competitive environment, you just can't afford to get your tech wrong, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team,  closing your next round, and making the impact that you need to make.

This is where we can help,

With an impressive track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we are a great choice of tech partner. We’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.

Today my guest is Nic Haralambous, who, if you living in South Africa you probably already know. 
Nic is a global speaker on entrepreneurship, side hustles and curiosity.
He has authored a few books now, the most recent of which is How to Start a side hustle which I believe is a very timeous piece of content.
He has built and sold multiple startups over his career which began when he was 16 years young.
Nic recently launched the Slow Fund in South Africa which gives away R1000 every day for  365 days to help an aspiring entrepreneur to kick start their side hustle.

Nic is an original thinker, someone that is fearless in his opinions, and an all-around nice guy.

I got to know Nic properly while we were both at Consensus in NY in 2018 over probably too many beers but I really enjoy his conversation and insights and I am sure that this will be an episode filled with practical takeaways that you will be able to apply to your business and life.

Welcome Nic, great to have you on.

                                                    ***************************************

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the co-founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products and a better version of yourself.

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a FinTech business is difficult and building software that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's competitive environment, you just can't afford to get your tech wrong, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team,  closing your next round, and making the impact that you need to make.

This is where we can help,

With an impressive track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we are a great choice of tech partner. We’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.

Today my guest is Daniel Dubois who is one inspirational human.

His bio is kind of ridiculous so I am going to pick out just a few things that jumped out at me, keeping in mind that Daniel is just 29 years old:

A top 30 under 30 winner.

Canadian G20 Delegate

Two-time venture-backed company exits.

Co-founded a laneway housing company which led to a $50m property development.

Has traveled to over 30 countries

Turned down a professional basketball contract to follow his passion by joining the next Big Thing fellowship.

Daniel is one of 14 A360 scholars chosen by Peter Diamandis.

Daniel worked for Airbnb for 2 years where he made some interesting observations which led him to his current focus which is as the co-founder and President of Key.

Key is fundamentally changing the way real estate works for the better, for the many, making financial prosperity realistic and attainable. 

They have raised over $5m in their friends and family round and over $1Bn in real estate tied up.

If you are in the property market you’ll want to watch these guys, not just in Canada but globally. 

Daniel is a super impressive guy and at only 29 years old I get the feeling that he is just getting started.

Welcome Dan, it’s great to have you on the show, and thanks for making the time.

                                                    ***************************************

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the co-founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products, and a better version of yourself.

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a FinTech business is difficult and building software that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's competitive environment, you just can't afford to get your tech wrong, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team,  closing your next round, and making the impact that you need to make.

This is where we can help,

With an impressive track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we are a great choice of tech partner. We’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.

Today my guest is Bryan Habana, who likely needs no introduction if you live anywhere in the world where you are able to watch Rugby.

But just in case you live in a place like Adelaide that doesn’t follow Rugby Union Bryan is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in Rugby history with a list of achievements and accolades that is too long to list. He is an absolute rugby legend

What some might not be aware of though is that Bryan has also got a strong entrepreneurial and business streak in him which he is now focussing on and doing very well.

Bryans's current focus is as co-founder and head of business development at the PayMeNow Group which is FinTech that provides an employee benefits platform offering early salary advances, focusing on responsible financial inclusion.

Bryan is a super nice guy and I have no doubt that you will get some value from this discussion.

Welcome Bryan, it’s great to have you on the show.

                                                                         **********************
If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the co-founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better FinTech products and a better version of yourself.

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a FinTech business is difficult and building software that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's competitive environment, you just can't afford to get your tech wrong, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team,  closing your next round, and making the impact that you need to make.

This is where we can help,

With an impressive track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for FinTech companies around the world, we are a great choice of tech partner. We’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care.

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.

Today my guest Yaniv Bernstein and I'm really excited about today's theme. We are going to be discussing what it really takes to build a tech team for your product.

Yaniv completed his PhD in Computer science in 2006 and then went to work at Google as a software engineering manager for 5 years on the youtube team.

He then did a stint at IBM for just over a year before going back to google for another 4 years this time to work on the google maps team.

In May 2018 Yaniv joined the Airtasker team as VP of engineering and then in March 2020 he became COO and that is his current focus and where it would appear he has found his area of genius.

Airtasker is an AUS based scaleup that connects experts to get the job done across almost any task that you can think of.

 They have raised over $25m in funding to date and are set for an IPO in the very near future.

Their team is around 100 strong and growing.

Yaniv also has a newsletter called WTFisaCOO which delivers weekly insights into organizational leadership in tech and beyond.

Welcome, Yaniv it is great to have you on the show.

                                                                   *******************************

If you would like to accelerate your FinTech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals.

Welcome to the ‘how to be moderately successful podcast’, I’m your host Mike Scott and I am also the co-founder and CEO of Nona Digital.

This podcast is all about helping you to build better businesses, better fintech products and a better version of yourself.

Today’s episode is sponsored by ourselves, Nona Digital.

Building a Fintech business is difficult and building software that scales and that your users love is very difficult. 

In today's competitive environment, you just can't afford to get your tech wrong, but you also need to focus on building your business, your team,  closing your next round and making the impact that you need to make.

This is where we can help.

With an impressive track record of delivering scalable intuitive software for Fintech companies around the world, we are a great choice of tech partner. 

We’ll take away some of your stress by making sure that your product is designed and built at the highest standards and by people that really care

We are small enough so that you are always close to the principals but big enough to be able to deliver at the highest standard consistently without key person dependencies.

We have deep expertise in Fintech, and particularly Blockchain

We have a proven track record of expanding and evaluating tech teams and capabilities for our partners.

Hiring great talent is critical to any tech businesses' success, whether it is internal or outsourced. 
Oftentimes people don't know how to vet this talent to avoid making bad hires. 

I certainly speak from experience when I say that making bad hires can be one of the most costly mistakes that one can make in business and especially in tech so getting this right is essential.

Today I have got my business partner and CTO at Nona Dave O'Reilly to get into this discussion with me. 
Dave brings more than 20 years of experience in this field and countless interviews and hires so he is really well placed to share some insights and experience. 
He is also an incredibly talented developer in his own right which of course really helps when it comes to assessing talent.

Welcome back, Dave.

                                                          *******************************

If you would like to accelerate your fintech project with a team of experts, we’d love to hear from you.

Go to www.nona.digital to book a call directly with one of the principals or follow any of our contacts in the show notes.