MoneyNeverSleeps

Brian McNulty, founder and CEO of FundAdminChain (FAC), joins the show to talk about solving a real business problem with distributed ledger technology (DLT), how funding your business takes a team effort, enabling positive change for the investment funds industry and end investors…and his secret life as a qualified football coach!

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

FAC is a network for launching, distributing and trading digital investment funds, connecting investors, fund managers, and their service providers in a distributed digital ecosystem. Brian just completed the first half of raising FAC’s seed round, and although the fundraising round will stay open until February, Pete Townsend wanted to crystallize this moment in time by capturing it in this episode. For the sake of transparency, Pete is also an advisor to Brian and FAC.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On the core proposition: “We're facilitating the more forward-thinking incumbents to digitalize what they do, improve their services and pass those benefits on to their customers and the end investors.”

On one of the influences for founding FAC: “At R3, we were bringing the buyside into the office, and looking at how the funds industry is still quite antiquated and extremely busy with many layers and intermediaries, but all doing an important job in the current state and all playing necessary roles.”

On the opportunity: “With DLT, we could see the opportunity to collapse those layers, and if everyone shared the same data, then we don't need all the reconciliations and oversight teams. This means we can drive out some of the costs, risks and data lags.”

On the reason for a comprehensive approach: “We know this takes a blend of business, technical and regulatory considerations not only to ensure that it's a real business problem we’re solving, but also that the business model itself stacks up.”

On the context of collaboration: “You’ve got to make sure that you are listening to what the individuals and organizations want and that it’s the right time for them. There may be a time when you need to pull back on the collaboration, and other times you’ll want to push for it.”

On raising capital: “Everyone tells you how much work it is and how it's another job and you hear those words, but you don't really know what it's like until you're close to closing.”

On the guiding forces: “We want to improve the industry – this is not a gimmicky thing - and we want to see that improvement passed on to the end investor and revolutionize the way that the funds industry operates.”

On the team effort: “Fundamentally, it's been a phenomenal journey so far with FAC as a result of the phenomenal team we've got and also some great organizations we're working with, so I’m looking forward to the next phase.”

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Allan Boyle, founder of Saltwater Consulting, joins the show to talk about helping growth-stage companies scale, putting people at the center of digital transformation, how to get to the root of a problem…and his love-hate relationship with handwriting!

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Saltwater Consulting is an Ireland-based strategic consulting firm specialising in providing businesses with experienced executive capacity and resources where needed during periods of transition and rapid growth.

When Allan connected with Pete Townsend and Eoin Fitzgerald, what stood out is Allan’s diverse track record across geographies, industries and business stages, and the number of repetitions in problem-solving he’s had. Also, given his focus on growth-stage companies, the problems Allan is helping to solve are the problems that earlier stage startups will eventually face, so there’s a crystal-ball context to this episode for early-stage startups as well.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On why he started his business: “Being part of AWS for a couple of years and watching how even the largest companies can scale rapidly was absolutely fascinating. That led to me starting Saltwater Consulting earlier this year, as what I really want to do is help companies scale.”

On his modus operandi: “As companies scale, [for example], getting that alignment between sales and engineering can be challenging at times. That's where I come in - I work with tech leaders to help them understand where they're going, identify people and process gaps, and help implement operational mechanisms.”

On the Rule of 3 and 10 from Hiroshi Mikitani: “Every single time the business triples in size, everything breaks - systems, people, the organization, everything. Technology is easy; you can replace that, you can scale it, you can adapt it, whatever. But it's the [organisational] systems, the processes and the people side I'm interested in, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.”

On his focus on the people side of digital transformation: “There's a need for people in anything you do. If you build a digital platform where you’re going to have millions of customers, you need to have some level of humans behind that.”

On an example of measuring what matters: “If you want to have a certain conversion ratio of sales, your metrics are what you’re putting into the funnel. What's happening with marketing? What are the activities people are doing at various points of the pipeline? You're not going to get that conversion If you don't track every step of the sales process.”

On looking ahead: “The future, for me, is about understanding how customer service evolves in this new digital world.”

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Mick Sweeney, CEO of PineBridge Investments in Ireland, joins the show to talk about what triggered his early interest in the financial markets, the nascent opportunity to transform the fund management industry in Ireland, the outcome of his long-term commitment to diversity, thoughts on post-pandemic global markets, societal changes driving new leadership styles…and his labour of love as a Leeds United supporter!

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

PineBridge Investments is a private, global asset manager focused on active, high-conviction investing.

A mutual friend introduced Pete Townsend and Mick back in 2018 through a mutual friend, and they got on famously right away through a shared appreciation for the merits of strategic change, restructuring and execution, and a similar look on life. Since then, they’ve done their best to be helpful to each other, and this episode brings it all together.

HIGHLIGHTS:  

On his earliest days in the financial markets in a treasury role: “All markets are interconnected, so if anything happened globally, it impacted the markets domestically. You had to have a clear insight and a view on where markets were going to be able to play the markets. But it gave me fantastic exposure and a fantastic interest, and no two days were alike. That's where my passion for this business was born.”

On what Ireland has built for fund managers since the 1990s: “It’s a fantastic framework and a fantastic platform to build from. What I would ask my fellow industry leaders strategically is, how can we build on top of that platform? In other words, what is the opportunity to bring front-end, high-end investment roles to Ireland? Over the next three to five years, we should be looking at how we build defensible niche products, defensible niche funds, that will be insulated from attack from the global players. How do we build those in Ireland?”

On the outcome of a commitment to diversity: “Some of our top-performing portfolio managers, globally, are women. Some of the best traders I’ve worked with over the last 30 years are women.  The results are there - this is uncontestable and decision making is better with diversity.”

On where we go from here: “There’s an old adage, ‘the survivors will be the winners,’ but I think that’s moved on. Now, it is the early adopters who are going to be the winners. The people that get this and understand that there is a change in leadership style needed are going to be the winners and will get the gains from the market opportunities because they will be bringing their teams with them.”

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Elisabeth Dana from Infinity Circle joins the show to talk about how a career in wealth management inspired her to start all over again to build a business centered on client needs, how to be be both digital and transformational, first reflections on Infinity Circle’s crowdfunding campaign and the social side of wealth management.

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

We’ve got Elisabeth Dana on the show this week, who is the founder and CEO of Infinity Circle, launching in 2021 as a global digital and real-world platform that brings together like-minded entrepreneurs, investors and game changers, to improve your relationship with money and make investing a fun feature of your life.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On her inspiration: “The banking landscape changed a lot following the 2008-09 financial crisis, and I decided that I wanted to contribute to my industry and shape the practice, and in a big bank, that was never going to happen. I knew 16 years on, that I had to take everything that I had been exposed to and use it to shape my industry.”

On going back to first principles: “It’s not about short term profits, it’s not about how many financial products you’re selling, it’s not about how many people you can talk to about a specific private equity deal the bank has on its books – this is not wealth management. Wealth management is about getting to know your clients so you can guide them through the pitfalls and find the path appropriate for them; each client is truly different.”

On starting over: “In my mind to be truly digital and truly transformational, you need to start from scratch. You need to redefine the framework, and it is very difficult to do that. Being transformational is all about the mindset and how you model your proposition. If you model your proposition on your target clients and you have the right mindset, you can be truly transformational”

On the bigger benefit of crowdfunding: “It’s about a lot more than money – as infinity Circle’s vision is to democratize wealth management, the best place to start is to let the crowd into your capital structure.”

On what’s unique about Infinity Circle: “The way we’ve designed Infinity Circle is to be a hybrid model, meaning you digitalise your proposition as much as you can, but you don’t remove the human element.”

On why the human element is important: “We want to have a social component to the platform. Over my career, my clients would call me as much about their returns, specific investments and metrics as they would call me looking for introductions to other clients in specific industries or markets they’re looking to enter with their own business.”

Have a look at Infinity Circle's crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs.

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In this week’s Money Talks segment, Pete Townsend and Eoin Fitzgerald take a look at Druckenmiller vs. Dalio on Bitcoin, how angels invest in startups, Tinkoff Bank and the 'Rundle', and AirBnB vs. Ant Financial in the Battle of IPOs.

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

THIS WEEK’S STORIES:

What We’re Getting Wrong About Druckenmiller and Bitcoin (Noelle Acheson, Coindesk, 15-Nov-20)

Pete on all of the bitcoin chatter this week: “The opinions expressed on bitcoin by big names in finance, whether they’re well informed or not, are just another notch in bitcoin’s belt holding up its big huge growing trousers of societal acceptance.”

Fidelity Digital Assets’ response to Ray Dalio: Addressing Persisting Bitcoin Criticisms (13-Nov-20)

Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano explaining bitcoin to Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy in episode #392 of the Pomp Podcast.

How to Raise Funds with a Super Angel: An interview with Fabrice Grinda (Gwen Salley, Head of Investment and Services at STATION F)

Primer on Unit Economics for SaaS companies: SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters (For Entrepreneurs, David Skok)

Tinkoff Launches Tinkoff Pro ‘Rundle’ (shared by Simon Taylor from 11:FS on Twitter on 15-Nov-20, reported by Tinkoff News)

AirBnB Files to Go Public (TechCrunch, 16-Nov-20

China postpones Ant’s colossal IPO after closed-door talk with Jack Ma (TechCrunch, 3-Nov-20)

Come Fly(Wheel) With Me – this week’s edition of the MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter featuring the story of Disney’s Flywheel Effect.

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Chris Burge from Spark Crowdfunding joins the show to talk about two-sided marketplaces, the differences between crowdfunding for B2C and B2B companies, his own transition from the life of an energy consultant to that of a crowdfunding platform operator….and the long-term benefits of stag weekends!

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

We’ve got Chris Burge on the show this week, who is the co-founder and CEO of Spark Crowdfunding here in Ireland. Spark is an equity crowdfunding platform helping Irish companies raise new funds from a vast pool of private investors.

Pete first came across Spark when he was working on a crowdfunding platform project last year, and he thought he had it all figured out at that point through desktop research. However, a conversation with the founder of a business can make all the difference!  This may seem obvious, but with any business, there’s usually an untold story as to why the founder was determined to get their product to market, and all you've got to do is ask.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On the problem with investing small amounts in startups: “I had done a small amount of startup investing, and I found that it cost you just as much in legal fees to invest as it did to make the investment itself.”

On launching the platform: “Getting a two-sided marketplace going is a difficult way of getting the ball rolling. You’ve got startups on one side and investors on the other and trying to persuade both of them that you’ll get enough of the other to make this successful is a difficult conundrum.”

On why there was a gap in the market: “The banks wax lyrical on how much money they’re putting into young startup companies, but in reality, they’re not. The amounts these startups are raising are too small for VC, so their only option is private investors, but the startups aren’t connected with these people. We knew we could bridge that gap.”

On crowdfunding for B2C vs. B2B companies: “Yes, I do see the argument that a B2C like BrewDog will raise in excess with lots of small investments from thousands of investors, but smaller numbers of investors putting larger amounts into a B2B is an equally valid approach.”

On the pending European crowdfunding platform regulation: “We’re certainly ready for it and I think the market will be ready for it as well.”

On what Chris is most excited about: “We’ve only scratched the surface. Of all the investment that goes into startups, the vast majority of that is being done by VCs at the moment. We’ve got an open playing field to help young startup companies to get investment.”

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We’ve flipped the tables this week, with Ken Coyne from OpsTalent interviewing Pete Townsend on his own digital awakening, insights on the startups he’s working with, the origins of enterprise blockchain, the present and the future of digital assets…and who stole Pete’s car stereo in 1990!

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Pete and Ken were introduced a couple of years ago by a friend from Pete’s time in Bermuda. As they got along so well from the start, Pete and Ken do what they can to be helpful to each other. Ken runs the Tech People podcast and is the Chief Technology Officer for Ops Talent, who are delivering technology and multi-lingual customer support services for some of the world’s most innovative companies.  Ken was intrigued by the initial hype around blockchain in the capital markets in 2015, but then he saw things go quiet. So, Ken asked Pete what happened and where things are going with blockchain in this interview, also released on Ken’s Tech People podcast channel this week.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On the problem with startups: “It’s hard to get customers without a product, it’s hard to build a product without funding, and it’s really hard to get funding without customers. It can be a continuous circle leading to a downward death-spiral, or a hard climb up and around the Matterhorn.”

On Pete’s own awakening after going down the blockchain rabbit hole in 2014: “When I read the original Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper, I saw a brand-new framework for the capital markets in front of my face.”

On the early views on blockchain in the capital markets: “Back in 2014, a bunch of capital markets CEOs asked their CTOs and Heads of Innovation to look at the only real use case for blockchain at the time, the bitcoin blockchain. But they came back from the front line like ‘Mining? Consensus algorithms? How are we actually going to apply this to the capital markets? We don’t need this stuff’.”

On the evolution to enterprise blockchain: “A lot of top people in the capital markets had the same realizations, but saw a lot of strong concepts in blockchain that could revolutionize the capital markets. A bunch of these folks got together and said, ‘Let’s see how we can make blockchain capital-markets-friendly’’, and that’s how firms like R3 were born.”

On blockchain going mainstream: “We’ll know that blockchain has gone mainstream when people stop talking about blockchain. How often do you talk about TCP/IP when you talk about eCommerce?”

On if blockchain is picking up steam again: “The steam never actually subsided in the development community, or in the startup community; it’s just been the perception of blockchain in the institutional community.”

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Brian Mac Mahon, Head Honcho at Expert DOJO, joins us to riff on solving America’s entrepreneurship problem, his objective to scale those solutions globally, the Israeli model as best practice for a startup nation...and starting fires for the betterment of all!

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Based in Santa Monica, California, Expert DOJO is a startup accelerator that improves the success rate of early-stage entrepreneurs with investment, foundation, influence, community, branding, marketing, communication and mindset.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On what’s in a name: “A dojo is a place of continual learning; you leave your ego outside. It’s about trying to understand the problem with as much brain power coming together to find a solution to that problem. It’s about everyone understanding that they’re not an expert, but that they’re reaching towards expertise based on learning more and more.”

On the origins of Expert DOJO: "We’re an accelerator, and we’ll invest in 50 companies this year, and another 100 next year. We look at international companies and provide a bridge to America and give them money to grow and a bunch of help. But we didn’t start out like that. We started out with a problem: startups are failing at an unprecedented rate.”

On the problem to solve: “The more I looked into it, the more I saw that if you haven’t gone to Harvard or Stanford, forget about it, you’re not growing a unicorn – we’ve got a really messed up system in America.”

On the Israeli entrepreneurship framework: “The number of Nasdaq-listed companies from Israel really points to how Israel made their entire DNA about startups. They had excellence, money, community, government all coming together to cocoon this incredible sense of entrepreneurship.”

On the evolution of entrepreneurship over time: “Entrepreneurship has moved from being something for the very few 80 years ago, to something for the brave 40-50 years ago, to today where I believe it is an absolute necessity for the many.”

On the key point: “Our real objective is to be a part of making success in entrepreneurship something that is equally available to folks whether they’re rich, poor, black, white, man, woman…in this current world, that is an impossibility, but that’s our objective. We know that we’re going to need a ton of money to do this, and we’re going to have to pick a lot of fights, and we’re preparing for that.”

To learn more about Expert DOJO, check out their website, and also download their podcast, The Art of Startup War.

To learn more about the Israeli model for entrepreneurship that Brian discussed, check out Startup Nation Central.

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Emmett Kilduff, founder and CEO of Eagle Alpha, talks with Pete Townsend about alternative data, launching his first startup at the same time as the Lehman collapse, pairing his conviction on the ‘problem-to-solve’ with staying power while waiting for the market….and his secret life as a Montréalais!

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Founded here in Ireland about 8 years ago, Eagle Alpha are Pioneers Connecting the Universe of Alternative Data. Pete first came across Eagle Alpha a few years ago following an intro from Enterprise Ireland, and they’ve stayed in touch ever since. With Eagle Alpha’s strong base of clients in the US hedge fund market, and Pete having a long history in this space, he has always been keenly interested in how Emmett and Eagle Alpha are progressing. In this conversation, we also get into Emmet’s initial inspirations for Eagle Alpha, the benefit of patience when you know you’re right but the market’s not on board yet, and the importance of creativity in responding to the unexpected.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On the influence of a father who was Ireland’s first successful fintech entrepreneur, which meant Emmett ended up “reading business plans and novels instead of novels as a young kid and as a teenager.”

On his first startup, CMYPitch.com, “That was my MBA in startups – you can’t go to Harvard or Stanford to learn that type of material, you’ve got to live through it.”

On starting Eagle Alpha, having the conviction that "hedge funds should be relying on data to make data-driven investment decisions, not just sell-side analyst research reports.”

On some of the examples of alternative data: satellite or geo-location imagery counting cars in retail parking lots in real-time at scale as a leading indicator of sales, tracking corporate jet activity, and analyzing anonymized credit card data to predict revenue for subscription-driven businesses like Netflix.

On his key lessons on waiting it out: “Stay in the game, don’t try to overexpand or try to raise too much money, but try to educate the market to encourage the wave to come.

On his origin story: “You won’t succeed in anything in life without hard work – even if the timing works in your favor, without hard work, you won’t grasp the opportunity.”

Key point: “We’re still early after being in our market for 8 years – the big wave is still to come.”

To learn more about Eagle Alpha, check out their website, and also download their podcast, Profiting from Data.

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Sorcha Finucane, Founder of TrainedIn, talks with Pete and Eoin about her inspiration for the business, the network effects of the platform, the ‘platformification’ of trust and referrals, the fairness of SME access to training vs. that of big business, how experience with both sides of the problem increases network value….and her life in an alternate universe in the military!

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

TrainedIn is an online platform assisting training and consultancy providers in showcasing their business and services while connecting them with individuals and organisations in need of their services.

When we learned about Sorcha and TrainedIn recently, our initial intrigue was driven by the network effects of professional training, where buyers bring more sellers and sellers bring more buyers. Also, as the whole world of professional training became virtual very quickly a few months ago, we wanted to know more about how those delivering training and those in need of training programs were keeping things moving. Pete comes from a family of educators, and Eoin and his family are experienced in educational endeavors as well, so this one hits close to home.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Sorcha shared how she’s launched the TrainedIn network by artfully bringing both those in need of training and those providing training onto the platform in such a way that brings immediate value, but doesn’t fleece anyone, and the trust-building benefits of this approach.

On creating opportunities: “We can bring smaller providers of training together to jointly tender for a big project, rather than the larger training providers getting all of the big jobs.”

Top skills sought after on TrainedIn in a pandemic – health and safety, leadership, emotional intelligence, project management, wellness and that old chestnut - Excel training.

Sorcha’s insight that everyone should spend some time in the hospitality industry, especially with understanding customer service, and “if you can communicate with people, you can travel the world with a hospitality passport.”

On making the right jump: “If you’re thinking about taking a big leap as an entrepreneur, call someone who won’t give you a load of BS and will help you make up your own mind. It’s your own mind that you need to make up, it’s not someone telling you that you should do it, because you have to believe in what you’re doing or else it won’t work.”

Finally, a shout out to Sorcha’s two dogs, Coco and Reilly, as the first ever non-humans on the show!

To learn more about TrainedIn, get in touch at [email protected].

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