MoneyNeverSleeps

This week, Pete and Eoin take look at what to do about the condemnation of Big Tech’s alleged monopoly powers according to US lawmakers, the catch-22 of consumer fintech, Apple One and ‘Rundles’, getting something from VCs if not a check….and godspeed, Eddie Van Halen.

THIS WEEK’S STORIES:

House Lawmakers Condemn Big Tech’s ‘Monopoly Power’ (NY Times, 6-Oct-20)

· Do you break up Big Tech (Google Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) by geography or by product line?

· Is financial services the Mr Burns-slash-Dr-Evil strategy for Big Tech? No, I think it was more about monetizing their user base.

· By being so big, Big Tech create an exit strategy for tech startups – if Big Tech is broken up, will it significantly impact your eventual exit plan?

How to design fintech for prime users? Embrace complexity (a16z Fintech Newsletter Sep-20, Anish Acharya)

· How does fintech address the complicated financial lives of those with too much wealth for their financial life to be simple, but too little wealth to pay someone to manage it for you?

· If I’ve had a long career and always invested with traditional players, I do probably want someone to talk to. If I’m a bit earlier on in my career and made my money on tech, I’m probably more open to managing things mostly through an app.

Apple One (15-Sep-20, Apple.com)

· Apple One now offers customers Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud, and more services in one simple plan.

· ‘Rundles’ - recurring revenue bundles - where challenger banks and consumer fintech need to go, managing your entire lifestyle through a single app.

The Winning Psychology of Top Founders in Fundraising Meetings (NFX, James Currier, 8-Sep-20)

· Pete and Eoin each pick their top 5 questions from NFXfor founders to ask VCs, as 90 percent of pitch meetings don’t lead to a check, and it’s better to get insights than a bag of rocks.

Eddie Van Halen fans remember his work on Michael Jackson’s classic hit ‘Beat It’ (NME, 7-Oct-20)

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David Soden, Co-founder and CEO of Aptimyz, talks with Pete Townsend about early entrepreneurial influences, finding purpose in a move from pharmaceuticals to B2B SaaS, the end-all-be-all of delivering customer value….and doubling down during lockdown!

For more episodes and our entire back catalog of show notes go to MoneyNeverSleeps.ie.

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EPISODE OVERVIEW:

This week Pete talks to David Soden, co-founder and CEO of Aptimyz, an Irish tech startup delivering a complete and affordable EPOS (electronic point of sale) and back-office management solution providing stability for retail in challenging times. If David and Pete had recorded this right after they met pre-lockdown in February, this conversation would’ve been much different!

Think about it this way - you build some hard-fought traction with your startup and climb right up to the edge of hitting the market in a big way. Then, the unthinkable happens to not only your target market, but the entire world around you, and the physical interactions between consumers and small businesses that were a critical lever to your business, basically drops through the floor. Well, that’s pretty much a masterclass in “Dealing with Adversity” that you can’t get in any business school on Earth.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Being the youngest of five boys in an entrepreneurial household with both parents and two brothers running their own businesses: “It never looked easy, but it was always exciting, and I think I had the bug from that point.”

On one of the biggest takeaways from his days in pharmaceuticals: “It was amazing as a young guy to be involved in a product launch going from zero to $1.5bn in 18 months, with that kind of scale, and see the pre-launch activity through to launch activity through to hyper growth.

On his purposeful move from pharmaceuticals to SaaS: “It was always important to have that north star and know what you’re working for and why you enjoy doing it.”

On his mantra as a startup founder: “It’s not worrying about the money, it’s worrying about whether you’re truly relieving a pain point for the customer.”

On his thoughts on startups: “For anyone interested in doing a startup, it’s isn’t easy, and if it is easy, there’s a good chance you’re fooling yourself that you’ve found something that’s really worth it.”

On digitalizing retail: “It isn’t about having a till or a PoS and then going online, it’s about having a digital business with a physical connection to the customer in store, and the virtual connection with the customer online, but managing it all in one place.”

On the pandemic: “When it hit in March, it was kind of a hold-your-breath moment, and then we realized we could give up, or double down. We doubled down and expanded the team.”

On delivering value: “There are a lot better things that retailers can be doing with their money right now than spending it on old PoS hardware.”

On lessons learned from pitching to investors: “Be sure of what you want going into it because you can’t cry about it afterwards if you end up with a bad deal.”

On looking ahead: “It’s a huge challenge, but we’ll be successful if we deliver customer value. It’s not about the shiny buttons, it’s about helping customers run their businesses more efficiently. “

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

Follow us on Twitter @MNSShow, @PeteTownsendNV and @EoinFitzgerald9

This week, Pete and Eoin take another look at the TikTok deal as a bellwether for change in how entrepreneurs outside the US look at the American market, a peek inside the now-profitable fintech unicorn TransferWise, the Nikola scam, the Yandex-Tinkoff tie-up, YCombinator’s acid test….and Cobra Kai!

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

THIS WEEK’S STORIES:

What the US and China’s tussle over TikTok means for Europe (Sifted, Nicolas Colin - 23-Sep-20) - Revisiting a story we covered on episode 97: Microsoft Goes Tik Tok and Monzo on the Clock.  But, Microsoft didn’t go TikTok, Oracle and Walmart did, and here’s a good overview of that deal from the Motley Fool.  Pete and Eoin walk through rethinking the default go-to scaling strategy of European startup founders looking at the US as the holy grail.

TransferWise reports second year of profit, revenue almost doubles (CNBC, 10-Sep-20) - Pete and Eoin talk through a different way to think about a challenger fintech rather than just a better bank.

Russia’s Yandex Agrees $5.5Bln Deal For Tinkoff Bank (Moscow Times, 22-Sep-20)

Nikola saga hits three speculative areas at once: SPACs, Robinhood traders and electric vehicles (CNBC, 21-Sep-20)

Start-up co-founded by ex-Goldman trader is first fintech to complete takeover of a national bank (CNBC, 4-Sep-20)

Michael Seibel – Lessons from Thousands of Startups (Invest Like the Best, EP.190)

Strike First… and Chill: Cobra Kai Moves to Netflix (Ted Theodore Logan, Medium, 9-Jul-20)

Also, a special thank you goes out to Paul and Laura Smyth at Top Tier Recruitment for sticking with us as such supportive sponsors and friends!

For more episodes and our entire back catalog of show notes go to MoneyNeverSleeps.ie.

Follow us on Twitter @MNSShow, @PeteTownsendNV and @EoinFitzgerald9.

Jill Richmond, Co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Jewel, joins the show this week to talk about having agility at the core of everything they do, the relationship between regulations and problem solving…and backpacking solo through eastern Africa!

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

For insights delivered to your inbox beyond the spoken word, subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter right here on Substack.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Jewel is a proposed Bermudian Bank and technology firm building banking infrastructure for digital assets as a bridge to fiat banking. The Jewel team brings a deep set of experience in regulated financial businesses, has provided leadership and guidance on new banking and finance policy in the US and emerging markets, and has a track record of delivering innovative and compliant new financial market solutions. Jewel recently announced their partnership with Anchorage, a platform for digital asset custody.

In this episode, Jill talks to Pete Townsend about building the business in a fast-moving market while being in the midst of a licensing process, and a few of her personal experiences over the years – see below for some of the best soundbites:

On building solutions for the fast-moving digital assets market:“Our own agility has to be core to what we’re building. As the market matures, we have to pay very close attention to how the core problems that we’re solving are evolving, and how quickly we can build solutions.”

On responding to new information from the digital assets market: “As the information coming at us changes, we just keep asking ourselves, ‘Are the problems we’re solving immediate and are they a priority. Even though the industry is changing, the regulatory environment isn’t moving as quickly.”

On the relevance of her earlier days of building policy for refugee programs to her current modus operandi: ”It was always a policy-first process. I think I recognized that with building something disruptive and innovative in banking, it has to be led with policy as well. If we’re entering a very regulated space as a bank, we have to focus on regulatory clarity first.”

Also, listen in for stories about Jill’s formative years as a 10-year-old entrepreneur generating 20x returns, her adventures as a solo backpacker in east Africa and her steadfast refusal to postpone the recording of this podcast even though her car was broken into that morning!

To learn more about Jewel, get in touch at [email protected], and you can follow Jill on Twitter @JillRichmond77.

For more episodes and our entire back catalog of show notes go to MoneyNeverSleeps.ie.

Sign up for our weekly MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on MoneyNeverSleeps.substack.com

Follow MoneyNeverSleeps on Twitter @MNSShow, Pete Townsend @PeteTownsendNV and Eoin Fitzgerald @EoinFitzgerald9

Jean Evans from the Venture Business Network in Ireland joins the show this week to share her insights on how to get started with professional networks, building your own board of advisors by developing your network, and being a master networker and a shy introvert at the same time.

For more episodes and our entire back catalog of show notes go to MoneyNeverSleeps.ie.

For insights delivered to your inbox beyond the spoken word, subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter right here on Substack.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

The Venture Business Network is a dynamic community of business owners and leaders who share their knowledge and connections to support one another in the development of more successful businesses.

We’ve been talking a lot about how the shift to mostly virtual or virtual-only interaction with customers and investors has impacted entrepreneurs in the last few months, and how everyone is adapting. So, we were thrilled to connect with Jean to dive into how important it is to keep your wider network engaged. In this episode, Jean shares her experiences and insights on:

To learn more about the Venture Business Network, you can reach out to Jean Evans at [email protected].

For more episodes and our entire back catalog of show notes go to MoneyNeverSleeps.ie.

Sign up for our weekly MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on MoneyNeverSleeps.substack.com

Follow MoneyNeverSleeps on Twitter @MNSShow

Follow co-host Pete Townsend on Twitter @PeteTownsendNV

Follow co-host Eoin Fitzgerald on Twitter @EoinFitzgerald9

Ambre Soubiran, CEO of Kaiko, joins the show this week to talk about how the pioneers of crypto and blockchain laid the foundation for the transformation of capital markets, Kaiko’s role beyond crypto as a financial market data provider…and the best route for sailing across the Atlantic!

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

For insights delivered to your inbox beyond the spoken word, subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter right here on Substack.

Check out our inclusion in FeedSpot’s Top 20 Entrepreneur Podcasts You Must Follow in 2020.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

Kaiko was founded in 2014 and is now a market data provider in the blockchain-based digital assets space, providing institutional investors and market participants with enterprise-grade data infrastructure. In this episode, Ambre talks through the intersection and merging of Kaiko’s story with her personal story – see below for some of the best soundbites:

On her entry point to the crypto and blockchain space: “In 2012, for me it was a refreshing new venture, I was going to these really random bitcoin meetups in these underground venues on Brick Lane in London, it was really sketchy at the time, but in a good way. It was really smart people that were inspired and changing the world and doing so in a technological and mathematical way that were really close to my heart.”

On thinking about crypto differently: “Bitcoin is very often perceived as a “crypto-anarchist revolutionary-against-institutions” mindset, which is indeed the genesis of it, but not everyone is like that, and I think it was more about challenging the status quo and re-thinking the notions of money, and that’s what I really liked about those meetups.

On dispelling market rhetoric: Banks definitely don't ignore blockchain anymore, but I was trying to push it at a time when they weren't ready for it yet. But the “blockchain-good-crypto-bad” mindset frustrates me a little bit, because what makes a blockchain work are the consensus and incentivization mechanism. If you don’t have a unit of value, i.e., a cryptocurrency or token, that incentivizes people to maintain the network in a decentralised way tied to a blockchain, you're missing out on the main points of what makes a blockchain work.

On knowing your target investors: If you’re a founder in the blockchain or crypto space, and you have to spend the first 15 minutes of a 30-minute pitch to a VC explaining blockchain and crypto, you’re in the wrong meeting.

On the capital markets: The capital markets industry is definitely less creative than it used to be, and that’s one of the things that drove me to crypto is that there’s still so much room to build.

To learn more about Kaiko, get in touch at [email protected], and you can get in touch with Ambre at Kaiko directly at [email protected].

For more episodes and our entire back catalog of show notes go to MoneyNeverSleeps.ie.

Sign up for our weekly MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter on MoneyNeverSleeps.substack.com.

Follow MoneyNeverSleeps on Twitter @MNSShow.

For the 100th episode of MoneyNeverSleeps, Eoin and Pete dive into their favorite topic – the challenges of challenger banks – and look back to the first 99 episodes to build out a list of their Top 10 episodes.

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Before we started the episode, we were thrilled to announce our inclusion in FeedSpot’s Top 20 Entrepreneur Podcasts You Must Follow in 2020. Thank you FeedSpot!

We start this week with the crossover of a few pieces of content from the past two weeks on challenger banks, in particular the Big 3 of Monzo, Starling and Revolut. Recent reports highlighted their financial results and compared and contrasted them, and one thought from Lex Sokolin of the Fintech Blueprint particularly struck a chord, and this is at the heart of what we dug into on the first half of this episode through the following stories:

Starling, Revolut and Monzo’s annual results compared (Sifted, 17-Aug-20)

Art Wittmann, Industry Research in “Chasing Profitability in a Changing Media Landscape” (Oracle NetSuite’s Brainyard)- how media companies make money

PRA challenges business models of new banks in consultation paper (Finextra, 24-Aug-20)

In the second half of the episode, Pete and Eoin each went through their Top 5 MoneyNeverSleeps episodes of all time to come up with the Top 10. Listen in to find out why, and also hear our ‘honorable mentions’, but here’s the big list!

Ep 99 - Peter Geoghegan and Democracy for Sale

Ep 93 - Be Direct - Zac Liew

Ep 57 - The Prediction - Andrew Mullaney

Ep 42 - Big Bank - Sean Faughnan

Ep 38 - Friends & Respect - Laura Smyth, Paul Smyth, Lisa White, Vessy Tasheva

Ep 37 - Fight for your Right - Graham Rodford

Ep 26 - Birds of a Feather - Ann O’Dea

Ep 23 - Money Made Me Do It - Elaine Deehan

Ep 15 - Angels - Chris Adelsbach

Ep 1 - The Re-up - Brian Norton

Thanks to all of our guests since May 2018 for their willingness to join us, their openness, their insights and above all else, helping us to figure out what makes them do what they do.  Please visit MoneyNeverSleeps for all of our other episodes.

This week, Eoin and Pete have the pleasure of talking to Peter Geoghegan about his book,  ‘Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics’. 

It is a fascinating story of how undisclosed donations have infiltrated British politics, undermining public faith in democracy and fuelling the rise of populism across the West.

Pete and Peter also discuss their common love of baseball and cricket and Peter shares a fascinating story about emigration from Longford to Argentina!

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

For insights delivered to your inbox beyond the spoken word, subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter right here on Substack.

Peter Geoghegan is an Irish writer, broadcaster and investigations editor at the award-winning news website openDemocracy. He led openDemocracy‘s investigations into dark money in British politics that were nominated for a 2019 British Journalism award and the Paul Foot award. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the London Review of Books and many other publications. He has made documentaries for BBC Radio Four, worked on investigative TV programmes for Channel 4 and regularly appears on British and international broadcast outlets.

His most recent book, Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics, was published in August 2020 by Head of Zeus. His previous book, The People’s Referendum: Why Scotland Will Never Be the Same Again, was nominated for the Saltire First Book Award. He is co-founder and current chair of Scottish investigative website the Ferret and lives in Glasgow and London.

Faye Walsh Drouillard from WakeUp Capital joins the show to talk about how her formative years and life experience drove her towards early stage impact investing, the two biggest challenegs we face as a global population and fuelling self confidence with humility, constant curiousity and a drive to do better.

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

Just a heads-up - we’ve been moving platforms over the past few episodes, and still working out the kinks, so Pete’s track is a notch below what we’d like it to be, but it was a great conversation and we know you’ll enjoy it. 

Faye shared a lot of great insights on this episode, including: 

On geographic parallels to personality: “The west coast feels very much home for me when I’m there because of many of the traits that people who are in entrepreneurship and startups and investing look for - open spirit, innovation and trying something new.”

On her time with the Freedom Writers Foundation: “It’s one thing to go and work with really determined entrepreneurs, it’s another thing to work with young people who have overcome things such as homelessness, drug abuse, mental issues, being brought to America as illegal immigrants and then to help them become part of this business with an aim to improve educational outcomes for students worldwide.”

On her impetus for becoming an investor: “I realized that there are so many wonderful entrepreneurs out there having epiphanies and light bulbs going off and having great ideas, but how could I take my knowledge and experience and influence the people who had the funds?  I really wanted to get inside their minds and figure out how they made their investment decisions.”

On her motivation: “For me, the unwillingness to accept the status has to do with the two biggest challenges we face as a global population - mass inequality and climate change.  These are not entirely new today, but more people seem to be paying attention to them, but I’ve been frustrated with both of those issues for a good part of my life."

On the impact of impact: “We want to help early stage entrepreneurs understand how to measure the impact they’re having on society and the planet, and grow the space of impact investing, so that stakeholders and co-investors know what it really means.”

Please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes.  Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow, @PeteTownsendNV and @EoinFitzgerald9 for updates and more information.

This week, Pete and Eoin dive into the curious deal brewing between Microsoft and TikTok, a crystal ball view into what's going on with the challenger bank Monzo, all topped off with the recent news on Square and piped-in crowd noise for Pete's beloved Boston Red Sox..

This episode is kindly sponsored by Ireland’s fintech and financial services recruitment specialists, Top Tier Recruitment.  If you would like an intro to the team at Top Tier Recruitment, please click here.

For insights delivered to your inbox beyond the spoken word, subscribe to our MoneyNeverSleeps newsletter right here on Substack.

Stories covered and and things we touched on this week include:

Please visit https://www.moneyneversleeps.ie/ for all of our other episodes.  Also, follow us on Twitter @MNSShow, @PeteTownsendNV and @EoinFitzgerald9 for updates and more information.