MoneyNeverSleeps

Gerard Tannam, Strategic Brand-Builder at Islandbridge, tells us all about the use of storytelling as a framework in bridging the gap between buyers and sellers, businesses and their markets. In this episode, we weave through Ger’s own story that takes him from Ireland to Hong Kong and back again, then into the lessons learned from marketing and strategy direction for big brands before launching the Islandbridge business, how building bridges between businesses and customers drives growth for businesses of all sizes….and almost becoming a priest!

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

HIGHLIGHTS:

On one of the earliest signs of what became Gerard’s modus operandi in building brands:

“As part of our event management business in Hong Kong in the ‘90’s, we also set up an art gallery. The common thread was that I became used to walking into an empty space and looking on both sides and asking the question, what do I need to do to fill this gap?”

“You're constantly being thrown into an environment where you're obliged to translate, to step into that space between and to determine how are we going to make this work?”

“Narrative and story are concerned with making sense of the world, of finding a language to describe the world. So when Alice goes down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, what Lewis Carroll is doing is he's describing another world. When we build brands, that's what we're doing.”

LINKS:

Episode title inspired by The Bridge by MC Shan

Get in touch with and to learn more about Gerard Tannam and Islandbridge.

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Eoin and Pete mine a motherlode of fintech hotspots this week starting with insights into Revolut’s latest $33bn valuation, Square’s quest for crossover between creators, crypto and small businesses, then we dive deep into the upcoming Robinhood IPO and our developing thesis on fintech flywheels.

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

MAIN STORIES COVERED:

Revolut’s Big Raise

Revolut confirms a fresh $800M in funding at a $33bn valuation to supercharge its financial services superapp (TechCrunch, 15-Jul-21)

Revolut: required study for any student of disruptive innovation (Sifted, 21-Jul-21)

Revolut vs. Nubank: Insight from Rally Cap Venture’s Juan Gabriel (Twitter, 16-Jul-21, thanks Lex Sokolin)

Square’s Crossover

Square to Create New Bitcoin Platform for Financial Services (CoinDesk, 15-Jul-21)

Square to take on incumbents with business banking accounts (Finextra, 21-Jul-21)

Robinhood IPO

Robinhood IPO: Still A Bad Bet for Investors With Alarming Risk (David Trainer, Forbes, 20-Jul-21)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy: David Velez from Nubank (Apple Podcasts)

$1 out of every $5 in venture funding went to fintech in Q2 2021 (Morning Brew, 8-Jul-21)

LINKS:

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Ankur Mohan, Founder & CEO of MarketXLS joins the show to share his story on his entry point into Galway in the West of Ireland to launch MarketXLS, how a certain demographic just prefers the simplicity and control of Excel for managing personal and professional portfolios, closing the gap between the haves and the have-nots of the investing world, and the life-long lesson of the benefits of hard work.

MarketXLS provide a leading Excel-based investment research platform with a belief that each investor and strategy is unique, and that building and executing a great investment strategy should not require a PhD or a million-dollar budget.

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

LINKS:

Episode title inspired by ‘Global Access’ by Wiz Khalifa

Get in touch with Ankur Mohan and MarketXLS to learn more

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Ernest Cantillon (CEO of DramEx) and Brian Elders (Founder of SORS Digital Assets and advisor to DramEx) join the show this week to talk about DramEx, a community governed digital whiskey marketplace. We get into the genesis of the DramEx business through Ernest’s life story as a hospitality entrepreneur and Brian’s path through finance and into digital assets, why the timing is right to bring DramEx into the $63bn global whiskey market, the bridge between whiskey and digital assets through NFTs…and training to be a chef and a mathematician!

Across the trading lifecycle and around the world, DramEx will enable you to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities previously unavailable in the digital whiskey marketplace.

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

Episode title inspired by ‘Calling My Spirit’ by Kodak Black

Get in touch with Ernest Cantillon and DramEx to learn more and follow DramEx on Twitter

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In this Money Talks segment, Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend start with some insights on Visa’s deal for Tink and how the European context of Tink differs quite a bit from the US context of Visa’s dead deal with Plaid, then we look at Binance’s recent troubles before rounding out with Revolut’s recent reporting of their 2020 results and the potential to roll Revolut into a Rundle - the recurring revenue bundle.

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

MAIN STORIES WE COVERED:

Visa to buy Swedish fintech Tink for €1.8bn (Sifted, 24-Jun-21)

Binance: Watchdog clamps down on cryptocurrency exchange (BBC, 28-Jun-21)

Revolut’s 2020 Results (Lex Sokolin, The Fintech Blueprint, 28-Jun-21)

LINKS:

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Achia Nila, Founder & CEO of Women in Digital, joins the show to share her story on Women in Digital, an all-star team of female technologists dedicated to bringing more Bangladeshi women into the digital economy. In this chat, we get into Nila’s earliest inspirations, proving herself and becoming a CTO before becoming an entrepreneur, the founding principles of Women in Digital, and how she has been able to train 10,000 women in 8 years.

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

LINKS:

Episode title inspired by ‘Freedom’ by Beyonce featuring Kendrick Lamar

Get in touch with Achia Nila and Women in Digital to learn about their programs

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Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website for all of the shownotes and highlights in the written word.

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In this Money Talks segment, Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend start with their insights on what Stripe’s latest product could mean for their long-term plan, then they think through the next media flywheel with Netflix finally getting into merch, before heading south to Miami for the outtakes from Bitcoin 2021.

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

MAIN STORIES WE COVERED:

Stripe goes beyond payments with Stripe Identity (TechCrunch, 14-Jun-21)

Overdue - Netflix does merch - the flywheel is spinning (Scott Galloway on Twitter, 11-Jun-21)

Thousands of bitcoin believers descended on Miami to party and preach the gospel of ‘HODL’ (CNBC, 7-Jun-21)

5 Weirdest Moments at the Bitcoin 2021 Conference in Miami (Decrypt, 6-Jun-21)

OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST:

Stripe: Thinking Like a Civilization (The Generalist, 13-Jun-21)

The Flywheel (Hubspot Blog)

When Will Amazon Offer a Checking Account? (Ron Shevlin in Forbes, 14-Jun-21)

Pipit Global’s crowdfunding campaign on Spark Crowdfunding - last few days!

LINKS:

Leave a review and subscribe on Podchaser| Apple Podcasts | Spotify| Google| Overcast

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Get in touch at [email protected]

Mark Boylan, CFO at Trustap, joins the show this week to share his story about his leap out of Big 4 and into startup life, finding the right distribution channels to get Trustap into the end users’ hands, the benefit of strong relationships with your early investors, what’s next for Trustap…and being sports mad!

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

Trustap is a secure transaction platform that completely protects you from being scammed when you want to buy or sell with someone you don't know, either online or face to face.

Mark Boylan on what makes Trustap work: “It's the people in the background that make it all tick, especially Sean Kelleher, our CTO, who is absolutely phenomenal. He solves every problem that comes his way. The answer is never, 'no, we can’t do that,' it's 'okay, how do we fix that?'”

“The team are all doing great work, everyone's pulling their weight and driving it on as best they can - that's what makes Trustap brilliant.”

LINKS:

Get in touch with Mark Boylan and the Trustap team to learn about becoming a Trustap partner

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Get in touch at [email protected]

Episode title inspired by Teamwork by Del the Funky Homosapien

In this Money Talks segment, we take a deeper look at the startup ecosystem on this island that we call home, then head south to Europe for a constructive look at the European Payments Initiative, and then head further south to Africa for the story of Chipper Cash and the fintech opportunity in Africa.

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

MAIN STORIES WE COVERED:

Scale Ireland kicked off their membership drive last week, which is an “independent not-for-profit organisation and our mission is to support, represent and advocate on behalf of Irish tech startup and scale-up companies, to create the most advantageous conditions for them to succeed.”

18 Irish Startups to Watch, according to top VCs (Sifted [paywall], 27-May-21)

Europe’s largest banks plan a joint attack on US payment giants. (Insider Voice via Finch Capital newsletter, 3-May-21)

SVB-led $100M investment makes Chipper Cash Africa’s ‘most valuable startup’ (TechCrunch, 31-May-21)

SIDE NOTES AND OTHER STORIES:

Curve breaks records with largest-ever equity raise of £9.9m on Crowdcube (Finextra, 31-May-21)

With Great Power Comes Great Wealth (Chris Skinner, 2-Jun-21)

Eoin’s latest read: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Pete’s latest read: To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink

LINKS:

Leave a review and subscribe on Podchaser| Apple Podcasts | Spotify| Google| Overcast

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Get in touch at [email protected]

Steve Ritter, CTO of Mitek, joins the show this week to share his story on fueling his passion for problem-solving with technology, how he thinks about creating safe digital environments to build trust, achieving the careful balance of friction and convenience in consumer fintech, the reality of defending against deep fakes, digital infrastructure priming the pump of inclusiveness…and rebuilding a 1972 Ford Bronco!

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

Mitek brings the future to business with patented solutions and intuitive technologies that bridge the physical and digital worlds. Mitek products power and protect millions of identity evaluations as well as mobile deposits every day, around the world.

Here's one soundbite from Steve Ritter on the differences between those financial services providers succeeding and those struggling with the massive shift to digital in the last 18 months:

“I think it does boil down to how you're interacting with your customer and what you're doing specifically as a business to create that safe environment to build trust.”

LINKS:

Learn more about Mitek and why they're trusted the world over for digital identity verification on MitekSystems.com

Episode title inspired by Trust by Nas.

Leave a review and subscribe on Podchaser | Apple Podcasts | Spotify| Google| Overcast

Check out our MoneyNeverSleeps website

Subscribe to our newsletter on Substack

Follow us on Twitter Podcast | Twitter Pete | Twitter Eoin

Get in touch at [email protected]