MoneyNeverSleeps

Brian McDonald from Bay Advisory joins the show for Part 1 of a 2-part series on M&A and raising capital for SMEs and talks through the intersection of experiences that drove him to launch Bay Advisory, market trends impacting early-stage entrepreneurs in Europe, and helping entrepreneurs think about their options in taking money off the table.

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

Brian is the Managing Director at Bay Advisory, a team of corporate finance specialists who apply their knowledge and expertise to the tech sector, helping these small and medium enterprises sell and fundraise at the best value. Continuing along the theme from recent episodes of looking at entrepreneurship downstream from where Eoin and Pete ply their respective trades, we thought it was a good idea to get seed-stage founders and other entrepreneurs in our audience thinking about their options down the road.

HIGHLIGHTS

On the early days: “One of the best things that happened to me was not joining Big 4 from the start, as I had to learn everything from scratch, and I got a lot of experience with very small businesses where I was just handed a box of receipts.”

On his inspiration: “With my experience in consolidating SMEs into bigger firms, I could see a lot of small businesses that were poorly advised from a corporate finance perspective, and at the same time I was personally investing in early-stage technology businesses. I could see that there was a requirement in the market for a specialist corporate finance house prepared to take on much smaller businesses.”

On current market trends: “While volumes of venture capital have stayed relatively strong in Europe and elsewhere, that hides the fact that a huge amount of capital is going into Series B and Series C, and seed rounds are really struggling. Angel investors are really pulling back in Europe, and we’re seeing that in Ireland as well. We are potentially not funding very credible businesses and very credible founders who should be funded and would be funded in any other economic environment.”

On trying to dig deeper into an entrepreneur’s thinking: “Very often, when an entrepreneur comes to me and says ‘I want to sell the business’, what they really mean is ‘I want to de-risk’. Usually, they think their only option is to sell everything to a PE firm and walk away. Other times, what they really mean is ‘I’m working too hard here and I want to have a family life again’. There are other ways of fixing that that don’t involve selling the business.

You can get in touch with Brian McDonald at [email protected]

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In this special year-end Money Talks segment, Eoin Fitzgerald and Pete Townsend wax lyrical on big valuations in the 'Fintech Year in Review', Stripe and the next stage of B2B financial services, the long-term economic impact of bitcoin, optimism for the next frontier of money...and of course, the Rundle!

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

STORIES WE COVERED:

Big Valuations and the Fintech Year in Review

Tesla’s market cap tops the 9 largest automakers combined - CNBC - 14-Dec-20

2020: The year that shook fintech - Sifted - 30-Dec-20

Big Ideas Fintech Will Tackle in 2021 - a16z fintech team - Dec-20

Neobank numbers worldwide approach 300 - Finextra - 22-Dec-20

WhatsApp to rollout insurance and pension products on its platform in India soon – The Economic Times – 16-Dec-20

Stripe and the next stage of B2B financial services

Stripe Treasury and embedding banking services via API into businesses’ operational platforms - Silicon Republic, 4-Dec-20

Packy McCormick’s reference to the Stratechery podcast and Stripe as the Platform of Platforms – Ben Thompson - 3-Dec-20

Is an awakening to Bitcoin scarcity driving the price rise or is it the money-printing effect?

Bitcoin Soars Above $23,000 as More Wall Street Firms Pile In [and heads for $30K]– Bloomberg - 17-Dec-20

Bitcoin Braced For Near-Trillion Dollar Stimulus Bill And Fresh Fed Firepower - Forbes - 15-Dec-20

Bitcoin Is More Than a Hedge Against Inflation – It’s a Hedge Against ‘Crazy’ - Crypto Long & Short/Coindesk (Noelle Acheson) - 20-Dec-20

More on the infamous Rundle (recurring revenue bundle)

Getting Subscription Bundles Right for Minimum Churn - PYMNTS.com - 22-Dec-20

After Covid: How firms can make the most of their post-pandemic opportunities - Irish Times - 17-Dec-20

Thanks to all of our listeners and newsletter readers out there in the MoneyNeverSleeps community for listening in every week, spreading the word and driving us up the podcast rankings in 2020!

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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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