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The startup struggles range from the expected such as not being able to pay bills to lawsuits from investors and competitors. One thing that business school does a terrible job at is describing what it is really like to be an entrepreneur. You can have the worlds best finance guy lay out budgets, the best CEO lay out the business plan, and the best employees on staff helping however at the end of the day almost none of your plan will go as expected and you will be forced to adapt or die. 

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Marketing at a startup. As a startup company we didn't have resources to hire anyone to do the marketing. I got involved by building a website to start and the later on we did some print marketing. Understanding your customer base is the most important part. Flashy marketing works for specific demographics however we sold to government agencies. The web browsers were super dated and the majority of customers were older. Creating user friendly web pages and marketing materials is very important.

I discuss a bit about the rise of smart phones and driving the value of keywords for competitors. The biggest accomplishment out of my marketing was watching the biggest competitor change their website layout to look like ours.

The YouTube version:
https://youtu.be/tLLZrA1rlBY


Connect with me:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitri-bianco
https://twitter.com/DimitriBianco

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https://www.teespring.com/stores/fancy-quant

☕ Show Your Support and Buy Me a Coffee ☕
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Today's episode is all about the pricing and bidding system used in the precast concrete restroom industry. Since I come from a quantitative finance background I also cover open vs closed auctions where I briefly discuss the stock exchange in comparison to dark pools. The precast concrete restroom industry is closest to dark pools however there are only bids placed with no ask. You end up with one customer requesting bids based on product and project specifications.

Most small manufactures and specifically precast companies use cost plus. Cost plus is the easiest way to price however it is very inefficient. It's just the product cost to manufacture plus a margin and there is typically a set margin. The high freight costs in precast prevent competition however in the restroom business they have been able to add enough value to the product to make it feasible to ship all over the country including Hawaii.

While I was working in the restroom business we set up automation to get the base costs more quickly and efficiently and then went above and beyond by building models for supply and demand using wins and losses from past bids.

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Who is the King of Crap and how did it all start? In the first episode of Season 3: Down to Business I talk about getting into the precast concrete restroom industry. I discuss who the real king of the industry is and how they shaped me. This will give you a good understanding of the industry before I dive into more specific topics on management, the joys of a startup, the failure of working at a startup, marketing, and a few other business topics.

The YouTube version:
https://youtu.be/enFsjLgd7ws


Connect with me:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitri-bianco
https://twitter.com/DimitriBianco

Quant t-shirts, mugs, and hoodies:
https://www.teespring.com/stores/fancy-quant

☕ Show Your Support and Buy Me a Coffee ☕
https://ko-fi.com/fancyquant

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Machine learning, deep learning, and AI aren't as new to finance as many people think. I have a great conversation with Agus about his career and journey into quant finance. He provides some great insight on career advice as well as some of the issues he sees with using machine learning especially in finance.

Some of the important takeaways from this conversation are:
- Be nice to everyone you meet.
- ML is a localized method.
- Technical skills such as statistics can be applied to many different careers.

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I interview Ali Masoumnia all about running a successful quantitative finance club at a university, how to approach professionals, the advantages of target schools, and are standards important in quant finance as well as life. 

Video Version:
https://youtu.be/S09aiwz3dbY

Ali's currently reading: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (my affiliate link)
https://amzn.to/3pyeIxY

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I sit down with Morgan Maxey to discuss a variety of topics from his background of becoming a lawyer to social programs and the broken legal system. The theme that seemed to come up over and over was person agency and personal awareness. The US was built to be a system that favored the individual over the group. And part of that American structure was meant to allow individuals the freedom to pursue happiness which means both success and failure. Learning to own one's decisions without looking for others to blame is hard to do. It seems in modern times that many people are looking to blame others for not having what they want and worst yet is the desire to have the government provide their desires at the expense of others. I make an argument for a flat tax and the preference of use taxes over income tax. It does seem there will continue to be a need for government programs however the real questions are "what programs are needed" and "how do we limit them?"

All information in this podcast is for discussion purposes only. This is not financial or legal advice.

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I am excited to have Daniel Lackland from Ai4 come and chat with me about the AI community. Ai4 provides conferences that bring together some of the biggest names in the AI community from a variety of industries including tech, finance, healthcare, and a variety of others. They have been expanding what they do to include education which includes both paid courses as well as free YouTube videos. I was a panelist and host of a AI for finance and banking event which was a lot of fun. Below is a link to the event.

Externally Facing: Customer Engagement, Marketing, Lending
https://youtu.be/UfHwn-e3qoE

Ai4:
https://ai4.io/

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I'm excited to have Dr. Peter Carr as a guest on the podcast. We sit down and discuss his career coming from academia to transitioning into the new field of quantitative finance and how he ended back in academia. We discuss the competition for quant talent as well as how MBA programs are in a bad situation with application numbers plummeting and how finance has split into two parts. We also discuss the question that many students have which is, "what goes into the application review process?"

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Racing motocross is brutal! The hardest part of the sport is not what you see at the races or on TV. It's all the work behind the scenes. From working multiple jobs to pay bills and keep the bike going to coping with constant failures to injuries and bike failures; it really makes the sport a grueling one. To those not familiar with motocross (or supercross) it's not just sitting on a bike and driving around. The amount of physical strength and endurance is actually one of the most challenging according to kinesiology research. But this episode is not mean to talk about racing. It's all about building character!

For me I have build character through many struggles as a kid and as an adult however motocross has been one of the hardest for me. It really taught me a lot as you have to work so hard just to fail. Building character is not an easy task. It's not like you open a book and read a few chapters on it to learn how to do it better. To really build character you need to be put into tough situations. Do you give up early, do you try to cheat, do you blame others, are you honest with yourself, or do you complain a lot? All of these can only been seen in truly trying times. The only way to build character is to go through tough times and push through like a champion!

YouTube version:
https://www.youtube.com/c/dimitribianco

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