In this episode of The Modern Financial Podcast, Jake Hoffart features Indus Khaitan, Founder and CEO of Quolum. With all the technological advancements and innovations when it comes to sales tools, SaaS has become such a big player in the sales world today.

Indus shares about his journey building experience in product marketing and product management and eventually making his way to SaaS businesses. He talks about getting into aviation, working with start-ups, and the connection he found between the two!

HIGHLIGHTS

• Going from HP to Oracle to creating a SaaS business
• Promoting an expanding business in the pandemic/recessionary time
• What Indus continues to do for life-long learning
• Why flying a plane and running a start-up are very similar

QUOTES

Going on a series of conversations trying to understand how things are - Indus: "It had not cemented in me how big SaaS was going to be back then but we were watching it at Bitzer and we had a portion of the product that was SaaS."

What allowed Indus to push through on the work they were doing - Indus: "The only thing that makes you successful is perseverance. This is after doing Bitzer for three and a half years, attempting a few other start-ups, and seeing founders succeed and fail. Ideas and people come and go but if you persist on what the world needs, you will succeed."

Find out more about Indus by checking the following links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khaitan/
• Website: https://quolum.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/1ndus

In this episode of The Modern Financial Podcast, Jake Hoffart features Eric Youngstrom, Founder and CEO of Onramp Funds. Though lending is not a new business, Eric found a gap in the cash flow of early-stage e-commerce businesses where he could help.

He shares how they help entrepreneurs with more flexible terms for capital financing and offer this at scale. He also discusses how they get their own financing from investors and a future with more involved software intelligence to instill financial discipline within entrepreneurs.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Onramp: Working capital financing for early-stage e-commerce businesses
• Capital from investors and private equity
• Fitness, reading, praying, and family time keep Eric grounded

QUOTES

What working capital financing with Onramp looks like - Eric: "Profit and cashflow are 2 different things. And so, unfortunately, like that profits captured in a cashflow cycle, which becomes very hard to extract the cash, and profit alone doesn't mean you're actually paying the mortgage. So what we're doing is kind of coming here and saying look, you actually have a profitable business, we're going to go ahead and loan you money against your, let's call it, 3 to 5 months worth of revenue."

Instilling discipline with newer merchants that help them scale - Eric: "Our goal is that we should help the merchant reach a scale in their business size and have used capital wisely for a long enough period of time that they will eventually go to a bank and graduate out of us."

Find out more about Eric and how to run an e-commerce business in the following links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericyoungstrom/
• Website: https://www.onrampfunds.com/

In this episode of The Modern Financial Podcast, Jake Hoffart features Jody Glidden, Founder and CEO of Introhive. A background in programming and teaching introduced the startup world to Jody. He shares the truly remarkable successes he's had, as well as his failures, in his journey to build one of the world's fastest-growing B2B companies. He talks about surrounding yourself with the right people, prioritizing self-improvement, and not allowing ego to get in the way of learning.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Building an award-winning company and helping clients retain clients
• Shifting careers from teaching to leading and founding startups
• Create relationships that last and bring new people to grow
• Pursue self-improvement at every stage of growth

QUOTES

Selling to Fortune 500 companies introduced key relationships - Jody: "I had sold software to some very large companies at this point. Every time I kept targeting at large enterprises so I know a lot of large enterprise relationships. And relationships, building those relationships and maintaining those relationships, has been key to my success through the years."

Bringing in different expertise at different levels of growth - Jody: "Selling software when you're a million-dollar run rate versus when you're 30 million or whatever run rate, it's just such a different game that you need to bring in people. This is the biggest company I've ever ran and you need to surround yourself with new people who've done this before multiple times. And so turnover to some degree is good."

Learn from others and don't let ego get in the way - Jody: "The one thing you have to do is be malleable and just make sure that you are open to hearing things and don't get a big ego because there's always going to be people out there, even if they haven't been as successful as you, they might have had some success in an area that you haven't."

Find out more about Jody by checking the following links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodyglidden/
• Website: https://www.introhive.com/

In this episode of The Modern Financial Podcast, Jake Hoffart features Bobby Matson, Founder and CEO of Payitoff. He shares how six-figure debt loans pushed him to create a solution in creating structure in the debt and financial decision space. Payitoff helps in these areas and automates debt savings which, in Bobby's own experience, was a game-changer in gaining control over his finances and creating a better experience for the borrowers he serves.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Student loans create a need for debt savings automation 
• Going to University of Michigan and founding his first company
• Payitoff's vision is to create a better borrowing experience 
• Starting as a solo founder and taking on a founding team after

QUOTES

Creating structure in the debt and financial decision space Bobby: "What we've really uncovered is that automating debt guidance and automating that savings is really where there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of experiences that borrowers right now are managing on Reddit and spreadsheets. It's a really not good place to be and hard to manage yourself."

Founding Payitoff with a vision for a better experience for borrowers Bobby: "It's always been about finding savings for borrowers, and I think that using that same sort of vision of there should be a better way and there should just be a better experience across the board, I think that kind of consistency has informed out product."

Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs Bobby: "I was thinking too much about fundraising instead of thinking about okay, I just need 12 months to figure out this metric for myself and stay accountable to that. I eventually got there, but in the early days, I focused way too much tech stars and all this other stuff when really the focus should have been find one to two advisors in this space, go cold email all the people that you think could be customers, depending on your market, but just get feedback."

Find out more about Bobby by checking the following link:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbymatson/
• Website: https://payitoff.io/

This episode of The Modern Financial Podcast features Andre as he shares some time hacks to both founders and employees. For instance, choose to live close to where you work because you simply get more done. But beneath the practical tips, it's important to take control of your own mindset and attitude as these are the only things anyone can really have control over. Chris also takes a ride in Andre's plane and finds out why flying is Andre's favorite feeling.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Andre's time hacks
• Get better rest with NuCalm

QUOTES

Andre: "So many things are changing all the time that the one and only thing you have control of is your attitude and what you do with that attitude. So I need to still get better at utilizing my time and owning it versus letting it own me."

This episode of The Modern Financial Podcast features Andre as he discusses the taboo around recruitment and how they can turn it around. One idea is to champion success stories like Mod Financial's own Cord Burner whose background has nothing to do with finance.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Remove the stigma from recruitment
• Help others while helping yourself

QUOTES

Andre: "It really comes down to simplicity. Do they want to help others, and do they want to help themselves while they're helping others? And if that is even remotely part of their whole equation where they say yes, then it makes it super easy for you to be able to share with them how they can mutually benefit working with you."

This episode of The Modern Financial Podcast features Andre in his element as he coaches his team about mindset. He shares the role of surrounding yourself with people who inspire you and getting energized by their passion. Andre also dives into recruiting, how to remove the stigma around it, and how to do it in a nonthreatening way so that your prospect gets attracted to the idea of working with you without you saying it.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Surround yourself with people who lift your mindset
• Recruiting using the who-do-you-knows
• Remove scarcity mindset to prosper

QUOTES

Andre: "Proximity is everything. When you have the right people that you're associating with, you're going to learn from them, they're going to inspire you, they're going to drive you because now you have that connection. And you always want to be around people that are a little bit more successful that have a better, more open, robust mind, a total abundance mindset. And the more you're around those people, you'll gravitate to it. It's infectious."

Andre: "Likes surround themselves with likes, so if they're going to be great for this, a lot of the people that they know would be great for this. And then, once they understand how they could position themselves to actually make an extra 3 to 5 thousand a month even if they're just a referral partner, is that not going to pique their interest?"

Andre: "When you have a compelling story, people are going to listen and they're going to gravitate to it, and then they're going to want to be a part of it. They want to live that story."

This episode of The Modern Financial Podcast features a behind-the-scenes look into Andre's hangar and his fleet of planes. He gives a tour of the spaces and gives a sneak peek into what's coming!

This episode of The Modern Financial Podcast features Jake Hoffart, our new co-host, as he shares his passion for helping others find financial freedom. Jake is the Executive Managing Director at Mod Financial and he recalls his own journey in learning how to be financially independent.

Today, he is keen on sharing with others the knowledge he has gained and looks forward to featuring guests and their own stories of success. He lays out his goals for the podcast which include helping 1,000 people gain financial freedom and gaining 100,000 subscriptions.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Getting financial education and helping others get theirs
• Journey to co-hosting The Modern Financial Podcast
• Learning guest's successes through conversation  
• Goals: 1,000 financially independent people and 100,000 subscribers

QUOTES

Jake: "In my clients, teaching people things that have been around for 20, 30, 40 years that we don't bring to the masses because it's not part of the big Wall Street game that allows them to actually have a better life, have them have more financial freedom than they could even think of."

Jake: "I want to help a thousand people become financially dependent on themselves because they have a plan and it's put together and not go okay, I've got X amount of dollars, and then I hope social security can pay for the rest of this."

Find out more about Jake by checking the following link:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-hoffart-bba041158/

In this episode of The Modern Financial Podcast, Andre features Scott Martin, Founder of Groundswell Origins. The very mindset of an agent of change sees change and immediately thinks of the opportunities it presents. 

Scott shares how the recent pandemic was a trial by fire for businesses and only those that pivoted to meet the change survived. 

Andre also talks about the fear of change and the judgment of others as mental roadblocks to showing up. As for internal change, Scott highlights that it's best to learn from others who can guide your entrepreneurial journey. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Business survival—Navigating change and adapting to it
• Agent for change 3-step process: Move, Change, Transform
• Fear of judgment and vulnerability
• Internal change and the value of community

QUOTES

Scott: "When you're agent of change, when change happens to you, you're already on what's the opportunity? So right away, you're going what's the opportunity here and you're looking at how can we stay on the downside."

Scott: "The deep truth is is that when you step into, at putting yourself out there, it's like the fear that you have is judgment of others. The truth is is that there's people that want to connect with you. You have story. You have value."

Scott: "To me, that's the other part of internal change is don't try to go at it alone. It's way better with other people that have kind of gone through it a little in front of you because they can warn you of the pitfalls."  

Reach out to Scott by checking the following link:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottadammartin/