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Fintech South 2024: Megan Heinze with Accelerate Consulting

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Megan Heinze with Accelerate Consulting

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Fintech South 2024, hosted by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), took place on Aug. 27-28 at the Woodruff Arts Center and Atlanta Symphony Hall. This year’s theme was “Fintech Lives Here!”

Megan Heinze, President and Founder of Accelerate Consulting, is a highly successful, industrious senior executive with an exemplary record of conceiving and implementing unique strategies to optimize business operations, elevate productivity, and boost revenue.

Connect with Megan on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2024 at the Woodruff Arts Center. So excited to be talking to our next guest, Megan Heinze with Accelerate Consulting. Welcome.

Megan Heinze: Thank you Lee. I’m super excited to be here today.

Lee Kantor: Well, tell us a little bit about your firm. How are you serving folks?

Megan Heinze: Yeah, so we are we’re serving firms in the fintech arena, helping them grow their business, especially in embedded payments. And that’s become very big over the last few years. Payments is growing beyond where it was traditionally, and now it’s part of software as a service.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Megan Heinze: Yeah, absolutely. So my background is I used to work at US Bank Elavon. I was head of payments for the US Bank division. So everything from very large accounts to the 3000 branches that we supported, including big partners like Costco and the partner channel. I then went on to be the chief revenue officer at Texas. And then I went to my last company, was president of North America for Idemia, which was tying in identity with payments.

Lee Kantor: So you’ve been all over the place, huh?

Megan Heinze: I’ve been all over the place, but I’ve been in the financial sector, you know, starting off when digital just became the reality with wingspan bank.com, which was the first only online bank.

Lee Kantor: So is this the first time where it’s just you and your consulting firm?

Megan Heinze: Yes. It is. So is that.

Lee Kantor: Transition been difficult for you.

Megan Heinze: And the transition has been interesting to me. I’ve always worked for a very large company and now I’m out on my own, and it’s been fun because I got to meet so many different people, and it’s so vibrant in Atlanta with all the different fintechs.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for folks out there that are going from a corporate into an entrepreneurial role like this? Is there any kind of do’s and don’ts that you’ve learned since you’ve been on your own like this?

Megan Heinze: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s definitely a lot of do’s. So there’s a lot of organizations. Tag is a great organization to first start off with the Technology Association of Georgia. They do have lots of societies. They have 18. One of them just happens to be fintech. But there’s lots of different ones including AI, data, etc.. And then the other one is Fintech Atlanta. That’s a great way to meet other small startups, other companies. And then Atdc is another great way.

Lee Kantor: Now in your firm, you focused in on fintech. How have you seen this industry evolve over the years you’ve been involved in it?

Megan Heinze: Well, it continues to grow. I know everybody calls it right now. Um, the winter, the fintech winter. There’s been less investment since 2020. However, it continues to grow and thrive. We’re seeing companies that are being more profitable. They understand how to grow up. Before it was, let’s fake it till you make it. Now it’s no longer fake it till you make it. You actually have to grow revenue.

Lee Kantor: And then are you finding that your clients that you’re dealing with are kind of leaning into this, or are they doing things more in a, in a defensive manner?

Megan Heinze: They’re leaning in. I think everybody realizes if you’re going to get investment from private equity, venture capitalists, angel investing, you have to show profitability.

Lee Kantor: And then what are some of the challenges that they’re having where Accelerate Consulting is the solution to help them?

Megan Heinze: Well, it helps them identify where to grow and where to focus.

Lee Kantor: So they might have plateaued or they’re struggling and then they come in and have you triage that situation and then help them kind of get over the hump. Or are they, you know, is there a certain issue that they’re struggling with?

Megan Heinze: There’s a couple. So one is growth. How do they grow? How do they become profitable? I mean, that’s a big thing too. And then also what avenues actually make sense. So there’s a lot of different associations out there. There’s a lot of rules and regulations etc.. And it’s hard to know everything. And so you bring in an expert like myself to actually help you identify those key issues with your organization.

Lee Kantor: So they might be there might be kind of opportunities that they’re just not on their radar.

Megan Heinze: Yes. So for example, I was recently helping a company and they didn’t really think about payments. They’ve added embedded payments now and they’re seeing huge growth and also seeing a decrease in attrition in their overall SaaS model.

Lee Kantor: Is there a um, any low hanging fruit for you? Like what’s your typical point of entry?

Megan Heinze: The point of entry. There’s not really any low hanging fruit. I think, um, it’s more of looking at the company holistically. So sometimes it’s really hard when you’re internally focused. Um, and it’s nice when someone looks at externally focused and where they should be focusing. Um, sometimes you get so much in the nitty gritty, you don’t look at what’s out there. So, um, that’s what I’m really good at helping companies and saying, okay, have you thought about this? Have you thought about X, Y, and Z? And then, you know, sometimes I hear, well, we’ve tried that before, but things keep on evolving all the time. So I’m going to use the example of mobile payments. I remember we did our first launch with mobile payments, with Mastercard, with mobile phones. We actually gave mobile phones out. It didn’t work. But look at where mobile payments are today, right? If you said no at that time, it doesn’t mean no in the future. Um, same with tap. We tried tap a long time ago. Tap is working now. Um, embedded payments is where a lot of people are seeing growth Um, so software as a service. Companies are seeing huge opportunities there.

Lee Kantor: So is that kind of a missed opportunity for some people who did try it? Maybe they were early adopters early on. They have the scar tissue and they’re like, they’re hesitant now, even though the technology has improved dramatically.

Megan Heinze: Yes, absolutely. I think a lot of companies even had headaches the first time they went to software as a service, going from on prem to software as a service. So, um, absolutely. I think companies software as a service companies didn’t really think about adding payments. And now more and more companies are and the growth rates are phenomenal as well as decreasing the overall overall attrition rate.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Megan Heinze: Um, of course I always want more clients, so I want more clients. I want, uh, more support, but also I want to keep on investing and focusing on the Georgia market, helping fintechs grow, but also nationally as well.

Lee Kantor: And then can you share maybe your ideal client profile? Like what is the ideal client for you?

Megan Heinze: Yeah, the ideal client is anywhere from a startup, um, to, you know, 500 million.

Lee Kantor: So anywhere in between. And the and the main problem that they’re having is a growth that it’s growth.

Megan Heinze: It’s growth.

Lee Kantor: So if they’re struggling with growth in any way, shape or form, they should call Megan. Yes. And then if somebody wants to connect, what’s the best way to do that. Website.

Megan Heinze: Yeah or no just on LinkedIn is the easiest way. So Megan Megan hainsey h e I n e if you just remember Heinz ketchup with an E at the end, it makes it a lot easier. Um, and connect with me on LinkedIn.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Megan Heinze: Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South 2024.

Fintech South 2024: Christine de Wendel with sunday

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Christine de Wendel with sunday

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Christine de Wendel, Co-Founder & CEO US, sunday.

sunday is the fastest way to pay in restaurants. We have built a digital checkout solution for restaurants and have huge ambitions to disrupt payment in the hospitality space.

Connect with Christine on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2024 at the Woodruff Arts Center. So excited to be talking to our next guest, Christine de Wendel with sunday. Welcome.

Christine de Wendel: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: So before we get too far into things, tell us about sunday. How are you serving folks?

Christine de Wendel: Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I’m very excited to talk about sunday. So sunday is an Atlanta based fintech. We’re based just out of Colony Square, down the street, and we do payments in restaurants. So we are a digital checkout solution for restaurants. Founded three and a half years ago here in Atlanta, and we operate in three markets the US, the UK and France. And today we’re working with about 2000 restaurant groups and we serve about 50 million customers.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Christine de Wendel: Well, the idea was really simple. When we started the company, my co-founders and I were thinking about a real problem that needed solving. And both my co-founders are restaurant operators, and they said, frankly, no one likes to pay in restaurants. No one likes to raise their hands, make eye contact with the server, wait for the check to come get a sticky check presenter, send back your card to the back of the restaurant. And so we said, how can we innovate? How can we do something that basically every other industry has done except the hospitality space, which is find a way to make payments much smoother, seamless, easy in the restaurant space. So we did something very simple. We put small QR codes on tables, link them to the point of sale systems, and allow guests to pay in literally 10s. So the idea was you scan, you could split the check, you leave a tip, you pay 10s and then you can leave a review. And since then we’ve had tremendous growth. We are growing across the country, across Europe, and we’ve developed a full suite of products. So what started with just paid table. Now we have handheld payment terminals. We do full staff performance. We do reviews management, customer insights. So now we really have a comprehensive 360 checkout solution that started with those QR codes on tables.

Lee Kantor: Now does this, um, create kind of a loyalty program for the restaurants as well?

Christine de Wendel: So what we do is if a restaurant has an existing loyalty program, we’ll integrate into it. And it usually takes usage of the loyalty program up dramatically, because it’s very easy to use to collect points, to burn points. And for those who don’t have a loyalty program, we have a solution available for them.

Lee Kantor: So what are some of the challenges when you’re dealing with the restaurant owners? Are they are they eager for this type of a solution, or is this something like how do they view this.

Christine de Wendel: So there’s a there’s a growing desire to have this type of technology, but it’s still something that’s fairly new. So I like to say we have two audiences. One is the end consumer. So you and me, when we go out to dinner on a Saturday night, more and more, we want simplicity and we want control.

Lee Kantor: So I would think we want this a lot.

Speaker4: You you.

Christine de Wendel: Absolutely want it if you’re going out for a business lunch, if you have if you’ve.

Lee Kantor: Ever waited on someone to bring you the bill, you want this technology.

Speaker4: 100%.

Christine de Wendel: So what? You’ll find is more and more people are asking for it because today time is money. People want to be in control when even if they’ve had a delightful, upscale dinner, they still, when they’ve decided they want to leave, want to get out quickly. So consumers are asking for it more and more. And restaurant operators who were hesitant initially to put a lot of technology into their restaurants, are finding that it helps them turn tables faster. It helps their servers spend more time having giving a great guest experience during the moments of the experience that matter. So when you’re asking for specials, when you’re trying to get more cocktails, and so you’re taking away time from, frankly, the end of the dining experience where everyone wants to go and you’re putting it back into upsell chatting, creating rapport with the between the server and the diner. So that’s been that’s been very positive. And what we’ve seen is a lot of Atlanta’s, you know, top restaurants, most popular restaurants are now using our product because they’ve seen the value.

Lee Kantor: Now what percentage of your clients use the technology for those kind of loyalty programs?

Christine de Wendel: So I would say today it’s it’s less than 20% are using loyalty programs. That’s also because not that many restaurant groups are using loyalty programs.

Speaker4: Is that.

Lee Kantor: Surprising? I would think that’s a huge opportunity for restaurants.

Christine de Wendel: So it’s a huge opportunity for restaurants that have multi locations. But the vast majority of restaurant groups are still especially for full service. Restaurants are still independents, and they generally don’t have enough locations to justify a loyalty program.

Lee Kantor: Well, even one location that wouldn’t be enough.

Christine de Wendel: You’ll you’ll find that people don’t have enough repeat users. So your your small local mom and pop, you know, restaurant on the corner does have repeat users, but those are not typically the type of restaurants that are looking at technology or innovation to keep people coming back.

Lee Kantor: But that’s where the opportunity there’s an opportunity there, right?

Christine de Wendel: There’s absolutely an opportunity. But it just those are typically the slower. Technology adopters. And then you have the the mid-market groups who are great. Customers for for our product for loyalty programs who are starting to. Adopt. And then you have the huge quick service groups that have fantastic. Loyalty programs. But generally they don’t have a dining experience. And so those are very transactional, uh, loyalty programs. And it’s less our focus because we’re doing full service restaurants.

Lee Kantor: Now with your technology, are you kind of just using your service to solve that technology problem, or are you kind of doing some consulting as well to give them, uh, options so that, hey, these are opportunities where for growth? Because I’m learning a lot from being an app for lots of different restaurants.

Christine de Wendel: Absolutely. So one of our differentiators in the market is my two co-founders are restaurant operators. They’re coming from the restaurant space. And so a lot of restaurants like to work with us because we come with a very restaurant first, more than technology first perspective. And we consider ourselves, you know, friendly players in the ecosystem where we can actually share data from our own restaurants. Now we have enough restaurants in our portfolio that we have fantastic data across different markets, different cities in the US, different countries, different consumer types. And so we absolutely, while we’re presenting our product and and offering our different solutions, are giving a consultative approach.

Lee Kantor: Now, I would think that having your app is something that you can show them with math that, hey, this is better for you. Is there kind of some some math that you can share that would encourage someone to maybe explore this as an option for themselves?

Christine de Wendel: Absolutely. We have a couple key data points which usually convince people that they should go ahead. At least pilot our product. And then when people do pilot, they they generally get very excited and and roll it out. So the first one is we’re turning tables roughly 12 minutes faster than if you did not have a QR code on the table. So imagine it’s Saturday busy brunch. If, as a restaurateur, you can get 2 or 3 more tables in, that’s huge for your top line. The second statistic we like to share is on average, we’re seeing 10% higher tips. And it’s just because the tip experience is so much more easy to use. And the restaurant can choose the pre-selected tips. And because the consumer is nudged towards a 20% tip or a 22% tip, servers love the product because they find it’s easier to process, get tips, but also that they’re slightly higher. So that’s that’s another benefit. And then because the experience is so seamless, we find that about 70% of our customers are leaving a review at the end of the payment experience. And it’s very similar to what you’ll see at Uber or at, you know, when you’re using DoorDash, you get a pop up when you’re finished it asks you to rate how many stars, and immediately that gets pushed out to Google reviews. So that has a tremendous impact on restaurants, Google reviews. And so if you take a if you compound the faster table turn times, the higher tips and the impact on reviews, restaurants are generally delighted about the product and see the massive value.

Lee Kantor: And do you have like a stat that says, you know, before this you had four reviews and now after this you have 100 reviews, like is there any. So I would imagine that just that would be worth it just for that.

Christine de Wendel: So depending on how many reviews you had before, you’re getting between five x and ten x reviews. So a classic Atlanta restaurant. So I’ll, you know, cite, you know, South City Kitchen Midtown just down the street. Fantastic restaurant. They’re getting about seven times more reviews thanks to Sunday.

Lee Kantor: So, um, do you have I know you’re you’re looking for more restaurant context, but is there other types of partners that are important to you as well in this ecosystem?

Christine de Wendel: So in order for our model to work successfully, we first need to integrate with the best point of sale partners out there. So we work with all the top players in the US. We work with NCR, our strategic partner. We work with toast. We work with micros. So those are the first partners in the ecosystem we need to work with. And then it’s the restaurants themselves. And so that’ll be either the smaller mom and pop restaurants. And then it can also be the medium sized or large enterprise groups.

Lee Kantor: And then you’re all over. You mentioned you’re all over the world right?

Christine de Wendel: So right now focus on actually four countries, the US, of course, our biggest markets in the US are Atlanta, Chicago, New York. But we’re expanding and our product is available across the US. But we have offices in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and then in Europe. We are very strongly implanted in France and the UK and now growing quite quickly into Germany.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Christine de Wendel: So Sunday App.com. Or you can look me up on LinkedIn. Christine de Wendel. I love talking to MBA students, so shout out for all those Kennesaw MBA students. Very happy to chat, share my startup experience, my scale-up experiences and give you some more knowledge on Sunday.

Lee Kantor: And why is Fintech South important to you and your company?

Christine de Wendel: So Fintech South as an Atlanta based fintech, it’s fantastic to be part of this ecosystem and just being part of this fintech community. So as an Atlanta native also, I’m delighted to be here at the Woodruff Center. But it’s great for networking and especially meeting other partners in the fintech space.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Christine de Wendel: Thank you.

Speaker4: Have a great day.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South 2024.

Fintech South 2024: Hillery Champagne with FinTech Atlanta

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Hillery Champagne with FinTech Atlanta

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Hillery Champagne, Executive Director, Fintech Atlanta.

FinTech Atlanta is a coalition of companies working to advance Atlanta as the recognized global capital of financial technology.

Led by seasoned industry executives, the group’s priorities are to drive fintech industry growth, talent expansion, innovation acceleration, and public policy influence in Atlanta and across the state of Georgia.

Connect with Hillery on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2024 at the Woodruff Arts Center. So excited to be talking to our next guest. Hillery Champagne, Executive Director, Fintech Atlanta. Welcome.

Hillery Champagne: Thank you. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Fintech Atlanta.

Hillery Champagne: Well thanks. Yeah. So Fintech Atlanta is a coalition of companies working to advance Atlanta as the recognized global capital of financial technology. I’m our one full time employee and I have the pleasure of reporting up to an incredible board of industry leaders. And really, our priorities are to drive fintech industry growth, talent expansion, innovation acceleration and public policy influence in Atlanta and across the state of Georgia. So really happy to be here. Tag is on our board, one of our founding members of Fintech Atlanta. So always always happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the genesis of the idea where, you know, people were like, okay, we have to have a special group just focusing on fintech here in Atlanta. Yep.

Hillery Champagne: So back in kind of as the story goes, back in 2017, Governor Deal at the time got together with Tag Technology Association of Georgia, the Metro Atlanta Chamber and Atpc, which is the American Transaction Processors Coalition, and basically said, you know, guys, we’re seeing we’ve always been really strong in payment processing, right? We have Atlanta has a very strong history of that, but we’re starting to see growth and investment in these other subclusters within financial technology. We need to make sure that we’re getting together with the leaders here not taking this for granted, really continuing this momentum. Pull those leaders together and make sure that we’re continuing to make Atlanta a place where where these companies can thrive and do business. And so that’s kind of the origin. Those three founding partners helped us get together. You know, many of our founding board members that are still board members today. You know, we have everyone from big companies like Global Payments and Elavon and NCR and, you know, visa. And I’m leaving a ton out. You know, we have those large guys to the midsize and small as well. And they’re they’re all helping kind of shape our strategy and all of the work that we do on a daily basis. So that’s kind of the origin story. Um.

Lee Kantor: You know, what’s now your kind of day to day? Like, how are you serving this group in today’s world? Because this is the technology obviously is changing. I’m sure there’s more constituents today than there were when it was founded. And the needs change. So how do you serve your your members and how do you make sure that their concerns are being addressed?

Hillery Champagne: Yeah. So from day one we’ve kind of focused on four kind of key buckets that have shaped all our programs and initiatives and events and things like that. The first one is making sure that we have a diverse talent base here, that that we’re really focusing on making sure that this next generation of leaders are trained or connected for internships and jobs. We’re we’re giving them real world experience by working with our large companies. So talent is that first piece. The second piece is innovation. So making sure that our startups and founders are connecting with learning from working with our large corporations here. And so we try to find different ways to bring those two groups together and collaborate and find opportunities for commercial collaboration. The third bucket is telling the story of fintech in Atlanta. So that can be doing things like this and coming to these great shows here in town. It can be going to global shows like Money20 20, your fintech meetup with a Georgia delegation, and also meeting with companies that are looking to perhaps establish a presence in the US and explain why Atlanta is a great spot to be, but we’ll also welcome foreign delegations here, all of that good stuff. And then the last pillar is public policy. So making sure that we as an industry, as a group, are educating our legislators on the impact that we have here in the region. So that’s what we started with. And that’s really what’s still shaping what we do today. We have six programs that we work on on a daily basis, each led by program directors who work full time jobs in the fintech industry and volunteer their time to help us with our programs. So we’re really lucky to have them and their expertise.

Lee Kantor: So is this a group that has membership that you join like it’s you have meetings every quarter a month? Yep. So get togethers in person. Like what is it like to be a member.

Hillery Champagne: So it’s kind of cool. We’re um, well, I guess we’re not that unique, but we have a fantastic board, so we meet quarterly in person board meetings. We actually just had our Q3 one last week at full steam. One of our board member companies offices in Buckhead. Um, so those are fantastic. We typically at those meetings will give an update on all of our programs, kind of put the plan in place for the next couple of months, but also solicit feedback from our board members, making sure that we’re on the right track, that we are kind of focusing on the things that they think, you know, as industry leaders make an impact here in our region. But they were, again, we’re very lucky in that they fund everything that we do. So all of our six programs that I mentioned, whether it be our run it by the buyers events or Ask an Advisor, which is our mentorship program of sorts. All of our programs are completely free to the ecosystem here. So if you’re a startup and you want to pitch it or run it by the buyers event, or if you’re a large corporation and you want to get involved at the event level or, you know, whatever it may be, if any of these programs, it’s completely free. So that’s what I think is pretty cool about it.

Lee Kantor: And so anybody in the ecosystem can connect with Fintech Atlanta and there’s a place to plug in. Exactly.

Hillery Champagne: We’ve got a place for everyone. If you’re a student, if you’re a founder, if you’re a startup, a large company, and there’s plenty of ways to get involved.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Hillery Champagne: Oh, that’s a good question. Um, you know, I think the biggest area where we need help is just getting the word out about our programs. Um, as I mentioned, we have we have six of them now, and they’re completely free and open to the ecosystem. But I think people always think there’s a catch, right? And it’s like I used to work at the Metro Atlanta Chamber on their economic development team. And it’s the same thing. Their their job genuinely is to make it easy for someone to do business here and add jobs to the region. And people are always like, okay, what’s the catch? You know, like, where are you going to charge me? And it’s the same thing here. So it’s like, you know, don’t be scared to talk to us, I promise. You know, what we’re trying to do is to build up the ecosystem for everyone. You know, rising tide lifts all ships, right?

Lee Kantor: And it’s frustrating being a best kept secret.

Speaker4: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: I bet you get tired of. Oh, I wish I would have known about you two years ago.

Speaker4: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: Conversations aren’t.

Speaker4: Fun. Yeah, but then.

Hillery Champagne: You know, having things like this today, Atlanta’s great in that we have. So, you know, if you look at every single week, there’s probably five events that you could go to to meet people and help spread the word. So, you know, we’re not lacking opportunities to get together, but I think still just kind of reaching those newer companies are the ones that have just come to Atlanta and explaining to them that this.

Speaker4: Exists and.

Lee Kantor: Letting companies that aren’t in Atlanta know that there’s a tool and a resource like Fintech Atlanta that can really help accelerate their growth.

Speaker4: Right, exactly.

Hillery Champagne: I really do. I think that’s it. People are like, wait, you were willing to connect us to this person? Why? Why what’s the catch?

Lee Kantor: And that’s kind of the secret sauce of Atlanta is the level of collaboration. And a lot of people are kind of surprised by that when they hear about it.

Hillery Champagne: Yeah. And I get asked a lot, are we a part of tag? Are we a part of Mac? Are we a part of Atpc? And while they’re all our founding partners, we’re our own organization. But we work really, really closely with all three of those groups. And I think that’s another thing that another strength of Atlanta is that we really do all work together. You know, Robert Daniel at Atdc and Laura Gibson Lamoth at the Georgia Fintech Academy. You know, we’ll all go to these trade shows together or whatever it may be, and kind of work together as a team because we’re all, you know, we’re all working towards the same goal at the end of the day.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect, what’s the best way to do that?

Hillery Champagne: I try to send so a couple things. If you want to kind of keep up to date with everything that we have going on, I try to do a decent job of updating our LinkedIn page. So with our own information, but also things that are going on in Atlanta in the fintech ecosystem. If I ever have any discount codes or passes or things like that, that’s where I’ll share them. Um, so that’s a great place you can reach out to me there. My email is h champagne like the drink c h a m p a g e at Fintech atlanta.org. That’s also a great way to to reach out. And then our website is Fintech Atlanta. Org.

Lee Kantor: Well Hilary thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Hillery Champagne: Thank you guys I really appreciate being here and thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few at Fintech South 2020 for.

Fintech South 2024: Jonathan Siskin with GA Cleantech Innovation Hub

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Jonathan Siskin with GA Cleantech Innovation Hub

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Jonathan Siskin, Co-founder & Strategic Advisor with GA Cleantech Innovation Hub, is a results-driven leader accomplished in growth and turnaround environments and known for inspiring high performing teams, defining strategy, and executing action plans tied directly to business objectives.

Combines ability to effectively frame complex issues with strong application of know-how in leading large global initiatives and building multi-million dollar P&Ls. Effective in high-profile executive roles, with highly collaborative management style, pragmatic mindset, and ability to delivery on breakthrough thinking.

Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2024 at the Georgia Woodruff Arts Center. So excited to be talking to our next guest. Jonathan Siskin, co-founder, GA Cleantech Innovation Hub. Welcome.

Jonathan Siskin: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about GA Cleantech Innovation Hub. How are you serving folks?

Jonathan Siskin: Yeah, so we’re just recently launched. We’re a nonprofit and our mission is to make innovation a driver of the robust clean tech economy, with a focus on creating the jobs and growth industries of the future, commercializing technologies that combat climate change, and elevate people and communities throughout Georgia and the southeast. There’s a big equity component to ensure that all communities benefit from what we’re doing. So what I come out of the fintech world that had been there for 20 years and really have seen just the unbelievable growth in the fintech ecosystem and what it’s meant for the state of Georgia. And we really see a similar opportunity emerging around clean tech. So our whole focus is to make Georgia one of the top clean tech innovation hubs in the entire world, and we really think we’re well positioned to do that because Georgia has just tremendous assets that I think we can unlock with that potential. Between the deep clean tech manufacturing base, you know, the state’s been the number one source or place of investment that’s come out of the Inflation Reduction Act. There’s been over $20 billion of announced investment in Georgia. In manufacturing. We have leading universities and research. We have a robust corporate base in great demand and a tremendously diverse talent pool. So we really think we’re well positioned. And our role is to help, you know, catalyze and build that ecosystem so we can continue to drive that economic growth. Now, can.

Lee Kantor: You explain for our listeners kind of what clean tech is and means?

Jonathan Siskin: Yeah, sure. Clean tech, I would say most broadly, it’s a broad definition of anything that fits under the umbrella of driving decarbonization of our global economy. So anything from energy, transportation, mobility, circular economy fits within that broader umbrella. So we can use better resources to drive economic growth. And, you know, it really has that, you know, I guess triple bottom line impact of, you know, economic growth, you know, supporting people and supporting the environment.

Lee Kantor: And then how does fintech kind of intersect there?

Jonathan Siskin: Yeah it’s great. You know, it’s actually really interesting. And there’s an emerging kind of terms that people call it. I’ve heard it climate fintech or green fintech or you’ll hear terms like sustainable finance, but I really view it as simply the intersection point between climate finance and digital technologies that really will catalyze that decarbonization of the economy and the adaptation that we’ll need around the world to address this. So it’s just to put this in context, if you think about it, is estimated that there will be over $100 trillion. That’s trillion with a T that will be spent across the globe to drive the energy transition. And some of this adaptation between now and the end of the century. So what’s exciting is financial services companies, fintech companies have a really large role and important role to play within that transition, and you often see it very closely linked to broader climate disclosure movement. I think many people may be familiar with a lot of the rules that are being developed around the world, whether it’s the SEC or the state of California, or a lot of what’s happening in Europe, just to bring visibility and understanding to how companies are driving towards a lot of their sustainability and net zero objectives.

Lee Kantor: Now, I would think that maybe the listener isn’t aware of how much energy like they know about digital. It may not be obvious to them where cleantech would fit into fintech, but that computing power requires a lot of energy and electricity. And is that where this is all coming into play? Is that it could be some.

Jonathan Siskin: Yeah, it’s a great use case. So, you know, let me answer that. And then I’ll give maybe a broader perspective of the types of areas where I think it intersects. But you know, one of the hottest topics in the in the whole area is around, you know, data centers and how to drive. Most of the companies that are running these, you know, want to achieve their very aggressive, you know, sustainability objectives, want to get to renewable energy. So how do we continue to build out all the data center, the infrastructure to support all the things we need to do, but do it in a renewable and sustainable way? So just amazing developments just in the last few years of how to do that. Um, but stepping back, just to give you a flavor for the types of areas this intersects, I always kind of like to think about it in, you know, what are the kind of use cases, what are the opportunities that this is very important. So I see there’s really four out there. The first is around consumers right. Consumers want to to be more let’s say climate conscious. They want while they’re shopping or they’re consuming their products. So everything from carbon footprint tracking and, you know, green banking or investing. Stripe is a great example of a fintech company that is very into this, and investing hundreds of millions of dollars into this to help seed some of these markets. The second group is investors in financing.

Jonathan Siskin: And you really have to think, how do we mobilize that type of capital toward decarbonization and adaptation? Or if you’re an investor, how do you make your portfolios more climate aligned to some of your goals? So a big piece of what’s happening, really exciting now is a tremendous amount of money that’s going into financing this energy transition. Fintech companies have a huge role to play for. How do you ensure and facilitate that happening between all the tax credits, the transferability, the large scale project financing. So there’s huge opportunities for financial services firms there. The third group is companies in organizations. You know, they have want to lower their carbon footprint. They want to measure and monitor and offset their impact. They want to create new products and services and drive efficiencies throughout their business. This is everything from what, you know, carbon accounting and reduction of some of their emissions in a lot of this is about creating new products and services that services new and emerging markets. There’s multiple billion dollar plus markets being created as part of this broader transition. And then the final group is insurers and broader financial institutions. They want to find ways to more effectively analyze and price environmental risk into everything they do, whether it’s pricing or underwriting new products and services. So each one of these groups has a huge intersection point between the traditional world of, you know, finance and fintech and all the emerging things happening within the clean tech space.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, you talked a little bit about your background, but can you explain kind of what that point was for you where you’re like, okay, now I’m going to really lean into this clean tech innovation hub, and I’m going to get this off the ground and get this thing going like, what was this? Just a passion for you? Well, it’s.

Jonathan Siskin: Interesting. So I’ve been spent the last 20 or so years here in Atlanta, you know, within the fintech and data community and probably primarily been focused around strategy and corporate development, innovation and business transformation. Most of what I’ve done in my career has been all around helping organizations build and scale new businesses and deliver on mission critical transformation programs. But I actually got my start in economics. In the environmental policy area. It really is, again, been such a big part of the successful growth of this ecosystem several years ago, said, I just think there is the next big opportunity for the state is around clean tech and a lot of the sustainability issues. So what’s the best way to help support that? And I thought taking a lot of my skills and understanding how to help build and grow these ecosystems really was the idea behind this. So immediately I started working with a very small scale organization called the Greenhouse Accelerator that had been supporting cleantech entrepreneurs for over a dozen years in this market. But the idea was, how do we take all the great work you’re doing, but do it at a scale, you know, 10 or 20 times bigger? So that was really the idea behind how do we get the the Georgia Cleantech Innovation Hub started? Um, we are a nonprofit, so it’s the foundation of that.

Jonathan Siskin: But we look to continue to build and expand a lot of our products and services to support the growth of this ecosystem. Uh, the first big we actually announced last week, the the first clean tech focused accelerator, uh, will be launching this fall, which is really, really exciting for the for the state. We worked with several partners to bring that here. Cox enterprises is the corporate sponsor in funding it, and we’re working with the venture accelerator firm called generator. So this is a first step of many, but it’s a great step forward to start seeding and building that clean tech incubation center. We we estimate there’s about 40 clean tech startups that have been, you know, started here, that have grown here in Georgia. Our immediate objective over the next five years is to triple that number. So the ecosystems are challenging, they’re complex. They take a tremendous amount of public and private partnership. But we we seek to really bring all those coalition of partners together to do something where we really think Georgia has an outstanding chance to be a leader and really drive the the jobs, the economic growth and the social impacts that I think we all want to bring to the state.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Jonathan Siskin: Yeah, this is great. I mean, the key thing is, you know, most of it is around strategic partners. We we work with a variety of organizations. We need more and more corporates, uh, large companies, organizations to support us. Uh, We we still need some seed funding to get started and build our initial capacity. But then really, it’s around designing programs that are very laser focused on the opportunities and some of the challenges that the state is facing. So bringing those partnerships together between economic development groups, nonprofits, the schools and universities, these are all great assets. We have a lot of it is just bringing those together and working. So if anyone’s interested to learn more how to help us, you know, we’re very much in the early stages of building this, but we’d love to find strategic partners that will help shape this and invest and really make this a huge growth area for Georgia.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect, what’s the website? What’s the coordinates? Yeah.

Jonathan Siskin: So just look up right at the Georgia Clean Tech Innovation hub.org and you can find us. Um and then within there there’s a contact page you can reach out to to myself Andy Marshall is the managing director who we’ve brought in to run the entire thing. So please reach out. We’re very excited to work. We have a great set of partners that we’ve been working with so far, but always looking to expand that. So thank you very much for your time today. This is very exciting and hopefully it gives people a little better flavor for how this intersects with so many of the things that Georgia does well. And these are all, to me, incremental opportunities for many of the fintech and financial service companies that are here. So really exciting opportunities for them.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Jonathan Siskin: Yeah. Well I appreciate it. Thanks so much. This is a great event and I’ve been coming to Fintech South now for over a dozen years. So it’s great to see how this has grown. And this is just an amazing event today and an amazing location.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South 2024.

Fintech South 2024: Kyle Tothill with Collective Insights

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Kyle Tothill with Collective Insights

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Kyle Tothill, Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer of Collective Insights, is an accomplished entrepreneur and executive leader with a strong foundation in growth enablement. He is focused on driving organizational success and building high-performance teams.

Co-founding and partnering in three successful Atlanta-based business services firms, including eHire, LLC, Make & Build, and Collective Insights, Kyle’s career is marked by the successful launch of four professional services companies and a software firm.

His expertise spans across recruiting and talent acquisition, enterprise technology, and business transformation consulting services, underpinned by a strategic approach to overcoming obstacles and desire to achieve.

Connect with Kyle on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2024 at the Woodruff Arts Center. And so excited to be talking to our next guest, Kyle Tothill, with Collective Insights. Welcome.

Kyle Tothill: Hey, thanks. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, for the folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Collective Insights? How you serving folks? Sure.

Kyle Tothill: So Collective Insights is a global enterprise management and technology consulting company. We focus on business transformation initiatives as well as technology modernization initiatives. We’re headquartered out of Atlanta, Georgia, and we serve companies all over the globe.

Lee Kantor: And then so what’s the backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Kyle Tothill: Oh, man, that’s a six beer story. But we can we can talk about it a little bit. I’ve been an entrepreneur since 1999, and I formed a company out of the ashes of a dotcom blow up called Novacon, called Clearpoint Consulting, and we helped build high performance sales and technology teams for for fast growing companies and, uh, over multiple, multiple years of evolution. I met with some folks and we started a bigger company called E higher, which did the same thing on a much larger scale. And out of that organization, we built a couple companies. One of those companies was Collective Insights, which is a management consulting company like we talked about, and that was a natural fit for what we were doing. And over the those years, you know, 15 years or so of e hire, we continued to build and grow that management consulting company, and now it’s our leading brand and the organization where I spend most of my operating time.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal client fit for collective insights?

Kyle Tothill: So our ideal client profile really focuses on global enterprise leaders and technology leaders that are driving big transformational change, whether that’s implementing a scaled new technology or ERP system or going through kind of a culture change or shift or, you know, implementing scaled projects, you know, that that affect the entire organization.

Lee Kantor: And why is the Fintech South Conference important to you and your company?

Kyle Tothill: Well, I think, first of all, a lot of our customers are here. Certainly the global financial institutions and some of the faster growing, you know, fintech organizations are in that client profile that we have and some of them of our customers. So outside of, you know, being where your customers are being engaged, you know, we are a community first organization. And so what does that mean? Well, we’re headquartered here in Atlanta, and we’re proud Georgians. And Georgia is, you know, fastly becoming a global innovation hub. And certainly, you know, from a fintech perspective, you know, what’s one of our biggest pillars that we have? In addition to that, I serve as the, you know, board chair for the Technology Association of Georgia. So I have some dignitary duties that I have to do here today, and I love it. Very excited about this community and what it’s become, especially over the last 25 years. And I’m very, very excited about this particular ecosystem over the next 25.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit of context for folks who maybe aren’t in the Atlanta area, but have heard about the Atlanta, uh, technology ecosystem? How is it, you know, kind of explain kind of what makes it special and how it’s different than maybe other tech ecosystems around the country.

Kyle Tothill: Uh, first of all, Atlanta is a very diverse, um, ecosystem, and I mean diverse in terms of business diversity. So we have a lot of the global enterprise organizations that are headquartered here in Atlanta. So very I think almost every single fortune 500 company, you know, around the, around the globe has a presence in this, you know, in this marketplace. So that’s not true for a lot of other marketplaces. But, you know, outside of like the technical reasons, you know, I think it’s different because of the people of Georgia and our unique hospitality and our desire to grow and punch above our weight and want to and aspire to be something bigger than ourselves. This community is, um, dedicated to that. And you hear that at the governor’s office, at the legislature, at the at the mayor’s office, for sure. You hear that with organizations like the Metro Chamber, you know, tag especially. And I think that’s unique. You know, when I travel the country, you know, there’s not really a ton of organizations like Tag and there’s not a lot of ecosystems that are as connected, you know, as, as this community in Georgia.

Kyle Tothill: And you hear this all the time. People say it, people laugh about it. Atlanta is a big, small pond. So it’s a it’s a community that thrives off of personal relationships. And I think that’s I think that’s unique to to the South, and I think that’s specifically unique to Atlanta. We’ve been driving and pushing this marketplace since the 1840s. If you didn’t know that the word, the town name, Atlanta actually comes from a marketing ploy that the Metro Chamber did. This is news, you know, back in the 1840s, we named it Atlanta to make it more appealing to people to move their companies here and move to Atlanta before the Civil War. And they called it Atlanta because it was short for Atlantic. And so they wanted to make the the kind of the marketing ploy that we were close to the ocean, which is probably not true, especially by horse and carriage. But, hey, you know, never let the truth get in the way of a good sales pitch.

Lee Kantor: But there wasn’t a good internet back then. That’s right.

Kyle Tothill: So the net, the net net of everything is, is that I think the people and the commitment to the community is what makes this special outside of the fact that we have this wonderful asset, you know, that continues to drive economic development for us, which is our airport. You know, you can get to 80% of the population in the United States within two hours, which is what Ambassador Young and Maynard Jackson and Ivan Allen really hailed. You know, in terms of attracting organizations to move their headquarters here, which, you know, we have 2000 or 3000 German companies that are here. So if you think about, you know, what makes us special, it’s our our want to, I think really drives it for us.

Lee Kantor: And I think the way I mean, you mentioned the airport, we have the port as well and we have the like you said, the diversity of industries. There are so many industries here. So that if one of them is struggling, someone else is probably not struggling. So with our downturns really aren’t as pronounced as maybe some other markets. Yeah. And then we I think we do a good job of playing nice. You know the government plays nice with the corporations and then they respect the startups. And everybody is kind of very collaborative. I think that’s 100% true.

Kyle Tothill: And it can be better. But you know, this year at the Georgia Technology Summit, we did something that doesn’t happen that often. We had the the red state governor and the blue state mayor, you know, on stage together, collaborating, talking about things that they care about that that are really apolitical, which is, you know, innovation is going to drive a lot of the economic development. I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on. And that’s the beautiful part about this community. And you just mentioned it. So I don’t want to belabor it, but we’re aligned. And that’s been true for a long time.

Lee Kantor: And business friendly tracks a lot of folks to the the town. I mean, the growth in the population has been crazy probably since you’ve been here. Yeah, I think.

Kyle Tothill: Anybody that’s been in Atlanta longer than ten years recognizes the dynamic growth that we’ve had. And it’s a it’s a special it’s a special place. We’re bringing organizations to to do business here. And it’s because of the people and because of the talent that we have here. And of course, the cost of living, which, you know, was going to pare out at some point. But it’s a special place. If you think about Georgia, I think for the ninth year in a row or eighth, I think it’s nine years has been the best place to do business in the United States. It’s the best state to do business in. So if you figure that we’re in the capital of the best state in the United States and the United States is the best economy in the world, where does that put you? Do the math. You don’t have to think too hard to think about how fortunate people are to be living here right now. It’s not always perfect, as everybody knows, and we have other issues, but from a business perspective, we’re in a pretty good spot.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about collective insights, where should they go?

Kyle Tothill: Well, they can always connect with me on LinkedIn. And I’m very, you know, open to that as well. As, you know, we have our website which is Collective insights.com. But certainly if you want to know more about it connect with me. Let’s talk about it.

Lee Kantor: And then tag if they want to know about tag. There’s a lot of ways to connect with tag online as well.

Kyle Tothill: We have a lot of tentacles out there in multiple directions. We have our Tag education 501 C3 nonprofit, which does a lot in workforce development. So if you’re an up and comer or you’re looking to advance your career. You know, you can learn about our apprenticeship program. You can learn about our Tech Connect, which is a which is a platform to help entrepreneurs connect with investors. We have access to venture capital groups like Venture Atlanta. So there’s a lot of angles to play if you’re, you know, focused in a specific industry or a specific function, whether that’s sales or marketing or finance or you’re into cloud computing or information security. We have a society for you. We have a place for you to come build your community, you know, and your network, you know, in a in a specialized area. And we’ve learned and one of the great things about Tag is we are great connectors of people. You know, I’d probably bolt that back onto your question. A couple of years ago, we were a very connected, connected ecosystem, and it pays a lot of dividends, you know, for technologists to build and invest in, you know, in their relationship, network and tag.

Lee Kantor: Being around 25 years is a testament to that.

Kyle Tothill: Yeah. I think the, you know, we have a I said this in the board meeting not too long ago. It’s amazing. I think if you think about all of the original founders, which really was a coalition of the willing of a handful of associations coming together to put, you know, an association and govern and manage it and build it what they envisioned. You know, for 2025, I’m pretty happy that that we’re living up to that. And I think that they’d be very proud of us. And some of them are. And what I get really excited about is where we’re going. Right. So we’re a top five technology state today, 25 years from now, a global hub of innovation recognized, you know, by all the attributes that, you know, that kind of are the hallmarks of that.

Lee Kantor: Well, Kyle, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work. We appreciate you.

Kyle Tothill: Thank you very much. Happy to do it. Love it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South 2024.

Fintech South 2024: Nathan Feather with PrimeRevenue

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Nathan Feather with PrimeRevenue

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Nathan Feather, CFO, PrimeRevenue.

Connect with Nathan on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South at the Woodruff Arts Center. So excited to be talking to our next guest, Nathan Feather, the CFO of PrimeRevenue. Welcome.

Nathan Feather: Thanks, Lee. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about PrimeRevenue.

Nathan Feather: Sure. PrimeRevenue is a global leader in working capital and B2B payment solutions. More than 30,000 customers across the globe use our solutions to connect their financial supply chain, providing enhanced digital payments, visibility and certainty of payment timing, as well as rich remittance advice and improved cash flow.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the how the had the business get started?

Nathan Feather: Sure. So the business is actually a little over 20 years old at this point. And the business got started to solve an inefficiency in accounts receivable finance. For those who are familiar with it, there’s a number of different risks that take place when a company is trying to accelerate payment on accounts receivable. There’s fraud risks, there’s late payment dilution, all sorts of challenges that go into play. But what this does is, is it sort of flips the information flow and it starts with the buyer, not the seller. So we start with an approved accounts payable that really streamlines and makes efficient the financing process.

Lee Kantor: And then have you always been involved with Prime Revenue or how long have you been with the company?

Nathan Feather: I’ve been with the company for 18 years, so I joined in 2006. The very early days, I think there were maybe 15 or 20 people at that point, still looking for that first customer and those first transactions.

Lee Kantor: And then what’s the pain point a customer has where prime revenue is the right solution?

Nathan Feather: Yeah. So really it’s a company that has 1 or 2 particular things that they’re looking to do. One is to optimize working capital. So a focus on accounts payable. A focus on maybe extending payment terms to hold on to their cash longer, but without inflicting pain onto their supplier community. And the second is to provide their suppliers a better experience, to provide their suppliers visibility into what’s been approved, when payments are going to be made, and all of the remittance information that they need to apply those payments in their ERP systems.

Lee Kantor: And then why is this event Fintech South important to you and your firm?

Nathan Feather: Yeah. So I think we were at the first Fintech South, the one over at Mercedes-Benz, I don’t know, seven years ago maybe. It seems like a long time, but for us, we want to support the fintech community here in Atlanta. We’re proud members of Tag And it’s a chance for us to see what’s happening in the space every year, to check in with what’s new and what other folks are up to in in the fintech arena.

Lee Kantor: Now, is your solution kind of industry agnostic? Like you can help anybody in any industry. That’s right.

Nathan Feather: Industry agnostic. Sort of bank agnostic ERP agnostic. The only caveat I would say is businesses need to have a supply chain. So something like a bank or a consulting firm would probably not be a good customer for us. But anything in retail, manufacturing, automotive, consumer packaged goods, etc. are all great targets.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any trends you’re seeing in the upcoming years?

Nathan Feather: Um, one, I think big trend that we’re seeing, it’s it’s been a kind of strange past couple of years, I think post Covid. There was a period in 2022 where everybody was stocking up on inventory because they were unsure about supply lines and their suppliers. In 2023, we saw a bit of a reversal of that, as well as a pretty sharp rise in interest rates. So now that we’ve settled in a little bit, I think, you know, what we’re actually seeing is more of a business as usual type of approach, to be honest. Folks are getting back to to managing their business with maybe more of a sense of optimism and certainty than they’ve had for the past 18 or so months.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Nathan Feather: Um, more. More customers, more partners. Uh, Fintech South is a great place for us, and it’s a great place for us to, to meet, um, other businesses that are in the space that are doing, uh, and selling services that are adjacent to ours that we can partner with. I think I just heard your interview with, with Sarah and, um, you know, we’re looking forward to working with her and Iron Pay in the future. And that’s a relationship that came out of Fintech South.

Lee Kantor: Now, the um, when you talk about partners, what does a good partner like? What’s a good synergy for you guys?

Nathan Feather: Yeah, a good partner is someone who is in the payment space, um, and is connected to mid-market or large corporates, but doesn’t necessarily cover the space we are. So we pick up, um, you know, near the top end of the supply chain, we can go down pretty low. But, um, you know, there are other companies who are better served, probably in indirect goods or in the very small part of the supply chain. So looking to sort of cover the whole of the supplier community with a couple of partners.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website or best way to connect?

Speaker4: Yeah, the best.

Nathan Feather: Way to connect is at prime revenue. Com and you can just click contact us there and someone will get back to you.

Lee Kantor: Well Nathan, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you. Okay.

Nathan Feather: Thanks, Lee.

Speaker4: Appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South.

Fintech South 2024: Sarah Williams with IronPay

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Sarah Williams with IronPay

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Sarah Williams, Co-Founder of IronPay, is an industry expert in the world of corporate payments.

Sarah’s career has spanned twenty years, managing Strategic Channels and Alliances for several B2B Payment Processing companies, where her combined portfolio across those organizations reached more than $250 MM in annual revenue.

Sarah also acts as a strategic advisor to several Fortune 500 companies.

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South at the Woodruff Arts Center. So excited to be talking to our next guest, Sarah Williams, the co-founder of IronPay. Welcome.

Sarah Williams: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about IronPay.

Sarah Williams: So IronPay is a B2B payments company. So we work with corporations and enable them to automate their payments And we also work with their suppliers for them to accept different versions of digital payments. So believe it or not, corporate America, especially in the mid-market check, is still the predominant form of payment. We as consumers are so used to being paid electronically and using digital forms of payment, it seems hard to believe that you know, there’s still 70% paper check in the in the in the main middle market business space, and maybe even more so in the smaller business space. So we help to kind of optimize how companies make payments. We digitize those payments for them. And we also generate revenue in the process. And we we actually share some of that revenue back with our clients. So it’s a real win win for companies and AP departments across the country.

Lee Kantor: So what is the fear like? Why? Why aren’t they switching to digital?

Sarah Williams: It’s not a fear. It’s you know several different things. Number one AP in corporate America is not a priority necessarily. It’s not a prime business function. People are in business to do what they do not make a payment, right. And so often it’s neglected as something that they want to invest in. And paper checks still work. The other issue is that it’s a data issue with ACH, which is another form of electronic payment. You can only send about 72 characters in the addendum within an ACH, and that’s not enough information to allow for a company in their accounts receivables department to identify and reconcile that transaction. So in other parts of the world, like Europe, for example, they are almost 100% ACH, because when the euro was created, it was mandated that they had to pay each other electronically, but they also mandated how the data was sent. They had three versions of EDI that they agreed upon. In America, we don’t have any agreed upon standard for data exchange, and the ACH doesn’t allow for data to really be a part of the transaction. So because of those limitations, we’ve, you know, relied on check and continue to rely on check. Um, we as a company will take in invoice based data and we will transmit that information to our supplier clients in a digital format that allows for them to reconcile that transaction, whether it’s an ACH or we have a virtual credit card that also allows for them to receive that information and upload it into their accounts receivable system and auto reconcile. So we kind of we’re middleware that allows for that digital transaction to occur.

Lee Kantor: So now what’s the benefit for them? Like why why if they’re happy with checks. Like what?

Sarah Williams: No one’s happy with checks.

Lee Kantor: No one’s happy. They’re just tolerating it.

Sarah Williams: They’re tolerating it because, you know, it’s fairly low cost. And, you know, it’s it’s still accepted. Um, there has been an instance within the Affordable Care Act. A lot of people don’t know this, but actually the biggest thing that happened with the Affordable Care Act, it was mandated that doctors and, well, health insurance payers like Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, etc., they they had to be able to send information digitally to hospitals and doctors. We call them providers. So this happened in 2011. They created a standard for EDI which was called it’s called an 835. Um, and so everyone was able to transmit data back and forth in an effective way. And then ACH became the standard. And they do charge 1% in that industry. But that is the only iteration in the domestic US where that is. There’s a mandate, there’s a data standard. Um, so that’s why we’re still paying with checks because, you know, there’s no standard and ERPs, you know, financial applications, accounting systems, they don’t have a standard either. Um, it’s this really unique space in the market where we’re still very paper based and ERPs are, you know, are not investing in it because there’s a big service component required to make these payments and, and manage communication between buyers and suppliers and ERPs, as you may know or not know, they don’t really provide services. Um, they sell through Vars, value added resellers. They expect those vars to do the work and the implementation, etc. So, um, it’s a really fascinating Fighting piece of the American business landscape that is still very manual.

Lee Kantor: Right. And but in Europe and now health care are kind of on the same page. They are? Yes. So is this something that eventually is going to switch or is it just, you know, you’re going to be there to help this until it changes?

Sarah Williams: So I think it’s always going to be up to middleware companies to bridge the gap until ERPs start investing in us in our companies. So like SAP bought Ariba and concur. So to a degree they’re doing what we do. Um, you know, in several other ERPs are working with us, but they haven’t bought companies necessarily. So until that occurs, um, we’re here to stay. And I’ve been in this industry since 2005, and I thought it would be over in three years. And it’s not over. It was 90% pay per check in 2005, and now.

Lee Kantor: We’re at 70.

Sarah Williams: And now we’re at 70. Wow. That’s how. That’s the needle that’s moved. But I mean, talk about career security. It’s been awesome.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Sarah Williams: Well, look, if you’re if there’s a company out there that is struggling with manual paper based payments, Covid did highlight this issue because the only people that went into the office were were the guys cutting the checks and receiving the mail. Those were the only people in the office. So we have seen a boom in and adoption of, you know, payments solutions like ours in the last few years because Covid really did demonstrate that this is a problem. But, um, if you’re continuing to to struggle with paper based checks you know, work with a company like ours, we do not charge for integrations. Um, we actually pay you back for what we do because we try to send as much money through the virtual card network, which has an interchange of 2.65 associated with it, 265 basis points. And we share that back with the client. So it pays for itself. Um, it’s really a no brainer. It’s just a matter of an organization knowing we exist and other companies like ours exist and and leveraging us.

Lee Kantor: So now from their standpoint, like where is the pain point that you see clearly that they just might be tolerating?

Sarah Williams: Well, it’s paper tracks, right.

Lee Kantor: So if you’re sending a paper check and you don’t have a solution like Iron Pay, then you should call iron Pay.

Sarah Williams: You should call iron pay.

Lee Kantor: Right. Like so. It’s that it’s really that simple. It’s that.

Sarah Williams: Simple. It’s the easiest thing. So when I started working, I worked for Accenture and we were coding ERP. It was Anderson back then, in 1999, we literally had nap rooms. We worked around the clock. Then I sold mainframes for Unisys to banks. So I’ve always been in fintech. Um, when I started working in this industry, I was like, I’ll never have to learn anything new again. This is amazing. I’m in technology, but I don’t have to learn anything. It’s such an antiquated aspect of how companies work in the in the US. It’s fascinating, but we’re here to help. Um, and and, you know, it’s it’s free, guys.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team.

Sarah Williams: Absolutely. You can find us on our website, ironport inc.com. Or reach out to me directly via LinkedIn. Sarah Williams on LinkedIn ironport inc.com.

Lee Kantor: So now why is this Fintech South Conference important to you?

Sarah Williams: So I’ve been attending this conference for 8 or 9 years, and I actually earlier on when it was used to be at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, I was on the board to recruit people. What I love about Fintech South is it’s very diverse and it’s representation of technology and certainly fintech. Um, and it really highlights that Atlanta is transactionally. Um, and it’s it really highlights what makes Atlanta so great for our particular industry. And I go to fintech conferences around the country and even in Europe. And this to me, this conference is is the most it gives. It gives us the greatest opportunity to meet people in our specific industry out of any other conference, um, that I attend.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Sarah Williams: Thank you so.

Lee Kantor: Much. All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South.

Ramping Up to Attend the WBEC-West 21st Annual Procurement and Awards Conference with Angela Garmon

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Ramping Up to Attend the WBEC-West 21st Annual Procurement and Awards Conference with Angela Garmon

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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor talks with Angela Garmon from ARG Coaching & Consulting Group. Angela discusses her firm’s focus on change management and the importance of networking, particularly at conferences like the upcoming WBEC-West regional event. She shares strategies for maximizing conference benefits, such as researching attendees, building relationships, and setting realistic expectations. Angela highlights the collaborative spirit of WBEC-West and the value of personal connections. The episode emphasizes the significance of preparation and follow-up in fostering meaningful business relationships and long-term success.

Angela Garmon is an award-winning business owner and philanthropist, who has been recognized as a Top 100 Women to Know across America in the Spring 2022 issue of Know Magazine and amongst the 19 Top Leaders Who Are Making a Real Difference in the Valley in the December 2022 issue of InBusiness magazine.

She is the Founder and CEO of ARG Coaching & Consulting Group LLC, a strategic change management consulting firm that supports diverse teams nationwide as they conquer change and cultivate results.

Connect with Angela on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Angela Garmon and she is with ARG Coaching & Consulting Group. Welcome.

Angela Garmon: Thank you so much, Lee. It’s good to be back on the show again.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to get caught up with you. For folks who aren’t familiar, can you tell us a little bit about ARG?

Angela Garmon: Yeah, of course. So, ARG Coaching & Consulting Group is a change management consulting firm. We support diverse leaders across the nation as they conquer, change, and cultivate results. Our primary focus areas are leadership development, strategic planning. We do some DEI and organizational assessments as well as coaching.

Lee Kantor: Now, for folks who aren’t kind of familiar with the terminology, can you kind of explain the difference between coaching and consulting?

Angela Garmon: Oh, yeah. So, coaching, ultimately, is the opportunity to support leaders or individuals as a whole as they’re navigating through change. So, we use it as a tool to bring out what’s within them to the surface. And so, for example, we don’t tell you in coaching we believe that you have everything within you to make the right decisions and to get the outcomes that you want. Whereas, consulting, you’re hiring me specifically to give you more guidance in a particular situation. So, we might even come up with solutions for you as we’re consulting with you. But coaching, we believe that it’s up to you. So, we just ask the right questions that’s going to draw the answers that are within you out.

Lee Kantor: So, it’s one of those things where you’re trying to help the individual if you’re coaching them, help them kind of self-discover the solution that you believe is within them. And consulting, they might hire you to solve a problem on their behalf.

Angela Garmon: Yeah, simply put.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk a little bit about why it was important for your firm to get involved with WBEC-West?

Angela Garmon: You know, I joined WBEC-West, I want to say, in 2019, and essentially I was struggling with connecting with corporate buyers. I didn’t really know how to get into that corporate sector. And, for me, WBEC-West has been instrumental to my business growth by introducing me – my company focus specifically in the utility space, construction space, as well as government, and so WBEC-West was instrumental in introducing me or making those connections. And so, now, instead of hard calling or hard selling, now I build relationships intentionally through WBEC-West conferences or their events to actually drive and build my pipeline for business.

Lee Kantor: And speaking of conference, there’s an upcoming conference. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Angela Garmon: Yeah. So, WBEC-West Regional Conference is coming up in September. So, I hope you ladies out there are ready to join us. And so, this is our annual conference. This year, I think it’s going to be in Vegas, and so super excited.

Angela Garmon: So, when you say we’re going to dive in right now, Lee, did you want me to just talk through just some tips that I have for some conference goers or did you —

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Well, I mean, I want to talk about it in its totality. So, first, for people who have never been, can you give them an overview of what happens at a conference?

Angela Garmon: Oh, yeah. So, expect there to be a lot of potential collaborators, a lot of potential clients, but also a lot of information for you to grow and scale your business. When I go to one of the WBEC-West Conference, I also expect to have a lot of fun because they do a lot of building and connecting exercises that really drives relationships.

Angela Garmon: Our last conference, we actually made guacamole. And at every single table, there’s typically a corporate representative and so you have the opportunity not only to get familiar with your fellow WBEs, but you can also connect with a corporate buyer. So, last year we made guacamole with corporate buyers and we were able to connect over food. And then, we had conversations around business, around family, and specifically around how can we support each other as fellow WBEs as well. So, that’s just one little snippet of some of the fun things that they do there to drive connections.

Angela Garmon: Additionally, there’s intentional times for networking to where you can really connect with other WBEs to talk about your business, to understand their business, and to really find out how you can support each other. The one thing that I most love about my fellow WBEs is that everyone that’s there, regardless of whether we have a very similar title or very similar field of interest, we look to support each other. Very seldom in the WBEC community do you see each other as competition. And so, there’s just this camaraderie that is built amongst the women that are in attendance.

Angela Garmon: And not only that, when I think about our particular region, our corporate representatives are really there to help nurture our business. And so, the regional conference is just an opportunity for us to get together, to connect and to really develop out our business and our continued strategies to connect with others that are in the room.

Lee Kantor: And for folks who don’t know this, but I’m sure anybody listening probably knows this, the 21st Annual Procurement Conference is in Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada, and it’s September 17th through 19th at the Westin Lake Spa and Resort.

Lee Kantor: Can you talk about why it was important for you, not only did you become part of the community, but you got involved in a WBE Forum. It sounds like you don’t just join groups to join them and just have it in the background. You kind of immersed yourself in there to try to wring out as much value as possible when you kind of go into a group. So, can you talk about that journey?

Angela Garmon: Yeah, of course. So, again, getting my certification in, I want to say, 2019 – I’m pretty sure that was the year – but getting my certification, again, one of the best decisions that I could have made. One thing that some people might struggle with is they think that the certification is automatically going to get them a contract. So, if you’re defining the value of your WBEC certification on the contingency of getting a contract, I would definitely encourage you to think differently about the certification process, because I think that it is a tool that you could use to build out your business.

Angela Garmon: And getting involved, to your point, Lee, is one of those ways that has really helped me to not only build out business from a revenue perspective, but it’s also helped me to build out my reputation as a leader within our community. It’s helped me to build out my platform as a coach, because people actually see you differently when they see you in a position. And from a volunteering perspective, when they see you volunteering, when they see you in leadership, they actually see that you want to make a difference.

Angela Garmon: And for me, as I started out my business, I didn’t really, again, know how to connect, and so now I use spaces like the forum to actually support other WBEs that are coming into WBEC-West to understand how they could leverage this certification to be a better business owner, to be a better leader, and to also be a better volunteer. And by being active in the WBEC-West community, it just strengthens me all the way around.

Angela Garmon: So, for anybody that is interested, or maybe you haven’t gotten your certification, or maybe you just got your certification, or maybe you’re thinking about leaving because you haven’t gotten a contract, or you don’t know how to utilize it, I would say get involved because there are so many other opportunities that it opens up. There are so many different programs that you can also gain for free that’s focused on business development that you don’t have to pay for. And so, there’s so many different tools and resources that WBEC-West offers. And getting involved and tapped into the community opens up many more experiences that you can experience as a fellow WBE.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And one of the best ways is to really kind of leverage this conference that’s coming up. Now, let’s talk about kind of tips on how to get the most out of the conference. Like is this a conference that you would just kind of wing it, just show up on day one and just go, “Oh. Let me kind of just figure stuff out”? Or is this something that you’re planning weeks ahead of time, you know, targeting certain people and having some strategy to not only interact with certain people, but also have some means to follow up with them after the event?

Angela Garmon: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, definitely prepare, Lee. I go into every single conference prepared. So, the biggest tip, the first tip that I would give to anyone is, first and foremost, research who is going to be in the room. So, WBEC-West does a really good job at sharing who’s going to attend the conference. And so, if you’ve registered, make sure that you also update your profile. And when you go into the system to update your profile, you can also see everyone, all of the other attendances – attendees – excuse me. And then, you can also see all of the corporations that will be in attendance and who’s sponsoring the event. So, you’ll have a really good idea of who’s going to be in a room.

Angela Garmon: Typically, what I do is I identify who I want to work with, who are my ideal clients. So, again, because I focus on utility and construction and government, then I always go to those spaces first. Another thing I do is I look and see who are current clients that I’ve either supported, who I’m currently supporting, or I’ve supported in the past, and I use the conference as an opportunity to reconnect with them, to catch up with them, and to understand what’s going on with them, specifically in their organization, what changes.

Angela Garmon: So, I look for words that are very specific to my keyword search. So, what changes are going on, what’s going on from a DEI perspective, or whatever your specific industry is and whatever your keywords are. I definitely would have those conversations and pull those keywords into the conversations to really understand what is going on with their respective corporations, so that we can have those deeper conversations.

Angela Garmon: And then, I also learned even though I might be so prepared, I might have a list of all of the organizations that I want to connect with, I also learned to be open to new opportunities. Because if you just get so laser-focused on specific contacts or specific organizations, and maybe they’re there but they’re bombarded – I remember my first conference I went to, I didn’t necessarily have a contingency plan or a backup plan, but that’s when I really learned to be open and I started having conversations with companies that I hadn’t never considered and that led me to new business as well. So, don’t just be so laser-focused on what you came to accomplish, also be open to new opportunities that present itself.

Angela Garmon: And then, make sure that you follow up. I think that a lot of WBEs come into the conference, it can be extremely overwhelming, and so make sure that you take plenty of notes and make sure that you follow up without being too – what’s the word that I’m looking for? – without bombarding them with too much information after the conference is over.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you interact with fellow WBEs, because there’s always opportunities to collaborate?

Angela Garmon: Yes. So, you know, one of the very first events that I joined when I joined WBEC-West was their Platinum Supplier Program. Ladies, if you have not taken the Platinum Supplier Program, then let me encourage you to register for that as soon as you see it open. But that program actually connected me with other WBEs, and I still have relationships, very strong relationships with them. When I attended my first WBEC-West Regional conference, that’s where I deepened the connection from the people that I went through the Platinum Supplier Program.

Angela Garmon: And there’s a fellow WBE, Inside Out Learning, that I’ve connected with over the past years, and I’ve been a tier two supplier for them. And so, don’t be afraid to collaborate, build out those relationships and those connections with your fellow WBEs, because as you’re looking to build performance for your organization, and they might already have those contracts and act as a prime for some of those larger entities, you could also build out your strategy by going after tier two opportunities with other WBEs that have prime.

Angela Garmon: So, that is a great tip as well, when you go into the conference, connect with other WBEs that do what you do that might already have those connections, and they might be looking to build out their team, and you can do some tier two work for them. So, that’s a great point that you bring in, Lee.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you measure success? Because you go to one of these conferences or even if when you joined WBEC-West and get certified, it seems like the law of large numbers is going to come into play. “There’s so many people here, I can’t help but get a contract just by being here.” And that’s not necessarily so. So, how do you kind of manage your expectations or how would a new person manage their expectations but set reasonable goals that are kind of achievable? I wouldn’t imagine you’re going to walk out with lots of contracts at the end of this conference, but you might start making inroads and start building the relationships that could lead towards a contract at some point.

Angela Garmon: Yeah. So, earlier you talked a bit about value, and so this to me is, again, a conversation on value and how do you measure success. And so, for me, I always think about business in a couple of different ways. You look at revenue but you also look at pipeline. So, when I think about the conferences, I think about how can I build my pipeline for the future? So, even if I don’t walk away from this with a specific contract, I’m walking away with connections that are going to lead to close contracts.

Angela Garmon: And so, one of my best or favorite memories about going to a conference, I went to one of the national conferences, and so on a national level, you probably have about 3,000 or more people, whereas on a regional level, you might have up to 500 odd people. She keeps it small intentionally so that she can drive those connections and really make an impact for the WBEs, which is one reason why I appreciate the regional.

Angela Garmon: But when I went to my first regional conference, it was extremely overwhelming. To your point, there’s thousands of people there and just trying to figure out how do I make it through my list? And the last day I was there, I had almost given up. I didn’t want to attend the roundtable discussions. I had went to one earlier and I just kind of felt deflated when I left that table. And I kept pushing myself and I sat down at the next table and it was actually with Cox.

Angela Garmon: And when I had this conversation, I started to listen to the representative speak about what they do, and she had mentioned the SBLA program that they they put on annually. And I was like, “Hey, I attended that. And thank you so much because that particular program was such a foundational program for me in business,” and that was a way that I was able to connect with them. And that actually led to future conversations and future contracts.

Angela Garmon: And so, the same things happen on a regional level as well. I have stories like that, you know, just going to the regional conference where it’s just when you’re feeling overwhelmed or you’re feeling like you just want to give up, if you just keep pushing through.

Angela Garmon: So, to your point, how do you define success? I define success by being able to make meaningful connections that will ultimately lead me to close business. And that’s what I believe WBEC-West does. It helps me make those meaningful connections, and that’s how I measure success is that I’m walking away with meaningful connections, whether that’s a WBE or whether that’s a corporation or a program that I’ve attended, and now I can have future conversations around how I can continue to develop out my business and business growth.

Lee Kantor: So, they are to focus in on at this conference is relationships not necessarily revenue.

Angela Garmon: Correct. Correct. And if you focus in on the relationships, I can guarantee you that they’re going to lead to revenue.

Lee Kantor: Well, Angela, thank you so much for sharing all this great advice and information. If folks want to learn more about ARG Coaching & Consulting Group, where should they go?

Angela Garmon: They can find me at argccgroup.com.

Lee Kantor: And how can they spot you at the conference? I’m sure you’re looking to meet some new folks at the conference as well. Where are you going to be hanging out mostly?

Angela Garmon: You know what? I will be all over the place. Chances are the Arizona Forum will have an opportunity to host an event. But what they typically do is they’ll introduce the forum leaders, probably in Vegas first, and then they’ll introduce all the rest of them across, I want to say, we have eight different states, and so they’ll introduce all of us. So, when you hear my name being called, feel free to come up to me and say hello and we can set aside some time just to chat as well.

Lee Kantor: Well, Angela, thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Angela Garmon: Thank you, Lee. It’s been a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.

Fintech South 2024: Alex Edquist with Good Agriculture

September 5, 2024 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2024: Alex Edquist with Good Agriculture

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Alex Edquist, Founder & CEO, Good Agriculture.

Alex won the Fintech South 2024 Innovation Showcase Challenge.

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from the Woodruff Arts Center for Fintech South. So excited to be talking to our next guest Alex Edquist with Good Agriculture. Welcome. Thank you. Well, before we get too far, tell us about good agriculture. What’s what’s your business?

Alex Edquist: Yeah. So what we do is we help farmers with their back offices, especially their finance functions. So the two main things we do one is do farmers financial management for them. So that’s their bookkeeping. Getting ready for tax season financial analysis, cash projections, that kind of stuff. And then the second thing we do is there’s actually $11 billion a year in grants and other funding opportunities for farmers every year. So we have one tool that matches farmers to the opportunities they’re eligible for, and then another tool that actually writes the applications for them.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work? Yeah.

Alex Edquist: So I am not a farmer. I actually have a black thumb, which is an entertaining part about me running this business. So I have a lot of respect for what our farmers do. But I have been buying from a specific type of farmers called regenerative farmers my whole adult life. So regenerative farming, and this is probably not what you were expecting for your fintech startup interview. So follow me down the rabbit hole a little bit. But regenerative farming is this method of farming where the farmer cultivates the whole ecosystem, and so the food is a lot healthier because the plants or animals are able to get a lot more nutrients from the environment. And so for me, it started with I would solve some personal health issues by buying from regenerative farmers and eating better food And then, you know, as you might guess, regenerative farming is a lot better for the environment. So, for example, there are regenerative farmers who grow carbon negative beef because they raise the cows in a way that’s good for the environment. And so you learn about that and you’re like, okay, this is cool, I’m going to support these farmers. But I was going to buy the food anyways because it’s just better.

Alex Edquist: But then I was working as a management consultant. I was at McKinsey for a long time, and when I was leaving that job, there was academic research coming out showing that regenerative farmers could also be more profitable because they save so much money on fertilizers and chemicals and things like that. And so when I saw that, I was like, okay, well, the food’s healthier, it’s better for the environment and the farmer makes more money. So it seems like everybody should be doing this, but no one is. So what’s going on there? So I just went out and started talking to farmers about why is this hard, why does no one do this? And the farmers answer was everything is hard. I am doing everything by myself. And this regenerative farming thing is more time consuming and complicated and I just don’t have time. So it was like, well, I can’t help you with the farming piece because again, black Thumb, but I can help you run your business. So we just started offering these services manually to farmers and to see if they would pay us to do it. And they did. And then we we’ve been automating along the way ever since.

Lee Kantor: So it’s one of those stories where you went to the market and listened. Yes. And then learned and solved a problem? Yes. Wow. Did they teach you that in business school? Is that.

Alex Edquist: I actually never went to business school, but, yeah, I mean, I worked as a consultant for a long time. Yeah. It’s amazing. Like, people generally know what the problem is and how to fix it. You just got to. Sometimes you got.

Lee Kantor: To ask, right? Yeah. And so did when you were at the beginning, when you were just going to these farmers. Did you build relationships with them? Are these kind of small mom and pop type businesses, or are these kind of those big, you know, kind of enterprise level farms?

Alex Edquist: Yeah. So most of our customers are those smaller farmers because the bigger farmers, they have a similar need around this, but they tend to have like a full time person on their team who’s doing this stuff. And so when we meet them they’re like, okay, this is cool. Like we see what you’re doing, but also you’re a brand new startup and we don’t trust you yet. Like come back in a few years. Whereas the mom and pops are like, I’m doing this myself and I really don’t want to, and I.

Lee Kantor: Need help And.

Alex Edquist: I don’t care that you’re a new startup. Like, where do I sign up? Right. Um, so I mean, we yeah, I did build some relationships with farmers early on, but really, my co-founder, she is a farmer. And so our first few customers were people she’d known and worked with for like ten years. Um, and then now that we have, you know, we’re a little bit more established, it’s easier for us to just meet a farmer and build that relationship quickly. Um, but yeah, that’s where the initial customers came from. Was not from me. It was from my co-founder.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of the point of entry for you now? Like what is the first problem you’re solving for them? Or they’re at least saying. Oh, definitely. I want to talk to you because I hate this part of my job.

Alex Edquist: Yeah. Um, so it’s it tends to be one of two things. Um, so one, when we sell, like, direct to the farmer, usually it starts with, let’s talk to you about this funding tool because, hey, there’s free money out there and we can help you get some. And everybody likes free money. So it’s just a good way for us to build that trust and that relationship with that farmer. And then sometimes they are a good fit for one of these grant opportunities. And so we do that with them. And then sometimes they’re not. But then they’ll say something like I’m worried about tax season or I don’t know how much money I made last year. And then it’s like, oh, we do finances too. Do you want help with that? Um, the other thing that happens is we actually work with partners who send us farmers. And so, like, one common thing is like a farmer will go to a bank and need a loan, and then the bank is like, okay, cool, here’s the application for the loan. And then the farmer is like, what is a balance sheet?

Lee Kantor: Right. So now I got another problem. I got to get into the accounting business. Yeah. Not the farming business. Yeah.

Alex Edquist: And so then the bank is like I don’t want to deal with your shoebox of receipts, like go to good agriculture. They will put together your finances and then come back to us. So that’s where half our customers come from.

Lee Kantor: So then what brings you to Fintech South?

Alex Edquist: So we were part of the innovation showcase. Um, so they picked ten fintech startups based in Georgia to go through program. There was a semifinal last week. Uh, top three got to pitch on stage yesterday. We were in the top three and then we actually ended up winning, which was very surprising to me. Um, so yeah, it was just a great opportunity to get lots of exposure to like all the fintech folks. And then you know, win 25 K as well, which is awesome, a bonus.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is agriculture? Are they leaning into kind of fintech world or are they coming, you know, begrudgingly like what’s there? Are they kind of tech friendly or is this new for them?

Alex Edquist: So agriculture is so not digitally enabled. And there’s a few reasons for that. So one, I mean, a lot of these farmers are in places where their internet access is super sketchy. So like, you know, Apple Pay doesn’t work because, you know, your retail store doesn’t have internet. Um, and but the and the other thing that happens is farmers are just slow to adopt technology generally because they have one chance a year to make money. And so there’s a risk aversion that comes with that of like, hey, if I adopt this thing and it doesn’t work, then like, I might go out of business. Um, so there’s a lot of things in agriculture where most fintech people would just be shocked to know that, like, farmers are still writing paper checks and, you know, they aren’t, you know, their banks aren’t digitized. And like when the banks are making loans, they’re not plugged into like a larger bank ecosystem to handle larger loan requests. And so there’s a lot of innovation happening in agriculture. But it is I would say it’s ten years behind most other industries in terms of fintech.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you got into it, was this something that was shocking to you or surprising to you, or did you were you kind of prepared for this, these being such slow adopters?

Alex Edquist: Um, to be honest, I don’t think I came in with any expectations because I don’t have an AG background. So I just came in and just listened a lot and asked a lot of dumb questions.

Lee Kantor: And but your previous clients, I’m sure, were more tech savvy.

Alex Edquist: Yeah. So I mean, when, when I, when I worked in consulting I specialized in non digitally native industries. So stuff like mining and manufacturing and so I’ve seen the full array.

Lee Kantor: So this wasn’t shocking.

Alex Edquist: No no it’s like there are there are many very successful businesses out there that are still running off of pen and paper.

Lee Kantor: Maybe the listener isn’t aware of that, that they assume that because they’re kind of tech savvy, they assume everybody else else’s.

Alex Edquist: Yeah. That’s. Yeah. So my last consulting client before I left, um, they the way they did their forecasting was they had a model, and the model would spit out a number, but then basically, like a semi at the site would just, you know, kind of and you can’t see I’m like, putting my hand against my forehead, like, I think it feels like this this month.

Lee Kantor: It’s the magic eight ball approach.

Alex Edquist: Yeah. But the thing was like the person who just like, made the guess every month was very accurate. So we were trying to build an AI digital twin that would replace that. But like beating the human, just taking a guess was actually quite hard. Um, yeah. Because, you know, sometimes, just like humans are smart and good at stuff.

Lee Kantor: And they can make connections, right? You can’t figure out why.

Alex Edquist: Right, exactly. So yeah, I’ve seen the whole whole.

Lee Kantor: Come on. So now what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Alex Edquist: Yeah. So anyone out there who knows farmers or knows people who work in agriculture, we would love to build a lot more partnerships with banks, insurance companies, nonprofits, university extension, basically just anyone who supports farmers and wants them to be successful. Um. Like, farmers love our products. We’ve had no churn since we started, which is pretty remarkable for a software company. Um, and on average, we’ve helped the farmers get $15 more profitable for every $1 they’ve spent with us. Wow. So we think it works. And we’re really excited to, like, go help more farmers.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to connect, what’s the coordinates? What’s the website? And, uh, the best way to connect with you guys?

Alex Edquist: Yeah. So we’re pretty easy to find. We’re just good agriculture.com. You can reach out to me. My email address is Alex at Good agriculture.com. You can find me on LinkedIn I’m Alex Edquist. The last name is spelled e d q u I s t. It’s a weird last name, so I’m easy to find. And just let me know that you found me via business radio and we’ll connect.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, Alex, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Alex Edquist: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been fun.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll be back in a few. At Fintech South.