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BRX Pro Tip: Tell More Stories

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BRX Pro Tips
BRX Pro Tip: Tell More Stories
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BRX Pro Tip: Tell More Stories

Stone Payton : Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor, Stone Payton here with you. Lee, today’s topic, storytelling.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think it’s so important in today’s world that you have to tell more stories. A lot of folks, especially in the professional service business, love data and they like to show numbers and statistical evidence that this is better than that and it’s obvious because the numbers show it. That’s all good and fine, but stories are the things that people remember, so it’s important to invest the time in getting to know how your service is truly impacting your clients, and then tell those stories to more people more often.

Lee Kantor: You know, sure, you can have the data, you can have the stats. All that stuff is great on a PowerPoint. But when you’re talking to somebody, it’s so important to be able to have an anecdote where you’re kind of focusing on one person and you’re sharing a challenge that they had and how you were able to help them overcome that and get to a new level.

Lee Kantor: Those little anecdotes, those stories are what people are going to remember. That’s how they’re going to refer you to somebody else. That’s how they’re going to decide to buy what you’re selling when you can kind of illustrate how somebody’s business or life changed because you helped them.

Stone Payton : So focus on the motions, not just the facts and figures. People remember stories. They forget numbers. It’s so important to be able to have these at the ready so that no matter what the situation is, whatever the problem the person has, the prospect has, or the challenge that they have that you have an anecdote at the ready that kind of illustrates how you were able to help somebody solve a problem and deliver a solution that helped get them to a new level.

Lee Kantor: So work on those stories. I would go through all your databases. I would have the whole team kind of in on this, where you just brainstorm a bunch of stories for a bunch of different occasions to help kind of lock in the emotion about why you’re the best fit for this prospective client.

Ramping up to attend the WBEC-West 21st Annual Procurement and Awards Conference with Sheila Cavalier

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Women in Motion
Ramping up to attend the WBEC-West 21st Annual Procurement and Awards Conference with Sheila Cavalier
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In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor welcomes Sheila Cavalier, owner of The Freaky Cookie, a corporate gifting company specializing in unique cookie flavors. Sheila discusses her business’s evolution from direct-to-consumer sales to corporate gifting, emphasizing adaptability to market demands. She highlights the importance of networking and community support, sharing her positive experiences with the WBEC-West community. Sheila offers practical advice for first-time business conference attendees, focusing on relationship building, active listening, and follow-up.

Sheila-CavalierSheila Cavalier is CEO and Founder of Freaky Cookie.

Sheila set out to create something fun, something unique for the corporate gifting world that would communicate to customers and employees just how much they mattered. The result: Freaky Cookie, based on a family recipe dating back 90+ years!

A Los Angeles native, Sheila come from a long line of bakers, writers, and a father who worked in the aerospace industry in the 1960s. This legacy of creativity, innovation, engineering, and a quest for out-of-the-box fun led to the creation of The Freaky Cookie, also known as “The Cookie Disruptor!” The-Freaky-Cookie-logo

For a time, Sheila worked as a Multi-state Auditor, giving her the unique ability to parlay her talent for managing details with her creative vision. “It’s one thing to have a dream. It’s another thing to execute the plan that makes that dream a reality.”

Sheila enjoys running, music that soothes her soul, and spending quality time with family.

Connect with Sheila on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

Transcript-iconThis 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: Today on Women In Motion, we have Sheila Cavalier with The Freaky Cookie. Welcome.

Sheila Cavalier: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: I’m so excited to learn about your business. Tell us about The Freaky Cookie.

Sheila Cavalier: All right. So, yes, we are Freaky Cookie. We are a corporate gifting marketing cookie company located in Rancho Cucamonga, about 50 miles east of L.A. And what we do, we specialize in unique, cool cookies. So, we have taken a 90-year family recipe, and we have put a spin on it and created these real cool cookie flavors. So, we’ll have cookies like Fruity Freaky Loop, we have Oreo Boo. We just do a large mass amount of different type of cookies, and we have a rotation where we put them in and we rotate every quarter. We do marketing. Many of our clients will use them for marketing events, employee incentive events, and gifting, of course. So, that pretty much summarizes what we do.

Sheila Cavalier: Oh. Also, we have a in-house graphing department where you can have your labels, your own logos and themes placed on the cookie box, which is a big incentive for, you know, our clients because they like to market their events and their company.

Lee Kantor: Was the cookie company always geared towards corporate like this, or did it start out as, “Hey, I make a really good cookie”?

Sheila Cavalier: Hey, how did you know that? Yeah. Pretty much that’s how we started out. We thought we were going to really see that D2C space grow. So, we kind of market it and we had everything. Our motto was set towards the D2C, but where our facility is located, we’re like in an industrial park where our kitchen is an industrial area. So, you don’t have much foot traffic. It’s no need for individuals to come into that area, you know, unless they’re conducting business. And what we got to see over time was cookies were stacking up. You know, no one wanted to buy two and three cookies. They weren’t stopping in to The Freaky Cookie for that.

Sheila Cavalier: But what we were seeing was a lot of calls coming in from clients or potential customers that were in the area to visit other customers, their clients, and they wanted cookies to take to their clients to show their appreciation. So, we kept our eyes on the pulse of the market and we’re like, “Hey, what’s going on?” You know, we were just getting these calls coming in, give us four dozen, give us ten dozen. And we kept seeing that over and over, and we’re like, wait a second here, as far as consumer, they’re buying one or two, and some days no cookies. So, we’re like, “Okay. We need to rethink this model,” and that’s how we were able to kind of pivot and take that look into the corporate space, and, of course, do our research and all and build in that space.

Lee Kantor: Well, I think that’s an important lesson for entrepreneurs. I mean, sometimes some entrepreneurs fall so much in love with their product and they kind of go down with the ship if it’s not going their way, where you are able to say our product is the same product, and if a company wants to buy 100 of them, let’s sell them 100, instead of wait for 100 people to come in and buy one cookie each.

Sheila Cavalier: Right. Absolutely, Lee, that’s true and that’s what we really focused on. Like I said, it took us some time, though, for us to really understand that it wasn’t geared towards the direct to consumer space because we knew very little about the corporate space even though we are in this industrial area, and within a 20 mile radius, it’s nothing but a lot of industrial buildings, and you got the airport, you got big Fortune 500 companies. But when we caught on, we started, like I said, connecting, reaching out, and we said, “Hey, let’s reach out.” We reached out to some consultants and they were able to help us, and we were able to align with what the demand was going on. And it’s been a nice journey. And, of course, COVID didn’t really help much, but, yeah, we were able to build, recover from that, and move forward, so we are — here.

Lee Kantor: Why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Sheila Cavalier: Oh, my God. You know what? One thing I can say, I come out of a corporate background. I was in corporate for many of years. And not having that entrepreneurial network immediately around me, like I tell everyone, I could pick up a phone if I needed a corporate job, that was not an issue. I had plenty of network of individuals in that space. However, when it came time for entrepreneurship, I knew really no one to turn to. Of course, you have your chamber, and I thank God for that, and those that were in the chamber. But I saw an opportunity bigger, and I just didn’t know how to touch in. I didn’t have anyone to reach out to.

Sheila Cavalier: And, of course, thank God for the internet, you start doing this research and looking for other women businesses, picking up nuggets along the way, and I happen to come across WBENC National, and I’m like, “What is this?” And over a period of time because it was just so much information there and opportunity, and I didn’t understand it, it was just like a puzzle with several pieces and trying to figure out how these pieces all were interrelated.

Sheila Cavalier: So, I took my time and researched. It took me about a couple of years because I was really trying to understand how this organization could help catapult my business to a new level. And seeing the supplier diversity program, I’m like, “What the heck? What is this?” But as time went on and I reached out to them, and they were so helpful, and then connected me back to WBENC-West, that was the beauty of it, because you have national and they’re headquartered on the East Coast, but they were able to connect me back to WBEC-West. And, oh, my God, the team was amazing, so supportive. I would call in, I can’t tell you how many times Maria and the group, they were always there to answer and inspire me, and just give me information as I need it.

Sheila Cavalier: So, that was my connection and I saw opportunity. You know, of course, it took a while, but then as I started connecting and getting to know individuals in the organization, I was like, “Oh, my God. This is opportunity. This is what I was looking for.” Now, it’s like, how do I build it? How do I connect and how do I develop relationships? So, I tell Jaymee, and Dr. Pamela, Maria, the team, had it not been for WBENC, WBEC-West, I don’t know how I would have grown this company. It would have taken much, much longer. Because of the connections that we have made and the help and support from corporate members, it has been amazing for us, so it has definitely catapulted our business into a new level.

Lee Kantor: Now, one of the benefits of being part of the WBEC-West community is you get access to events, like the upcoming 21st Annual Procurement Conference at the Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa in Henderson, Nevada this September 17th and 19th. Have you gone to these conferences before?

Sheila Cavalier: Yes, I have. I attended last year’s conference and it was amazing. And, of course, I’m registered for the upcoming conference and is so excited. Oh, my. The conference, you know, because we’re in a smaller group setting, my first conference was nationals. And just with a large conference and becoming a new member, it was overwhelming but I really enjoyed it. Having to have this opportunity to be connected in a smaller atmosphere and with business women, the team was amazing. It was like you were just in an environment where you can just learn. You had insights from individuals. You’re connecting with corporate members. You’re connecting with certified sisters. It was amazing. And just being in conversation and learning so much in this smaller setting was phenomenal.

Sheila Cavalier: I can’t tell you, I get excited when I think about it because I feel a lot of my information, a lot of relationships, the networking aspect of it is really strong at these smaller conferences. It’s that small setting, like a classroom, you’re going to be more connected and have more time to just get to know one another and share insights. And that’s what we do there.

Sheila Cavalier: And last year was phenomenal. I just can’t believe the connections I made and relationships. That’s what it’s about. We always hear that, we’re building relationships, we’re building relationships. Let me say it personally, I didn’t understand the depth of the relationship until I was at WBEC-West, because there, you’ve known individuals, you may have seen them at events, you had time to talk a few minutes or whatever the case may be. But over time, having those three days is just like an opportunity that only happens it seems like once in a lifetime. But we’re really fortunate to have this happen every year. So, to me, I call it my relationship building blocks. It just helps to really build, gain insights, and further grow the company.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for someone maybe this is their first time going to an event like this, how do you kind of get the most out of the experience and not feel overwhelmed? Like, do you have a strategy or some tips you can share about kind of attacking this? Because I would imagine you do some homework before the thing begins in order to maximize your time there.

Sheila Cavalier: Yes. Oh, absolutely. I’m doing my homework to see how my business model, my product can align with the different corporate members that are there, the companies that are there. Looking at their background, looking at the services they offer, their departments, who can use cookies, or where’s an opportunity for gifting within the departments. And, also, seeing who else is going to be there for us, other WBEC sisters. So, you’re looking to see and you may have already come in contact with others. You know them and you may have had some advice given from them or you guys have had relationships, like a couple of the companies I have worked with, and to see how we can further develop our relationship and see how one another is doing.

Sheila Cavalier: So, yeah, I do quite a bit of research before going in and developing the strategy. One thing I say, if this is your first conference, you want to understand what is your goal. You know, why am I going to this conference? Am I going just to sell my product? Am I going to see how my product fit in? I always say, for me, personally, I’m not there to sell my product. I’m there to build relationships. And I say that in the sense of I want to get to know individuals and what their gaps are. Just talking with them, what is the gap as far as what they’re doing and how they’re building their company.

Sheila Cavalier: So, with me, personally, I’m looking at relationships because everyone can use some gifts, everyone uses gifts, but not everyone wants cookie gifts, or maybe they don’t know they want a cookie gift. So, my thing is just wanting to understand or wanting to get to know my fellow WBEs in a deeper relationship per se.

Sheila Cavalier: And then, again, they always have insights they’re sharing with me, as I may not have known something that could further benefit my business. So, I’m going with an open mind, but I’m also going understanding that this is opportunity to gather information. I always like to think of it as my think tank, my information tank. It’s just a wealth of information around me and how am I going to pull from that information, what is going on in these different companies in the future that maybe we can collaborate together, we can do a partnership, or just the fact of I didn’t even may have known they existed or that they were a member, so just to build.

Sheila Cavalier: I’m one of those that’s looking to build, build relationships because I feel that is where it happens. And relationships takes time to build, so this is a perfect setting, opportunity to build relationships, and get to know one another on a personal level or business-personal level. So, that’s my advice, get to know who is there.

Sheila Cavalier: Participate in the events. One thing about me, I love being around people. But on the flip side of that, it’s a little intimidating at times. But if I just get in there and start being a part of the activities and having fun, before you know it, you’re like, “Oh, my God. I know this person. I know that one. I connected with them.” You just get to know people. So, you really want to take advantage of the activities and stay connected throughout the conference. That’s the important part. And I think that goes a long way for anyone going, whether we’ve been there years or this is the first time, stay connected and just be open to learning and being involved.

Lee Kantor: Now, one of the events that occur are those matchmaking events. Can you talk about some strategies on how to make the most of those kind of interactions?

Sheila Cavalier: Yes, matchmaking. With the matchmaking, I know that the individual there – let me start there – is going to be taking the information back to the different departments or to the lead director of supplier diversity. So, my objective is to give them some insights about my company and how I feel they can connect, how I feel I could be a benefit and fill a gap in that particular company.

Sheila Cavalier: The key thing to me is having information where I can follow up and understanding that it may take time, it’s going to take time. But if this is my first connection with them, at least I’m dropping nuggets and they get to know who The Freaky Cookie is, what we offer, and how we can be of service. And then, from there, I feel it’s my responsibility to follow up in the sense of maybe I’ll see them at another event, or maybe they said I’ll reach out to you in a few weeks, so I’m going to give them a little longer than that. And if I have an email, I’m going to follow up. But I really believe patience is the virtue of these events and these matchmaking sessions.

Sheila Cavalier: With the matchmaking, I’m going in with a list of questions that I may have. But then, again, because of the information they’re giving me, my direction may change. So, I’m not so much stuck on what is on my sheet and the strategy, or what I’m really trying to communicate as much as I am listening. To me, it’s really important for me to be listening at the information they’re providing, because they’re the ones, they’re the experts of that or know more about the company than I do. So, that is very important to me.

Sheila Cavalier: Matchmaking is an opportunity I feel to build. Maybe this particular time, I may not hear back from them in a while from this event, from this conference, but, hey, I may see them at national, I’m going to see them again maybe next year at WBEC-West, or at one of their personal events. So, I’m always thinking this is just a start spot to move forward and to continue to connect and to touch base. That’s the way I see it.

Lee Kantor: Are you bringing any of your cookies?

Sheila Cavalier: Of course not. That wouldn’t make sense. Heck, yeah, I am. I hope you’re there, Lee, so you can try them. We’re actually getting ready for the fall, and I’m bringing some of our fall flavors. So, yeah, I got a few things up my sleeve. Yeah, I do.

Sheila Cavalier: You know what I wanted to say, too? I wanted to also give some advice or just share my insights on the roundtable experience as well. I know you mentioned matchmaking. Can I –

Lee Kantor: Sure. Absolutely. Please.

Sheila Cavalier: Okay. With matchmaking, you’re going around and, of course, we’re talking in these group settings for so many minutes, and we’re sharing our company experiences. But what I found was key for me at this matchmaking is that, that corporate member is listening to your information. They’re listening to your challenges. They’re listening to your services. They’re listening at what you have to offer.

Sheila Cavalier: And the reason I say that, I had an experience last year at the Chase table. Lisa Stevens, she’s one of the directors of WBEC-West. She’s on the board. And we were chatting, I was sharing with Lisa my challenges growing the company, and trying to put together the strategy for timelines and marketing, and on and so forth. And Lisa was listening to me, and she says, “You know what? I’m in L.A. area. I’m going to reach out to you and I have a few options that we can possibly take. But be patient, I’m going to reach out to you and we’re going to determine how to move forward.”

Sheila Cavalier: And sure enough, I heard from Lisa in two weeks, and I was amazed because I knew she had so many individuals that she needed to reach out to. From that point, Lisa and I worked together for a full year, and she was able to guide me through different challenges and give me advice. And she’s been a jewel for me in this last year. So, you know, I didn’t even see that in the meetings, the roundtable meetings, but that happened out of that. And I was so moved by that because I still have a relationship with Lisa. I can follow up with her at any time. And I’m looking forward to seeing her here and attending her workshop at the WBEC-West conference next month.

Sheila Cavalier: So, I mean, these roundtable meetings, they’re just as valuable as the matchmaking. Take advantage of any opportunity that come your way and just be ready to go in and get the best out of it.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And that’s another great example of, like you were saying earlier, just being open and not making selling the thing you’re trying to do, and making just relationships and meeting people and learning. When that’s the metric that matters, you’re going to have a more productive conference.

Sheila Cavalier: Absolutely, Lee, that’s the key right there. Because you’re open and, like I said, you’re just absorbing. You’re like that sponge, you’re just taking information in. And it is going to be a lot of information. I mean, if this is your first time, be patient. It’s going to be a lot of information. It may feel overwhelming. Go home, sort through it all, take your time, and just digest because it is so much value at this conference, and you want to just be in a position where you can receive and build. That’s the key.

Sheila Cavalier: And for me, personally, when I got to that point, it’s just like the doors start opening in the sense of opportunities. And just even beyond WBEC-West, just looking at my other business relationships that I have already formed with my clients, it’s just so much different information that you can pull and take to different parts of your business and can help you grow.

Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wants to learn more about The Freaky Cookie, is there a website or a way to connect with you through that?

Sheila Cavalier: Oh, absolutely. First of all, we do have a website, it is thefreakycookie.com. And you can also reach out to me personally at hey, H-E-Y, @thefreakycookie.com. We’re gearing up for the holidays. We’re going to have some really cool gifting offerings this year. And we’re excited and definitely could be a help to fill those gifting needs.

Sheila Cavalier: I mean, everyone is looking for a great gift, and The Freaky Cookie, we do it right. We’re giving you something that you’re not going to find out in the marketplace. So, yeah, you taste the cookies, I invite anyone on the podcast to stop at the table, I’m going to have a pop up table there so I’m looking forward to meeting everyone. I’m excited. I’m super excited.

Lee Kantor: So, you’re going to be at the event September 17th through 19th at the Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa in Henderson, Nevada. You’ll be there with a table, and they can taste the cookies there, or maybe run into you in one of the roundtables or one of the events.

Sheila Cavalier: Absolutely. I hope all of that happens. Yes, absolutely. Definitely will be there. Looking forward to it. Cannot wait.

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

Sheila Cavalier: Thank you, Lee. I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the podcast today. It’s great. I love sharing the story.

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

 

Fintech South 2024: Luis Andino with Ditch

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2024: Luis Andino with Ditch
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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!”

Luis Andino, Founder and CEO of Ditch, is a 2x founder, computational mathematician and former data scientist at a multi-billion-dollar fintech lender.

Our mission is to empower individuals and families to achieve financial freedom through personalized financial education and debt management tools.

 

Transcript-iconThis 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 my next guest, Luis Andino with Ditch. Welcome.

Luis Andino: Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: So before we get too far into things, tell us about Ditch.

Luis Andino: Of course. Well, Ditch is a personal finance app that uses AI to help people manage and repay their debt in a more efficient way.

Lee Kantor: So how does it work?

Luis Andino: It’s simple. So we take roundups of your purchases and then we send those automatically towards your debt. So think of walking into a coffee shop and buying a coffee for $3.40. We take that 60 cent roundup and then send it automatically towards your student loans, mortgages, credit cards, which means that you’ll get to pay off your debt faster. And the faster you pay off your debt, the less you’ll spend on interest. And that’s how we help our users save money.

Lee Kantor: So how much does that for an average person come up to every month? Because $0.60 at a time, it seems like, you know, my mortgage. It’s going to take a minute. Of course.

Luis Andino: Well, we’ve gotten clever about how we go about it. And one of the things that we do is that we allow users to add multipliers to their roundups. So we have the average multiplier on the platform is 2.7, which means that that 50 cent roundup is going to end up being over a dollar. And those add up to be about $150 on average for our existing users. But you could also take Instead of just a roundup, you could also decide to use a percentage of that transaction and then limit the transaction range. So if I go and, you know, spend $150 and I’m allocating 10% of all my transaction spend towards my mortgage or my debt, then that $150 transaction would end up resulting in a in a $15 payoff. And those rack up much, much, much faster. But our average user today is able to send about $150 towards their debt every single month.

Lee Kantor: And then how much time does that save them in and how quickly they can pay off their debt?

Luis Andino: It depends on the it depends on the type of loan. So mortgages, it’s going to be much more time for credit cards. It’s going to be a little less time. It depends on the balance of the credit card. But generally users expect to save around 30 or 40% of the total time it takes them to pay off their debt with these payoffs now.

Lee Kantor: So how does the app work for me as an individual. Do I pay for the app? And then you’re doing this, or I’m paying a transaction fee every time. You know, we do this dosey doe with the roundup.

Luis Andino: That’s exactly it. So we take a small percentage of every time that we make a payment towards your debt. And the reason that it’s still very profitable for you as a consumer is because you’re saving much more on interest. And in fact, you’re saving five in cases, five times more on interest than what we’re charging you to make that transaction. So the product is free to use. There are some premium features, but the product in itself and what I’ve described as free to use, and then we take a small percentage of those transactions. And that’s how we make money.

Lee Kantor: Now, how cumbersome is it to make the connection between the app and all of the things that debt like to get permission them in, like, because this sounds like a fintech challenge.

Luis Andino: It is. And, you know, that’s one of the things that we have solved. Um, and our average user, it takes our average user about four minutes to link all their accounts and set everything up from the moment that they open the app for the first time, to the moment that the payoffs start accruing, it takes on average about four minutes.

Lee Kantor: So it’s a matter of the permissioning my the place I owe the money to to say, hey, I’m going to make extra payments at random times. Or is that or do you do it all at one time, once a month? Like how do the is it happening in real time as I’m making the payment, it’s going in sending a dollar to my credit card.

Luis Andino: It’s not because of course transaction fees would make that impossible. If I’m sending $0.30 at a time and I’m paying a couple cents per transaction. So what we do is we aggregate and we allow the user to choose the pace, but it defaults to $25 right now. So every $25 we’re going to be making a payment from your checking account directly to your debt. Be that a student loan, your credit card, your mortgage, etc..

Lee Kantor: So you’re putting it in an envelope.

Luis Andino: Effectively. You can think about it that way. Yes.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what was the genesis of the idea? How did the kind of the concept come about?

Luis Andino: Well, first of all, I have a background in consumer lending. So I worked in consumer lending, and I just worked with enough people that were managing debt to realize that, frankly, that kind of sucks. And most people have it right. And so unless.

Lee Kantor: You’re the what is it, the rich, rich dad, poor dad. I think he likes debt.

Luis Andino: Exactly. Well, debt can be used very properly. And that’s one of the things that we want to also do is within the app, we also have some financial education courses that the user can take. And the idea is that eventually we’ll take user’s debt from being a burden to being a tool that they can leverage to live a more prosperous life. But doing that takes a lot, right? And so we’ve decided that we wanted to focus on the specific segment of debt, because most personal finance apps have overlooked that segment. They’re focusing on the folks that are high net worth individuals that have assets that they can generate revenue. They have a high Fico score so they can be sold a new credit card, whereas Dick works with the people that anecdotally have been overlooked, which is the people that manage and repay debt and that are struggling with debt.

Lee Kantor: So is there a story behind the name?

Luis Andino: Well, it’s it’s very simple and it’s kind of cheesy too. But what we what we do is we want to help our users Ditch their debt. And so for that reason, we’ve chosen that name. Um, and it’s it’s worked. It’s stuck. Our users like it. It’s catchy, it’s short, and it’s made sense thus far.

Lee Kantor: So at what stage are you as a startup?

Luis Andino: I would say that we’re in the seed stage. We’re still finding, uh, our groove and finding our what they call in the startup world product market fit. Uh, but we believe that we’re well on our way to do so. We’ve have we’re serving thousands of users that are using our platform every day. Uh, and we’ve been growing dramatically over the past four months.

Lee Kantor: So what was it like when you just put it out to the world and were like, oh, I hope somebody kind of bites on this thing.

Luis Andino: It was extremely. Yeah, it was extremely underwhelming. You know, you you spend months and months building a product and you have this expectation that as soon as you turn things on, people are just going to show up. In fact, we’ve we were scared initially of whether system could handle the load that we were expecting. And then you turn the thing on and then all of a sudden it’s your aunt, your mom, your cousin, your girlfriend, and a few buddies of yours that have downloaded your app. Okay, we.

Lee Kantor: Got the low hanging fruit out of the way. Now what?

Luis Andino: Now what? That’s exactly the question. And the. Now what is that? Then you have to build, which I think is one of the biggest challenges with startups, is you have to build mechanisms to get the attention of a lot of people, whether that’s through the product messaging and making sure that that’s simple enough for someone to understand, whether that’s advertising on social media, whether that’s building partnerships with companies that already have your target audience. And that’s really one of the hardest parts about building a company, is finding enough people to care about what you’re building, and making sure that you continue innovating on the product to make sure that people still continue to care.

Lee Kantor: So who are the right kind of partners for you?

Luis Andino: We partner with fintechs, consumer lenders, banks, community banks, credit unions, all the folks that are actively, uh, having customers that owe them money. And the use case is that we partner with these types of institutions to help them service those delinquent loans. So if you’re a consumer lender, a bank, a credit union, and you have $100 million in outstanding debt and a portion of that is past due or people are missing payments, the use case there would be that you would send them an email and say, hey, we are making this tool available for you. And then that user would get the tool for free. And then the payoffs that we generate are those round ups will automatically go towards servicing that lender’s debt. And in that equation everyone wins. We gain a customer, the bank gets their money back and the lender and the customer gets a tool that helps them manage their debt in a more efficient way to make that process more seamless.

Lee Kantor: And are you white labeling it for them or is it still under the Ditch name?

Luis Andino: Well, for now, we’re trying to preserve our brand because we believe that the engagement is going to be higher. So if your lender is reaching out to you and saying, hey, we have this tool that we want you to use, you’re going to be like, man, I owe you money. I’m not going to pick up that phone call. I’m not going to open that email. But if it’s coming from a third party and it’s a tool that’s built specifically to help you agnostic of the lender, then we are confident that the engagement is going to be much higher coming from us than it would be if it was a white label solution that we’re making available to the lender. But that’s not out of the question for our future. I think that initially we’ve seen enough traction Attraction to want to bring our brand to life as opposed to just the technology.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was it like going through the innovation challenge?

Luis Andino: It was great. The preparation was very formative. It was the first time that I’ve been in front of an audience of that size, which initially was nerve wracking, but I was pleasantly surprised to feel that comfortable in front of that many people. And it just is another example of pushing the boundary further and further beyond of what we’re capable of as entrepreneurs.

Lee Kantor: So would you learn any new kind of thoughts or anything that somebody brought up that you hadn’t thought of yet, or any connections maybe, that are going to help you get to a new level for sure.

Luis Andino: Connections, definitely. I mean, we’ve had tons of people reach out to us. We had hundreds of people download the app right on the spot because we put up a QR code. But I guess like the the undertone of this is, is to just, uh, be prepared. And it’s not as intimidating as you’d expect, even if you’re in front of hundreds of people or thousands of people, if you know what you’re building and you deeply, deeply care about what you’re doing, the the passion is going to come through, and that’s going to be what resonates with your audience. And it’s not only enjoyable, but very productive at the end of the day, for an entrepreneur to build the habit of speaking to large amounts of people and feeling super comfortable doing it.

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

Luis Andino: Well, we’re always looking to build partnerships with, like I said, consumer lenders, credit unions, banks. We also have a partnership channel with large employers. So we partner with companies to allow to offer Ditch as a financial wellness benefit for their workforce. So in the same way that companies pay for health insurance for their employees, physical wellness or gym memberships, we also believe that there’s a huge impact that debt and money make on an employee’s productivity, their retention, their mood. And we believe that serving up these financial wellness tools for as a as a perk for the employee is super productive as well. So we also partner with large employers and POS.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wanted to learn more, have more substantive conversation with your team, get the app. Is there a website?

Luis Andino: Of course. Our website is.io/contact. That’s the best way to get Ahold of us again. That’s ditc h.io/contact.

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

Luis Andino: Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you in a few. At Fintech South 2024.

 

Fintech South 2024: Aly Merritt with Atlanta Tech Village

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FS-Atlanta-Tech-Village-Feature
Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2024: Aly Merritt with Atlanta Tech Village
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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!”

Aly-MerrittAly Merritt is a former copy editor with a residual addiction to journalism, and is currently the Managing Director of Atlanta Tech Village. She was previously the Head of Community at SalesLoft, an Atlanta-based sales engagement software company, and in past Lofter lives, she’s also been a part of customer experience, support and product management, as well as Chief of Staff.

She has spent the last decade of her career working with the Atlanta startup community to advance both local startups and Atlanta itself on the national stage, with a special focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, and contributes to their growth and culture by connecting startup hubs, VCs and organizations across the city. She also works daily to build a network of strong women in business and tech in Atlanta and across the country.

She previously organized and emceed the ATL Startup Village, a bi-monthly meetup to generate publicity, visibility and potential investment for startups in Atlanta, hosted at Atlanta Tech Village. She sporadically spends time writing about tech and the startup community on her blog, AlyintheATL.com.

Aly lives in Atlanta with her husband, Alex (who is an attorney and therefore very challenging to argue with), and their toddler son (who primarily argues over which is the “right” blue sippy cup). She still is unable to reconcile herself to the Oxford comma.

Connect with Aly on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter.

Transcript-iconThis 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 my next guest, Aly Merritt, with Atlanta Tech Village, and announcing a new development and expansion in south downtown. Welcome.

Aly Merritt: Thank you so much for having me today.

Lee Kantor: Well, for the two people who aren’t familiar with Atlanta Tech Village, why don’t you share a little bit about kind of mission purpose there? And then we’ll get into the expansion.

Aly Merritt: Absolutely. Atlanta Tech Village is the fourth largest tech hub in the US. We focus on supporting specificAly proprietary tech entrepreneurs. We have about 1300 of them in our building, give or take, and they make up about 250 to 350 companies. Our goal is to provide faster access to talent, capital and ideas.

Lee Kantor: So how has the tech community within Tech Village grown like maybe since its inception? Like, how many do you remember? How many businesses were there when you launched?

Aly Merritt: Oh, that’s such a fun story. We are a little over a decade old now. When Dave Cummings bought the building and started gutting it, he literAly had people come in and start building their own Ikea desks, floor by floor. It’s kind of a badge of pride, if you can say, I was there when I built my own Ikea desk. It wasn’t fancy. It grew very, very rapidly. There was actuAly a story in Hippotamus today that had a picture of when they hit their first 1000 members and had a lot of the original ATV team. And in 2019, we were completely full right before the pandemic, and even during the pandemic, we only dropped down to about 60% occupancy, even when we as a building were closed, because people reAly wanted to be a part of the community, even when they physicAly couldn’t be in the space.

Lee Kantor: And that’s the beauty of it. The community is not just the space.

Aly Merritt: That’s right. I like to say what I, I don’t sell office space. What I sell is community. I could sell office space. We have beautiful offices, but that’s just a piece of it. What we reAly do is focus on those serendipitous interactions between the entrepreneurs, the investors, the ecosystem folks, everybody in the ecosystem, which is why we’re here at Fintech South today.

Lee Kantor: Now, let’s talk a little bit about the expansion. And if you don’t mind, just share a little bit about the history that happened before you all invested in developing that south downtown area.

Aly Merritt: Yeah, it’s a funny story because it’s a very short history. We are doing real estate at startup speed. Absolutely. So David Cummings in October of last year. So less than a year ago got word that a large portfolio downtown which had been run by a German developer called Newport, was going up for sale. Bankruptcy. Style on the courthouse steps. Because apparently that’s still how we do things. As you stand on the courthouse steps and announce it to the world. And it was a large, contiguous chunk of downtown. And David thought.

Lee Kantor: And it’s a historic chunk.

Aly Merritt: Historic.

Lee Kantor: It’s not just a chunk of town. Yeah, it’s kind of the heart of of the, the world for a lot of people in a, in a certain part of history.

Aly Merritt: It is it was the original business and innovation district in downtown. And that was one of the reasons that it made such a big impact on David is he looked at it and thought, this is a part of history that reAly needs to be revitalized. We don’t want it to get sold into different people who maybe don’t have a big vision. This is an opportunity. And apparently we didn’t have enough to do so. We bought 15 acres, 53 buildings, the largest collection of historic assets ever sold in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: And then the what’s kind of the vision to kind of reboot that, that part of town.

Aly Merritt: It’s a big vision and it changes literAly every day, as you do in startup world. Lots of pivoting, lots of testing and iterating and getting an MVP into the market and then saying, well, that didn’t work. Let’s figure out what we can do with that. Some days I come in and say, what is that? I thought that was a bagel shop. And they say things like, yesterday it was a bagel shop. Today it is a hairdresser. And I’m like, okay, um, so a little bit different than our focus in Buckhead is we’re moving not just into supporting our proprietary tech entrepreneurs, but also into supporting neighborhood businesses and helping Atlanta innovators and entrepreneurs grow from the ground up, regardless of the specific field that they’re in.

Lee Kantor: So it’s not just tech, which is a slight pivot. This could be a mom and pop. It could be a hairdresser, it could be a hairdresser. That’s fine.

Aly Merritt: Absolutely, because there’s so much space down there. In order to revitalize a neighborhood, you can’t just have proprietary tech startups, right? We want coffee shops. Yeah, you need coffee shops You need delis. You need pharmacies. You need. Grocers you need all the things that would allow people to move down there and live, work, play in a noncommercial real estate sort of way.

Lee Kantor: So it’s neighborhood as a service you’re selling.

Aly Merritt: It is neighborhood as a service in a lot of ways. Now it will have an additional fully resourced office similar to ATV Buckhead when we open in early 2025 at Atlanta Tech Village, Sylvan, it’s the former Sylvan Hotel, and that will house another minimum 200 entrepreneurs. We have about 36 offices there and that will focus on proprietary tech, but we are also building out space for our neighborhood entrepreneurs and businesses as well. And we currently have a co-working space open at Atlanta Tech Village Masons, the former Masons furniture store, and we have about 40 Masons only members there, in addition to a large amount of our Atlanta Tech Village Buckhead folks who are working down there too.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any partnership with Georgia State since they’re down there as well? What a.

Aly Merritt: Great question. So they back up to our space, and we are working very hard on figuring out how we can better support them as they grow, as well as their graduate students who live down there. They have a huge pedestrian population and that’s very important to us too. They also back up to Underground Atlanta, who we work very closely with. And then on the other side, you have Centennial Yards and the new entertainment district there, as well as the CNN, formerly the CNN center, and that district that’s getting built out. And this is all a very symbiotic relationship. Any density that any of us can bring in or benefit across the board, even though we all have slightly different focuses and slightly different niche areas of interest.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of right now and how can we help you?

Aly Merritt: Thank you for asking that. We do a lot of public community tours because John Birdsong, the other partner in this in this development downtown, calls it transference of belief one tour at a time. You just don’t get it until you go. So I highly encourage folks to follow us on social media, see all the historic finds we’re finding in the building. You get heads up on everything that’s going on with the new buildings, all of the different designs and renderings, but you also get to come down and get a feel for the space. So that’s what we need. We need people to come down, come out, engage in the community. It’s not scary. We’ve got lots of parking. Of those 15 acres, we bought six surface parking lots.

Lee Kantor: There’s no shortage of.

Aly Merritt: Parking lot right now. Please come down and south. Downtown and Atlanta Tech Village are also doing a lot of lot parties. So you can find those on our social media. They’re open to the public. They’re kid friendly. We are celebrating not only the games that are going on in the Mercedes-Benz, which is walking distance away, but also we’re doing things like the party with the pass, with the Atlanta History Center coming down the line soon.

Lee Kantor: Now, as part of the kind of revitalization are you trying to keep kind of some of the architecture and the history from that standpoint, or is it something that, you know, because sometimes in Atlanta, they like to tear things down and put shiny things in its place.

Aly Merritt: Sometimes, frequently. I would say that’s often a challenge with Atlanta is that there’s a lot of history that’s no longer there. We are working our way through every single building, and we’ve acquired a few more since we bought the original portfolio. We are working with historical preservationists. We’re working on historic tax credits. We actuAly had our interns over the summer go into different buildings with a little cart, and they would pick up different pieces, whether they were beautiful lights or a typewriter or an old phone, all sorts of different fun things. And we’re putting them in a museum to showcase the spaces, even if a building isn’t structurAly sound. We’re working very hard to keep maybe a facade here and there. I saw a rendering this morning of a building that has trees growing in it, and the rendering turns it into a park with just a framework of the beautiful building.

Lee Kantor: That’s the the startup mentality. That’s an opportunity.

Aly Merritt: It’s an opportunity. We don’t say no. We say yes and yes.

Lee Kantor: And that’s right. Well, if somebody wants to connect and learn more, what again is the coordinates website and maybe social?

Aly Merritt: Absolutely. South downtown ATL is the Instagram for the entire portfolio. Atl Tech Village is specificAly for Atlanta Tech Village. So you can follow along on ATV, Sylvan and all the other fun things coming down the line. And we partner on a lot of those pieces, so either one will get you where you need to go.

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

Aly Merritt: Much for having me today. Oh, actuAly, I apologize. What I missed something. I do want to point out that even though we are revitalizing downtown, there is a lot already going on down there. So we are leaning into our neighbors tied to kitchen, Spiller Park, Wild Leap Brewery, Cat Eye Gallery shortly the Origin Hotel is going in, so there’s a lot of other folks doing great work that have been there for a long time and that are coming in new as well.

Lee Kantor: Right. So this is you don’t have to wait and go. There’s stuff to do now. Yeah, exactly. Early and often. Well, thank you again, Ali, for sharing your story.

Aly Merritt: Thank you for having me.

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

 

Fintech South 2024: Les Adkins with Yonga Tech

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FS-Yonga-Tech-Feature
Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2024: Les Adkins with Yonga Tech
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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!”

Les-AdkinsLes Adkins is the CEO and Founder of Yonga Tech and he was the Co-Founder and President of A Pocket. As President of APocket, Les drove the company’s strategy around currency and media. He has spent his career working with fortune 100 & 200 companies to develop digital strategies to make and keep their businesses relevant.

Les has an MBA in global communication and has spent the last decade working with some of the most progressive companies in the USA to bridge the gap between old and new.

Transcript-iconThis 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, Les Adkins with Yonga Tech. Welcome.

Les Adkins: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your company. How are you serving folks?

Les Adkins: So the easiest way to tell you is one line we are doing crypto to fiat at point of sale. So crypto currency at point of sale so people can use their crypto. Finally. By having a debit card or credit card like they like, they use a debit card or credit card.

Lee Kantor: So now educate the audience. When it comes to crypto as crypto a currency, is it, is it? Kind of a commodity like what is?

Les Adkins: So right now crypto is a commodity. But it was meant to. Be a currency.

Lee Kantor: Right. So it makes it a little tricky. It does. Like I can’t bring my gold bar to. Buy a pizza.

Les Adkins: Exactly. So there’s $222 billion worth of crypto in the United States, and there’s 45 million. Account holders of that crypto. Right. And all they’re trying to do is spend it and save it and grow it and all that stuff, but they’re looking for ways to spend it. Well, what we’ve done, there have been ways out there that that have tried to do this. They’ve gotten in trouble. The banking regulations have stopped them. And so what allows us to do it is we are not a crypto company. We don’t touch crypto. It’s a self-custody wallet. You load your crypto and then you spend it as currency. We call it fiat, but it’s currency. So USD currency, yen, Euro, any currency you can spend your crypto in.

Lee Kantor: So any place that accepts crypto, I can use your.

Les Adkins: No, that’s the beauty of it. That’s any place that accepts cash.

Lee Kantor: Cash? I can go to 7-Eleven. You can do.

Les Adkins: 7-eleven. You can buy your gas. You can do a vending machine. You can do it online.

Lee Kantor: So how much is it going to take out if I go and buy a, you know, a snicker bar with my card from you?

Les Adkins: So how much is. So let’s say a snicker bar is let’s make it easy. Let’s say a snicker bar is a dollar, right? Okay. It’s probably more closer to $5, but let’s say it’s a dollar.

Lee Kantor: That’s why this is not going to be dated. So in the future you’ll be right.

Les Adkins: It’d be $100. So. Okay. So let’s say it’s a dollar. Yeah. So we allow you right now to load 5,000 USD crypto at the time you load it on. That’s the deal with regulations and all this wonderful, great stuff.

Lee Kantor: So a 12th of a Bitcoin about as of today probably.

Les Adkins: Yes, exactly. So then you take it to the merchant right. They take out a dollar’s worth of crypto. At that time. The merchant gets a dollar right. We freeze the transaction. So there’s lower volatility. And that’s all proprietary and patent pending and all the stuff that we do behind it. So but so it’s a dollar worth of crypto. You spend the dollar the merchant gets the dollar. They don’t care that you use crypto. They don’t even necessarily know that you use crypto.

Lee Kantor: That’s not relevant to them.

Les Adkins: No because we’re putting we’re point of sale agnostic. Right.

Lee Kantor: Because they are just getting their money. And it’s like it’s.

Les Adkins: Like pulling out a dollar in your. Think of it this way. This is the best way to describe it in your wallet. You’re saying let’s use the same. You said snicker bar right? Right. So same snicker bar. You go to the store, you have a dollar in your wallet. You pull it out of your wallet, you hand the merchant cash. Right. Right. Same concept, except we’re just doing it with crypto.

Lee Kantor: Right. And you’re doing it on a card. And then I can just dump my crypto there and use it as if it’s cash. As if it’s used up my $5,000. Exactly.

Les Adkins: And then you can load it again, or you can use it to save your crypto, but that’s a whole other conversation.

Lee Kantor: So how is how has the adoption been with this.

Les Adkins: So we are in alpha. We’re in alpha.

Lee Kantor: Alpha.

Les Adkins: We’re so we’re in alpha. We’re we’re at the early stages. But we have uh, we are partnering with Musk miners that they are a crypto mining company and they’ve got around 100,000 clients. We’re also working with some influencers in crypto. If you’ve ever seen the documentary God Bless Bitcoin, I work with some of those individuals and we actually have people that are using crypto now that call us on a regular basis and say, hey, is your card out yet? I want to use my crypto. So great example of that. Remember recently when crypto kind of went down for a day? Yeah, we had about 20 to 40 people call us and say, hey, is that card ready yet? Because we want to use it because we want to take the loss. So we have a lot of buzz around us. A lot of momentum. We have a very high level executive advisory board, and we’re in a funding round that we should be able to be closing in the next six weeks or so.

Lee Kantor: Is the card right now is there a card?

Les Adkins: We do have a card. It’s an alpha. It’s by invite only right now. But we actually have a card. It works with an app and a card. We actually have a card that’s an alpha and we’re pushing to beta. My developer and I keep having this conversation, so I want it to go in October. But he promised me by January.

Lee Kantor: So we’re negotiating. We’re negotiating. You’re negotiating.

Les Adkins: So he’s the guy. He’s the guy that makes everything work, so I can’t really push him too hard. So.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what’s the funny story on the name?

Les Adkins: So we were looking for a name, so we started out with a. We were eventually going to do a digital gift card app called Gift Guru. And we have a whole gift card thing that we do as well.

Lee Kantor: But crypto gift cards or it’ll eventually be crypto.

Les Adkins: Yeah, it’ll be.

Lee Kantor: Everything’s gonna be crypto.

Les Adkins: Well, it’ll be crypto cash. So we’re all crypto cash. So everything. Everything relates to USD currency, euros, yens. But. So we were looking for. We work with kangaroos. If you see our logos, there’s kangaroos on them. So my wife is into astrology. Not astrology but stars and constellations. So we were looking for constellations and we found a constellation in Australia that the kangaroo that they call Yanga. And that’s the name of the company, Yanga Tek.

Lee Kantor: So Australia has different constellations.

Les Adkins: Same constellations, different.

Lee Kantor: Names, different names.

Les Adkins: All I know is they said it’s found in Australia. So if you look up in the sky, you can see I.

Lee Kantor: Thought they were Greek constellations.

Les Adkins: You can Google.

Lee Kantor: It. Okay, I’ll take your word for it. So what do you need more for at this time? Is it investors or what are you looking for?

Les Adkins: Actually we’re looking.

Lee Kantor: We’re.

Les Adkins: Looking for investors. We’re looking for people that can help us go to market. We are looking for individuals that are interested in spending their crypto. So we’ll actually be like I said, we have an investor. We’re a current $5 million round of funding that, like I said, should close within the next six weeks.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to connect, learn more. Website, all that good stuff.

Les Adkins: They just need to go to yoga tech.com or go to my LinkedIn, which is Leslie Adkins.

Lee Kantor: Adkins and yonga is y o n g a t e c h.com.

Les Adkins: Correct. There is a yonga tech. Yoga tech. So don’t do that one.

Lee Kantor: It’s that one.

Les Adkins: Yonga tech H.

Lee Kantor: Tech. Well les thank you so much for sharing your story, doing important work and we appreciate you.

Les Adkins: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you guys having me here.

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

Fintech South 2024: Nate Kaemingk with Better Forecasting

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2024: Nate Kaemingk with Better Forecasting
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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!”

Nate-KaemingkNate Kaemingk, Founder & CEO, Better Forecasting.

Better Forecasting isn’t just another AI tool—it’s the product of two decades of hands-on experience, finally finding its ultimate expression.

Connect with Nate on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis 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 my guest today. Right now we have Nate Kaemingk with Better Forecasting. Welcome.

Nate Kaemingk: Hey, thanks for having me.

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

Nate Kaemingk: Yeah. So we have written a forecasting AI specifically for mid-market finance teams. So that’s going to be companies anywhere from 10 million up to $1 billion a year in revenue, and it’s written specifically to help with annual forecasting process. To make it a lot easier. I can go into customers and you tell me how much to.

Lee Kantor: Well, I just I’m just trying to get an idea for our listeners to understand what it is you’re doing and how you’re serving folks. Yeah, yeah. Go as deep as you’d like. All right.

Nate Kaemingk: Sounds good. Well, so the three, the most common reason we get phone calls or people are trying to improve their business is because they’re tired of what we call the annual guest process. And that’s where you take last year’s numbers. You kind of try to guess what’s going to happen next year. You know, we’ve all been through that process. Every corporation I’ve worked for has done that process, and it works on until it doesn’t. And so but.

Lee Kantor: Does it really.

Nate Kaemingk: Work? No it doesn’t. That’s actually the reason.

Lee Kantor: What’s the accuracy percentage of people’s forecasting I’m.

Nate Kaemingk: I’m impressed when people can get within 10% of what they said they were going to be able to do. Like if you got.

Lee Kantor: 10%, you’re high fiving.

Nate Kaemingk: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that and then I’ve had, um, a recent company I can think of that called us. They said, you know, hey, for the last three years we have been off by 35%.

Lee Kantor: Just a third. That’s all.

Nate Kaemingk: Yeah, just a third. I mean, how do you run your business on that, like. And so so that’s one of the main problems. The next one is the classic, you know, hey, we’re running out of cash, but we’re profitable. What’s going on. Right. And so we will try to work with people on terms and what they can change. And then the third one is just of course, you know, the executive is about to make some major strategic decisions and he just wants to have some support like, okay, what are some unintended consequences that I can’t see yet. So we will help build models and our AI will build models for that. Um, companies solve that today. I mean, anybody in a corporation in finance will know this, but the companies typically will solve that today by hiring a person that does what’s called financial planning and analysis. And they’ll show up at the executive session with their 57 tab Excel spreadsheet. And they will try to answer any of the questions that are thrown their way during that session. Now, now, what you have to keep in mind is the meeting isn’t the problem. It’s how long it took to build that 57 tab Excel spreadsheet, and the fact that it won’t answer half the questions that are thrown at them that day anyways. And so what we’ve done is we’ve shortchanged that process. When I was at a previous role about a decade ago, it took us three man years, nine calendar months to show up at that meeting. And we still didn’t get it all right. We still had to go back and keep fixing it. And so what our tool does now is it takes that entire months long process and turns it into something that takes hours instead of months. And then there’s the annual rolling forecast. There’s actually a company I can think of. I can’t name names, but I can, um, there are $3 billion a year company.

Lee Kantor: What’s a rhyme.

Nate Kaemingk: With, uh, uh, they’re in agriculture, that’s all, as far as I can go, because they’re big enough, but, um, so. And they don’t they only do their forecast twice a year because it takes too long to do the update. So they just don’t even get any value out of it.

Lee Kantor: Why bother even doing so?

Nate Kaemingk: Why bother? Because it’s going to be by the time we get the updated forecast. Right. Exactly. And so what we that process is typically best case two days and worst case six weeks like we talked about. That takes minutes in our AI to do that update every single month.

Lee Kantor: Now in your AI, are you taking kind of industry information or are you taking just the specifics of this individual company? How do you go about building the forecasting model?

Nate Kaemingk: Fantastic question. So so we will start with the company’s financials. And that’ll be your balance sheet your profit and loss. You know GAAP standard accounting. So I love accountants.

Lee Kantor: You’re getting as much accounting data as you can as it just do you want like kind of historic. You want the whole shebang or. Yeah. Yeah. As much as they’ll give you, you’ll take.

Nate Kaemingk: Monthly financial statements back as far as you’ll give them to me. And but the full you know, here’s, here’s what the balance sheet close was as of the end of January 2024. I need the whole piano, the whole balance sheet. And with that, and we do that for every single month back in history with that.

Lee Kantor: And then you layer in, you know, kind of the industry standards and benchmarks from other, you know, from all the players. So you’re not just seeing theirs.

Nate Kaemingk: Well, so we actually I’ll kind of walk through that process. It’s actually a three step process. So the first thing we do is we take their historical data and we establish trends. And the reason that works is there’s a little bit of a psychological reason for that. If you don’t if you don’t recognize that 95% of the thoughts you had today, you had yesterday, sure. How to tie your shoe, how to drive your car, how to, you know, so we’re creatures of habit. And it’s actually our brains are designed to to not use high brain power. Right. They want to think about you know, that makes sense for.

Lee Kantor: They need to pay attention to danger. They don’t have to worry about how to tie their shoes. They already know how to tie their shoes. Exactly.

Nate Kaemingk: And so, so because we our brains are biochemically wired to create habits, that happens in our work. It happens in our business, it happens in the stuff that I buy on the way If I’m driving to work one day, I’m going to pretty much stop at the same gas station every time. Maybe I would change if there was a better price somewhere, but I’m pretty much going to stop at the same gas station or the same grocery store. I’ll buy the same flowers from my wife. You know, that’s all habit stuff. So we, as forecasters, will take advantage of the fact that human beings are creatures of habit. So when we’re doing a historical trends based forecast, we’re actually establishing a foundational baseline. Like this is what’s normal, right. And the only time and now there will be slight changes. You know, people change a couple of habits a year. There’s even entire industries written around how to help you change your habits in a healthy way. So we will capture those changes. That’s why we have to do the rolling forecast. We every single month, we’re going to expect to have 3 to 5% change in what happened from the previous year and capture that and keep moving it forward. The second bucket is the sales funnel. And so that’s the you know how many people hit our website. It’s all internal data. You notice I’m not saying anything about external data quite yet.

Lee Kantor: So so far it’s all internal.

Nate Kaemingk: Yep. And so the second thing would be, you know, how many conversations did you have? Did your sales team go to conferences? Did they fill in their CRM, their HubSpot, their Salesforce, or whatever you’re using? That is really good at giving us what is about to.

Lee Kantor: Change, right? What’s going to happen tomorrow?

Nate Kaemingk: What’s the. Yeah. So from the trend you can establish not just the most likely, but you can establish a high range of probability and a low range of probability. And then you use the sales funnel data to show well which direction are we heading. Are we on the high end? Are we on the low end. Right. And then once that’s all established, then we go to the outside market factors. We start looking at we actually pull in weather data. We pull in. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a lot of, you know, you know, in the construction industry labor cost is a massive problem right now. Right.

Lee Kantor: And so supply chain issues, anything that’s happening, maybe there’s a pandemic, you know.

Nate Kaemingk: Something like that happens.

Lee Kantor: Anything can happen.

Nate Kaemingk: Or, you know, a ship could crash in the canal. Right now.

Lee Kantor: It’s blocked for a.

Nate Kaemingk: Year, right? Absolutely. And so so then we start trying to because because the most impactful thing to a business is what it does itself. We always want to look at the market. The only time the outside market really matters for a business is when they get large enough that it really matters. So we’re talking 10 to 30% of total market share before the outside factor is absolutely. You know, it’s like there’s nothing they can do internally to change what the outside market will do to them. That’s not always true. So once we do that, what we’re looking for is okay, what can’t be explained by the sales funnel, what can’t be explained by history. And if there’s any noise left over, then we go look for, well, there was a pandemic or a ship crashed or, you know, any of these events. We can.

Lee Kantor: Think of these.

Nate Kaemingk: Outliers. Yeah, exactly.

Lee Kantor: So then, um, so how did this idea come about? What was the genesis of the. Hey, I can come up with a better mousetrap for this.

Nate Kaemingk: Yeah, well, I just I came at this weird. I mean, I actually started out as a mechanical engineer, and I learned a whole bunch of math and statistics. We had an engineering problem I had to solve, and it was $10,000 per data point, and it was a couple of days of work to get a single data point. Now, this was when $10,000 was worth something, right? Um, and and so because of that, I learned a very specific subset of niche math known as inferential statistics for small data sets. And and it sounds horrible. And that’s I think it’s fantastic. But that’s my problem, not yours. So, um, because of that, when I went and did my MBA, all the bankers had me do their homework, as I like to say it or otherwise. They said, hey, we’ve never seen anyone do this before. Let’s have you start. So I kind of figured out I had something unique. Then I had a chance to go apply it at corporate. I worked for a fortune 500 company and got to do forecasting for them, and I had a lot of people come back to me like, you’re you’re approaching this in such a new way that handles risk factors. We’ve never seen anyone figure out how to handle before. And it was because of that background. Eventually, um left that fortune 500 company and I started doing this. I was I started doing this as a freelancer, and eventually it turned into my company because people liked it and they kept wanting to pay me for it.

Lee Kantor: And and you’re getting a better result than being off by a third?

Nate Kaemingk: Absolutely. Yes. If I, if I what’s amazing is how many people keep their jobs when they’re off by that far. And they, you know, either.

Lee Kantor: The weathermen keep their jobs or they’re like barely 5050.

Nate Kaemingk: I had a it’s funny when I say I do forecasting, I have to figure out how to tell people I’m not a weatherman.

Lee Kantor: Well, Connie, you.

Nate Kaemingk: Are.

Lee Kantor: A different kind of way.

Nate Kaemingk: I can tell you what weather will do to your business, but I can’t forecast what the weather is, so. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So now you were part of the Fintech South Innovation challenge? Yeah, I.

Nate Kaemingk: Was, I was.

Lee Kantor: How was that experience for you? Oh, it was fantastic.

Nate Kaemingk: So they did a really good job. They they had a list of a whole bunch of companies that applied out of that list. They picked ten and had, you know, industry experts come in and talk to us about various topics, pitching investors if you’re interested in and that kind of thing. And then I got selected for the top three, which was amazing. And because I was in the top three, I got to pitch on the main stage here at fintech. So and the best I didn’t win good agriculture. One shout out to them. They did a fantastic job.

Lee Kantor: How are they at forecasting?

Nate Kaemingk: I actually don’t know. That’s a good question. Um, we’ll have to ask. Uh, so, so but what has been amazing about it is the number of companies that have been like, oh, I have that problem. You know, I actually had a I met somebody in the lobby and they pulled me aside and they were like, Nate, I know, I know the guy’s name that you’re talking about. You’re talking about this guy that stuck with the 57 tab Excel spreadsheet and got, heaven forbid, he gets hit by a bus because we’re we’re we’re screwed if that happens. And so we’re, we’re trying to de-risk that critical process and make it seamless.

Lee Kantor: So now is there a niche for your product.

Nate Kaemingk: Um, so so they’re.

Lee Kantor: Still learning that.

Nate Kaemingk: We’re still learning it. So the industries we’ve had we’ve had success in about five industries so far. But that’s mainly because we haven’t found any industry we haven’t been successful in. But, you know, we’ve had the most experience in construction and then in services. I like the non-sexy, repeatable businesses that like their great customers for what we’re doing because they’re growing year over year and they’re there anyway. So construction services, consumer product groups, some healthcare and then manufacturing are the ones that we’ve done the most work with.

Lee Kantor: Now, you said you’re you do better than the 35% person. What what is your kind of range of accuracy in your forecasting. Good.

Nate Kaemingk: Good question. So we’re still getting the 90 to 95% on average. But one of the unique things that we’re doing is we can tell you which month we’re going to be accurate and which one we’re not going to be accurate. And that’s very different. The industry standard benchmark is forecast accuracy. And I’m doing air quotes. I know you can’t see me do that on the radio. But that’s an average error for the entire year. Well if you’re 95% 5% correct for 12 months. That means one out of those 12 months, you’ll be off by 15 to 20%, and you still get to say you’re 95% correct. The difference in ours is we can actually tell you which month we’re not going to be correct. We can tell you that in August we’re going to be plus or -2%, and in December we’re going to be plus or -20. And as much as a forecaster wants to say I’m always correct as a business manager, it’s actually more important that you understand when there’s uncertainty in the forecast and what.

Lee Kantor: The limitations are. Exactly.

Nate Kaemingk: And so for the businesses that that that is a specific business that I’m thinking of that had plus or -1 or 2% in August, their staffing plan, their go to market plan, their what we’re going to do. We just nailed it. Like, okay, we know where it’s going to happen. We’re going to go do it. Just just get the work done. But for the December plan, when it came to September, we looked at December and we said, hey, we’re pretty sure we’re going to be on the low end of this, but we’re going to write a scalable execution plan, because as we get into the month, we know that we’re going to start to recognize, like so. So you staff your business differently. If you know that there’s uncertainty, you staff your you change. The way you’re operating plan going into it is. And it was actually very beneficial for them for us to even though we couldn’t nail it exactly, we could at least tell them the range of possibilities. And because of that, they wrote a business plan and were very successful in that month, no matter where it landed in the forecast. Right. Because they were prepared?

Lee Kantor: Yes. Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website?

Nate Kaemingk: Yeah. Well, besides just sending me a check, um, just so our website is, is better forecasting.com. So come and come and check us out. Yeah. Better forecasting.com.

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

Nate Kaemingk: Thank you for having me I’m excited to be here. Thank you. All right.

Lee Kantor: This is Lee Kantor. Uh, we’ll be back in a few. At Fintech South 2024.

 

Fintech South 2024: Lisa Arthur with Sensedia

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2024: Lisa Arthur with Sensedia
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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!”

Lisa-Arthur-Fintech-South-2024Lisa Arthur, US Director and Global Chief Marketing Officer for API Leader, Sensedia, is a seasoned business executive and global marketer with Fortune 50 to start-up expertise.

She serves as an industry resource on Embedded Business, Open Finance, API and Integration Strategies, Marketing, Marketing Technology, Data-driven Marketing and Customer Experience.

She’s a speaker and author of Big Data Marketing: How to Engage Customers to Drive More Value Wiley; 2013 and a module instructor and partner with the Long Beach Accelerator.

Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis 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 my next guest, Lisa Arthur with Sensedia. Welcome.

Lisa Arthur: Thanks. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, for folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Sensedia? How are you serving folks?

Lisa Arthur: We are a global leader in API management and integration. What does that mean? We’re basically like the Lego blocks that help connect fintechs to banks. Banks to fintechs and keep it secure and efficient.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you guys to be at Fintech South?

Lisa Arthur: This is our third year at Fintech South, and we’re also members of Tag, the sponsoring organization of Fintech South. And in our three years here, we just really appreciate the people we’ve met. We meet them from all over the globe. We just met someone from Argentina. So for our global brand, it’s great because while it’s rich in fintech Atlanta talent, it’s also drawing a broader audience. And then additionally just the chance to keep up with what’s going on in the world of fintech.

Lee Kantor: So what is going on? What have you learned?

Lisa Arthur: Well, we’re learning that some of the problems that we’ve seen with our fintech prospects and customers are pretty universal, and that’s both good validation for how we’re helping them. But also I think shows there’s a lot of room for fintechs to kind of address these problems, to innovate better at scale.

Lee Kantor: So where is the opportunity when it comes to innovation on APIs?

Lisa Arthur: Well, the innovation is to one deliver on an embedded finance strategy. And while many aspire for that, some of the challenges that are holding them back make it where it’s more one off, it’s more tactical versus a scalable embedded strategy. And that slows the company down. It impacts the consumer experience, the developer experience. And then additionally, we’ve got this pending CFPB regulation, section 1033, which will a new rule be published we anticipate in October where there’s both a double edged sword for fintechs. There’s an opportunity because the CFPB is requiring data sharing. Consumers data is their data and they’re able to access it. But it’s also a slippery slope because some fintechs will be included in that. Depending upon what they do with the banks, and others may be exempt and may miss the opportunity to really drive a financial grade experience. So those are the two innovations we’re seeing a lot of now.

Lee Kantor: Where are the like, how do you help your clients when it comes to. I mean, it’s a balancing act in terms of they want to go to market with all this innovation and new technology. Then you have the regulatory that is usually not at the bleeding edge of things, right? They’re usually kind of coming from behind. How do you kind of help them balance all of this in order to be innovative, but still withstand the scrutiny of regulation?

Lisa Arthur: Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, well, I think let’s start with what’s some of the route blockers that fintechs are having at innovating. And one of the biggest ones we’ve heard and I’ve seen it validated here at Fintech South is bootstrapped resources, right? Many of these fintechs are pouring a lot into their products, a lot into their customer experience, and they don’t have enough bodies to do the innovation to scale. The second is on this compliance piece. What is their strategy? How does the innovation they’re doing link into compliance instead of fearing it? You know, how can this actually drive even more innovation. And the last thing is around the technical complexities. So if I’ve got fewer resources and I’m worried about this compliance, but I’ve got this technical spaghetti that I’m dealing with and everything’s a one off, then I’m not able to innovate at the pace that maybe my competitors are.

Lee Kantor: Right. And and I would think that a lot of these startups, especially when they’re bootstrapping, they don’t even know what they don’t know when it comes to a lot of this regulation and compliance. Right. They’re there, just like going boldly forward with some brilliant idea. And they don’t even know what kind of dominoes they’re knocking over as they proceed.

Lisa Arthur: You’re absolutely right. And you know, our team and I have talked to a lot of fintechs both here, but, you know, across the US and we often get asked, I don’t think I need to worry about this or what should I do. So I think we’ve got to be more forward thinking on the compliance side. One of the things that we’re coaching our customers on is that to go beyond compliance, there can be value, right? The value to the fintech can be an embedded ecosystem, faster onboarding, better customer experience, scale at a better cost. This starts to then supply resources, right? Because, oh, I’m not spending as much on this. I can I can add resources or I can partner for resources. So I think there’s a lot of, um, behavior changing. If you will, of not guessing and not waiting but taking a forward lean into it and saying, I’m going to go beyond compliance. I’m going to give that financial grade connectivity to my ecosystem, but I’m also going to use it to fuel a better path to innovation.

Lee Kantor: Now, is this where an organization like yours can really help while bringing something like that to the table and giving them just things that they probably hadn’t thought of, and give them a structure and a platform in order to execute.

Lisa Arthur: We absolutely can. We are very adaptable and agile, depending upon the fintech we’re working with, and we’re laser focused in the US on fintechs, regional banks and credit unions. So we’re not going after the whole world. It’s that ecosystem because that’s where the connectivity lives. So we bring and we just actually launched at the show, uh, a solution for fintechs called the Fintech API accelerator platform. So you mentioned a platform that’s part of it, but you’ve already you’ve already hinted at the fact that fintechs need more than just the platform. They need the thought leadership, the advisory services. They may need help getting that first API published, or embracing the authorization and consent flows of open banking, right, which can help them attract more interest in banks because they’ve already solved the compliance issues. So what we’ve done is we’ve brought our platform, an AI copilot, which will help on design and implementation services, a developer portal, all the things they need for the price less than a new car or, I’m sorry, a new truck. And why have we done that? Because we know they’re strapped. We know they’re strapped on resources and on budget. And we want to grow with these fintechs, not kill them from the beginning.

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

Lisa Arthur: Excellent. Well, please go to sensedia and I’ll spell that’s e n s e d I a.com, hit a contact us button and that form will come into the US team and we will respond within 24 hours. The other thing, and I know this is radio and I may be crazy for doing this, but I believe that people like to do business with people. So you can also hit me up on LinkedIn. I’m at Lisa Burris, Arthur on LinkedIn, you’ll find me and just send me a private message. We’d love to help you. And more importantly, it’s not about the product. It’s about how we help you scale and deliver on an embedded finance strategy.

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

Lisa Arthur: Thanks for having me on and thanks for everyone for listening.

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

 

Fintech South 2024: Stephanie Foster with ICBA

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2024: Stephanie Foster with ICBA
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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!”

Stephanie-FosterStephanie Foster is Managing Director, ThinkTECH Accelerator for the Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA).

Foster is based in Atlanta and helps plan and execute the daily operations for ICBA’s ThinkTECH Accelerator programs, which will advance community bank-fintech partnerships through the development of targeted solutions for community banks.

Foster brings more than two decades of proven performance, managing over a dozen strategic partnerships and omni-channel products in peer-to-peer, business to business, and business-to-consumer platforms. She most recently served as chief administrative officer for XY Planning Network, an advisory service for Gen Y and Gen Z clients. Foster has also held management roles at Finastra, Fiserv and Western Union and was a founding board member for Women Driving Innovation at the Atlanta Innovation Forum.

Foster is a previous Electronic Transaction Association 40 Under 40 recipient, an annual award that celebrates gamechangers in the payments technology industry. In 2018, she was selected from a list of 500 international nominees to participate in Money 20/20’s inaugural Rise Up program, an exclusive cohort of 35 women leaders in the financial services ecosystem.

Foster is the co-host of One Vision: Fintech Fuse podcast where she interviews a diverse group of entrepreneurs, visionaries and thought leaders focused on stories with purpose. She also serves on the SouthEast Women in Fintech planning committee.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in marketing from Barry University and an Executive Master of Business Administration in international business from Florida Atlantic University.

Transcript-iconThis 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 my next guest. Stephanie Foster, Managing Director for ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator. Welcome.

Stephanie Foster: Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, for folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about the ICBA?

Stephanie Foster: Sure. So ICBA stands for Independent Community Bankers of America. We are a trade association for community banks. We’ve been around since 1930, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and our mission is to create and promote an environment where community banks flourish. We’ve got over 400, over 4700 community banks that are members of our trade association. And really we have three main pillars that build up our association. One of them is advocacy. So we advocate on behalf of all community banks whether or not they’re a member. Education is our second pillar and innovation is our third pillar. And that’s who I represent today.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, can you can you help the listener understand maybe the difference between a community bank and maybe one of those stadium banks? We do not.

Stephanie Foster: Say those names out loud.

Lee Kantor: I said stadium banks.

Stephanie Foster: Yeah, sure. So, you know, we always say the community banks are like snowflakes. They’re all unique and different. But your typical community bank, you know, is it focuses on their local community. A lot of them are still very much run by, you know, their fifth generation banker that was raised to lead the bank, collect deposits from the local community and reinvest those funds via loans to help support local businesses. You know, one way to describe community banks is that it’s all about relationship banking. It’s about developing a relationship with the local community. You know, it’s somebody that, you know, like you watch this kid grow up. Your bank was sponsoring the local T-ball team, and now they’ve opening up their own business. You know, their mom and dad. You’ve established over time that is what community banking is.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And I think that it’s so important that people appreciate that because a lot of times they default to the bank that, you know, maybe they’ve heard of more, but the community bank is typically that person, like you said, in the community that’s going to make a loan in the community, the money is going to go back to the business owner that’s in the community. Like it’s very a kind of a righteous circle with everybody is really trying to help each other They’re locally.

Stephanie Foster: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: So now you’re the managing director for the Think Tech Accelerator. Can you talk about that initiative? Because that sounds pretty exciting.

Stephanie Foster: Yeah, of course I would love to. So six years ago, the Icba started this accelerator program. And really it was a vision of our leadership at the time to encourage our member banks to start thinking differently. Right. Thinking differently about different ways that they can grow their bank to become more competitive, more efficient and more profitable. Right. And it’s it’s hard to do that in this day and age without being innovative and looking at different ways of doing the same thing. So we put together this accelerator program essentially to help connect fintechs with our member banks. It’s a ten week program that we run every year. Um, we recruit companies across the US and even globally as well. North of the border. We have several companies from Canada actually, that have participated in our program in the past as well. But in the last six years, we’ve had over 50 different fintechs that have participated in this program, and they are solving problems for community banks, from compliance to deposits fraud. We’ve got some AI companies also come through. So it’s been a great way to support our our member banks and presenting new and evolving technology to them.

Lee Kantor: Now are the banks contacting the startups and saying, hey, we have this challenge, or the startups contacting the banks and saying we have the solution.

Stephanie Foster: I would say it’s a combination of both. What we do to our program, actually, we serve as the middleman, right? So we have this ten week program during which we are actively navigating and kind of owning that relationship and helping not only educate the fintechs to learn more about community banking, what it is, how it works, what are some of the problems that our banks are typically dealing with or what’s the most urgent need today? And we bring the banks to the table to come over three and a half period of hours on zoom, and they get to hear each company come in. They pitch for 15 minutes. The banks get to ask them questions for about ten minutes. We do a survey at the end and all that feedback goes back to the fintech. So it’s a great opportunity for the fintechs to get exposure to the banks, conduct customer discovery, and the banks in return are being exposed to the latest and greatest technology.

Lee Kantor: Now, is this happening locally or is this happening kind of for the community as a whole?

Stephanie Foster: Really good question. Our program is actually hybrid. So it’s ten weeks. Three weeks are in person and seven weeks are fully hybrid on zoom. So we’re able to access bankers from across the nation to participate the three weeks in person. Typically two weeks happen here in Atlanta. We have an office actually right down the street here from Woodruff Arts Center at 999 Peachtree, um, where we have the six fintechs come in for a week. We have bankers from all over as well that come in to spend time with the fintechs, learn about what they’re doing, provide feedback on the solution, and help them essentially to organize their value proposition to to banks. And then we have the hybrid version on zoom as well.

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

Stephanie Foster: Thank you for asking. I am in recruiting season right now, so I am actively looking for fintechs to participate in our program. If anybody is interested, we look for growth stage companies between Seed and series A that are solving problems for community banks. This could be anything from AI compliance deposits, any regulatory tool fraud. For example, if you are interested you can check out our website wikborg or you can send me an email Stephanie Foster at wikborg. If you are interested in learning about the accelerator program.

Lee Kantor: Well, you came to the right place. You meet anybody interesting here at Fintech South?

Stephanie Foster: I met tons of folks yesterday actually, and I was a judge at the Innovation Challenge on stage. So yeah, I’ve got my recruiting hat on and I’m excited to walk away with a full list of recruits for my next program.

Lee Kantor: So how does the fintech scene here in Atlanta compare to other areas that you kind of work with?

Stephanie Foster: Fintech is hot in Atlanta. That’s why we’re here at Fintech South, obviously. But yeah, we actually have gotten several companies that are local from Atlanta that have participated in our program before. One of them is moment here locally moment. They were on stage with us yesterday as well, and they were one of the finalists for the Advance Awards. There’s another local company here, trust that, another Atlanta based company that participated in our accelerator program last year. So we’ve got a pretty strong Atlanta cohort, too.

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

Stephanie Foster: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

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

 

BRX Pro Tip: Ways to Nurture Your Community

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BRX Pro Tip: Ways to Nurture Your Community
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BRX Pro Tip: Ways to Nurture Your Community

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to BRX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, we talk so much about it, and it’s such a critical part of our business model, and probably that’s likely so for a great many of the people in our ecosystem. Let’s chat a moment about ways to nurture your community.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:18] Yeah. If you’re in the community building business – which I can make an argument that anybody in any type of professional service business is in the community building business – then there are some things you should be doing every day to nurture your community. And at Business RadioX, we’re fortunate to have a platform that allows us to do this very easily and seamlessly in our day-to-day kind of way we do business.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:40] So, number one, support the work of the people you respect. Celebrate the success of the people around you. Share knowledge, resources, and wisdom. Encourage other people to aim higher. Try not to be envious of anyone. And even your competition, your competition doesn’t have to be your enemy. Find ways to work together. And if you can become a teacher, a connector, a leader every single day, then you will be helping your community grow and be more successful.

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