In this episode of Tech Talk, Joey Kline is joined by Greg Rable, the CEO of ValidiFI, a technology company based in Atlanta. They discuss the importance of alternative credit scoring, the role of ValidiFI in validating bank accounts and payment performance data, and the changing landscape of lending. They also talk about the importance of work-life balance, transparency in business, and the different stages of company growth.
Greg Rable serves as the CEO of ValidiFI. He’s served as a Board Director of the company, RIBBIT that acquired ValidiFI in May 2023. He is the founder and former CEO of FactorTrust, the leading alternative credit bureau for the underbanked market, which was acquired by TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) in 2017.
Greg also currently serves as Chairman for a leading UK fintech, QuidMarket. Prior to founding FactorTrust and joining ABS Capital as an Operating Advisor, Greg served as EVP, Global Services at PGI (NYSE: PGI) and was also the CEO of an Employee Relationship Management (ERM) business serving numerous Fortune 100 customers.
Earlier in his career, Greg co-founded and was the CEO of a leading e-billing and payments business, Derivion, which was acquired in 2001 by Metavante, and subsequently FIS (NYSE: FIS). Over the years, Greg’s companies have earned numerous product and growth awards including Inc. 5000, Red Herring Top 100, and TAG Growth awards. He was named one of three Finalists for Ernst & Young (E&Y) Southeast Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000. 
Greg works in the Atlanta area and is an experienced entrepreneur and CEO with demonstrated success in the fintech, predictive data, credit risk, and payments markets. Greg has been married for 26 years and has two grown sons. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with family, sports of all kinds, fishing, boating, and traveling.
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for another episode of Tech Talk with your host, Joey Kline.
Intro: Greetings. Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Tech Talk. We have a fantastic entrepreneur, chief Executive officer from here in the Atlanta area, Greg Rable of ValidiFI. Greg, how are you doing?
Greg Rable: I’m good, thank you. And thanks for having me.
Joey Kline: Yeah, sure thing. So, Greg, you have had an interesting path in the technology community here in Atlanta. This is not your first go round, is it?
Greg Rable: No, I’ve been doing it a while, so no, it’s not the first one.
Joey Kline: And so I feel like entrepreneurs are and I guess we should clarify, right? You’ve been an entrepreneur before. Obviously, this is a growing organization that you’ve kind of walked into the CEO role for, but at the end of the day, you you have been involved kind of in the, you know, early stage startup technology community for a long time. I feel like executives of that nature fall into a couple of different categories. Some are it’s innate, right? They just can’t do any other thing. They can’t do bureaucracy. They can’t take orders in a good way. And others just they almost have to do it because they find a problem that they would love if someone else solved it. But just, you know, sometimes you got to step up, right? Do you do you have you analyzed yourself enough to get a sense of which category you fall into, if any?
Greg Rable: Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say I probably fall into a little bit of both. I sort of enjoy the small company and the growing company and all the challenges that that brings probably more than a larger business. And so I definitely think that’s part of it. And I think the other side is you always see things in the market that you feel like could be improved or you could do something different that that makes sense for people. So I think there’s a little bit of both in me.
Joey Kline: Yeah, sure. I know we’re not we’re not all zeros and ones, right? It’s a little bit of a mix. Let’s just at the top of this talk about ValidiFI, what your mission is, what you do, and then we can kind of go backwards.
Greg Rable: Sure. Sure. So ValidiFI really focuses on bank account data payment performance data and basically capturing all that information and using it to do really everything from sort of simple compliance for payments. There’s something called the Web debit rule. So anything that’s processed online has to have some basic compliance of that account before somebody can process a payment against it. So that’s the sort of basic side of things. And then it goes all the way up to do sort of bank account verification with authentication. So tying that bank account to a person. And then, you know, if you look at sort of the the Fcra side of our business where we’re actually using bank accounts and bank account data performance data to do credit risk and underwriting. So it really kind of runs the gamut between, you know, simple compliance all the way up to sort of, you know, credit risk.
Joey Kline: Okay. So, so a number of different applications. So would this be and I imagine this is just one product in your business. Let’s take an online kind of small lender like Green Sky or like a service finance. Sure is this. I go and I get a home improvement on my home. Right? I use Green Sky to finance it. And in that process, your technology is what is used to check that I am an acceptable credit risk for Green sky. Yeah.
Greg Rable: So it would be I would say there’s probably two applications for somebody like a green Sky. One would be that we are part of the underwriting waterfall that they have. So most most lenders of of size use a variety of different products and they try to sort of look at it in different ways that meet their demand, their their demand. And so this would be probably a product that they would use in their waterfall where they would look at payment performance data that’s happened with this consumer in the past across all the different things that they’ve, you know, bought or borrowed money for and things like that. So that’s definitely one part we fit in the credit risk side. The other part would be if they process payments for this consumer when they want to send them money initially and then they want to collect the payments from them, we would sort of if they made any changes to their bank account through that relationship, they’d want to be able to look at that account, confirm it’s that person’s and just make sure that all that data lines up before they did that.
Joey Kline: I guess we live in a in an interesting time in which there it seems like it used to be there were very few ways to demonstrate credit, right? We weren’t all purchasing things on the Internet, even small things, you know, day in and day out. Right. Right. You had a credit card, you had a mortgage, you had a car loan. And there was a lot of people that were underbanked and just were not able to show a verifiable credit history. I imagine what part of the need for your technology is now, you might have someone who has who has none of those things yet. They still have a credit history of payments, albeit small ones, for all of the you know, the way that we live our lives online now. Yes.
Greg Rable: I mean, that’s true. I think payment data in general is one of the last areas that that people haven’t really aggregated a lot of data. And so if you look at the traditional credit scores that are used, they’re sort of built on, you know, trade line information, places you’ve borrowed money from. They they collect it. They score it. Most of the time, it’s, you know, if it’s a big three credit bureau, they score it with Fico. And then so you have that and that sort of the picture of you and your credit worthiness from everything that you’ve borrowed money from, doesn’t really look at your bank account, doesn’t really look at what you have in your bank account and how you are with processing payments for not only those loans but for other things. And so that’s something that we feel like is missing in a lot of the credit scoring today. So some people call it cash flow underwriting. So when you’re looking at, you know, how much expenses do you have each month, how much do you bring in, Do you spend that on on positive things? And so there’s a lot of that that I think goes into this. And so we are sort of scratching the surface, I think, on sort of how you leverage bank data and payment performance data to sort of improve credit scoring and maybe expand it for to sort of capture a larger part of people out there that maybe don’t get seen the right way with a traditional credit score.
Joey Kline: Well, so so let’s let’s talk about the traditional credit score, right? Obviously, we have one of those big three in our backyard, Equifax. So are you implying that what is what you do, a replacement or a complement to Equifax? Is are they too set in their ways such that the the traditional credit score simply does not work for our modern era of finance? Or is there a place for it? There just needs to be augmented, right?
Greg Rable: I’d say it’s the latter. So there’s a there’s a place for it. But I do think it’s if you really if you look at the scores that people use and you look at Fico, I mean, by and large, there’s there’s versions of it that come out that improve it. But generally speaking, the way that people are doing credit scoring today and a lot of companies hasn’t changed in, you know, 30, 40 years. Okay. And so I do think that as the world has changed and people are doing, you know, almost everything online now, to some extent that data is is processed, that payment data is happening. And I just think that that’s something that you could always augment it and make it better. And I think by doing so, there’s people that, you know, for one reason or another, they’ve had a challenge. And, you know, they they had a struggle with something and that doesn’t show well with a traditional credit score. But if you captured some of the sort of what they’re doing today and potentially even brought in the cash flow underwriting piece where they’re managing their bank account well, they may not make a lot of money, but they’re managing it well. That’s something that just gets missed today in traditional credit scoring. That is.
Joey Kline: Very true. There’s very little room for error or mistakes in a traditional credit score. And it sounds like what you all are providing is let’s just scratch beneath the surface here, right? It might be correct, right? But let’s at least do our due diligence on all the other financial activities in this person’s life such that we are we know that we are not entering into an agreement with someone that truly, you know, shouldn’t shouldn’t have this product or we’re not leaving someone out that made a mistake or fell on hard times, but they’re doing just fine.
Greg Rable: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s a it’s a way for lenders to look at consumers and ultimately to see how they look with a traditional credit score. But then trying to find, you know, are there other things that that are in that consumer’s history that might say that this person is, you know, would actually be a good customer for them and, you know, to try to reclaim that customer and not just say, okay, well, you you know, you scored a, you know, 620 so you’re not a good client for us. We’re going to move on.
Joey Kline: And the we’re you’re purely talking about end users, consumers. Do you do any sort of business credit or anything like that? Or. It’s only.
Greg Rable: Consumers. We do some I mean, we do some that small business lending and that type of thing, which would be more on the line of of looking at bank account data and performance data to do, you know, bank account validation of of that account before you process a payment or collect a payment. So it’s it’s those types of things for that. But if you get into the credit risk side it’s. It’s you know, it’s predominantly lenders that are consumer facing and that maybe just want to find a, you know, another avenue to find to see that consumer and try to really capture as much as you can about that.
Joey Kline: Yeah. Okay. Let’s go into your past a little bit. How did you get interested in this specific field of technology?
Greg Rable: I think so. My my prior company to this was a company called Factor Trust, which was an alternative credit bureau. So we actually did what really the Big three do. We just focused on lenders that they didn’t generally capture data from and get data reported to them. And so it’s a large market. If you get into sort of the fintech lenders, the alternative lenders, installment lending and those types of things, and just we felt like it was a big area of the market that was getting missed. And in many cases there were, you know, opportunities there that could help consumers and help lenders ultimately to sort of, you know, be be better about what they did. And so I kind of started that, built that up, sold that to one of the big three bureaus in 2017. And so I really got interested in data and how data can be used and aggregating it. And so that’s really kind of what what started the thought behind, you know, investing in something that was, you know, starting down that road but, you know, maybe needed some additional resources internally to to help it kind of get to where it wanted to go.
Joey Kline: So so what has changed in the world between when you sold Factor Trust in 17 and now that you’ve gotten involved with?
Greg Rable: I mean, I think there’s I mean, there’s been a lot I think a lot of it is a lot of new lenders, a lot of people that are trying to focus on how do we service customers better, how do we sort of meet them halfway between, you know, the traditional lending world and then getting into what they want to do today. And so I think the market has changed a lot from that standpoint and and created a lot of new models for that. Obviously, with with Covid and other things kind of in the macro kind of economic side of things, it’s made, I think, lending harder and lending, you know, something that you have to be better and better at it with all the regulation around it. So there’s there’s been a lot of nuances with that. And I think, you know, when I sold that business and started looking at this in 2021, you know, the one thing that didn’t change was people weren’t really capturing bank account data and leveraging it in the underwriting process then, and they really weren’t in 2021 either. So I just felt like it was one of those, you know, areas that was maybe one of the last areas of opportunity to capture a lot of data and use it in the right way. And that was what made it kind of exciting for me.
Joey Kline: So let’s talk about because there was an acquisition recently. Originally the organization you joined was called Ribbit, I believe, correct? Yeah.
Greg Rable: So so we invested in Ribbit in 2021 and I joined the board then and sort of worked with them to try to build the business and get it in a place that that made sense to grow. And so we did that. And then I kind of just operated that, you know, from a board seat perspective. And then when we got into early 2023, the opportunity presented itself to to come and and join the company and sort of help take it to another level and, you know, recruit a really good team and do all those things. And so I did that. And about a month in an opportunity presented itself to acquire a company called Solidify. And, you know, it was sort of a great opportunity to grow the business, to add to our product mix, to add to our talent within the company and sort of, you know, add to our data set. And so it was it was a good opportunity to do that. And I, you know, I had worked with a couple of private equity firms in the past, my prior company. And so I called kind of called them and said, let’s let’s try to get this done. And they jumped in and we we got it done in about 45 days.
Joey Kline: Wow. That’s that’s great. And in terms of the name, I imagine the thought process is solidify, probably defines what the company is about a bit better than ribbit.
Greg Rable: Yeah I think it’s I think it fits the business a bit better kind of what we do. Yeah. And everybody we spoke to kind of said, you know, between the two, which do you like? And I think it was 99.9% so I like the low fi. Yeah.
Joey Kline: It doesn’t really take a branding professional to to pick that one out. So that that’s a very unique set of circumstances because you’re coming in in a CEO. Obviously, you knew the organization. You were on the board, right? Yes. But you were coming in as the CEO and in a very, very short. Time period dealing with the integration of a new company into one that you’re really building up. That has to be a new scenario for you.
Greg Rable: Yeah, it’s I mean, it’s a it’s different in the sense that it’s, you know, the timing and how quickly it happened and putting two companies together that have kind of differing cultures, different management styles, you know, and those types of things. So that’s a challenge. I think the, the benefit of it was I already had a handful of people from my prior company at Ribbit with me, so we sort of brought people in to help with that. And then I was lucky enough to have three people from my prior company at Solidify in key areas. So one sort of running all the technology and one sort of on the customer facing side. And and so it sort of helped with, you know, I knew what I was getting into. I know those guys are talented and you know that, you know, I knew the technology platform was going to be great for us. So it helped from that standpoint. But yeah, it’s a challenge, sort of putting two companies together, building new products, integrating the platforms, integrating the data. There’s just lots of things to do that are, you know, that that sort of have to be done pretty quickly to sort of gain the the synergies you want.
Joey Kline: Yes, a lot to do, but of course, that’s kind of why you took this on. Right? Right. It’s it’s exciting as the same time as it’s challenging.
Greg Rable: Absolutely. Yeah.
Joey Kline: Are there any any lessons learned from Factor Truss as regards to culture leadership team building that when you joined Solidify, you kind of said, you know, I wasn’t really able to do this the way that I wanted to. I’m going to I’m going to change it this time around and make it right.
Greg Rable: I think, yeah, I mean, you always learn as you go through these. And I had a company before Factor Trust, too, that was backing kind of the Internet days and started in 97 and sold in 2001 and kind of had the whole run up and and all that. And there were mistakes that I made there that I that I that stuck with me. That was part of, you know, what I would want to change with Factor trust. And I think the same thing here. You know, I think the biggest thing is you just realize that the you spend a lot of time with people every day kind of working on things. And I think you want you want an environment to be enjoyable. You want them to, you know, to realize that they’re going to spend time with these people. You want it to be fun along the way. I think enjoy the small victories because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of challenges along the way that that kind of sap your energy, but just enjoy the small victories and, you know, have fun while you’re doing it. I think that’s the big thing. And, you know, I think some of it, too, is as you get a little bit older and when I first my first company, I was in my 20s and now I’m in my 50s. And I think you just realize that, you know, how important family is and how important time with them. You know, you want people to show up and be ready to go and that they, you know, they’re getting time with their family as well. But they kind of you know, they just are understanding what’s important. And I think that’s a key now with with this business is that you just we’ve gone through good things and we’ve kind of gotten to this point and everybody that was a factor. Trust, I think, saw a really positive outcome. So, you know, they sort of know what we’re working towards and I think it helps with the just with the experience from that.
Joey Kline: That is a very tough balance. I think it’s a it’s a good one to verbalize. I think it can be sometimes tough in practice of communicating mission and teamwork, such to the point that everyone feels really invested in and goes above and beyond, but also understands that at the end of the day, the most important thing is what is not within the four walls of this office. It can blur at times. Yes, right. But at the very least, I think letting it be known and leading by example on that front is is is a is a good one. It probably endears people to the mission even more. Right.
Greg Rable: I think part of it, if I can add to it, I think part of what we did and I think resonated well is that we did a like on a monthly basis, we I kind of got up and did sort of a stand up in front of everybody. And we talked about the business. We talked about kind of key metrics that we’re working towards and we sort of and we showed them, you know, the financials, we said, here’s where our revenue is, here’s where our EBITDA is, here’s where the database is from a growth standpoint, here’s how many customers we added. And it was it was a intentional to be very transparent with the view being if you’re spending this time here and you’re, you know, you’re working really hard, you want to make sure that people know, you know, how are we doing? And I talked to a lot of companies. Today that, you know, when you talk to employees and you say, well, how are you guys doing? Where’s the business? And a lot of people don’t know. And I personally feel like that’s, you know, that transparency is good when you’re you know, when your wife asks you how’s the business doing or you guys, you know, you guys growing. And if you can’t answer that question where she feels good about you doing all that, that’s that’s, you know, that’s a struggle. And so that’s just something that we’ve we’ve always done. And I feel like it works well. I feel like it gets everybody bought into the into the strategy. And, you know, we’re doing the same thing here now. So I think that’s part of it.
Joey Kline: I really love that. And I have to say, you’re the first not to look. Who knows if you know, they just do it. It just wasn’t discussed on the show. You’re the first person to sit in that seat to actually say something like that. And it is so it doesn’t take much, right? Like you’re just putting the numbers up on a board. But I think the act in and of itself is so rare. We have recently started to do something like this just for our our group. And look, I don’t think anyone was really asking. Right. But, you know, it was it gave another level of ownership to really understand, you know, look, I’m focused on my number and that is how I contribute to the company. But here is how we are doing, both for good and worse. And it’s it’s been quite powerful. It is a very simple act that I think, I mean any, any executives listening that’s quite it doesn’t take much. And the reward that you reap in terms of employee loyalty and buy in I think is far greater than the effort put forth, Right?
Greg Rable: No, I think, you know, it is something that you sort of miss. And I think maybe when you’re struggling, especially it’s you sort of feel like you don’t want to put that on other people. Right. But I think it’s important because I feel like if, you know, if you’re challenged, I mean, whether you tell them or not, they know. And so I just feel like the transparency part is just really important, whether it’s good or bad. And you can talk through things and you can you know, you can help them understand that. But we have this amount of cash. So we’re we’re in a good place and we’re moving in the right direction. And you can you can talk through all those things. But to me, I feel like the just the act of being transparent and the act of being honest about where the business is is important to them. When when they start getting into the, you know, maybe this isn’t going so well for me. I think from a retention standpoint, then knowing is important.
Joey Kline: Look, again, as you said, it’s I mean, look, I think this is akin to also children. And I’ll even go so far as to say pets, right. When when something’s going on with mom and dad. Everyone in the house can tell. Yes. Okay. The dogs can sense it, let alone the kids. And I think very similar at work. You spend that much time with people, right? You know, you don’t you don’t need a degree in psychology to read people’s body language and tone.
Greg Rable: Yep, absolutely.
Joey Kline: One of the things that I want to go back to that I really liked that you mentioned was kind of the celebrating the small victories I have. I’ve tried to adapt in my life. It’s, you know, sometimes harder than, you know, I actually present it to be. But I think this goes for kind of the world of early stage companies as well, existing in the emotional middle as much as possible. Right. Really not not letting the huge wins get to you too much, but also not letting the huge losses get to you too much. Right. Trying to take the small things, whether good or bad, learn from them, give a high five even if it’s small, but like try as much as possible exist within sort of one standard deviation of of the middle as opposed to, you know, too far on the edges.
Greg Rable: Yeah, I know. I agree with that. I think I think sometimes, especially when you’re trying hard to achieve things and whether it’s, you know, internally, you know, because you want to show the kind of growth that you want to show or whether it’s the external stakeholders that have that are sort of pushing to sort of get to certain things. I think it’s it’s important to kind of maintain a, you know, a sense of, you know, we’re working through these things, whether they’re good or bad, but celebrating it along the way, having fun along the way, you know, I mean, there’s just it never goes perfectly If you think it is, this is not the right thing for you to do. Yeah. And so you just have to sort of realize that sometimes you’re going to be challenged and and people are looking at you as the guy that ultimately if you’re, you know, if you’re sort of showing the stress, then they’re going to feel that. And I think you have to just you know, we want to we want to be better kind of work on these things and and get better at it. But, you know. It’s something that sort of maintaining that that sense of, you know, staying in the middle is important.
Joey Kline: Yeah. Okay, So we’re growing solidify. Um, let’s talk about hiring. I’m assuming that you’re hiring for different roles, right? Are you building out engineering? Is this a sales and marketing push? All the above. I mean, where’s the focus right now?
Greg Rable: Yeah, so I’d say all of the above. We the way it worked out is that when we when we invested in Solidify, Solidify was based in Ohio, originally in Oxford, Ohio. And so when we started to recruit people to build the business management team out, obviously Atlanta is one of the greatest places in the country to do that. And so just with the fintech background and the and the, you know, the experience of the people, so we basically relocated the headquarters here and so started building that out and then and kind of winding down the operations up in Ohio. And then when we acquired Solidify, Solidify was based in South Florida. And so we kind of doing the same thing. We’re sort of creating a headquarters here. So pretty much I’d say, you know, the vast majority of our hiring is is in this area and it’s across the board. I would you know, there’s some some development. Hiring right now is definitely going to be customer facing kind of customer success, sales, things like that. And so over the next 12 months or so, we’ll probably hire another 20, 20 plus people. We’re a, you know, a little around kind of right around 30 people right now. We’ll be, you know, 50 ish by the end of next year and then probably in the 70 to 75 range by the following year. Yeah.
Joey Kline: So, you know, when an organization goes and of course, you’ve experienced this one time before, right? The organization looks very different at those intervals which on an absolute basis are not that far from each other, right? On a proportional basis, they’re very far from each other. You know, I think that you could say, you know, whether a 10,000 person company goes to 11,000, not that big of a deal when a 30 person company goes to 50 people. Right. That is a very big deal. Yes. And the what is needed from leadership and also from rank and file is very, very different for. Okay. So, look, you’ve got a team that you’ve worked with before, right? You’ve gotten some of the band back together for some of the folks that are with you for the first time. And this might be their first time scaling in a company like this. How do you help them figure out what their cultural internal role take a side, what they do on a daily basis? Sure. Right. Okay. How do you figure out what is needed of them as you get to those different stages of company growth?
Greg Rable: Yeah, I think I think, you know, just like you said, the hiring kind of between 10 to 20 or 10 to 30 and then 30 to it, just everything there’s stages and I’d say the biggest thing that I’ve seen throughout the process is that you go from needing a team of generalists to a team of specialists. And I think as you do that, you have to sort of realize that some of the people that may be there early, some can scale and sort of move into that specialized role and some can’t. And it’s just not it’s just not the right thing for them. So I think as you bring kind of people in that are more specialists and really kind of experts in their role, I think you try to find people that you’re hiring for for roles and if you ask them, what do you love to do, of all the the sort of job that that sort of fits within the what do you really like to do? And you want to hire people that are doing what they really like to do, not because, you know, this is sort of where you slotted me in, but it’s not really something I enjoy. Yeah, so you try to hire the people that that, that want to do this, that they love this area.
Greg Rable: They want to continue to build out their skill set in this area and they’re great at it and they can lead in it. And so that’s what we always try to find is people that want to do what we need them to do and that they’re really good at it and they are proud to be really good at it. And then I think what happens is, is that those people become, you know, leaders and can build out teams that kind of that that sort of match what they do. And so a lot of what it is for us is finding those areas that we need to add and enhance and and build out and basically just look for the right fit for those things. And it’s, you know, it’s just being honest about, you know, here’s how here’s the amount of work we do, here’s how much time we spend together. You know, here’s how we manage things. We I’ve had a number of people tell me that, you know, I almost in the interview kind of sort of you know, I tell them all the bad try.
Joey Kline: And convince them.
Greg Rable: Yeah, yeah. I still want.
Joey Kline: To come back.
Greg Rable: Exactly. I don’t try to oversell them. I tell them about here’s the challenge. Is that we’re going to face Here’s the here’s the work that we’re going to have. And you’re probably going to end up having a greater workload than you have in the past. But, you know, we’re hiring people that we feel like can handle that. And and so that’s sort of what we do. And I think ultimately you just you can kind of build a team that can work well together. And, you know, you want to be able to look around and go, okay, we don’t have we don’t have large teams in each of these areas, but the people we have are really good at it.
Joey Kline: Yeah, there’s really no no room for fat on an organization like this. But you bring up a good point about kind of what’s needed at the different levels, right? It’s like at five people, you need you need everyone needs to do everything. Right. Right. You need someone that is going to be fine, you know, pitching a customer and also going down to the city of Alpharetta for a business license. Exactly. Right. As you get further along. Right. You know, it’s you’ve you’ve kind of passed through a little bit of your scrappy stage. Right? You need people laser focused on kind of what their job on the assembly line is. That’s correct. That is a very different hire. Yes. Um, so let’s let’s talk about kind of FinTechs role in the Atlanta economy. Okay. If there is if there is one sector of technology that this city is known for, it is fintech. Yes, right. I mean, B2B technology in general. Right. But fintech is really, I think, where we truly punch above our weight class. And I’ve always been curious why. Because, look, some things just develop organically, okay? You just have a center of gravity from a couple companies. They exit, you know, those people start other companies and then with others there is some, you know, historical fact you can point to. Like for you know, the reason Charlotte is such a banking center was something having to do with, you know, regulations they put in place that basically stole a lot of bank headquarters from Atlanta back in the day, right? Yes. Okay. So I am curious, you spent enough time in this field. What is your opinion as to why we have been so dominant in this niche field of technology?
Greg Rable: You know, it’s it’s a hard it’s kind of a it’s a tough question because I think there’s a lot of different answers for it. I think I mean, if you just look at the industry and kind of where things came from, I mean, I think payments is one of the things that you can always go back to and say, you know, there’s always been a a a large amount of payments companies here and with and within that, you sort of get a heavy dose of tech. You get, you know, you get a lot of reach with those and sort of you get people that have experience in a lot of different areas that payment, you know, payments cross whether it’s lending or retail or, you know, B2B or anything like that. So I think payments is the one thing that I can point to and say there’s always been a lot of payments experience here, and then you get into things, you know, my, my first company was an electronic bill, presentment and payment company. And at that time, the biggest player in that space was Checkfree. And so, you know, that whole area that I sort of got into was was in some ways sort of, you know, started by by checkfree in this area. And so I think there’s just a lot of those types of things. I mean, Equifax being here and sort of how it got started with sort of buying up a lot of local regional credit bureaus and things like that. I just think there’s sort of leaders in a lot of different areas that make fintech what it is. And it just it just so happens that they’re all here and they started here. Sure.
Joey Kline: There’s, you know, a lot of little seedlings. At some point, maybe no one sees it. And then all of a sudden, you know, it’s grown into a forest and it looks like it was overnight. But there was a whole lot of people, you know, tilling the soil over those years. And now it is just sort of a, you know, self-replicating process.
Greg Rable: Yeah. I also think, you know, with Georgia Tech being here and they’ve always been a huge advocate for the for the kind of start up and entrepreneurial community. I think that’s been a big help, too. And so I think it’s really been a lot of different areas within Atlanta that have sort of provided that. And then, you know, with some of the larger companies here like Home Depot and, you know, back in the day, Georgia Pacific, which is where I worked initially when I first moved down here, I mean, you know, people were, you know, involving in sort of the early days of how to use technology across, you know, logistics and transportation, all those types of things. So I just think there was a lot of companies that supported that early adoption of technology. And, you know, there’s just a lot of early innovators in different parts of fintech here.
Joey Kline: Yeah, let’s I want to make sure that we really kind of nail down on the different types of clientele that you all serve. We really talked a lot about financial services. Sure. Okay. That’s obviously a huge heading. Right? Right. Are there other types of organizations in. Industries that maybe one would not assume that you serve just by a cursory glance of what you all do.
Greg Rable: Yeah, I think the interesting thing is, and that’s probably one of the one of the reasons why the acquisition made sense is that we are if you looked at what we were working on, it was heavily weighted on on lending. And then as you get into things like bank account validation and authentication of a bank account, it pretty much crosses every other industry you could think of. It crosses, you know, both B2C and B2B. So it can get into vendor management. You know, you need to pay a vendor for doing work for you and you need to be able to send them a payment. You need to you need to make sure that the payment is going to the place that it should go to. And then there’s just all these different areas and looking at where electronic payments cuts across. So it’s insurance, it’s, you know, manufacturing, it’s, you know, and really retail. I mean, there’s a lot of different areas where we have customers that that don’t really sort of align with historically what we’ve worked on on the lending side. But it’s just there’s so many electronic payments processes and it’s only getting bigger, right? And so that’s just one of those things. And that’s really the benefit for us is that if we looked at the markets, it just expands, you know, the market of, you know, how do you need to look at that bank account? How can you confirm the identity of the person that is using that? It’s the right one. And so it really crosses almost every industry you can think about.
Joey Kline: Okay. So obviously, a lot of opportunity in that market, right? So, I mean, functionally, how does this work? Let’s take our Green Sky example from earlier, right? Green You know, you install your API in green sky system and when they’re running their processes, it basically goes through your filters.
Greg Rable: Yeah. So it basically they just call us. So just with an API scenario, they’ll just reach out and they’ll call us. We’ll give them a response in a second. And you know, they’ll whether it’s credit risk data that they would be using or whether they’re looking at the bank account and confirming the, you know, that that the bank account information is correct before they process a payment. It happens in, you know, 1 to 2 seconds and it’s just, you know, so it makes it a really easy business to to integrate with and work with. And that’s that’s really how everything’s done today. And we have a cloud platform that’s that’s super secure, very fast, easy to connect with. And so we just, you know, use that and that’s really how the business is going to scale.
Joey Kline: Do you all price on kind of like a monthly subscription? Is it a per transaction fee? How does it work? Yeah, it’s per transaction.
Greg Rable: Pretty much everything we do is per transaction. Got it. I like that type of business. It sort of aligns well to what the market likes and I think people appreciate understanding just the transparency of it. You don’t charge setup fees, you don’t really charge monthly minimums. It’s more of a pure transaction based on usage.
Joey Kline: That’s right. Now I agree. I think it engenders a lot of goodwill between, you know, client and provider. Right? You’re only going to pay when you get value from us, right?
Greg Rable: Absolutely. And it sort of forces the provider like us to constantly improve the system because they’re only going to use it if it works well for them. And so if you just kind of stagnate and don’t and don’t build your product and don’t improve your product, then you’re going to be challenged. So it’s a great way to there’s just not a lot of friction. And because of that, I think you have to always get better.
Joey Kline: Yeah, well, look, this was super interesting. Greg, I appreciate you coming on sharing this. If you are looking for a really interesting opportunity in the fintech world, validity is hiring. Let’s clarify how we spell validity.
Greg Rable: Yes. So it’s v a l I’d i f i. Okay. And the website is validity.com solidify.com.
Joey Kline: Anyone out there that is looking for an interesting role or thinks that validity services could fit a unique place within their tech ecosystem validity.com. Greg thank you so much for coming on Tech talk.
Greg Rable: Thank you Joe I appreciate it.
