The Fintech OG's from TWIF
00:17:07 路 Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Jack Zhang
[00:17:07] S0: I was gonna say, I I doubt they still work for Airwalls. Interesting. I went and do you think that's something that changes based on the stage of the company? Like it sounds like you did that a lot early on, where the company's smaller and hasn't been built out. Or do you think that's like continues throughout? I would I would just have a hard time thinking now, like the Citibank person at Airwall's scale, at airwalls success level, would still say something quite that harsh. Or do you am I wrong? [00:17:35] S1: I mean, I think because at that time we had a very little revenue in the business have not scaled early like 2018, right? Almost no revenue. I have no credibility to prove I'm right by any means. And they feel they have all the experiences and they can overpower me and then tell me how to build a business because they have seen scale and clearly I think they are wrong. And my approach is right because now I have I have enough credibility to prove the first principle thinking, the curiosity, the grids, the determination are far more important than the knowledge you have and the experience you have in building a startup.
00:17:35 路 Jack Zhang, Julie VerHage-Greenberg
[00:17:35] S1: I mean, I think because at that time we had a very little revenue in the business have not scaled early like 2018, right? Almost no revenue. I have no credibility to prove I'm right by any means. And they feel they have all the experiences and they can overpower me and then tell me how to build a business because they have seen scale and clearly I think they are wrong. And my approach is right because now I have I have enough credibility to prove the first principle thinking, the curiosity, the grids, the determination are far more important than the knowledge you have and the experience you have in building a startup. [00:18:13] S0: I just I'm trying to think through this. One, I think that that probably does change a little bit once you do have the proof point. It still might happen, and it doesn't mean that you should go hire city people now or experienced people now, not just city to hire on them. There's a lot of other places that I'm sure would be similar. But how did you as a founder like stay so convicted to your idea through all of that? Because there are these people that have so much experience in the industry that you're trying to build in, telling you you're wrong, and you just have so much conviction that you're like, no, like I'm gonna fire you and prove you wrong.
00:18:46 路 Jack Zhang, Julie VerHage-Greenberg
[00:18:46] S1: You think about it, the when an engineer try to solve a problem, they always come as first report to understand what problem they try to solve from a customer standpoint, instead of I want to do X, Y, that because that's how it should be done. Right? Nothing should be done certain ways unless it actually solves a particular problem. And the problem we try to solve is instead of building, you know, like a into Swift, we need to create this brand new payment network. We don't need to stick with the the SWIC, the SWIP code messaging structure or everything. We need to build an API very similar to how Scrap does online payment checkout, that we need to basically move in money essentially as fast as possible to be best, like instant, right? Now over 95% of the transactions are not through airwallets, are not going through Swift anymore. It's going through our own proprietary network, and over 65% is instant, right? So those just the first principle, you the consumers or the businesses that wanted the payment to move around the world instantly and as cost as cheap as possible, and that needs to be as simple, the you the experience needs to be as simple as possible. So these type of things always true if you focus on the right outcome for the customer, then you know how was done in the past with Swift, then which taking days and weeks to moving money around the world. [00:20:05] S0: Life, I saw you shaking your head in agreement quite a bit. I feel like you might also have some shot thoughts to share on this topic.
00:20:14 路 Leif Abraham
[00:20:14] S2: Yeah, I think generally speaking, we have internally this little saying of if someone tells you this is how it's done, there's probably a better way to do it. And obviously that's not necessarily true in all cases. At some point you you need some people who understand the space really well, right? And we have some of those on the team as well. But I think when it comes down to when it comes down to uh who you hire, there it's important that from the way they work and the way they think about their own grid, that they're willing to get their hands dirty, they can actually be deep in the topics and so on. And I think we've made some mistakes ourselves in the past where we hired from big tech companies and so on. And like right now, when we get a resume from someone who comes from big tech, it's actually a negative for us because they come in and they somehow process and so to say policies of like khoodo smooth wheels in the organization to get something done and so on, like that, those are the things that they've that they've learned and they've obsessed over. And and we are much more in this camp of every manager is also an IC, everyone is deep in the work. And if I look at who the top performers at public are, I think if you would look at their resumes uh blindly, just look at their resumes of the companies that they've been before and whatnot, you would likely not be impressed because you would look for badges that they've collected in their careers of great logos and great organizations and great universities and so on, and you will not find those. And I think a big part of building a company, especially in the earlier days, and as a founder, is the ability to find this undiscovered talent and to be able to look for potential. And street smartness much more than badges and years of experience. And in my experience, going for the badges and the years of experience has pretty much always turned out to be negative.
00:22:15 路 Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Jack Zhang
[00:22:15] S0: Interesting. So one of the questions I like to ask is what advice would you guys have for someone that's just starting out in fintech, whether it be like an undergrad or an MBA. I feel like you guys might have some unconventional thoughts here based on your responses to the last question. [00:22:31] S1: I wasn't sure there's anything specifically in fintech. I think I think general just in building startup, there's very as a lot of commonalities in hiring people. For us, we focus on, like really just focus on three things and raw intelligence, curiosity, and an ability to push things through walls to get shit done. Uh will be the last one. And and then by looking at so many of the successes, people we have hired here, that's probably the three most important things I would say, whether you have an MBA or MBA is actually not a positive thing in sort of when we're interviewing people, unless you're actually looking for a career change. And that's we think is a good thing. If you are in a completely different industry post-NBA, which is which is positive, but like if you're just looking at it to kind of to career advance yourself, I'm not sure that we we buy into that to that philosophy. And and we're really looking at that how much you have achieved in life, especially early on in life and career and and how you build your characters, and that's I would say more important than the badges and and other things on your CV.
00:23:42 路 Leif Abraham
[00:23:42] S2: Yeah, and I think the one of the biggest things I think that matters is attitude. And attitude from the perspective of are you someone who is default yes and let me figure it out? Or are you someone who is default questioning, negative, etc. etc. or pessimistic in some way and that's a in that regard? And and and I would say it's like if you're someone in any, like FinTech not specifically, like in any job or whatever, I think the reason why people want to work with you is number one because of the attitude, and number two, because of your skills. And attitude, I think, is something that often comes a little bit more natural. And so there's some people who just have the attitude, and there are some people who just fucking don't, let's be honest. And then there's and then there's the sense of do you have the skills or not? And the skills you can acquire, but again, the attitude will help you to acquire these skills as well. And I think the main reason, and I think there's actually a great clip from Obama who was like, in some interviews been asked of like what advice, what career advice he would give for young people or something. And he said something in the like like it like in tune of if someone has an issue or needs something done, be the person that says, yes, I'll get it done. And if you then actually fulfill that, and you just be like, Yes, you're the person who gets it done, and you do that again and again and again and again and again, that will build your reputation and that will make people want to work with you. And that will build your professional network, that will get you into new doors. Those are all the people that compete for hiring you, et cetera, et cetera. So that stuff just compounds in careers over time. And so, number one, attitude of like be the person that just says yes, and then the second, have the skills to actually get it done. And I think if you have the combination of the two and you focus on that, you will likely have a very thriving career, no matter if it's fintech or not.