Marketers of Technology
00:00:00 · Philipp Blankenagel, Andres Figuera
[00:00:00] S0: Roughly 30 to 40% of our qualified leads are already coming via the AI chatbot. Geo, as you would probably call it, which used to be SEO in the old times. It's it's basically us benefiting from the positioning groundwork we we did all over the years, and, you know, we don't have to pay extra for it. Hey, [00:00:21] S1: everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Marketers of Technology. My name is Andres Figuera, and this show is brought to you by Front Lines, Silicon Valley's leading podcast production studio. If you're looking to launch your own show, we offer a full podcast as a service experience. All you need to do is show up and host, and we handle everything else. So with that said, let's dive into today's episode Because today, I'm here speaking with Philipp Blankenagel, vice president of marketing and communications at re:cap. A company that provides growth focused, small, and mid sized companies with an AI driven platform that tells them which financing they can get on what terms and which instrument fits. So, Philipp, it's a pleasure to have you on the show, man. [00:01:01] S0: How are [00:01:01] S1: you doing today? [00:01:03] S0: I'm doing really good. Thanks a lot for having me. Excited to talk. [00:01:07] S1: No problem at all, man. It's very excited for us as well to host this episode with you. And just so that we can hit the ground running, Philipp, would you be able to tell us a bit more about your background, how you came to become VP of Marketing and Comms at re:cap, and then what re:cap does in your own words?
00:01:22 · Philipp Blankenagel, Andres Figuera
[00:01:22] S0: Yes, very happy to. Yes, so I've been in B2B and fintech marketing since pretty much ten years by now. Started my career in the Berlin startup ecosystem at a fintech accelerator actually, that's where I stumbled into the whole fintech ecosystem. And then was part of the launch team of solaris, which later on became a fintech unicorn in Germany, one of the first fully licensed banking startups. And I was the first marketing and comms hire there, able to build up the team, build up kind of like the foundation from scratch. And I was there for four years and worked a little bit in VC marketing as well. And then at some point also joined re:cap, where again was one of the first employees, first marketing and comps hire, and have been there now since five years. Was kind of like, yeah, again very fortunate to set up all the structures, the team, and build the brand basically. Yeah, and re:cap is, as I said, fintech startup is five years old. We offer an AI native platform to tech companies, but also broader SMEs so they can find the perfect kind of like capital strategy and the right financing instruments for them. So that can be equity, that can be debt financing, that can also be grants or other instruments, and we kind of like help them advise on the way, but also then arrange the financing for them. [00:02:43] S1: Okay. And are you guys working with any specific regions right now? Is it mainly Europe and The US? Or how does that look?
00:02:43 · Andres Figuera, Philipp Blankenagel
[00:02:43] S1: Okay. And are you guys working with any specific regions right now? Is it mainly Europe and The US? Or how does that look? [00:02:52] S0: Yeah, it's mainly Europe. So we're a German company. We started in Germany, expanded to The Netherlands, to The UK, but we're serving basically pretty much Europe by now. [00:03:02] S1: Okay. And then you've been, from what I understood then after, from your background and everything, you've been mainly in FinTech for the time that you've been working as a marketer then. It's like something that you really have gotten to know really well. [00:03:14] S0: Yeah, 100%. To be honest, it was pretty much a coincidence in the beginning. Actually, I studied, I did an internship at a large German bank at the time. After I finished that, I was like, I'm never gonna work in finance or banking again. And then fast forward actually after my studies, I coincidentally landed in fintech and have been in that industry ever since. It is super interesting to me because usually it's quite complex products and I think as a marketing person, as a comps person, you always strive for a good challenge and kind of like building trust and building a great brand for a complex product, think that's actually quite a nice challenge.
00:03:51 · Andres Figuera
[00:03:51] S1: Well, that's something that I've noticed for a lot of the tech companies that we speak with. And it's the fact that you guys really do have products that, in terms of the marketing department, you need to be able to make a lot simpler in the idea, so that the communication, once it goes out, can be understood by anybody who might be interested, because if not, it just goes into the early adopter realm for people who actually understand the technicalities behind the service and what you're offering, and that takes a little bit away from the potential of how many customers you could get. But Philipp, in the five years that you've been working at re:cap, you noticed or can you tell us how the marketing started and how it has changed until now? Because five years ago, I believe, we didn't have AI to help us out with everything, and it was a whole different story. So how does that look in the past versus the present?
00:04:38 · Philipp Blankenagel
[00:04:38] S0: Yeah, a 100%. I think when we started out as a new startup, but especially as a fintech, you need to work on one thing, and that's, you know, brand positioning and and via that, build trust. Because, you know, especially the... If you're a newcomer, you're really lacking trust. And if people want to trust you in the fintech and the financial space, then that's definitely the prerequisite. So I think that that hasn't changed over the years, to be honest. But how you build that, I think that has has changed a little bit. When we started out, we, you know, focused a lot of of... On communications, on PR. We had some really strong announcement. I think that really helped us building trust in the first place. But we also needed to kind of like build a category and kind of like work on demand creation, I think, in the first place. Because back then it wasn't really common for tech companies in Germany especially, but also in Europe, to use another financing instrument than than equities. So we kind of, like, needed to do a lot of education in the first place, why, as a founder, you should look at, you know, the full range of of financing instruments. I think that was that was really important in the first couple of years. And then over time, I think also the VC climate changed during that time. That really helped us in terms of education and we could move more into demand capture via all the kind of like, you know, typical demand capture channels. We set up, you know, different performance marketing channels, Google Ads. We went to conferences, sold the full range of marketing. And then of course, today we have a good amount of leads coming in, qualified leads coming in via AI systems, via chatbots, via LLMs. And I think the the groundwork we did in the past couple of years in terms of positioning, in terms of PR, in terms of content, really set us up for that. So I think again the the positioning part stayed the same over the years, but how you kind of like harvest the fruits of it, I think that changed quite a bit.
00:06:29 · Andres Figuera, Philipp Blankenagel
[00:06:29] S1: I understand. And are you guys positioned, and from my understanding, you must know this or not, is, are you positioned as a leader in the industry for the service that you're providing? Or do you have a lot of competitors that you really need to differentiate yourself from, and more so now in the day of AI that everything has AI ingrained in it? [00:06:46] S0: Yeah, no, I think, yeah, I would consider us one of the leaders for sure. There are like one or two competitors out there, but since again, fintech, it's a regulated industry usually, so there's a typical moat you would probably call it, which makes it a bit more difficult to enter the space. And so it's not that easy to just, you know, set up a new company and do exactly what we're kind of doing because a lot of kind of like regulatory work was flowing into it, lots of relationship building over time with different entities. So yeah, that gives you a bit of a moat and makes it more difficult for others to enter the space. [00:07:24] S1: No, I get that. And regarding, you mentioned at one point demand generation and that you're using AI to help you get leads, what is the best channel or the best way that you're seeing potential leads or better so, more qualified leads coming into the space of your funnel so that you're able to convert those to clients?