00:25:01 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:25:01] S2: Yeah. I think I think one one one thing I might just, you know, mention is, you know, for us, we're investing kind of from the earliest points of growth to pre IPO, and so, you know, of course, at different stages, we might be looking for slightly different things, But at the end of the day, I do think it just boils down to, you know, some of the core fundamentals. You know, founder and team, how strategic and large is the problem statement, why are we the unique solution, and importantly, what outcomes are we tangibly driving for our customers, what is the structural strength of the, you know, unit economics and the engagement, the retention, and I think really importantly, path to market leadership. And so we strongly believe that, you know, if you are able to become the market leader, it will enable you to capture disproportionate share of the value created. And, you know, of course, momentum, capital efficiency, all these things are really important, but these are ultimately outputs of all the things that, you know, I think we just discussed. And so I think those are the things that we think about. But I think one other thing I might mention is, you know, especially early on, you really want to... I think we've found a lot of success with companies that really do one core thing exceptionally well, better than anybody else in the market. But over time, of course, we want to see a path to win on multiproduct and, you know, building diversified revenue streams and building resilience in the business model. I think that's more about the path and the journey and the strategic high ground a company might have. But, you know, especially early on, I do think it's really I do think, you know, oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes, the focus is really critical in terms of doing one thing, you know, really better than anybody else and demonstrating that.
00:26:59 · Wesley Aster
[00:26:59] S1: That makes sense. And and perhaps you already just answered this this next question, but in your view, what separates the fintech companies that are able to successfully raise funding from those who struggle? Or perhaps another way to phrase that is you mentioned a bunch of traits that you look for. What do you think if if you were to put, like, yourself in the founder's seat for a moment, like, that successful founders are doing to get the... Those outcomes that might not be intuitive or that, you know, the typical target that's struggling might not be doing?
00:27:30 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:27:30] S2: Yeah. I think... Oh, it's a it's a... Let me think about that question. I mean, you know, it's... One, I would just caveat that it's hard to generalize, of course, across, you know, different different companies and founders, and I think everybody has a different thing that makes them so unique, you know, as a as a founder. You know, I think so so I think on the... And on the earlier stages, I might separate this a little bit. On the earlier stager... Stages, I do think, you know, in the end, it's really about the founder, it's about the early team, it's about the market opportunity, and kind of the unique insight that they have in terms of the product that they're delivering at the end of the day. As a business kind of gets into growth, I think the thing that I would add on top of that is, you know, in the end, you know, in terms of what delivers, you know, great outcomes long term and, you know, shareholder value long term, growth is still the most correlated attribute that's... To long term value. And let me let me answer this differently. So I think growth is the most correlated metric to long term value, but the growth, and this might sound obvious, has to be valuable and accretive, which means that it really has to be paired with sound unit economics. And I do think, you know, fantastic founders that I've had the fortune to work with are really able to illustrate and demonstrate that, you know, the incremental dollar that they're investing is truly high ROI and high ROE, and that they're able to, you know, grow as fast as optimal by reinvesting capital at a pace that's optimal. And, you know, I think that is really dependent on their ability to truly understand their business at a very granular level and understand how to balance, you know, growth and growth and profitability at the end of the day.
00:29:28 · Sabrina Fathi
[00:29:28] S0: That's really interesting you actually say that. I don't know if Fathi's in this class, but we're currently in a scaling operations class where we learn... Pretty much, it's like a dug in that we need to always look at a return on investment capital tree and basically build it from the very ground up, the unit economics, before looking at any company. So it's it's really interesting to hear you say that because that's pretty much all we we work on in that class. So...
00:29:50 · Yoonkee Sull
[00:29:50] S2: Yeah. I I think I think one thing I'll mention about unit economics though is you you you wanna make sure that the unit economics are structurally sound, but especially in FinTech, sometimes it can take a little bit of time to get to that place because, you know, let's say you're a credit business, and the reality is for the first year, you have to take some losses to build your credit underwriting engine. That's okay. That's very, you know, that makes a ton of sense. And the decision you might be making is though, while we're doing that, we just want to be moderate in terms of our growth because it's really important for us to create the right credit box for us to scale on top of. And so I think also making sure that you... We can see eye to eye in terms of like, okay, hey, these are the steady state unity canaries that we know we can get to through these different cost initiatives at scale. These are the things that we're willing to take on in terms of whether it be losses or risk or other things today in order to get to that place, and having a very clear path to get to that level, I think is, I think there is... I think we all appreciate that every company is on a journey to scaling unit economics and just making sure that there's a sound path there, and illustrating that is a is a really important aspect of aspect of this.
00:31:15 · Sabrina Fathi
[00:31:15] S0: A 100%. That that makes sense, kind of like balancing that path to profitability with perhaps some of the losses you might incur in the beginning stages. Very cool. To switch it up a little bit, we're actually gonna be focusing a bit more on the socioeconomic impact of financial innovation. So as we know, promises to democratize financial access, but in many innovations still primarily serve already well off consumers. How can FinTechs ensure that they're driving true financial inclusion across the board?