Our Future Podcast
00:08:58 · Michael Sikand, Simran Sandhu
[00:08:58] S0: Right, right. I love so I mean, we've talked about this before. Yeah. Right? In software, you have to build a ton of different features to add value to really kind of own this very particular part of the business cycle with your software. If you look at Oracle and SAP, they do so much. I mean, there's a reason why Seamus became a millionaire at 23. Right? It's because he was training companies on how to use this ubiquitous software, Salesforce or HubSpot, that you would think would be, like, quite intuitive and easy to use. I mean, it's sales. Track your prospects and send them messages. But there's just so much that goes into this. There's actually just so much bloat with these big enterprise companies. I really like how Slope started with this beachhead market of the invoicing process and buy now, pay later. That's a really, really strong pain point for businesses. It focuses on a very the most integral part of the business, which is cash management and, you know, getting paid on time, right? [00:09:50] S1: Yeah. Yeah. [00:09:51] S0: So that's the most that's priority number one, right? So when I think about building software, I think of go for massive need priority number one, and then build in the other features to truly carve out a diversified platform that can have a greater market share in comparison to the giants.
00:10:06 · Simran Sandhu
[00:10:06] S1: You have to get the beachhead right, though. Right? It's the equivalent of, like, how important it is to pick the right market. Right? It's the same kind of thing. You have to pick the right problem to solve within the market. And I feel like you can really hurt yourself if you're not very intentional. Like when this is a big initiative, right? The ability to like be able to provide these terms, right? Let's say you're building a B2C style software of some kind, right? So you want to get single player right before you jump into multiplayer, right? And you start thinking about like, how can the team collaborate and use this function and all that stuff? Like get the first thing right before you move on to the other things. And I wish there was like a specific metric or like framework you could use to say, okay, now it's time to move on to the next thing. But I think that's kind of an innate feeling in the same way that like product market fit is. Like, you'll just know when you have it. Yeah. And like churn is starting to get lower. People aren't complaining about it as much. People are actually saying like, Wow, where were you guys ten years ago? I think when you start hearing those kinds of things, you know you've probably done a good job at what you started out with.
00:11:11 · Michael Sikand, Simran Sandhu
[00:11:11] S0: Yeah. The more I learn about business, the more I learn that communication and education are like the hardest parts of the game, right? Able to explain your offer to a sales prospect is very, very difficult to help them truly grasp what you're doing. And there's few industries that are more complex than technology and software, right? So being able to communicate this to business owners is difficult. And that's like what we've talked about, right? Like building niche software for specific kinds of businesses and tailoring towards their needs and making things super easy for them to make more money, right, and to improve their processes is I think where the money is getting made right now. You know, we're seeing a reversion away from one size fits all, right? We're seeing it across every category. We're seeing verticalization and a niche, niche, niche, niche, niche approach, right? Think about all the credit applications and products we've seen for specific kinds of businesses, whether it's our boys over at Yassine at that one company that offers credit to e commerce companies in particular. How about Carrot, specifically for the content creator market, right? So they've really understood this particular kind of customer that relies on hard inventory and needs to offload it and can't really afford to pay it upfront. So they found a pretty [00:12:26] S1: to me, though. Right? Like, this isn't a vertical play. It's any kind of b two b company is primed to use this platform. Would you would you agree with that?
00:12:26 · Simran Sandhu, Michael Sikand
[00:12:26] S1: to me, though. Right? Like, this isn't a vertical play. It's any kind of b two b company is primed to use this platform. Would you would you agree with that? [00:12:34] S0: Yeah. I... I'd say it's definitely more for physical goods companies as is what I see and what I've read about Slope, as opposed to services businesses like with an agency and that, you know, you'd probably, not be it's for actually buying something, right? So it's not like you're purchasing software through this platform. It's typically like physical goods. So I feel like in industries like that, people typically aren't as technologically advanced. The tech stack's a little bit more ancient, right? And it's very important to build kind of a platform that understands that customer's needs very intently. Not that they couldn't expand into more services. I mean, buy now, pay later could be used in any business. But I think in particular, it's for companies with very tight sales cycles dealing with physical inventory that needs to get offloaded and then paid for on the back end. [00:13:20] S1: That makes sense. Yeah. And it also makes me think of kind of those hybrid businesses too, which are tech enabled and they have a big software component. But at the end of the day, maybe their hardware is a bigger piece, right? Again, way more expensive, deep tech kind of plays. This could make a lot of sense for.
00:13:20 · Simran Sandhu, Michael Sikand
[00:13:20] S1: That makes sense. Yeah. And it also makes me think of kind of those hybrid businesses too, which are tech enabled and they have a big software component. But at the end of the day, maybe their hardware is a bigger piece, right? Again, way more expensive, deep tech kind of plays. This could make a lot of sense for. [00:13:36] S0: Yeah. I mean, I'm buying a robot, I mean, would be nice to pay later for it. Like, okay, dollars 100,000 for a little Boston Dynamics dog that's going to lift my packages. Yeah. Think about the productivity gains that could come with that, right? Yeah. Cut my payroll down.
00:13:36 · Michael Sikand, Simran Sandhu
[00:13:36] S0: Yeah. I mean, I'm buying a robot, I mean, would be nice to pay later for it. Like, okay, dollars 100,000 for a little Boston Dynamics dog that's going to lift my packages. Yeah. Think about the productivity gains that could come with that, right? Yeah. Cut my payroll down. [00:13:50] S1: There we go. Yeah. So definitely big kudos to Alice and Lawrence. I mean, you know, they raised another $30,000,000 this past September. It's a tough time to be raising that kind of money in this venture market. But I mean, again, they've got the who's who of this space on their cap table. So I mean, truly super impressive. And you don't typically hear people in their late 20s. I mean, would have started this three years ago. So that would have put them at 25, 26 years old, like very, very impressive. And I think they chose a great space and they're well positioned to take over. And so for the second business we are covering today, it is in the fintech space. Now, it started by these three guys, Gabriel Stengel, Tomas Rakitas and John Willett. They're in their mid-20s and they've raised $7,000,000 for this company called Rogo. And they've got big ambitions. They're trying to displace Bloomberg. What they're ultimately trying to do is help you have your own AI version of a personal research analyst. And so they're selling to banks. They're selling to hedge fund... Hedge funds. They're selling to private equity firms. And it's really cool. You and I had the chance to look at the behind the scenes version