Ep. 244: Andrew Jamison - How Fintech is Streamlining Financial Processes

Welcome to Count Me In! Join your host Adam Larson as he dives into insightful conversations with industry experts. In this episode, Adam is joined by Andrew Jamison, CEO & Co-Founder of Extend, a Point72-backed fintech platform that enables virtual card and spend management capabilities for small businesses. They discuss how small to medium-sized businesses can leverage fintech solutions to reshape their financial landscape. Get ready to gain valuable insights and practical advice from Andrew as he shares his expertise in the field. Don't miss out on this engaging discussion that is sure to empower SMBs in embracing the latest technologies. Tune in for this informative episode!

Full Episode Transcript:
< Intro >

Adam:            Welcome back to another episode of Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson, and today we have a fantastic guest joining us, Andrew Jamison, CEO and co-founder of Extend. A fintech platform that enables virtual card and spend management capabilities for small businesses. 

We'll be exploring how small to medium-sized businesses can leverage these innovative solutions, to reshape the financial landscape. Andrew will share valuable insights on the importance of embracing fintech technologies and how they can drive efficiency and growth. From the power of data and open APIs to the role of big partners in mitigating risks. 

Andrew will guide us through the key factors and success stories of implementing fintech solutions. Plus, we'll explore the future of AI, and machine learning, and finance, and the skills finance professionals should cultivate for continued relevance. So, let's get started.

< Music >

Andrew, I'm so glad to have you on the Count Me In podcast, today. We're excited to have you here, and we're going to be talking about fintech, and different solutions, especially, in the realm of small to medium-sized businesses. To jump right in, how do you think that the fintech solutions are reshaping the financial landscape, especially for small and medium-sized businesses? And why is it crucial for them to embrace these technologies?

Andrew:         Look, I think we're continuing down a really exciting journey, actually. Where the prevalence of data, and the ability and accessibility of technology means that we're finding more and more verticalized solutions. Which helps on two fronts; one, on the one hand, it means if I'm very specific in the industry that I serve. I start to have a solution that actually talks to me, specifically, in my industry. 

And I think the ability for people to access that technology means that you now have more and more independent developers, who are exploring how these open APIs can be used, leveraged, and really brought together to create solutions that are increasingly targeted, at the different functions that we work in. So I think that crossroad we're there, and it's only going to explode from here, in my mind.

Adam:            It's definitely going to explode. You see the different technology is getting more and more accessible. But sometimes it's harder when you're in a small to medium-sized business. Sometimes you're an accounting department of one, or two, or three people, and it's harder to implement some different types of technology. What advice would you give to somebody trying to look into it, saying, "Hey, I want to jump into this, but I may not have the budget that bigger organizations have?"

Andrew:         Look, what I look at small companies, they want to do more with what they have. And they're trying to abstract away the complexity because, you're right, I look at our team, we're a team of 80-odd employees. And the reality is I have one VP of finance, and he's only just now gone and hired his right-hand person. And the reality is that they're jacks of all trade. They're AP, they're AR, they're essentially all your cash flow management, and they do all your recording, all in one. 

So if I sit down, specifically, with him, it's really all about seeing how they can leverage existing software for longer. How do you abstract away some of the challenges with some of the software that you might have, as you start growing as a business? How do you leverage other solutions, which are just embedded with those solutions, so that you don't have to go through a massive transformation? 

Well, I'll give you a great example, and that's Graham Stanton's Avise. His whole thesis is all about lots of businesses use QuickBooks, and then quickly you grow up, if you're a successful company. But do you really want to make the next step to the next enterprise solution? Which, actually, costs a disproportionate amount of money more, relative to the benefits that you're going to get from them in the early years.

So there's always that, healthy tension, but we're starting to see more and more people focus on the abstraction piece. Keep the ledger the way it is, and then just start adding solutions over the top that help me run my business more efficiently.

Adam:            I like that. Adapt it to what works for you, as opposed to maybe doing a whole ERP system that may be too much money or too much of a spend for you.

Andrew:         Yes, and, again, finance team of one, I came out of the exact polar opposite world. The first 10 years of my career were in deploying SAP. So right at the enterprise resource planning side of the equation, and just a completely different beast, in terms of the different types of people that you had to go and engage with. And also just the number of departments that you got to engage with. Therefore, the resources that were required, just to keep the engine running for that platform were just completely different.

Adam:            Now, we can't talk about moving to different technologies without talking about things like fraud, and just the risk there. And especially if you're a smaller department, or a partner of one, like in your case, there are two people. How do you protect against hackers or different things, different emerging threats, especially, in the fraud space, especially, if you're a medium-sized business?

Andrew:         Look, I think you have to rely on the bigger partners. You can work, certainly, to continue to enhance your solutions. But you do have to lean on some of the bigger partners. We lean on, certainly, on the AWS infrastructure to help us there because they have so much more money to plow into this. 

Now, obviously, they're a bigger target than we are. But they also have way more resources to help plug those gaps. So in our mind, it's also two things; one is it's not really about if, it's when, it's going to happen. And, then, it's really about how do you mitigate it in terms of relying on these partners. 

Now, clearly, cybersecurity, whether it's through an encryption or authentication. I think lot of work continues to be done there. And I think we all experience it, in the consumer world, which is mor...