Fintech Leaders Richie Serna, CEO of Finix - The Key to Great Products, Fundraising Stories, Building a Payments Powerhouse
Richie Serna, CEO and Co-Founder of Finix, shares his journey from Southern California to shaping payment processing for e-commerce. He discusses the complex landscape of payments, emphasizing the need for customer-centric product development. Richie shares valuable fundraising lessons and the significance of building trustworthy partnerships in fintech. He also highlights challenges faced by Latino entrepreneurs and the potential of stable coins in the payments environment, showcasing how diverse leadership can drive innovation.
54:49
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
A Journey of Serendipity and Discovery
02:14 • 2min
Navigating the Payments Landscape
04:07 • 27min
Innovative Approaches in Fintech Fundraising
31:23 • 11min
The Evolving Role of Stable Coins in Payments
42:15 • 2min
Empowering Latino Entrepreneurs in Tech
44:10 • 9min
The Power of Checklists in High-Stakes Professions
53:06 • 2min
Trillion Dollar Coach
The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbell
Alan Eagle
Jonathan Rosenberg
Eric Schmidt
This book captures the leadership style and teachings of Bill Campbell, who played a crucial role in the growth of companies like Google, Apple, and Intuit.
Written by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle, the book is based on interviews with over eighty people who knew and loved Bill Campbell.
It outlines his principles on building trusting relationships, fostering personal growth, inspiring courage, and resolving tensions in fast-moving environments.
The book serves as a blueprint for business leaders and managers to create higher-performing and faster-moving cultures, teams, and companies.
Shoe Dog
Phil Knight
Shoe Dog is a memoir that chronicles the journey of Phil Knight as he builds Nike from its humble beginnings as Blue Ribbon Sports.
The book is a personal and detailed account of Knight's experiences, from his early days selling Japanese running shoes out of the trunk of his car to the global brand Nike is today.
It highlights his relentless work ethic, the challenges he faced, and the key relationships with his partners and employees that were crucial to the company's success.
The memoir also touches on Knight's personal life, including his family and the emotional struggles he encountered along the way.
Principles
Ray Dalio
In 'Principles: Life and Work', Ray Dalio shares the principles he has developed over his career that have helped him achieve success.
The book is divided into three sections: the first section explains how Dalio's principles were formed from his personal and professional experiences; the second section outlines life principles, such as embracing reality, being radically open-minded, and understanding the importance of pain and reflection in personal growth; and the third section focuses on work principles, including the use of radical truth and radical transparency to transform an organization.
Dalio advocates for systematizing decision-making into algorithms, learning from failures, and building a culture where it is okay to make mistakes but unacceptable not to learn from them.
The hard thing about hard things
building a business when there are no easy answers
Ben Horowitz
In this book, Ben Horowitz shares his personal and often humbling experiences in the tech industry to offer essential advice and practical wisdom.
He addresses various hard decisions and challenges that business leaders face, such as firing friends, managing company culture, handling layoffs, and making tough strategic decisions.
Horowitz emphasizes the importance of honesty, resilience, and adaptability in leadership, drawing from his experiences with companies like Loudcloud and Andreessen Horowitz.
Atomic Habits
James Clear
Atomic Habits by James Clear provides a practical and scientifically-backed guide to forming good habits and breaking bad ones.
The book introduces the Four Laws of Behavior Change: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying.
It also emphasizes the importance of small, incremental changes (atomic habits) that compound over time to produce significant results.
Clear discusses techniques such as habit stacking, optimizing the environment to support desired habits, and focusing on continuous improvement rather than goal fixation.
The book is filled with actionable strategies, real-life examples, and stories from various fields, making it a valuable resource for anyone seeking to improve their habits and achieve personal growth.
Born Standing Up
A Comic's Life
Steve Martin
In 'Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life', Steve Martin provides a detailed and candid account of his journey from his childhood to his rise as a stand-up comedian.
The book delves into his early jobs at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, his development as a magician and comedian, and the struggles and successes he faced in his career.
Martin also explores his strained relationship with his family, particularly his father, and how he eventually reconnected with them.
The memoir highlights the dedication, discipline, and originality that defined his career and explains why he chose to leave stand-up comedy in 1981 to pursue other creative ventures.
The book includes photographs and offers a unique insight into the life of one of the most iconic comedians of his time.
The Checklist Manifesto
How To Get Things Right
Atul Gawande
In 'The Checklist Manifesto', Atul Gawande explores the power of checklists in overcoming the complexities of modern professional work.
He argues that despite advanced training and technology, professionals often fail due to the sheer volume and complexity of knowledge.
Gawande illustrates how checklists, first introduced by the U.S.
Air Force, have been successfully adopted in various fields, including medicine, to reduce errors and improve outcomes.
He provides compelling examples, such as the reduction of fatalities in surgical procedures and the elimination of hospital infections, to demonstrate the effectiveness of checklists.
The book emphasizes the importance of balancing autonomy and control, empowering frontline workers, and continuously improving checklists based on feedback and experience.
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
Cal Newport
In this book, Cal Newport challenges the conventional wisdom that following one's passion is the key to career happiness.
Instead, he argues that passion often follows mastery and that developing valuable skills and expertise is essential for creating work you love.
Newport presents four rules: Don't follow your passion, Be so good they can't ignore you, Turn down a promotion, and Think small, act big.
He supports his arguments with case studies from various professionals who have found satisfaction in their careers through hard work and skill development.
Miguel Armaza interviews Richie Serna, CEO & Co-Founder of Finix, a US full-stack payment processor and infrastructure provider that processes billions of dollars a year for software platforms, marketplaces, retail, and e-commerce businesses.
Founded in 2015, Finix has raised over $135 million to date and is backed by ActOne Ventures, Homebrew, Bain Capital Ventures, Insight, Visa, AmEx, Inspired Capital, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Navigating the complex world of payments
- The fundamental reasons why building a large payments company takes a long time
- Some of their secret sauce to product development
- Fundraising lessons and a big anecdote… and a lot more!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
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