Modern Treasury: How to Move Quadrillions of Dollars, with Co-founder and CEO Dimitri Dadiomov
Aug 24, 2023
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Dimitri Dadiomov, Co-founder and CEO of Modern Treasury, discusses the challenges of moving quadrillions of dollars annually in the global banking system. He explores the importance of easy-to-use B2B products with broad use cases, the qualities of a good API business, and why building deep customer relationships across industries is vital. Dimitri also shares insights on finding market gaps, the depth of Modern Treasury's product, and the significance of going slow to go fast in business growth.
Modern Treasury aims to build software that serves as the operating system for money movements, enabling companies to connect to banks, track financial transactions, and reconcile their business activities.
Enterprise sales, rather than product-led growth, was necessary for success in the finance industry due to its complexity and regulatory nature.
Creating an intentional culture and encouraging desired qualities became vital for Modern Treasury's success as they expanded rapidly.
Deep dives
Building an Operating System for Money Movements
Modern Treasury aims to build software that serves as the operating system for money movements, enabling companies to connect to banks, track financial transactions, and reconcile their business activities.
Addressing the Complexity of Payment Operations
Modern Treasury's software simplifies payment operations for businesses that handle large volumes of money, replacing manual processes and offering API integration, dev portals, ledgers, compliance management, data warehousing, and reconciliation capabilities.
The Value of Enterprise Sales in the Finance Industry
Modern Treasury recognized that enterprise sales, rather than product-led growth, was necessary for success in the finance industry due to the complexity and regulatory nature of the field.
Securing Funding and Growing the Customer Base
Despite not having customers early on, Modern Treasury secured seed funding in 2018 and gradually acquired a diverse customer base representing various industries, paving the way for a successful Series A funding round in 2019 led by Benchmark.
Built-in Culture and Growth
Modern Treasury experienced significant growth in the months leading up to March 2020. During an offsite meeting shortly before the world went fully remote, the company discussed values, culture, and growth plans. This early focus on culture proved to be formative as the company expanded rapidly. They emphasized the importance of natural curiosity about businesses and sought to cultivate this mindset within the company. To foster a sense of shared interests and entertainment, Modern Treasury implemented regular coffee breaks featuring guest speakers who share interesting stories. Creating an intentional culture and encouraging desired qualities became vital for the company's success.
Navigating Challenges and Supporting Customers
Modern Treasury faced significant challenges during the period of bank failures in the early months of 2022. As many customers relied on banks affected by the failures, the company had to swiftly respond and assist its clients. They actively provided support, offering one-on-one Zoom calls and phone calls to address concerns. As a crisis unfolded, they provided objective and timely information through a status page that tracked the live status of banking systems. By leveraging their connectivity to different systems, they offered unique insights and guidance to affected customers. Modern Treasury's ability to help customers navigate this crisis solidified the importance of effective crisis communication and collaboration within the company.
Dimitri Dadiomov is the Co-founder and CEO of Modern Treasury, an operating system for the new era of payments. Dimitri and his co-founders Matt and Sam started the company in 2018 after running into the same problem working together at their previous startup. Modern Treasury has since raised over $183 million, supported by investors like YCombinator, Benchmark, Altimeter, Salesforce Ventures, Quiet Capital, WndrCo, TQ Ventures, and Edward Lando.
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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/how-to-move-quadrillions-of-dollars
In this episode, we discuss:
How the global banking system moves over $1 quadrillion per year
Why B2B products should be easy to use with broad use cases
What makes a good API business
Why the YC application is a great forcing function for founders
How it took them six months to get their first customer, but never pivoted
Why the first customers of a B2B business should get more credit
How PLG helped build a better product
Finding holes in the market for an initial go-to-market strategy
The depth of Modern Treasury’s product
Why they should have built a sales team sooner
How deep customer relationships across many industries helped them raise a Series A
Why it’s important to go slow to go fast
How Dimitri set an intentional culture around studying other businesses
When distribution can be more important than product
What happened inside Modern Treasury during the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank
Why Dimitri sends Saturday update emails to entire company
The founders Dimitri really admires
Where to find Dimitri:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dadiomov
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dadiomov/
Where to find Turner:
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/how-to-move-quadrillions-of-dollars
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