Wharton FinTech Podcast

Miguel Armaza sits down with the amazing Kevin Busque, Founder and CEO of Guideline, a modern 401(k) provider for small businesses. Under Kevin’s leadership, Guideline has grown to be the retirement plan of choice for more than 20,000 small businesses, amassing more than $4 billion in assets under management and raising over $140 million in equity from top industry investors like Generation Investment, Tiger Global, Greyhound, Lerer Hippeau, Amex, Propel, Felicis, NEA, and many more. Kevin founded Guideline after seven years as a Co-Founder at TaskRabbit, another massively successful business that was acquired by IKEA in 2017. We also want to extend a special thank you to professor Adam Grant for his help in making this episode a reality, where we discuss: - Kevin’s background and how his upbringing led him down the entrepreneurial journey - Launching Guideline from a house garage and some of their early-day challenges - Navigating the pandemic and why they had no idea how it would affect their business (hint, they actually doubled in size) - The surprising effect of the pandemic on US retirement savings rates, increasing from 8% to 12% - Kevin’s philosophy around culture and why he does not like to take an active role in dictating a company culture - Valuable reflections for entrepreneurs and the importance of always doing the hard things first Kevin Busque Kevin is the founder and CEO of Guideline, a modern and affordable modern and affordable 401(k) for small businesses. Under Kevin’s leadership, Guideline has grown to be the retirement plan of choice for more than 20,000 small businesses, amassing more than $4 billion in assets under management. A World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, Fast Company named Guideline one of the World's Most Innovative Companies and Forbes named it to its Fintech 50—a ranking of the companies shaping the future of money—twice. Kevin founded Guideline after seven years at TaskRabbit, the online and mobile labor marketplace that he co-founded, which was acquired by IKEA in 2017. Kevin has been featured in Inc., the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and is a contributor for Entrepreneur Magazine. The son of an Army intelligence Sergeant, he grew up in several cities across North America and Europe, but considers himself a New Englander. He now lives in San Mateo, California. About Guideline Guideline launched in 2016 with a mission to create an honest, easy retirement platform that gives people confidence they'll have a retirement they can look forward to. Since its launch, Guideline has grown to support more than 20,000 small business clients, managing more than $4 billion in assets. Guideline handles the heavy lifting—from plan administration and employee onboarding, to compliance testing, government filing, and recordkeeping—to make small business owners’ jobs easier. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Ryan Zauk sits down with fintech investor & frequent Wharton Fintech collaborator, Michael Sidgmore! Michael is a Partner at Broadhaven Ventures, part of Broadhaven Capital Partners, a leading merchant bank focused on financial services. In addition to Broadhaven, Michael runs a media platform called Alt Goes Mainstream, as well as Community x Capital with Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian. These platforms focus on the emergence of alternative assets, 'culture assets,' investing, and the convergence of community & capital. Michael is ultra-deep in fintech, with years of experience as an investor, operator, advisor, angel, and more in this space. In today’s episode, they discuss: - The evolution of the Alts landscape over the last decade and the major trends that will drive it forward - His investment in and admiration for Republic and its CEO Ken Nguyen - The huge opportunity for wealth managers and alternative assets - The rise of the passion economy with products like sneakers, sports cards, and wine - His collaboration project with Mario Gabriele of the Generalist with Coinbase’s Direct Listing - and much more! Community X Capital: https://comxcap.transistor.fm/ Alt Goes Mainstream: https://altgoesmainstream.substack.com/ -- For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

Miguel Armaza sits down with Anna Irrera, Chief Correspondent at Reuters in London where she covers fintech and tech-related developments at some of the world’s largest financial institutions. In her role she works on stories at the intersection of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, including crypto, blockchain, peer-to-peer lending and online investing. In this episode, we discuss: - Anna’s journey and why she began covering Fintech before it was cool and mainstream - The exponential evolution of fintech over the last 10 years and why it’s increasingly more challenging to cover the space - Her editorial process and the steps she takes when deciding to write a story - The rise of crypto and why the audience loves reading about it - Noticeable differences of shifting bank cultures - Rise of global fintech - And a lot more! Anna Irrera Anna Irrera is a Chief Correspondent at Reuters in London where she covers the financial technology sector and technology related developments at some of the world’s largest financial institutions. In her role she works on stories on topics at the intersection of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, including cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology blockchain, peer-to-peer lending and online investing. Anna was previously team leader for financial companies coverage and fintech correspondent for Reuters based in in New York. She joined Reuters in 2016 having previously covered fintech for more than three years at Financial News, a Dow Jones newspaper in London, where she played a key role in the publication’s expanded fintech coverage. She joined Dow Jones in 2012 as an online reporter for Financial News, having moved to the UK from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she worked at Reuters’, English language international service. She holds M.S. degree (with honors) from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York and a graduate degree in law from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Miguel Armaza sits down with Ali Tamaseb, Partner at DCVC, a VC fund that backs teams applying deep tech to transform giant industries. Ali is also a published author, having recently authored Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups, a book that uses a data-driven approach to understand what really differentiates billion-dollar startups from the rest—revealing that nearly everything we thought was true about them is actually false. Ali Tamaseb began this project four years ago, trying to answer a single question: what was different, if anything, between startups that go on to become billion-dollar successes and those that raise VC funding but don’t succeed in that scale? Thousands of hours later, having manually collected 30,000+ data points, he was shocked with the result. The data rejected so many popular narratives that he decided to write a book based on the findings. In the process, Ali interviewed founders of many billion-dollar companies like Zoom, Instacart, GitHub, and Nest, as well as investors like Alfred Lin, Elad Gil, and Keith Rabois. Ali learned a great deal of lessons through this interviews and their stories were full of inspiration and a reminder that there are years of unnoticed ups and downs before every “overnight success”. Small successes are great preparations for much bigger outcomes in startup land. The book is full of profound lessons and inside stories from founders of some of the most successful companies in the industry and highly recommended for those interested in the ingredients of successful startups. Ali Tamaseb Ali brings the perspective of an entrepreneur and previous startup founder, as well as a highly technical academic researcher to DCVC. Ali has walked in the shoes of many of the scientist-turned-entrepreneurs that we back and has first-hand experience with the challenges they face. At DCVC, he works on a broad spectrum of areas ranging from computational health/bio to cybersecurity. More specifically, Ali likes to identify early-stage highly technical and defensible startups in diagnostics tools, neuro-technology, precision medicine, synthetic bio and bio-logic, disruptive healthcare models, financial technologies, alternative data, next-generation computing, cryptography and blockchain. Ali received a B.Eng. in Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College London and graduated from the SIGM program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He did research in the fields of neuroscience and human-computer interaction. Ali has 6 publications, including one book, holds a number of patents, and has won medals in national and international olympiads and innovation fairs. Ali was an honoree of the British Alumni Award, and Imperial College President’s Medal for Outstanding Achievement. Ali and his work has been featured in BBC, Guardian, Forbes, The Telegraph, and others. Ali has given talks and been on panels at major events and conferences including two TEDx talks. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Anirudh Singh sits down with Devie Mohan, CEO and Co-Founder of Burnmark. In this episode they discuss: - Founding Burnmark - The changing relationship between fintechs, incumbents, and regulators - Devie's time teach fintech courses - Devie's first book "The Financial Services Guide to Fintech" and plans for future publications - The future of fintech and why it may disappear And more! Devie Mohan: Devie Mohan is an influential writer, speaker, and commentator on fintech, and is the co-founder and CEO of Burnmark, a fintech research company, that supplies research and data to all players of the fintech ecosystem. Devie has helped several banks, fintech startups, innovation groups, and investors understand the trends in the fintech industry, helping them set their corporate, marketing, and investment strategies. She is also a proponent of a fintech ecosystem where banks and startups collaborate to drive innovation. She is a panel member on the ING Group Think Forward initiative on better financial decision-making. She is the author of “The Financial Services Guide to Fintech” and a columnist with several publications. She is actively involved in the fintech community and has been listed in the top 10 of several global fintech influencer lists. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/ WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Anirudh's Twitter: twitter.com/avsingh_24

Ryan Zauk sits down with none other than Harry Hurst, Co-Founder & CEO of Pipe. Harry Hurst is a serial entrepreneur who developed a passion for technology early in life, graduating high school age 12 studying Computer Science. Harry and Pipe Co-Founder Josh Mangel built their first company Skurt, a financial technology company in the mobility space. After four years, Skurt was successfully acquired by Fair in 2018. Pipe was founded in 2019, to unlock the largest untapped asset class in the world — revenue — to empower entrepreneurs and companies to grow their business on their terms without debt or dilution. Harry has raised over $150 million for his companies and is considered an industry expert on financial technology and emerging asset classes. He is also an angel investor and mentor to a number of companies. Pipe is unlocking revenue as an asset class, allowing founders to fund their businesses without the need to raise dilutive equity capital or restrictive debt, by trading their revenue streams on a 2-sided marketplace. Pipe has been an amazing success story of the pandemic, and just raised strategic equity from an all-star cast of investors including Siemens, The Raptor Group, Marc Benioff, Michael Dell, Shopify, HubSpot, 776, Slack, Republic, Chamath Palihapitya, and more. In today’s episode, they cover: - His journey to America and the allure of the American Dream - Raising $6M from David Sacks in just 13 minutes! - How Pipe really works and his vision for becoming the NASDAQ of revenue - A Wharton Fintech-exclusive product roadmap teaser - How Pipe’s incredible round came together - Hiring during COVID and his concept of MicroHubs And much more! Harry’s Guest Article on Wharton Fintech: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech/how-pipe-is-creating-revenue-as-an-asset-class-66d273001198 Secret Leaders: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes/from-living-on-benefits-to-the-american-dream-with-pipe-co-founder-harry-hurst -- For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

Miguel Armaza sits down with Coen Jonker, Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Tyme, a digital banking business operating in Africa and Southeast Asia. Tyme’s flagship project is TymeBank in South Africa, which was launched in February 2019 and has since grown to over three million customers just over two years. An incredible growth! In this episode, we discuss: - Coen’s background and why he’s always been interested in the transformative potential of business for economic inclusion - Idea behind TymeBank and why Coen and his co-founders decided to launch banking solutions for the unbanked in South Africa - Decision behind launching a hybrid banking model, integrating the digital bank into retail environments - Scaling to 3 million clients in 2+ years - Stories from a tough fundraising journey and how their largest shareholder come to be a group of ordinary citizens and community groups in South Africa - International expansion to Southeast Asia - Entrepreneurial lessons for founders in emerging markets - And a lot more! Coen Jonker Coen Jonker is the Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Tyme, a digital banking business operating in Africa and Asia. Tyme’s flagship project is TymeBank in South Africa. It was launched in February 2019 and has since grown to over three million customers making TymeBank one of the fastest growing neobanks worldwide. Coen began his career with Edward Nathan Corporate Law Advisers (now ENS) in 1996 and became its CEO in 2000. In that year, he also joined the Nedcor Investment Bank executive committee. In 2005, he left legal practice to join Standard Bank as Director of Community Banking. There he led a strategy to extend banking to underserved consumers, adding digital channels and more than a million additional customers to the bank. In 2011, he moved to Deloitte as a Partner in the strategy and innovation practice. In June 2012, Tyme was spun out of Deloitte as a new venture. The business was acquired by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in January 2015, after which Coen moved to Hong Kong to lead CBA’s digital initiatives across Asia. In 2017 he was appointed Group Executive at CBA, responsible for its international retail banking and insurance business. At the end of 2018 Coen partnered with African Rainbow Capital (ARC) to buy the Tyme business from CBA. He holds an MBA from GIBS and two law degrees with honours. He has held multiple Board positions, including eBank Namibia, Vietnam International Bank and PT Bank Commonwealth in Indonesia, which he chaired until December 2018. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

Miguel Armaza sits down with the legendary Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, an innovative digital investment platform built by women, for women, providing solutions for all stages of women's financial lives to help them invest more, save more, and earn more. Founded in 2015, Ellevest recently crossed over $1B in Assets Under Management, backed by some of the most impressive names in the industry, including PSP Partners, Khosla Ventures, Mastercard, Paypal, Allianz, Eric Schmidt, Max Levchin, and Mohamed El-Erian. Sallie is one of the highest-ranked women to have ever worked on Wall Street, is an influential writer and thinker, and without a doubt one of the most impressive people to join us on this podcast. We also want to extend a special thank you to professor Adam Grant for his help in making this episode a reality. We discuss: - Sallie’s storied career on wall street and how it felt to be publicly fired not one but two times, and the lessons she learned from these experiences - Inspiration behind Ellevest, and what she wished she knew before venturing into entrepreneurship - Overcoming cultural beliefs and other particular challenges of building an investment firm for women - The most meaningful moment from her time at Ellevest, and why it still gives her chills to think about it. - Why Sallie is concerned about the progress of gender diversity in the corporate world - Lessons for leaders and entrepreneurs and the importance of seeing problems where others don’t - And a whole lot more! Sallie Krawcheck Sallie Krawcheck is the Co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, an innovative digital investment platform designed to help women reach their financial goals. She is also Chair of Ellevate Network, a professional networking community whose mission is to advance women in business. She is one of the highest ranked women ever to have worked on Wall Street, having held posts such as CEO of Smith Barney, CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, and CFO of Citigroup. She is one of the most-read “Influencers” on LinkedIn, and has been profiled as one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People” in business, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, and more. Krawcheck attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds an MBA from Columbia University. About Ellevest Ellevest is a financial company built by women, for women, providing solutions for all stages of women's financial lives to help them invest more, save more, and earn more. Ellevest's offerings include digital investing tools, banking services, discounted access to professional coaching, and learning resources, as well private wealth management for high net worth clients who want a customized financial strategy that may include investing for impact. Ellevest has built a community of 3+ million Elle Raisers working toward financial equality. To learn more, check out ellevest.com. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

SPACs, SPACs, and more SPACs. It has been a SPAC mania over the last year, catapulting a fringe financial transaction to the front page of the Journal as hundreds of SPACs went public. Ryan Zauk sits down with Lee Einbinder, CEO of FinServ Acquisition Corp 1 and 2, and former Vice Chairman at Barclays. A long-time FIG and Fintech banker at Lehman and Barclays, Lee comes on the show to help demystify SPACs, what they do, and the advantages and concerns of them. They also dig into: - FinServ Acquisition Corp 1’s announced merger with Katapult - What Fintech was like in the late 90s (including a "baby" Elon Musk & Peter Thiel) - His retort to the Upstart CEO's critique of SPACs in our episode with him - The industry trends he’s most excited about in the coming year - And a rapid-fire round with a surprising answer about what students should do after graduating school in 2021. Katapult: https://katapult.com/ D&O Insurance: https://www.thehartford.com/management-liability-insurance/d-o-liability-insurance/explained For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

Ryan Zauk sits down with Rana Yared, Partner at Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s most storied venture capital firms. Rana is a former partner at Goldman Sachs, and helped lead the firm's principal strategic investments in the US and UK. She represented Goldman Sachs on the Boards of Tradeweb, NAV, Vestwell, New York Shipping Exchange, and Swapclear @ LCH. Rana joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2020, focusing on fintech investments. In today’s episode, they discuss: - Her long journey from Wharton to Goldman to Balderton, and a surprise stop for a masters in securities analysis (nukes and bombs, not stocks and bonds) - The secret sauce of Balderton, the Balderton Collective, and their fantastic track record - The two fintech verticals she’s most excited about - The 3 key things on her investor checklist and what is an immediate dealbreaker - Her investment in Unqork while at Goldman and Flywire while at Balderton - Why she’s so excited about Europe, Balderton’s new liquidity fund, and the massive “bridge” opportunity she sees - And a rapid-fire round including her best pastry, favorite restaurant in London, and her advice to founders. For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/