Scouting for Growth

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Cyrille Godinot, an industry titan whose career spans over 32 years across Marketing, Sales, Business Development, and Service Operations. Currently, Cyrille is contributing to the tech powerhouse, Schneider Electric, where he has spent nearly 11 years. His significant role involves developing solutions and services, directly impacting the digital transformation of the electronic, insurance and Inspection ecosystems. His responsibility also lies in leading marketing deployment activities towards strategic accounts to leverage Schneider's EcoStruxure IoT solutions, ensuring they provide safe, efficient, available, and cyber secure electrical infrastructures. On this episode they discuss: Cyrille's illustrious career, his insights into evolving market trends, especially regarding the adoption of new technologies and the influence of digital transformation and IoT on the B2B services sector, Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure IoT solutions and understand Cyrille's vision for the future of the industry. KEY TAKEAWAYS I’ve been boots on the ground directly with customers, I’ve been involved with service operations, and I came to realise that the best way you can build a long-term relationship with customers is by delivering their expectations. You need to listen a lot, that’s how I moved into marketing. When you are going through digital transformation you have to consider all the impact that it raises. If you start from historical products, they now need to have sensors and must be able to communicate with an upper layer that understands the sensors. You have to agree on a data model to collect the data, how that data is represented. Then you need to define how you’re going to leverage that data and build value for asset management, performance, sustainability, safety, availability, all the value you want to bring for your customer. Transformation is very much about aligning everybody according to one structure of having the right data coming to the right place. At the same time, our partner’s ecosystems need to evolve to tackle the new complexity of digitisation. One of the big challenges right now is the unification of the data model. Electrical current could be measured in amps, miliamps or kiloamps. Which unit you use may change depending on the device, so at some level you need to be able to represent the same data with exactly the same thing otherwise it will be confusing when you go to analytics to compare them. Ecostruxure is opening opportunities in leveraging data from new business models. In this we see a tree domain that is very interesting related to risk management and insurance. When you collect a lot of data on a property you’re going to have something that is a proxy of telematics in car insurance. This could be used for risk prevention, underwriting scoring, looking at track records about claims and operations, most of that will be leveraged by anyone that has a use case for that data, to improve the relationship with the end client for example where messages can be sent when a discrepancy arises to alert them. I could leverage that data myself and build analytics and only propose a risk score for example. Another model is how to bridge a product to embedded insurance which will enable us to consider new services that we can build in partnership with risk management companies. BEST MOMENTS‘In the digitisation transformation that we’re all going through there is a huge opportunity to create a new business model to disrupt the existing one and it all starts with collecting data.’"We're coming from an industry where historically competitors were not in a mode of aligning and each one had their own model, but at the end of the day current remains a current and being able to express a unit that is understandable is inevitable.’‘It starts with risk prevention. Because we collect data continuously, we are able to provide alarms. This is most of the value, how it differentiates. Live data can give immediate reaction for the site manager and the insurance can be aware of the situation so that they can take action and mitigate.’ ABOUT THE GUESTCyrille Godinot has been in Marketing, Sales & Business Development and Service Operations since 1994 in various Industries and successfully achieved fast growth across Europe, Asia and USA. Specialties: Business Development, Strategic Marketing, Partnerships, Deal Closing; Offer Creation, Digitization, Photovoltaic s, O&M Services, Sales Management, Outsourcing, Maintenance, B2B Service Operations, Spare PartsCyrille leads marketing deployment activities towards strategic accounts to leverage EcoStruxure IoT solutions and provide them with safe, efficient, available and cyber secure Electrical infrastructures.Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyrillegodinot/ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: podcast@sabinevdl.comWebsite: www.sabinevdl.com

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Stephen Lathrope, a seasoned executive and proven business leader who has worked as a partner, CEO, and executive director, of private equity-backed financial services and technology businesses. Stephen has also lead large teams within a very well known consulting firm. Today Stephen leads the insurance practice at ICEYE, a geospatial data provider to the insurance and government sector. According to a report produced by MarketsandMarkets, the global geospatial analytics market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 12.2% from $68 billion dollars in 2022 to $120 billion dollars by 2027. One of the main drivers is the increasing demand for location-based services across various industries, including transportation, construction, and agriculture but also for urban planning and management, disaster response, and environmental monitoring. Over the course of the podcast, they explore what is geospatial data used for? How does geospatial inform the future underwriting and claims? Deep dive into examples as to where geospatial data is best used, and Stephen to give us some advice for insurance companies looking to incorporate geospatial data into their underwriting and claims processes. KEY TAKEAWAYS          ICEYE has been around since 2014 as an organisation that is one of the growth ion new space technologies. The founders miniaturised synthetic aperture radar technology and were able to put them onto miniaturised satellites. The first use case for that for monitoring ice flows in the northern seas for freight planning, hence the ‘ICE’ part of ICEYE. What it does today is build and operate its own constellation of radar-enabled satellites, and for insurance we use those to observe hazard and damage related to natural catastrophe and we can also monitor assets on the ground. We can measure very small movements in vehicles, buildings, the surface of the Earth. The opportunities around catastrophe events like that for insurers are really significant. What we can do with new technology is provide a much more rapid insight into where the water is and where the high-water mark has been very quickly within an event. We can provide our customers with an initial view of where the water is within a few hours, we provide a very detailed reports of flood depth and the depth of water with a very useful degree of accuracy. Our customers associate that with the perimeter of individual buildings and that enables them to very quickly identify which of their customers need assistance most urgently, how much water is likely to be around a property causing how much damage and where to allocate resources on the ground. The kind of data we provide is used to size the overall cost of an event and the individual potential damage cost associated with individual buildings. One of the very common challenges that we have to work through with our customers is to ask “do you really know where the properties that you’re insuring are?” It’s a factor just how often we can say the water is at 1 metre depth at a particular latitude and longitude and the insurer is trying to work out where that is relative to the properties that they know they have that are affected by the event.   BEST MOMENTS ‘ICEYE is bringing wholly new technology to bear in an industry that has got loads of opportunity to do things differently and better for customers and stakeholders using the insights that we can provide from space and with data and analytics.’‘The majority of what we’re doing in insurance, and with government, is around natural catastrophe: response, and near-term preparation for events that look like they’re about to happen.’‘There’s only going to be more frequent, more severe flooding. As we speak there’s a fairly major even happening in Mississippi which we’re capturing images of from our satellites and reporting upon right now.’‘We’ve just launched our beta for insurance and wildfire that’s similar. Again, the ability of the radar to see through smoke, cloud, day or night and report while the fire’s still burning means insurers can have data that’s really detailed, really rapidly.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Stephen Lathrope is a proven technology / financial services business leader with 10 years’ experience in CEO and executive director roles on boards of Private Equity backed, international financial services / technology businesses, and 20 years’ experience in business and technology consulting. Sales / growth specialist, with track record of delivering sales-driven growth in software / services across UK and international markets. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-lathrope-8128046/ About ICEYE ICEYE is a Finnish microsatellite manufacturer. ICEYE was founded in 2014 as a spin-off of Aalto University's University Radio Technology Department, and is based in Espoo. Website: https://www.iceye.com/ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com Website: www.sabinevdl.com  

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Gary Garth, an experienced entrepreneur and the author of ‘The Zero to 100 Million Sales Blueprint’, a book targeting the entrepreneur that wants to scale their business with a replicable, reusable and scalable sales methodology. On this episode, the pair discuss how Gary found himself living in Medellín, Colombia, developing the Zero to 100 Million Sales Blueprint, what is Elev8 Media and when did he realise that work pressure may lead to addiction and mental health issues, and Gary’s tips for sustainable growth. Make sure you listen until the end of the episode because Gary has a very nice surprise for you all! KEY TAKEAWAYS          I exited a very successful business in 2020 but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So, I took a sabbatical year where I travelled around the world trying everything from plant medicine to figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to do something different and make a lager impact. Columbia had always been on my mind and Medellín had a vision of becoming the Silicon Valley of Latin America. So, I went to check it out and now I’m all in with several offices, an incubator, an accelerator, a marketing agency and some real estate investments. This is home now. I’m the Viking of Medellín. It’s a hard journey. A lot of entrepreneurs have this fantasy vision of what it takes and 8 out of 10 cease to exist into year two and only one of those entrepreneurs makes it beyond $1 million in annual recurrent revenue. What’s shocking is that most of those that become successful is that they experience burnout. When you dive into a venture like that you have to be prepared mentally, physically, spiritually for what’s ahead; the adversity and how to overcome that. A lot of companies that pitch to me often have ground-breaking concepts, great ideas and they have prepared everything and anything you can consider, they’ve almost gone into analysis paralysis in terms of how the product should be shaped and so forth. But sales is left to the end of the equation. I ask what’s your estimated cost of acquisition, what’s the total addressable market, how are you going to penetrate that, who are your competitors, how are you going to differentiate from them? They don’t have the answers to any of those questions. I’m giving back through my book where I talk about training thousands of reps over my career, over 200 re-sellers in a previous project, I’ve worked closely with Google’s and Microsoft’s sales teams, so I’ve been able to see what patterns occur, what works and doesn’t work, and what it takes for folks to sell and create a true revenue machine. I’ve also created a planner to combat burnout where you can focus on gratitude, set goals, build habits and all the tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years.   BEST MOMENTS ‘There’s all these social media tips and hacks on how to be the next Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but it’s 16-hour days, there’s no short cut.’‘To be successful you need to put sales and revenue first. If you don’t have cash you’re out of business.’‘Every entrepreneur has the desire to change and shape the world. The only way to do that is sustainability, to become profitable, that’s how you can grow, reinvest and expand.’‘Double down. Don’t back down. Things may seem uncertain and there’s a lot of scepticism in the market, but I think there’s a lot of opportunity. If you’re hesitant about launching, expanding to a new market, if you want to wait for x, y, z scenario changes don’t wait. Go for it.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Gary Garth is the Founder and CEO of Great Dane Ventures, Elev8 Media, and Accelerator Platform™. He also leverages his resources as a sales leader and angel investor, helping high-potential startups go-to-market, scale, and become profitable via 360 degrees sales and marketing support, incubator programs, advisory services and proprietary technology, engineered with the purpose of empowering entrepreneurs. He has been featured in Inc., Forbes, Success, and many other prominent publications. A serial entrepreneur since 2002, Gary has started and successfully exited six companies, including large outbound sales call centres, radio advertising networks, and an award-winning, eight-figure digital marketing agency. Born in Denmark, Gary now lives and works in Medellín, Colombia. You can discover Gary Garth here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garygarth/ About Elev8 ELEV8 is a Digital Marketing Agency and Growth Accelerator Program exclusively designed for the Addiction Treatment and Mental Health Center industry. ELEV8 solutions are engineered end-to-end with proven marketing and sales strategies, full transparency, and a meticulously data-driven ROI approach. With ELEV8’s solutions, clients drive admissions at a consistently profitable rate via 360 degrees digital marketing, sales enablement, CRM, and tech stack implementation. With newly founded offices in the heart of Medellín, Colombia, the ELEV8 team is composed of international A-players in the digital agency space, are all working towards one shared vision— to become the world-leading digital marketing agency for Addictions Treatment Centers. Download the book: The Zero to 100 Million Sales Blueprint Check out the site: https://elev8.io/ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com Website: www.sabinevdl.com  

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Amy Buchan Siegfried, an experienced founder, CEO, entrepreneur, investor, and speaker. Amy is the Co-Founder of Last Night’s Game, a platform that breaks down sports in an easy-to-understand way, through email and weekly podcasts. She also serves as the “on-air talent” and face for the company. From creation to execution, Amy has managed organisations and significant initiatives, including fundraising, marketing, program development, and community relations to empower others with ideas, information, mentorship experience, and resources. Sports Tech includes over 17,000 startups ventures 30% of which have raised $35 billion of VC funding with 11 active unicorns. Business models range from fantasy sports, eSports or Casino games to Fitness and Wellness tech often used in health insurance. On this episode the pair discuss Amy the investor, the entrepreneur and the women in tech, why Last Night's Game, niche markets yield success, the challenge and the opportunity for women entrepreneurs, and tips and best practices. KEY TAKEAWAYS I love to recognise the talent of those that are out there hustling trying to make things happen, and making those connections and making things happen for them. You want to support those who have the ideas, what’s 15-30 minutes of my time for somebody who’s trying to make their thing happen? Getting things started and taking the first step is the hardest part, if you can give that extra vote of confidence or ideas or connections, that can help them be successful. The ideas to differentiate yourself only come from talking to others because, when you’re the founder, you’re stuck in your own head and don’t see all those other things. Be a sounding board, be available. Last Night’s Game was set up about 20 years ago. I was working as an intern at the Arizona Diamondbacks MLB team and one of my girlfriends asked why certain things were happening and I thought she was really missing out on an opportunity to connect with her co-workers. We were working in a male-dominated industry and sports is a common language that allows you to level the playing field in the office. So, I thought about how to teach her about sports in an interesting way. My brother and I devised a way to make sports approachable so they could use it in day-to-day interactions, or dates, etc. But it took until 14 years later before we had the time to work on and launch it. I’m successful because of what I learned in the corporate world. It was a good structure for me. So often now the corporate world is depicted as the bad character in a movie, but it’s not, there’s a lot we can learn from it. You learn to work as a team in the corporate environment, you have to work in someone else’s structure, alongside personalities that are not like you. There’s still a way the corporate world can evolve, and we should all be evolving no matter how big your business is so that we don’t end up as a ‘has-been’ company that nobody wants to work with. The foundation of having relationships is still critical today. We’re more connected than ever but more removed than ever. How do we maximise and humanise that connection? Get out and meet people, build relationships. If you’re not comfortable being the people person, hire someone who is. It’s the same as building a team around you that isn’t like you, doesn’t think like you, doesn’t live on the same block as you. A diverse team brings a different perspective, and everyone has their different talents.  BEST MOMENTS‘Sports is like food: It’s a common language that we can all speak, everywhere you go has a national dish and a national sport and everyone’s really proud of that.’‘How are you making yourself different from everybody else? That is how you get funded, if you’re different that’s an excellent thing.’‘The biggest challenge in investing in businesses, from an angel investor viewpoint, is that everyone wants to be everything to all people. You can’t be, it’s not possible. Identify your target market.’‘Our whole goal is short and sweet. We all know we have information overload, but we crank out a lot of content.’ ABOUT THE GUESTAfter seeing how the ability to talk sports gave her the upper hand as a woman in business, Amy and her brother Scott created Last Night’s Game to give their friends the same advantage. Last Night’s Game empowers its readers to join the sports conversation, even if they don’t know the first thing about sports. Her career has included working for a Major League Baseball team and in other male-dominated industries. A third-generation entrepreneur, Amy once flew around the world in 58 hours and 37 minutes, has lived internationally and is a master of small talk, bringing people together and the handwritten note. You can often find this married lady working with the entrepreneurship community nationwide and teaching her toddler about sports, food and other things he’ll have to use to make small talk one day.Reach out to Amy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybsiegfried/ About Last night’s gameEmpowering you with the latest sports and pop culture news, so you never have to resort to talking about the weather. Last Night’s Game empowers its readers to join the sports conversation, even if they don’t know the first thing about sports. The conversation doesn’t have to be that painful. Having worked in the sports and corporate world, Amy knows how sports can level the playing field and how helpful it is to have a team behind you.  Last Night’s Game goal is to make it easier for you to stand out in the crowd.  Follow updates on the sports and pop culture world so you never have to be left talking about the weather.Discover: https://lastnightsgame.com/ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: podcast@sabinevdl.comWebsite: www.sabinevdl.com

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Chris Hutchinson, CEO of Canopy, a company on a mission to revolutionise renting and help people grow, both financially – by creating a better life for themselves – and easier financial resilience. As the CEO of Canopy, Chris is an optimistic result orientated senior leader with clear interest in building highly effective teams. During the course of the podcast, the pair discus how Chris moved from his CFO role to landing the top seat of Canopy, why financial resilience is such an important topic across markets, and the three most important takeaways from scaling a startup during an economic downturn. KEY TAKEAWAYS          It’s really important to have a background with numbers. Businesses are inherently all about delivering a product for your end customer. But, fundamentally a business isn’t going to be viable and successful unless it comes down ultimately to numbers. The other key thing to remember is that a lot of the finance people (CFOs, Finance Directors, Head of Finance) are often second in charge to a founder of a CEO prior to moving into the CEO position and as such have a much broader breadth of understanding of a company than most people in an organisation do before they take that hot seat. One of the things I absolutely love about the modern age of business is that it feels that we’ve really moved on from negotiation, win/lose economics, and being taught to get one over on the competition, even in a partnership scenario, into something which is far more prevalent like a win/win partnership solutions where you both benefit. I’m very good at seeing quickly which ideas are worth executing and then executing and delivering on it. I feel this is powerful because it’s a skill often overlooked in startups where vision is always seen as incredibly valuable and the passion of the founder is undoubtedly one of the most important things that gets it off the ground. Inherently, the reason most startups fail between seed and series A stages probably isn’t because they don’t have a great idea, it’s because they are unable to execute on that idea. Canopy is trying to shake up the rental industry in the UK initially, but then broadening to international expansion in the future. Essentially we’re a tech-driven company that improves the lives of letting agents and tenants by offering a solution that identifies the right tenant for the right property really quickly, really easily. We then help build a brighter future for those renters by building their financial health, resilience and trying to create an equal opportunity for them whatever their background and goals.   BEST MOMENTS ‘As you grow in your career in finance you have a relatively unique position where you’re involved in pretty much every area of the business while also sitting on top of big, key, strategic positions and decisions.’‘Are you building a team because they’re going to deliver for you and you’re going to demand everything of them and they’re going to need to meet those expectations, or are you hiring people who are really, really good at what they do and they have the expertise that you don’t have?’’70-90% of renters aspire to being a homeowner, but lots of them just want to enjoy their lives while living in a property, have a little bit more money in their pocket, to save up for a holiday/car/etc.’‘You can definitely do more with less. Whatever you think you can do, you can do more with the same amount or you can definitely do the same that you’re expecting to do now but with less. You’re spending too much money, you’re definitely doing stuff that you don’t need to do, you can optimise, you can cut down, focus prioritise and deliver more return on investment.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Chris Hutchinson: Results driven. People focussed. Eternally optimistic. Strategic senior leader with significant experience in the FMCG and Financial Service sectors. A proven track record of success across diverse roles in both Unilever and Bupa Global now driving start-ups through sustainable growth and funding. Worked Canopy. Advisor Startup CFO Started career with BUPA.   About Canopy We’re on a mission to revolutionise renting and help people grow, both financially and towards a better life. That means making things faster, easier and fairer for everyone – renters, agents and landlords alike. At the heart of our system is the RentPassport, a totally free digital profile that takes the hassle out of house moving. Renters can create a profile in minutes and use it every time they move, and agents and landlords can instantly pre-screen tenants – saving everyone’s time and cash and getting renters moving faster. We believe every new move is a chance to grow. That’s why we help renters grow their credit rating by tracking their rent payments – improving their financial wellbeing, one month at a time. It all adds up to a comprehensive profile that reassures landlords – and turns the house-moving slog into a stroll in the park. Want to join the movement? We’re growing fast and always looking out for the next bright spark to join the team. Check out our job listings below, or just drop us a message and say hi. Canopy, InsureStreet and Insure Street are trading names of InsureStreet Limited which is an appointed representative of Resolution Compliance Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 574048) to carry on insurance distribution activities. Website: https://www.canopy.rent/ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com Website: www.sabinevdl.com  

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks Sean Boyce, an expert product builder who helps companies, large and small, realise their vision when developing and owning world class SaaS products without needing to make all the mistakes that are typically made by most product companies. Sean has successfully scaled his own product companies including StaffGeek and Podcastchef. Today though NxtStep Sean helps B2B SaaS businesses to build the products that matter most for their target audiences. On this episode the pair discuss: FinTech trends, automation, and Chat GPT, market challenges and what is happening within current capital access needs, why it’s essential to democratise access to drive financial inclusion, and Sean will share some thoughts on how to build good SaaS-based B2B product offerings.   KEY TAKEAWAYS          I’ve always been involved with and fascinated by technology, both hardware and software, but I got very excited about the possibilities of software earlier on in my career, particularly automation. It has the possibility to out the people in the process in a better position to be able to leverage the technology and software to make incredible leaps forwards in progress. I worked in corporate and startups, building companies of my own in tech and finance. I like to spend time diving deep into industries, spending time with subject matter experts and better understanding from them the progress they’re trying to make and what’s holding them back from making that progress. Usually there’s a bottleneck in the process somewhere, and I look to try to figure out what is the fastest, most cost-effective way that I can leverage technology or put a strategy in place which enables them to make considerable progress in a shorter period of time, much more cost-effectively than however they’re trying to solve that problem today. Chat GPT is pretty remarkable and has made its way round the world relatively quickly since they released some of their latest updates. That’s really interesting in terms of what that product is capable of. I think we’re going to see a new ‘gold rush’ leveraging tools like that based on what people have been able to see it’s capable of in order to use as a tool, or a component to build other tools and resources for people to get a lot of value out of. One of the most revolutionary elements of Chat GPT is that it’s a leap forwards in progress in how we access information – or it’s going to be, as it get continually polished – as opposed to most people’s current strategy, which is to leverage a search engine like Google where I’m presented to a list of results after I ask my question, some of which may or may not get what I’m looking for based on how I asked the question and whether or not that information is out there and available yet. You have to update and evolve your strategy for innovating and investing in your company based on the implications of global changes are for your organisation. As money is no longer as accessible or cheap as it once was, fundraising and gaining access to the capital you might need to do what it is that you want will probably be a bit more difficult which raises the bar for who is going to receive capital and when, making competition more fierce. Try to make as much progress on your own with the resources you have, if you can. It will usually end up being advantageous in the future.   BEST MOMENTS ‘I’ve always looked to automate the time-consuming but error-prone elements of any processes that we might need to do so that people can leverage the technology in a better and more empowering way, so they can make considerable progress with a lot less resources much, much faster.’‘I’ve seen Chat GPT being used in everything from automating significant, time-consuming elements of content creation and copywriting all the way through to using it to write code for you to build applications and building blocks as opposed to writing anything in a customer fashion.’‘Whenever possible, making processes that are really important simpler ultimately makes them more effective.’‘.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Sean Boyce helps SaaS businesses realize your vision of owning a world-class software product WITHOUT needing to make all the mistakes that typically sink most product companies. Sean has already made those mistakes as he has successfully been able to scale his own product companies (staffgeek.com and podcastchef.com). Sean loves to received questions on how he can help founders and their products. Just email him at sean@nxtstep.ioor booking time to discuss whether it would make sense to work together using the link below. https://nxtstep.io/ ABOUT CONNECTIV Connectiv is a live events studio that for the past decade has dedicated itself to creating industry-leading gatherings. Our passion and our expertise are owning and operating at scale, vertical-specific conferences. The events we have created attract more than 15,000 people each year. In 2021 we will be bringing to market two new vertical shows including Manifest - the future of logistics. Where industry transformation is front and center, while the change in industries is inevitable what will never change is our mission to help facilitate face-to-face interactions. We believe the in-person experience is the best way to push conversations forward as well as discover disruptive trends that are changing content consumption and consumer behaviour. Website: https://connectiv.com/ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com Website: www.sabinevdl.com  

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Jay Weintraub. If there is a term that describes Jay over the past 15 years are the words "event entrepreneur. Jay transformed his early digital marketing domain expertise into an industry-leading event shaper.  Today, Jay’s portfolio consists of: Blueprint (real estate tech), Manifest (logistics tech), Medicarians (age tech), and Cumulus (agri / food tech). He has delivered four exits, and his passion for  thoughtfully connecting people – Connectiv – a portfolio of industry-defining events. While events are what the communities seek, Jay wants to serve unique experiences. He shares that success is not measured by the number of attendees or sponsors. Instead, the team at Connectiv judge ourselves by our impact on some of the world's largest, most complex, and necessary global industries.  On this episode the pair discuss: Jay’s main areas of interest post-InsureTech Connect, why industries? What purpose? How does Jay serve sectors by delivering highly engaging conference experience and meet face to face? What can we learn from cross-fertilizing learnings from attending other events from problem solving to collaboration. KEY TAKEAWAYS The beauty of an event is, oftentimes, you’re trying to capture a movement, you’re trying to find appoint in time where the world is changing and when that is. There’s so much uncertainty. Simply face-timing with the right people can add an immense amount of value. Is the movement in InsureTech about new product, new ways to underwrite, different ways to do claims, was it back to customer service or engagement? It could be everything. The question is: Which one is right for you? If we can find ways to make things predictable and repeatable we can do more and more scale-ably. That’s one of our goals. For a company like ours that convenes large scale events, the milestone is about how we touch more lives. For us, touch more lives is connecting more industries in the same way. There’s almost always some company that touches multiple verticals.  No one wants to be first, everyone wants to be first to be second. The hardest part about what we do is that, like everything else, scale matters. It’s really hard to get to a 7,000-10,000 person show starting off at a 300-500 person show. What makes the challenge is that everyone thinks it’s super scalable (like tech), in our type of business it’s not just about raising a ton of money, getting the biggest sales team with the biggest funnel, it’s not a single widget that you can scale across an infinitely large team. It’s about the one-on-one connections which is more akin to scouting, venturing or startup roles, there a lot of not-so-glamourous work: research and figuring out who’s is relevant.   BEST MOMENTS ‘One of the magic things about insurance is that it’s impossible to name something that insurance doesn’t touch.’‘We’re trying to get more connected as a whole.’‘Data itself is a commodity, you can buy a list of companies. But you’re not going to advance your company by buying that big list and trying to mail that big list. The only way you’re going to do it is by asking: “Is this person relevant?” It’s the personal outreach and understanding your goal.’‘Who do you want to be? Sometimes you have to accept you can’t be everything to everyone. The best companies do this, especially in insurance, there isn’t anyone who’s number one in every line of business.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Jay Weintraub: If there is a term called "event entrepreneur," that certainly best describes my last 15+ years. I transformed my early digital marketing domain expertise into an industry leading event. Four exits later, and my passion for thoughtful connecting forms the basis for Connectiv – a portfolio of industry defining events. While events are what the communities we serve experience, our success is not measured by the number of attendees or sponsors. Instead, we judge ourselves on the impact we make to some of the worlds largest, most complex, and necessary global industries.  Today, our portfolio consists of Blueprint (real estate tech), Manifest (logistics tech), Medicarians (age tech), and Cumulus (agri/food tech).  I have been fortunate enough to speak across the globe and am an investor in 60+ companies as well having been an advisor to a dozen more.  Should you wish to connect, feel free to email jay at connectiv.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayweintraub/  ABOUT CONNECTIV Connectiv is a live events studio that for the past decade has dedicated itself to creating industry-leading gatherings. Our passion and our expertise are owning and operating at scale, vertical-specific conferences.  The events we have created attract more than 15,000 people each year. In 2021 we will be bringing to market two new vertical shows including Manifest - the future of logistics. Where industry transformation is front and center, while the change in industries is inevitable what will never change is our mission to help facilitate face-to-face interactions. We believe the in-person experience is the best way to push conversations forward as well as discover disruptive trends that are changing content consumption and consumer behaviour. Website: https://connectiv.com/  ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: podcast@sabinevdl.com Website: www.sabinevdl.com

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Nathan Stuck, an award-winning leader in the B Corp community and the Founder & CEO of Profitable Purpose Consulting, a culture and impact consultancy that helps companies certify as B Corporations. He also founded and chairs B Local Georgia, a non-profit dedicated to growing the number of purpose-driven businesses in the Peach State. Nathan teaches an experiential MBA course on B Corps at the University of Georgia and serves on the board of B Academics, a non-profit committed to research and experiential B Corp learning opportunities around the world. As of March 2023, the latest available data indicates that there are over 6,435 B Corporations in over 159 industries and 88 countries worldwide. The number of certified B Corps are steadily increasing with the largest growing number in the US. 48% of all B Corps are publicly traded companies and B Corp employs half a million workers worldwide.On this episode the pair discuss: Why Nathan decided to focus his attention on B Corps, what does B Corp mean, why does B Corp movement matter, and what does it take to become a B Corp?KEY TAKEAWAYS I always knew I wanted to work in business since high school, later I got an international business degree. By 2012 my career was going pretty well but I went through two lay-offs in six months in 2013. Then I tried to figure out what I was going to do next in my early 30s. I was working gig jobs while waiting to start an MBa and saw a lot of other people doing the same while trying to raise families and there was no hope. It was eye-opening to see what capitalism had become. I discovered B Corp in the second year of my MBa and the sky opened, and the angels started singing, and I realised I’d found my business community of people who believed in using business as a force for good in society. I’d invested so much in myself: late nights, early mornings, things that I didn’t get paid for, but I paid in time, equity, tears, sweat. I was finally starting to see the reward and I decided it would make a good book. It had to sound like me, I make fun of myself and talk about the stupid things I’ve done in my life, jobs that I took, times when I failed miserably, stretching outside of my comfort zone not well. I didn’t want it to be like every other business book where “I’m the most successful human being ever born”, this is more: “I’m just like you, I’ve had a bunch of jobs that I didn’t like and here’s how to hopefully come out of all of that prepared for opportunities.” B Corps are for-profit businesses with a certification that is a lot like LEAN for a building – an outside non-profit comes in and looks at the business holistically: How transparent you are, your corporate governance, your workers, what kinds of benefits you offer, your pay multiplier from top to bottom paid employee, what leave you offer for parents and caregivers, your community impact, your environmental footprint, and your policies for your customers. It scores you out of 80 and validates that. As soon as Gen Z and Millennials found their voices they got together to say business as usual isn’t working for everybody.  They’re fed up with why things aren’t more equitable, why we’ve allowed the status quo to continue when the status quo doesn’t work, and how do we leverage the business community to solve some of  society’s biggest problems?  BEST MOMENTS‘It isn’t necessarily capitalism that’s evil, it’s what we’ve let it become. There’s a whole community of business leaders, owners, and changemakers that are trying to change the world through business.’‘It’s fun to see where you’ve come from, and what you’ve faced, and how you overcame it. A lot of times it’s those moments that unlock the opportunity to find happiness and your purpose in life.’‘Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.’‘I like Mondays so much that I start working on Sunday.’ ABOUT THE GUESTNathan is an award-winning leader in the B Corp community and the Founder & CEO of Profitable Purpose Consulting, a culture and impact consultancy that helps companies certify as B Corporations. He also founded and chairs B Local Georgia, a non-profit dedicated to growing the number of purpose-driven businesses in the Peach State.  He has appeared on multiple podcasts, spoken at events across the country, and hosts the Be the Change Georgia podcast.  His first book, Happy Monday: Designing Your Career with Purpose, came out earlier this year. Website: https://www.profitablepurposeconsulting.com/  ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: podcast@sabinevdl.comWebsite: www.sabinevdl.com

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Tunde Salako, an active entrepreneur within the Africa FinTech, HealthTech and InsurTech scene. Tunde wants to connect the dots between inclusion, insurance and technology In Africa. Tunde co-founded HealthTech startup, Hadiel, to drive more health inclusion in Africa and is also the managing partner of the Africa InsurTech Lab, a platform aggregating InsurTech entrepreneurs, startups, corporates, enthusiasts, investors sharing trends on how technology is reverse engineering insurance on the continent and between continents. Investment in the African startup ecosystem accelerated over the past two years with over $3 billion when investment opportunities fell for startups across Europe for instance. During their discussion, Sabine and Tunde dive into 1) FinTech and InsurTech in Africa, 2) opportunities and challenges faced by the local market, and 3) drivers behind the $3 billion of investment made within the African market over the past two years. KEY TAKEAWAYS My background was as a medic, I trained as a physician, and for the past 16-17 years I’ve been on the insurance side of the fence despite the fact I remained within the healthcare system as well. In 2019, I started to go deeper into the insurance ecosystem after more interest was being taken in Africa, but there was no documentation or platform pulling it all together. So, we decided to showcase this to the world and build confidence in relevant areas, so Africa is not left behind. 10-15 years ago, if you wanted to build a website, you had to pay a high cost. By 2017 that changed. Now, building a website is something that’s a walk in the park for everyone, and there is a surge of technology hubs around the whole of Africa (over 700 today), which are very bullish on teaching, coding, programming, and building local talent.  The international ecosystem is now looking into what is happening in Africa, particularly regarding FinTech. Despite the fact there was a slowdown globally, it took until quarter 3 of the year before we started to see that kind of slowing down in Africa because the investors and VC ecosystem are bullish about putting out investments into the local ecosystem. That translated financially into by the end of 2021, the total funding in Africa was about $4 billion, out of which about 55% of those funds were to the FinTech ecosystem, and in 2022 that figure rose to $4.8 billion, still with about 55% to FinTech. When you look at the next 3-7 years, we can churn out stellar innovation because of the technology that is now available in the insurance ecosystem. One of the things that is very clear is that now, with the major players in the industry and InsurTechs that are coming up with innovations, there are going to be more opportunities for partnerships and collaborations either by mergers and/or acquisitions. BEST MOMENTS‘Africa needs to be heard. There's a lot of things going on down here.’‘We want to put a spotlight on the growth and the capabilities that have been developed year-on-year in terms of technology on the continent of Africa.’‘We now have local talent that can build solutions that are amenable to our environment and the key problems affecting the African ecosystem.’‘Incumbents want to focus on how they reduce risk and how to provide value to the customer, while at the same time leaving the technology to the startups.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Tunde is the CEO of Hadiel, manages Africa InsurTech Lab and an advisory council member of Founders Factory Africa. You can find out more about Tunde below. Tunde Salako: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tundeosalako/Website: https://africainsurtechrising.com.ng/  ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: podcast@sabinevdl.comWebsite: www.sabinevdl.com

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Pablo Duarte and Hilario Itriago, founders of The LATAM InsurTech, a fast-growing insurance technology accelerator for startups wanting to enter the Latam market via Miami. Both Pablo and Hilario have been leading insurance innovation in LATAM for years. They both come from industry, and you will discover during our discussion that we are all in the fractional world of tech, where we split our time across those projects that matter most to us. For instance, alongside supporting The LATAM InsurTech, Pablo is also director, client engagement at Bain and Company, and Hilario is also the president at BOXX Insurance, a leading cybersecurity provider. During the podcast, they discuss the InsurTech ecosystem in LATAM, how they support the incumbent, broker, and startup worlds, InsurTech LATAM in numbers, and their InsurTech portfolio and opportunities across the LATAM market. KEY TAKEAWAYS The insurance space as we know it has a phenomenal opportunity with the transformation that technology brings to it. There's clearly a before and after technology that came into our world. That technology is now in the hands of consumers, and we believe that is a massive change. One of the critical things that we want to make sure happens in our markets is that more people get insurance. We're convinced that the more people get insurance coverage, the better their social and economic development will be. InsurTech can bring products closer to the everyday individual who can benefit from insurance coverage and do it straightforwardly and efficiently. This opportunity must be leveraged by both incumbents and InsurTechs alike – and they both can do so. As collaborative as insurance has been over the centuries, the opportunities of InsurTech are no different. We believe that incumbents and InsurTechs can collaborate across the entire value chain and that we can promote and try to influence that happening more and more, the better everybody's going to be, from the industry insiders to the consumers. The InsurTech sector in Latin America continues to be very active. Unlike what we’ve seen in other markets where valuations plummeted, we haven't seen an effect in the LATAM market. There are over 400 InsurTechs in LATAM. The growth rate is about 20% year-on-year, and about 6% of the companies die yearly (just like any venture ecosystem). Some of the fastest-growing markets are in Columbia and Brazil, with one-third of the market in Brazil. We saw the early days of InsurTechs focussing on personal distribution, that type of disruption which typically is the sexy aspect of where people want to go. But over the years, we’ve seen that more and more companies are tackling the commercial space – whether it's small commercial or more traditional, larger-scale commercial business. There's a great deal of opportunity in the sustainability aspect of the commercial insurance space. We're starting to see more and more opportunities there and, therefore, more and more InsurTechs. That's one of the angles that will make many of the economies in the region see more solutions and innovations in that space that could also be taken to other markets. BEST MOMENTS ‘I've been on this InsurTech journey since 2016. Back then InsurTech was just starting in Latin America, so there wasn’t much activity going on, and sometimes we even wondered if we made the right choice to get into InsurTech then!’‘Through InsurTech, we see greater customization and personalization of value propositions. That is key because traditionally, insurance has been very structured and hard to feed into customers' specific needs.’‘Argentina is a country that has been known for innovation way before FinTech and InsurTech, it's a very entrepreneurial country, and precisely because of the economic circumstances, they have a robust pipeline of solutions created and grown in Argentina but want to go elsewhere for growth.’‘In terms of smaller markets that punch above their weight, our first InsurTech unicorn comes from Chile. It's a great balance between large pipelines of InsurTechs coming from big markets and smaller quantities but tremendous quality coming from smaller markets.' ABOUT THE GUESTS Find out about our guest using those links.  Pablo Duarte: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duartepablo/ Hilario Itriago: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hitriago/InsurLab LATAM: https://www.latam-insurtech.com/ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: podcast@sabinevdl.comWebsite: www.sabinevdl.com