The Fintech Blueprint

Lex chats with Padman Perumal, CEO of Masttro. Masttro is a privately-held FinTech company that delivers a truly global wealth technology ecosystem to wealth owners and their trusted advisors. In this episode, they discuss the differences between wealth management, private banking, brokerage and banking, as well as the challenges of providing a consumer-grade digital experience for wealth management. Masttro serves ultra-high net worth clients to manage their complex investments by aggregating data from over 500 financial institutions and providing efficient tools to do so. The platform utilizes a range of technologies from document ingestion to character recognition and pattern learning to handle unstructured data. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Masttro's website: https://bit.ly/41b8PdEPadman's LinkedIn profile: https://bit.ly/3KGPeLg Topics: Fintech, wealth management, advisory, investment management, family office, institutional capital, banking, Private Banking Companies: Masttro, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, UBS, Hamilton Lane, KKR ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’36”: Padman’s foundational experiences at Credit Suisse & J.P. Morgan, and how he found roles that touch transformation for these organizations 4’31”: The difference between wealth management, private banking, brokerage, and maybe banking generally, and what it’s like doing transformation at scale 11’15”: The failures of initiatives within big institutions from the outside vs the inside, and some examples 15’26”: Masttro - what it is, what it does, and where they are at the moment 21’31”: The core entities that Masttro connects to, and differentiation of business model to competitors 25’14”: The process of structuring unstructured data and how to indicate net worth over time 30’42”: Masttro’s business model both in terms of the immediate client and the end client, and what trends are Masttro noticing between different clients 36’47”: The impact and/or benefit of the proliferation of technology around asset classes 40’07”: Intergenerational Transfer - The trends supporting the transfer of wealth to people who expect different experiences 42’12”: The channels used to connect with Padman & learn more about Masttro Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex chats with Dave Balter about the complexities of building data products on the blockchain and the importance of understanding human relationships and reality when building startups. They also discuss Flipside Crypto – a platform that builds business intelligence via a suite of analytics tools that provide insights into user behaviors, developer activities, and financial health, to crypto organizations – and MetricsDAO – a community of Web3 data analysts who provide blockchain projects with on-demand data insights and tooling. Additionally, they touch on replacing Excel with ChatGPT and on-chain  smart contract data, and how to evaluate Web3 projects, as well as the future of how the value chain stacks on top of data and analytics to actually drive decisions and potentially drive automated decisions MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Flipside Crypto's website: https://bit.ly/3KhgCPTMetricDAO's website: https://bit.ly/3MqYOESDave's LinkedIn profile: https://bit.ly/43iT5qKDave's Twitter profile: https://bit.ly/3zE4rYv Topics: crypto, blockchain, analytics, data, AI, DAO, decentralized autonomous organizations Companies: MetricsDAO, Flipside, Flipside crypto, ChatGPT, Excel ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’23”: Dave’s foundational experiences & identifying some key threads that were formative to his experience 9’01”: The two elements that make startups difficult in general 13’22”: Flipside crypto: what it is, how it started, and how it all came together from a technical standpoint 16’46”: How difficult it is to collect high quality data in order to be successful and what the problems are along the way 22’43”: The importance of data and its supporting infrastructure is to Flipside and what the most repeatable use cases are in the market 26’01”: Segmenting out and positioning relative the competition such as: Coinmarketcap, Nansen, Messari, Glassnode, and Dune 28’30”: MetricsDAO: what it is, who is in it, and what the tokenomics are 32’06”: Replacing Excel with ChatGPT and on-chain  smart contract data, and how to evaluate Web3 projects 35’21”: The vectors of growth for the protocol and the DAO, and examples of   analytics that really made a difference 40’55”: The future of how the value chain stacks on top of data and analytics to actually drive decisions and potentially drive automated decisions 42’40”: The channels used to connect with Dave & learn more about Flipside crypto and MetricsDAO Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex chats with Christopher Goes, co-founder of Anoma and Cryptium Labs. Initially, they explore the current centralized monetary system, how it disconnects from physical changes, and the need for technology to evolve with the complexity of our financial systems. Following this, they deep dive into the differences between privacy-preserving and data-obscuring technology, and how privacy is important for citizens, governments, and communities. Ethereum, Cosmos, and Anoma have a shared vision, but their approaches to blockchains and assets differ. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Anoma's website: https://bit.ly/3K26vOJChristopher's Twitter profile: https://bit.ly/3nzD8vK Topics: Blockchain, crypto, security, privacy, protocol, zero knowledge proofs, control theory Companies: Anoma, Cryptium Labs, Heliax, Tendermint, Zchain, Namada, Ethereum, Bitcoin ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’15”: Christopher’s foundational experiences & an in-depth into the background he needed to participate into some of his early experiences 9’11”: Control Theory: what a thermostat, the Fed funds rate and EIP-1559's gas price adjustment mechanism have in common 12’06”: Christopher’s early startup and founder experiences & identifying what is good or valuable about privacy 25’02”: The multichain vision between Ethereum, Cosmos, and Anoma, & their community’s differing opinions on the role of blockchains 32’12”: Expanding Eliezer Yudkowsky’s analogy of a map vs reality to the various ways culture influences technology and vice versa 39’25”: Introducing Anoma: What it is, the problem it is trying to solve, and the potential outcomes derived from its success 42’26”: Integrating into the Anoma ecosystem: what is the process for developers and projects, and what are the incentives driving them to so do? 44’00”: The role of zero-knowledge proofs in the protocol 44'40”: The steps Anoma are taking to grow the ecosystem, and the channels used to connect with Christopher & learn more about Anoma Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex chats with Arno Castillo, founder and CEO of CrunchDAO. CrunchDAO is a research team of data scientists and quants that leverage the power of collective intelligence and Web3 to produce and sell next-generation predictive financial insights. In the discussion, Lex and Arnaud touch on decentralized asset management, data science, building portfolios, and web3 organizations. Arnaud shares his background in finance, including his experience working at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank, as well as his work in consulting and entrepreneurship. Arnaud explaines how CrunchDAO has developed a framework called the design framework to address the challenges of using machine learning in financial markets. The framework is designed to share their research and data sets with others in the industry, allowing for collaboration and feedback. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION CrunchDAO's website: https://bit.ly/3z60sDUArnaud's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/40cWrJS Topics: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, DAO, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Blockchain, Web3 Companies: CrunchDAO, Numerai, Lehman Brothers, Deutsche Bank ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’25”: Arnaud’s background in finance & experience working at Lehman Brothers and Deutsche Bank 5’06”: Learning the concept of Economic Value Add (EVA) and its connection to DAOs & DAO Networks 9’15”: What it means to be a DAO stakeholder & the agency issues around management in a corporation versus the public goods inside of a DAO 15’17”: The role of a CEO/Business Leader & how this changes when applied to a DAO   18’35”: Identifying business opportunities in fairly technical, difficult, innovative markets & immersion into the machine learning fintech space 23’42”: CrunchDAO: What it does, the problem it solves for, and the architecture of the technology involved relating to the user experience 28’40”: Comparison of CrunchDAO to Numerai (developer competition-based hedge fund) & the evolution of decentralized asset management in capital markets 36’22”: Machine learning challenges in financial markets & CrunchDAO’s framework for sharing their research and datasets 38'26”: Channels to use to connect with Arnaud & learn more about CrunchDAO Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex chats with Calvin Liu, the Chief Strategy Officer at EigenLayer, about his journey in investment banking, working for a financial regulations consulting firm, and transitioning to entrepreneurship. Calvin delves deep into the inner workings of EigenLayer, a restaking protocol for Ethereum, and the importance of focus, incentives, and integration in the crypto industry. Additionally, they discuss the early days of crypto lending protocol, Compound and working for Robert Leshner (Compound's founder), as well as, how this inspired working with purpose and immense focus. Calvin even touches on some exciting upcoming launches for EigenLayer. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION EigenLayer's website: https://bit.ly/3LxwS1xCalvin's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/40aGSSm Topics: staking, restaking, defi, cryptocurrency, blockchain, crypto lending, validators Companies: EigenLayer, Ethereum, Compound, Rocketpool, Lido, MakerDAO ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’29”: Calvin’s foundational experiences, how he got pulled into investment banking, and how he integrates philosophy into economics 7’21”: The journey of moving from investment banking to consulting and finally entrepreneurship 14’30”: Becoming a crypto enthusiast - joining DeFi lender Compound and how the company has evolved from its genesis value proposition 21’25”: Some of the “forks in the road” for Compound over these periods of evolution and how they were addressed 28’14”: EigenLayer - what it is, how does it work, what makes it unique, and what it means to stake and restake crypto 34’10”: What it is about Ethereum that makes staking so powerful in this network in particular 36’17”: The future evolution of EigenLayer and the influences of network upgrades like Ethereum’s Shanghai, as well as any other influential variables 38’53”: The tension between building the best and most secure protocol security vs creating speculative assets that generate quick returns 42’57”: Understanding the systemic risk in crypto networks and the possibility of cascading effects from network attacks 44'50”: Channels to use to connect with Calvin & learn more about EigenLayer Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex chats with Siddharth Batra, Co-founder at X1 Card, about his experience in technology and software development. X1 is a FinTech company that has created a smart credit card and has become one of the top 100 credit cards in the US with a waitlist of 600,000 people. Together, they discuss how Sid has articulated his consumer product building learnings from his experience as head of engineering at Twitter to revolutionise the traditional credit card into a B2C financial super app. Touching on X1's growth strategy and how it is focused on a consumer product approach rather than traditional marketing techniques. This has allowed them to have a 10x better referral rate than traditional credit cards. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION X1's website: https://bit.ly/3J9w404Sid's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ywr6Wh Topics: Fintech, paytech, artificial intelligence, consumer, credit, b2c, pfm Companies: X1, Twitter,  Venmo, Apple, Robinhood ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’36”: Sid’s foundational experiences in technology & what laid the groundwork for his career 8’49”: Using Stanford and network thereof as the launchpad to becoming a startup founder   11’52”: Joining Twitter and learning about consumer behaviour and consumer’s relationship with social media content 15’43”: How building consumer products at Twitter formed the basis for the articulation towards Fintech 17’13”: X1 - what it is, how it started, what is a smart card, what is the software that differentiates it from competitors and the volume growth since its inception 25’38”: X1’s feature set, issuing bank, its underlying regulatory structure, and the underwriting credit policy for users 29’02”: X1’s economics and the crucial component to X1’s success vs the likes of Apple Card   33’21”: The winning formula - creating a step function better product for X1’s prime audience and then offering rich feature sets   37’10”: X1’s long term ambitions and why they are positioned better relative to other Fintechs in the market 42’13”: Channels to use to connect with Sid & learn more about X1 Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Hristo Borisov, CEO and co-founder of Payhawk, a leader in B2B payments and expense management. Together, they discuss the evolution of product development, from mobile apps to platforms that solve customer problems. Touching on the 2017 trend of chatbots and the practical uses of this technology today via ChatGPT. Additionally, Hristo expands on the company he founded in 2018 - Payhawk, a Fintech company that automates financial functions for businesses, highlighting the importance of understanding customer problems and iterating solutions to validate and prototype them. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Payhawk's website: https://bit.ly/3ZjfCRMHristo's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ETjWiv Topics: fintech, payments, credit, ERP, SaaS, cloud, AI, platform, API, financial ecosystem, chatbots Companies: Payhawk, Telerik, Progress Software, DarwinAI, Progress NativeChat, Brex, Ramp, ChatGPT ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’28”: Hristo’s foundational experiences in technology  & how he became a founder 4’03”: Telerik - A successful launchpad for entrepreneurs & startups 7’47”: Building a platform vs building a point solution & building for developers (customer segment) 12’35”: Building a system that generates chatbots - the experience, the motivations, and the outcome 19’10”: Payhawk - the idea, the execution, the main functions, how much money they have raised and what it is used for 24’44”: Payhawk’s customers - the types of customer, the engagement strategy, the go-to-market strategy, and your evolved approach to developers 29’12”: The journey of evolving the product/feature set to becoming the financial ecosystem for the CFO 34’04”: The adjacency of the software product and the underlying financial product & thinking about growth from a global vs regional perspective 39’04”: Channels to use to connect with Hristo & Payhawk Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Kaito Cunningham, Co-founder and CEO of Utopia Labs, the modern system for managing contributor payments, expenses, and more for your DAO, supported by communities such as FWB, Sushiswap, and PleasrDao. Together, they touch on what a DAO really is and how the theoretical concept has evolved over time. The true benefits of transparency and verification have not been brought to fruition, and its Kaito's mission to do that with Utopia Labs, bringing true DAO tooling to the next generation of online labour. Lex and Kaito talk about the philosophy behind governance, voting, and community capitalism, as well as, how Utopia Labs have nurtured the journey of fundraising and leveraging the best value from their investors. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Utopia Labs' website: https://bit.ly/3lYVfdHKaito's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3ItjhFo Topics: Web3, Defi, blockchain, DAO, decentralized autonomous organizations, voting, governance Companies: Utopia Labs, Lido.fi, Metropolis, MakerDAO ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’18”: Kaito’s founder journey - entering the Web3 space and his learnings from failed startups and content creation on social media 6’07”: Finding Utopia Labs’ CTO on LinkedIn & how an interest in Web3 evolved to a focus in DAOs 9’38”: An intro to DAOs - What they are? How they differ? What they are for? and some compelling examples 17’19”: The concept of Liquid Labor in the context of DAOs & characterizing the last six months of governance structure evolution 26’51”: The future of governance - Breaking down the idea of voting driven by identity and the individual human and democracy rather than by financial holding 29’47”: Utopia Labs - The evolution of its purpose, Kaito’s journey to date, and who the main clients are that are utilizing Utopia Labs’ tools? 34’43”: The process of fundraising and financing the company to date & building relationships with investors 38’42”: Channels to use to connect with Kaito & learn more about Utopia Labs Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex interviews Michele Tucci, the Managing Director in North and Latin America and Chief Strategy Officer of CredoLab, the largest developer of bank-grade digital credit risk scorecards based on mobile device data. Together, they touch on digital banking, digital credit, as well as the intersection between financial services, telecoms, and technology more.   MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Credolab's website: https://bit.ly/2XBhDgkMichele's Linkedin profile: https://bit.ly/3KfeHwU Topics: Fintech, payments, alternative data, AI, artificial intelligence, behavioural modelling, credit risk, fraud, GDPR Companies: Credolab, Capital One, Mastercard, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, Trans Union ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 1’32”: Michele’s foundational experiences & the core proponent to his entrepreneurship 2’43”: The behavioural influences between credit cards in America vs Europe & the data landscape in the early 2000s 8’51”: The role of Mastercard in Michele’s journey & how issuers thought about the role of payment rails on the customer journey 16’19”: How data spoke to the human nuances around financial behaviour 20’48”: The evolution of how different players created financial networks in different geographies 24’09”: Credolab - the core problem it solves for & where it is today 32’50”: How Credolab uses pattern-recognition to develop user personas to inevitably inform risk profiles 36’53”: The development of extracting insights from digital footprints of users & how this results in sophisticated AI algorithms that banks compete for 39’54”: Channels to use to connect with Michele & learn more about Credolab Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.

Lex Sokolin continues his Build It Series, focusing on the differences between B2C and B2B strategies, and on the implementations of some foundational marketing principles. He discusses branding and the two ways of doing it right. Then he dives into the various programs that can be implemented to generate demand, from content, to social media, to paid acquisition. Finally, he touches on the importance of CAC and LTV, in particular during a year like 2023. MENTIONED IN THE CONVERSATION Fintech Blueprint's Website: https://bit.ly/3IcO9eqFintech Blueprint's Archive: https://bit.ly/3XlSGiX Topics: marketing, strategy, economics, fintech Companies: Betterment, Mint, FutureAdvisor, LendingClub, Coinbase, Softbank ABOUT THE FINTECH BLUEPRINT 🔥Subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint newsletter to stay at the forefront of Fintech and DeFi: https://bit.ly/3hyhlC2 🤝 Partner with Fintech Blueprint through sponsorships: https://bit.ly/3UZllsV 👉 Twitter: https://twitter.com/LexSokolin  TIMESTAMPS 2’04”: Recap of first edition - looking at markets and figuring out the shape of demand 3’12”: Why B2C Fintechs are one of the brightest signals of the transformation of the distribution of financial products 10’03”: Brand - why Brand matters in Fintech more so than ever before 20’04”: Marketing Programs - Building brands vs. quantitative marketing funnels 28’04”: Cost of Customer Acquisition and Lifetime Value - Blitzscaling vs organic growth 27’45”: Automation of the CFO stack vs Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) 37’50”: Conclusion - closing remarks & overview Disclaimer here — this newsletter does not provide investment advice and represents solely the views and opinions of FINTECH BLUEPRINT LTD.Contributors: Lex, Laurence, Matt, Farhad, Mike, DaniellaWant to discuss? Stop by our Discord and reach out here with questions.