Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. Todays’s guest is Jemma Wolfe. She’s the head of Launch with GS, Goldman Sachs’ $500 million investment strategy in funding early stage companies built by diverse teams. Through Launch With GS, Goldman is trying to increase access to capital and facilitate connections for women, Black, Latinx and other diverse entrepreneurs and investors. Since its inception in June 2018, Launch With GS has deployed more than $230 million globally across businesses with diverse leadership. Joining Jemma is Jean Brownhill, founder and CEO of Sweeten, a home renovation marketplace and a participant in Launch with GS’ new Black and Latinx cohort.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. As fintech matures, many of the early pioneers in the space are realizing how important it is to become a user’s primary account. Wealthfront, which began as a robo-adviser, looks a lot like a bank nowadays. The company recently rolled out new checking account features. Chris Hutchins is the Head of Autonomous Financial Planning at Wealthfront. He joins us on the podcast to talk about his firm’s vision of Self-Driving Money and how the future of financial services will include more autonomous banking services. Chris was previously the co-founder and CEO of Grove, which was acquired by Wealthfront and co-founder of Milk, which was acquired by Google. Chris Hutchins is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller. Today’s guest is Jud Linville. Jud has decades of experience in financial services and payments, heading up Citi Cards and American Express’ consumer services. He’s now a senior advisor at investment firm General Atlantic. He joins us to discuss the threats and opportunities within financia l services and how fintech and Big Tech are competitively positioned to take marketshare. Jud Linville is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Suman Bhattacharyya. As merchants face new obstacles amid COVID-19 and shelter-in-place mandates, Square is working to smooth their transition to digital. Today’s guest is David Rusenko, Square’s head of e-commerce. Rusenko, who founded website builder Weebly in 2006, has been working with Square since 2018, when Weebly was acquired by Square for $365 million. Since then, Square integrated Weebly’s platform into its e-commerce platform for sellers, which was relaunched as Square Online Store last year. The Square Online Store product suite helps merchants manage online-to-offline business integrations. It lets them manage payments, inventory, delivery and other business tasks in one place. Square joins Shopify, Facebook and Amazon that are seeking to grow their e-commerce merchant businesses. Square is growing its e-commerce chops while other ecommerce platform providers improve their financial services offerings. David joins us to discuss how COVID-19 influenced Square Online Store’s product journey, seller behavior and the next chapter for Square’s ecommerce product ecosystem.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. Today’s guest is Theodora Lau, the founder of Unconventional Ventures. When you listen to her, Theo challenges the industry to do better. Instead of producing another colored metallic debit card, she’d like to see real financial innovation that helps the people hurting the most. The unemployed. The poor. The older demographic. We discuss the financial industry’s relationship with consumer wellbeing and where needs aren’t being met. Theo describes what would need to happen to improve financial outcomes. Lastly, we talk about AI and algorithms and the challenges they impose on us all. Theodora Lau is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. A few years back, and the term ‘crowdfunding’ was pretty popular in fintech circles. We do'n't really use that jargon anymore and many of the biggest players have naturally matured into digital wealth management platforms. YieldStreet is one of those platforms — since inception, investors have deployed over $1 billion in asset classes like real estate, art and legal finance, and commercial loans. Founder and president Michael Weisz joins me on the podcast to discuss broadly the impact Covid-19 is having on the adotpion of fintech and which sectors are positioned to emerge successfully from this crisis. We talk about the evolution of digital wealth management firms in a Zoom world. Michael Weisz is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller Launching a new firm in the face of this global crisis takes fortitude. Timing couldn’t be worse. Or could it? Demand for different types of digital payments is ramping. That’s the space Qolo (https://qolo.io/) plays in. A bit like Marqeta, a bit like Fiserv, the company was launched by a team with a lot of payments industry experience to be a next-generation B2B payments hub and* *the first all-in-one payments solution. CEO Patricia Montesi joins us on the podcast to talk about building and launching a payments firm in the midst of the Covid crisis and the challenges and opportunities presented by this time. We drill down into Qolo’s capabilities and she desribes how firms are using its API to bring payments in-house. Qolo is going global from its inception and Particia talks about the need to build cross-border capabilities. Patricia Montesi is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. There are so many fees in the credit card processing market. Fattmerchant, which started almost a decade ago, set out to simplify things with the market’s first subscription, all you can eat, pricing for merchants. As the firm has matured, it’s grown into an integrated payment technology provider that continues to simplify the payment experience for SMBs by bringing various payment technologies together via API. Now, Fattmerchant has introduced a new partership with Finix on a new product called Flex which further empowers software firms to start processing payments immediately within their platforms. Fattmerchant President Sal Rehmetullah joins on on the podcast to talk payments, the evolution of Fattmerchant, the new Flex product and where the payments market is headed in the future. Here’s my talk with Sal.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. Deposit Solutions has an open banking solution that connects customers and banks. Working in 20 European countries, the company has 30 million depositors on the platform with €25 billion in deposits. Now, Deposit Solutions is active in the U.S. We have Phillipp von Girsewald, Deposit Solution’s CEO in the US. on the podcast to talk about what challenges banks are most looking to solve. We talk about the US adoption of open architecture and how COVID-19 has generated a new perspective on how banks view and work with fintech partners. Philipp von Girsewald is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I’m Zack Miller. When you talk to the founders of many of the leading challenger banks, you sense that they each have a touch of revolutionary in them. They see the present financial services system as broken — some more, some less — and their firms are out to provide better options for the bulk of people out there. Stuart Sopp’s the CEO of Current. Growing up through the industry as a trader, Sopp made a decision midway through his career to leave his job as a trader and build a challenger bank that’s targeting Millennials and Gen Z with lower — or no — fees and early direct deposit. Current saw 200,000 new users in April and May during the height of the Corona crisis. The company has more than 1 million active accounts. Sopp joins us to talk about the genesis of Current and how it’s helping its target customers. In a crowded field, he describes how Current differentiates itself from the other offerings out there. Sopp tells us how he thinks he can double his userbase in 2020. Stuart Sopp is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.