The Exchanges

Q And then, best piece of advice ever given to you?

A Okay, so I couldn't narrow this down to, I just cannot narrow this down to one, so I'm gonna bucket it in, like, three, three things. Um, I'd say on the business side, um, Adam Nash at Wealthfront, um, said, you know, really smartly to build trust, to me, really smartly to build trust, um, not only into the dynamics of our product, but also really into the philosophy and the culture of, uh, my company, which I just thought was very insightful as opposed to, you know, getting up to 15, 20, a hundred people and then having to backtrack on that. Um, on the, on the team side, um, Josh Ellman at Greylock, um, gave me some really awesome advice on how to build a great team, and he said, um, that being a supportive teammate is more important than telling someone how you think they should do their work, um, which I just think is pretty brilliant way of phrasing, don't be a micromanager.

AI assessment note: “Josh Ellman at Greylock, um, gave me some really awesome advice”

Q And, and talking about the product then, and, and, um, particularly personalizing and customizing it, I mean, I think you've probably done that, well, definitely done that for your market. So what have you observed then when you look at the attention graph of the millennial market? We discussed there a bit the Facebook report, but the millennial market for the attention graph, what's that show?

A So as I mentioned before, we, we primarily serve our students and communicate with them over SMS and Snapchat. The reason being, and I'll kind of, I was doing a little bit of research and I caught your interview with Ellie Wheeler. Um, I think that was maybe last week or a few weeks ago, and I completely agree with her comment around push notifications and That they need to be smarter in order to give people the right service at the right time and in the right way. This is ultimately why we didn't first build a native app was because we couldn't customize communication to the extent that we really, really wanted to with this, with this audience. So we chose, um, we frankly chose the two most engaged means of Um, communication channels for students, SMS and Snapchat. The reason being is the attention graph is completely off the charts for students with these two platforms. Um, I'm not like sort of the first person to say this, but actually Gary Vaynerchuk at VaynerMedia actually just released a really awesome article yesterday, um, on Snapchat and the attention graph of Snapchat. Um, and in that he said that, which is sort of a common statistic, that 45% of Snapchat users are under the age of 25, and they're over There there's nearing about two hundred million users with about seven billion video views per day. So in terms of, you know, attention graph, this is where students ar…

AI assessment note: “attention graph is completely off the charts for students with these two platforms”

Q And it's interesting you said there about trust. And one of the main reasons for the, for the rise of the fintech revolution is the lack of trust in traditional financial services. Um, so, so where do you stand on this? Do you think there is a fundamental mismatch between the traditional old players of the financial industry and today's consumers?

A I mean, absolutely. Like without question. And I can speak, um, both from the consumer side In dealing with, um, sort of a very skeptical and fickle audience, the age demographic of 17 to 25, but also I worked in financial services, um, and, you know, I, I saw the other side of the table as well, but, um, but like I was saying before, I mean, I think trust is the entire game with consumer fintech right now. I'm certain, I mean, I'm personally certainly betting hard on it. We're starting our relationship with students in high school, um, to build long-term trust with them. Um, and the reason being is because, I mean, whether it's, you just ask a student or, you know, quote unquote millennial on the street, or you go into any of this study after study, it's that millennials, um, or students for us in that case, um, have no one that they can trust for financial guidance and, um, and that the millennial generation is ready for a new type of financial partner. And I take that directly from Facebook's insights. Um, Um, that they put together around how young people are dealing with money on Facebook. Um, another, another kind of ridiculous stat, in my opinion, is also from this Facebook, um, uh, research report, which I'm happy to send you, is that, um, eight percent of millennials trust banks, um, and financial institutions for guidance. Eight percent. Like, is that a, like, is that…

AI assessment note: “I mean, absolutely. Like without question.”

Q So I have to ask then, I mean, absolutely eight percent, it's embarrassingly low, but then I have to ask, how do you, as a new and emerging brand for the student and millennial sector, how do you build a brand loyalty and trust in your brand with this new emerging demographic?

A Yeah. So I think, I think that has this amazing question and we really think a lot about that. I think that trust really boils down to three things. So if you can build a product or a service that does one of these three things or all of them even better, that's kind of, you know, you're on your way to building that long-term trust. And we really are aiming to do that. And those three things are one, save users time, Two, save users money, and three, provide a customized and personalized experience in a reliable and consistent way. So, I mean, I draw that very much so from Uber as well. So, Uber sells time to people, um, and they, because of that, people have become completely dependent on them. They're reliable, they save, they're now starting at the point where they're starting to save users money, and it's, they've added on layers in terms of being customized, um, you know, whether you're setting music in the, your car, or you're being able to share with other people in a pool. To answer your point, it's really going after those three things, saving users time, saving users money. And providing a customized and personalized experience. So at the, at the core of that is, is all of those meeting students where they are and being incredibly empathetic to them. Um, which has a lot to do with how we have built our product, um, and the kind of core functionalities of it.

AI assessment note: “trust really boils down to three things. So if you can build a product”

Q I have, I have to ask them, being kind of platform dependent, not, not that you're solely one platform dependent, but you know, when we look at the likes of Meerkat, who struggled when, When they were taken off Twitter. Does it concern you that platforms potentially trend, and in five years time, Snapchat may not be where all millennials and teenagers are?

A Um, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there will one, I have absolutely no doubt that there will be another, you know, the, the next version of Snapchat will come along in five years, and a lot of that just has to do with how, um, how different age ranges, you know, catch on to new trends, and What I would say is we're not, we're not necessarily platform dependent. Um, ultimately, we are taking and engaging with, I mean, our core functionality is over SMS, but we're just making huge efforts, um, into, um, that initial outreach with students over Snapchat and providing initial immediate value over Snapchat. Um, but I would say that it's, we're not platform dependent for, we are learning from platforms. We're collecting more information from our users and From, um, these two platforms and aggregating that to have a holistic picture of them so that we can better serve them as they're going through, um, major financial decisions.

AI assessment note: “yeah, absolutely. I mean, there will one, I have absolutely no doubt”

Q And it's interesting you said there about trust. And one of the main reasons for the, for the rise of the fintech revolution is the lack of trust in traditional financial services. Um, so, so where do you stand on this? Do you think there is a fundamental mismatch between the traditional old players of the financial industry and today's consumers?

A I mean, absolutely. Like without question. And I can speak, um, both from the consumer side In dealing with, um, sort of a very skeptical and fickle audience, the age demographic of 17 to 25, but also I worked in financial services, um, and, you know, I, I saw the other side of the table as well, but, um, but like I was saying before, I mean, I think trust is the entire game with consumer fintech right now. I'm certain, I mean, I'm personally certainly betting hard on it. We're starting our relationship with students in high school, um, to build long-term trust with them. Um, and the reason being is because, I mean, whether it's, you just ask a student or, you know, quote unquote millennial on the street, or you go into any of this study after study, it's that millennials, um, or students for us in that case, um, have no one that they can trust for financial guidance and, um, and that the millennial generation is ready for a new type of financial partner. And I take that directly from Facebook's insights. Um, Um, that they put together around how young people are dealing with money on Facebook. Um, another, another kind of ridiculous stat, in my opinion, is also from this Facebook, um, uh, research report, which I'm happy to send you, is that, um, eight percent of millennials trust banks, um, and financial institutions for guidance. Eight percent. Like, is that a, like, is that…

AI assessment note: “I mean, absolutely. Like without question.”

Q So I have to ask then, I mean, absolutely eight percent, it's embarrassingly low, but then I have to ask, how do you, as a new and emerging brand for the student and millennial sector, how do you build a brand loyalty and trust in your brand with this new emerging demographic?

A Yeah. So I think, I think that has this amazing question and we really think a lot about that. I think that trust really boils down to three things. So if you can build a product or a service that does one of these three things or all of them even better, that's kind of, you know, you're on your way to building that long-term trust. And we really are aiming to do that. And those three things are one, save users time, Two, save users money, and three, provide a customized and personalized experience in a reliable and consistent way. So, I mean, I draw that very much so from Uber as well. So, Uber sells time to people, um, and they, because of that, people have become completely dependent on them. They're reliable, they save, they're now starting at the point where they're starting to save users money, and it's, they've added on layers in terms of being customized, um, you know, whether you're setting music in the, your car, or you're being able to share with other people in a pool. To answer your point, it's really going after those three things, saving users time, saving users money. And providing a customized and personalized experience. So at the, at the core of that is, is all of those meeting students where they are and being incredibly empathetic to them. Um, which has a lot to do with how we have built our product, um, and the kind of core functionalities of it.

AI assessment note: “I think that trust really boils down to three things... save users time”

Q a step back then, before we dive into the nitty gritty, I'd love to talk about the evolution of the fintech ecosystem as a whole now, and the developments that we've seen in this space. So, so let's talk about phase one, two to five years ago, and how that's evolved when comparing to the, to the massive consumer fintech landscape that dominates today. What is your thought on this?

A In my opinion, we're currently in the midst of a consumer financial revolution, and what I mean by that is we're in a transition from consumer fintech going from, you know, five years ago from financial organization to financial efficiency currently. So that transition from financial organization to financial efficiency is really what I think is an interesting time Um, currently, and I'm super excited to kind of be hopefully, you know, leading the way in that financial efficiency space. So what do I really mean by financial organization or this V one, um, stage of, um, consumer FinTech? I would say just think back to when Mint first came out, um, the innovation and technology there was really organizing money for a user to help them see their whole picture, their whole financial lives better with the hopes that Of a user being able to make their own decisions and act on that. And people went wild over this because the idea of organization to prompt financial action was like the killer app or at the, you know, they weren't app initially, but the killer thing. Um, and, and, but the really cool transition now, um, is that we're moving from people needing financial organization to people needing what I'm calling financial efficiency. And that has everything to do with time. So if you think about this in, I'm a very visual person. So if you think about this in like two columns, so V…

AI assessment note: “moving from people needing financial organization to people needing what I'm calling financial efficiency”

Q a step back then, before we dive into the nitty gritty, I'd love to talk about the evolution of the fintech ecosystem as a whole now, and the developments that we've seen in this space. So, so let's talk about phase one, two to five years ago, and how that's evolved when comparing to the, to the massive consumer fintech landscape that dominates today. What is your thought on this?

A In my opinion, we're currently in the midst of a consumer financial revolution, and what I mean by that is we're in a transition from consumer fintech going from, you know, five years ago from financial organization to financial efficiency currently. So that transition from financial organization to financial efficiency is really what I think is an interesting time Um, currently, and I'm super excited to kind of be hopefully, you know, leading the way in that financial efficiency space. So what do I really mean by financial organization or this V one, um, stage of, um, consumer FinTech? I would say just think back to when Mint first came out, um, the innovation and technology there was really organizing money for a user to help them see their whole picture, their whole financial lives better with the hopes that Of a user being able to make their own decisions and act on that. And people went wild over this because the idea of organization to prompt financial action was like the killer app or at the, you know, they weren't app initially, but the killer thing. Um, and, and, but the really cool transition now, um, is that we're moving from people needing financial organization to people needing what I'm calling financial efficiency. And that has everything to do with time. So if you think about this in, I'm a very visual person. So if you think about this in like two columns, so V…

AI assessment note: “transition from consumer fintech going from... financial organization to financial efficiency”

Q And, and talking about the product then, and, and, um, particularly personalizing and customizing it, I mean, I think you've probably done that, well, definitely done that for your market. So what have you observed then when you look at the attention graph of the millennial market? We discussed there a bit the Facebook report, but the millennial market for the attention graph, what's that show?

A So as I mentioned before, we, we primarily serve our students and communicate with them over SMS and Snapchat. The reason being, and I'll kind of, I was doing a little bit of research and I caught your interview with Ellie Wheeler. Um, I think that was maybe last week or a few weeks ago, and I completely agree with her comment around push notifications and That they need to be smarter in order to give people the right service at the right time and in the right way. This is ultimately why we didn't first build a native app was because we couldn't customize communication to the extent that we really, really wanted to with this, with this audience. So we chose, um, we frankly chose the two most engaged means of Um, communication channels for students, SMS and Snapchat. The reason being is the attention graph is completely off the charts for students with these two platforms. Um, I'm not like sort of the first person to say this, but actually Gary Vaynerchuk at VaynerMedia actually just released a really awesome article yesterday, um, on Snapchat and the attention graph of Snapchat. Um, and in that he said that, which is sort of a common statistic, that 45% of Snapchat users are under the age of 25, and they're over There there's nearing about two hundred million users with about seven billion video views per day. So in terms of, you know, attention graph, this is where students ar…

AI assessment note: “attention graph is completely off the charts for students with these two platforms”