Seed to Exit
Welcome to Seed to Exit, the ultimate podcast all about startups, scaling, and venture capital. Your host is Riece Keck: Startup veteran and recruitment entrepreneur.
Join us as we dive into the journeys of startup founders and venture capitalists who share their insights, successes, and lessons learned from seed stage to successful exit.
Each episode, we bring you candid conversations with startup founders, executives, and investors. Whether you're looking for inspiration, actionable advice, or a deeper understanding of the startup ecosystem, Seed to Exit offers invaluable knowledge and real-world experiences to help you on your entrepreneurial journey.
Tune in to Seed to Exit and get ready to be inspired, educated, and connected with the exciting and ever-changing world of startups and venture capital.
Seed to Exit
Nicky Senyard, CEO and Founder of Fintel Connect | Transforming Financial Services Entrepreneurship | Affiliate Marketing, Compliance, and Strategic Growth Insights
Unlock the secrets to successful entrepreneurship within the financial services sector as we feature Nicki Senyard, the trailblazing CEO and founder of Fintel Connect. Nicki offers her unique insights into transforming business pain points into strategic advantages, highlighting her expertise in affiliate marketing and her journey since 2002. Listen to how Fintel Connect is revolutionizing customer acquisition by bridging financial institutions with third-party publishers, emphasizing the essential role of compliance and trust-building in the industry.
Throughout our conversation, we explore the art of building scalable businesses through robust systems and documentation, essential for franchising success. Nicki shares her perspectives on the importance of creating processes that transcend individual personalities, enabling businesses to grow and adapt more efficiently. We discuss the significance of technology in streamlining operations and the necessity of continuously updating strategies to align with evolving market demands.
For entrepreneurs navigating the financial services landscape, Nicki delivers invaluable advice on strategic growth and shareholder value optimization. We discuss the timing and purpose of fundraising, the power of strategic partnerships, and the importance of non-organic growth opportunities. This episode is packed with practical insights for aspiring founders, focusing on planning for both triumphs and obstacles, and the transformative potential of digital advancements in financial services, particularly in CRM and data utilization. Make sure to tune in for a conversation full of gratitude and insightful takeaways.
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I'm a sort of like I'm a builder of businesses. That's where I really love to go. I love the problem solving. I love the sort of like being able to hear a client or a publisher because we've got a. You know, we were a marketplace business, so we've got two sides to the equation. I love actually hearing what their problems are and seeing what we can do systematically, structurally, you know, by focus and intent, be able to help them. Because my philosophy always has been, when you find a point of pain, if you can become the solution for that point of pain, you've got a real purpose for your business and you're not constantly reselling your value.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Seed to Exit. I'm your host, Rhys Keck, founder at MindHire, a recruitment firm that specializes in helping venture-backed startups find top technical talent. Today, I'm super excited to have Nikki Senyard on the show. Nikki is the CEO and founder of Fintel Connect and she's been a powerhouse in performance marketing for over 20 years. She's built and exited a SaaS marketing tech business and now leads Fintel Connect, where she's helping financial brands grow with smart, scalable marketing solutions. So today we're going to dive a little bit more into her entrepreneurial journey, how she's using digital marketing to drive results in the financial industry, and her thoughts on building and scaling a business.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening and let's get started hiring the right people and more Subscribe and listen in for new episodes and enjoy the show.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, nikki, welcome on, excited to have you.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so lots to get into today. You've had a super interesting career thus far. You've done some amazing things with Fintel Connect. I'm just curious, for those not familiar, what is Fintel Connect and what was your inspiration to start the company?
Speaker 1:I think, like most companies, it came because I stumbled across something that I thought I could do and that no one else was doing, like it normally happens. Fintel Connect is a scaling platform for financial services in the growth area. Now, that was a whole lot of words. What does it really mean? It means that we help financial institutions, banks, credit unions and fintechs get more customers online. That's what it means. So we sit, as a technology platform, between the banking product mortgage, credit card, high interest savings or the rest of it and these third-party publishers. And the third-party publishers are the nerd wallets, the bank rates, the credit commas, all of those you know Wall Street Journal that talk about financial services and where the technology that strip streamlines their growth element.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned that no one else was doing it, which sometimes is a good thing. Sometimes it's not. You know, it's nice to have that speed of first to market, but then oftentimes you know, when you're going into a blue ocean, then there's the business model.
Speaker 1:So let me actually let me be a little bit more specific on that. We're the first ones to do it in the financial services market.
Speaker 1:So, the fact is that there is a whole lot of generalist platforms out there that do exactly the same as us. Competitors are Impact Commission, Junction, Rakuten for people that are in the digital marketing space but what we've decided to do I'm a niche player. I love getting really deep into the niche because I think you create not only increased efficiency and utility, but you also can solve the real problems. So this is my second business in a niche area in this type of technology, which is called affiliate marketing, and other people are doing it. We didn't create the widget. We're just making the widget really, really streamlined for financial services.
Speaker 2:What are the complexities of doing this for a financial services business as opposed to other types of business verticals? I imagine compliance would probably be one component, anything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what the really interesting thing is is that in retail you've got things. Things like returns need to be taken into consideration. You don't have that in financial services. Compliance is a really big element, and as it should be. Those regulations are in place to protect people and we need to make sure that, either through knowledge, negligence or whatever else, those rules and regulations are being followed and followed properly.
Speaker 1:But again, what we've done in financial services is that it's looking at not only the volume of customers we can drive, but it's looking at the value of those customers and the quality element of it, and this is where I think we're uniquely placed. Not that other business aren't looking for quality clients as well, but this is an ongoing relationship that you have with your financial institution, which makes it very different than my relationship with Banana Republic as a clothing store. So it's just a different type of relationship. Financial services requires a huge degree of trust between the consumer and the banking institution, because finance is important, whereas a retail relationship may not be as mission critical to somebody's quality of life. So therefore, the bars are elevated in terms of what's important.
Speaker 2:So what did the early days of founding the company look like? You mentioned that you saw the need. I know you don't obviously, of course, come from a technical background yourself. How did the platform get built? How did you get your first customer?
Speaker 1:So I first started in affiliate marketing in 2002. Right, so let's put that into perspective Google started in 98. Right, so we were pretty early on in the journey digital journey and we did it. We basically built it on the back of a napkin and it was for another industry that we built it, and so that really got me to understand the nuances of affiliate marketing. And then, probably in about 2011, 12, we were approached by one of the biggest banks in Canada to work on their affiliate program. They came to us we had two different platforms and came to us very practically. We were a Canadian company, we were able to integrate into digital technology and we were able to give them insight and leverage that they didn't have. So it was very, very practical.
Speaker 1:So we first started working in financial services 12 years ago, something along those lines, but at the time, consumer intent, bank appetite, were not there for us to have done this standalone business. It was just there were. The bigger banks were doing it absolutely, but there wasn't the same sort of like intensity for consumer interest in it. So I sold my first business in 2016, took a bit of time out and then, in 2018, 2019, I thought the time was ripe to actually do something completely focused on finance, and hence Fintel Connect. We rewrote the technology, did all the plumbing, did all the things that we needed to do because we knew what we were in for and relaunched the company at the beginning of.
Speaker 2:Good timing to start a new business.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it's so funny. I talked to publishers in the area and digital, of course, exploded in 2020 with COVID. The difficulty is banking did not explode at 2020 because what there was was there was a whole lot of loan distribution that was going on, but there was no real appetite for credit cards because adjudication became really tight, because people weren't able to get work in the way. You know like it was. Just it was a really big time of flux, and that's anybody else who's done an entrepreneurial journey will know. Those times of flux create high, intense stress because we didn't know what was happening. We still had salaries to pay, we still had growth targets that we were trying to get to, which, of course, we didn't reach. So I was very, very thankful that I'd had a very successful exit before, because then I put more money into the business.
Speaker 2:Yep, well, yeah, I mean, you're talking to a guy who was running a recruiting business in 2020 and that was wild. It was basically the spigot turned off overnight. That's it, yeah. So, speaking of that previous exit, so your previous company was called Income Access. That was a SaaS company. You bootstrapped that. Did you ever take outside funding for that?
Speaker 1:We had partners that were involved, but extensively we bootstrapped it.
Speaker 2:What were some of the biggest lessons from that exit or that venture that helped you figure out how to approach the building of Fintel?
Speaker 1:Um, I'd always looked at always from the very beginning when we started income access to this business. Now I am very clear that this is an asset business. It's not a lifestyle business. So there's a very big difference when you've got an app, when you build an asset business, versus a lifestyle business. A lifestyle business absolutely has its place, no problem about it.
Speaker 1:Um, but I was building an, an asset, which meant that at one point in time I was going to capitalize on that asset, which meant an exit. So when you are very for me, I was very deliberate that this business we were going to exit at some point, and I mean the first first business was that overnight success of 14 years. Yep, right, so it was a long time in planning, but what it allowed me to do was start to evaluate what made the company valuable and what I may perceive the company's value is in the weeds of the operation isn't necessarily what a buyer is going to see as in terms of valuable. So that ability to begin with the end in mind allowed me to start to put the reporting in place, the metrics in place, the systems and structures in place when we first started the business at first. We're running income access and we talked to different people maybe two or three years before we sold it.
Speaker 1:Um, they were really concerned about my profile and how mind and management were in one person, which was me. In actual fact that wasn't the case, but that was something. Then I was very clear about how we manage that expectation moving forward, like the business had to survive without me and, I'm glad to say, very, very pleased to say, the business is still operating. So now it's been operating for 22 years. I've been out of it for eight and so the business is still there. So putting those very deep rooted ability in for the business to operate without a highly high touch CEO or a founder CEO was really one of the cornerstones of what I started to do quite early on, as I discussed with people what created the value of the business.
Speaker 2:So how did you do that, Did you I assume we're talking about operating systems in some way in order to be able to remove systems and structures.
Speaker 1:You know like h, a really good hr, good job descriptions, a good um career planning, good processes in finance, good legal processes all of the things that are the sort of like the backbone or plumbing elements of running the business had to be independent of any personality so they had to be very system structures.
Speaker 1:There was a book that I read in my 20s which, um, for my sins, has been very influential for me. Um, it was called the e-myth the entrepreneurial myth. Um, yeah, and what it talked about was it talked about franchising businesses, by Michael Gerber, and it was about documentation. It just meant that the franchising system exists, not dependent on any personality. It depends on a skill set, but not on a personal approach. And that really made sense to me. If you're going to build an asset that's separate from you except it's your heart and soul and energy that propels the business forward, so how do you balance that off when you're building something that's an asset? So that's the way that I did it, and I say I, it wasn't just me, I had a brilliant team behind me, but that's the focus of what we had was to build it. So it was agnostic of personalities, dependent on skill sets, but agnostic of personalities.
Speaker 2:How do you update those as time goes on? Because as a business continues to scale, you know what. What may be in that SOP you wrote a year ago may not apply anymore. Just from a tactical perspective. How often do you think?
Speaker 1:I think where it comes down to it is that the rigor. So it is that the rigour, so it's updating the rigour of it. What you need at 10 people and what you need at 20 people and what you need at 60 people is all different, and the more detailed, the more rigorous the processes are documented, the more safety and security everybody feels that they have meaning and purpose. I mean, at the very beginning, when we were 10 people, we had absolute job descriptions and we had review processes and all that sort of thing, but they weren't the level of detail or the level of intricacies that we would have at 60 people, for example. And technology has advanced a lot. So it's like leveraging technology, like one of the things that you know.
Speaker 1:We use Bamboo HR, not a problem. But we've also just implemented Leapsum, and Leapsum are about goals and focusing and making sure that everybody has some key focuses and that's using technology. And then it's also got a training library in it and all of all sorts of things. This is not my passion area, not at all, but I also see the value of it. It's just, it's just not somewhere, it's not a place I play. I'm talking like I play in that place, but I don't do not. I wanted to absolutely have pure transparency here.
Speaker 2:So what is your passion area?
Speaker 1:Growth opportunities. I'm a sort of like I'm a builder of businesses. That's where I really love to go. I love the problem solving. I love the sort of like being able to hear a client or publishers because we've got a. You know, we were a marketplace business, so we've got two sides to the equation. I love actually hearing what their problems are and seeing what we can do systematically, structurally, by focus and intent, be able to help them. Because my philosophy always has been when you find a point of pain, if you can become the solution for that point of pain, you've got a real purpose for your business and you're not constantly reselling your value. Because it's obvious.
Speaker 2:What would you say, since your passion is growth? What would you say have been some of your most effective growth strategies over the years?
Speaker 1:Getting to the point of pain and understanding what that really is not what I think it is and really listening, I think more than anything else, because when I you have to start, any entrepreneur will tell you you have to start with a hypothesis, you just have to. But I think, really listening to where the success comes from and then doubling down on that and seeing how much you can scale through that what you hear, would be more than anything else and, I think, always having a goal. I know that sounds so rudimentary. Yeah, I always have each year like I started setting my revenue goal for 2025 in May 2024. Right, so I have a goal of what I want to do for 2025 and I've been working for it, towards it, for the last eight months.
Speaker 1:So it's not something. Businesses take time. You know, like you plant seeds, you have to see how they grow. You know you've wanted something and it you drown. It drowns because you've wanted it too much and you have to move on. So I think where it is is always being very clear about my yearly revenue goals and how they look and then trying to just backtrack.
Speaker 1:To me it's just this problem solving and I think when people build businesses, they can try to solve problems that are actually symptoms, not the problem. I talk about problems in terms of like octopus Like if you've got an octopus and you cut the leg off because you think that's the problem and you've solved it, in actual fact, you haven't done anything because it'll just grow back. So, being very clear about what the real problem is, either from an operational perspective or a scaling perspective for your own growth, or how you are actually having utility in the marketplace that you're trying to grow in so I think those are the things that I try to really do is solve the real problem, not just solve the symptoms of the problem. Really do is solve the real problem, not just solve the symptoms of the problem. And that's where the power comes, because you don't make assumptions, you ask real questions and you can talk constantly um reevaluating to make sure that you're on the right track.
Speaker 2:Love that. So so really just getting in front of customers is is one of the biggest keys, because then that way you actually and industry.
Speaker 1:So the really cool thing that I find about being industry specific is, in the financial services industry, you've got the top layer, you've got the guys that are talking about the financial products and you've got the brands right. That's all very clear, but underneath it, you've got a whole range of different things, whether it be regulators. The next thing is that you've got technology providers, then you've got technology enablers and then you've got, you know, digital account opening platforms and loan origination systems. So I think what happens is that where I feel like we have stumbled upon real value is that we know who the players are. So then customers are coming to us up at this level, which is where we make money, but what we can do is show them insight into the different things from a technological perspective or an environmental perspective, the structural environmental perspective and I think that's where the value of the speciality comes in.
Speaker 2:How important is it, do you think, for founders to be deeply familiar with the industries that they're operating in?
Speaker 1:From a founder perspective. I think it's crucial, because what will happen is you will find, I have found I shouldn't say you, I have found arterial veins that I didn't expect, because of that intimacy. I think, though, though, that what happens is I forgot. I forgot, I didn't recognize, I didn't remember how difficult it was when I started the first business, when I knew nothing. I knew nothing about the environment, the context, the, the.
Speaker 1:You start off in a new industry not knowing anything, who the players are, how they interact, what's really crucially important to each of the key stakeholders, and I forgot that.
Speaker 1:So, when I jumped tracks, I know I know the technology incredibly intimately, I know how the platform works and how we create the ecosystem and all that sort of stuff, but when I first started Fintel, I forgot about how much institutional knowledge I'd gathered over 14 years that I now started in day dot with nothing.
Speaker 1:It was not only humbling, but it was incredibly demoralizing, and I think that's where the founder knowledge about how that all works is really crucially important, because now it becomes Intel's institutional knowledge right. And so new people coming on, say, for example, if we got a new CEO on. New people coming on, say, for example, if we got a new CEO on, they wouldn't have had a lot of those trenches have already been dug because we've already built up that institutional knowledge within the business. And I think that's why it's so important for founders to have a good, intimate understanding of where they're operating is because they almost spearhead that institutional gathering of knowledge for the business. Yeah, yeah, and the reason why I ask that is because they almost spearhead that institutional gathering of knowledge for the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And the reason why I ask that is because I mean, of course it's very helpful to come in with domain knowledge. But I've seen oftentimes two types of founders. There's the ones who have been in their industry for 10, 20 years and know it intimately and know some really small part that needs help, and so they build a product for that. And then oftentimes there's the other type who has never worked in the industry before but they saw some higher level problem and they come in and they bring in a bunch of advisors who do know the industry really well to get themselves caught up to speed.
Speaker 1:That may have been more sensible than what I did, so I did the last one, but didn't have the advisors.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, got it.
Speaker 1:So what I just did is I just had a whole lot of conversations with people, so you know, like bootstrapping it from the domain knowledge. And I think, and I feel that in financial services, I feel, on the marginalized size of that, I don't feel like there's a lot of people that I've met. A lot of them come in with domain authority, which is sensible, and but I think also, when you come in with domain authority, you can not say that you do. You can come in a little myopic because, you see it, you've experienced it from one point of view. So, even though I feel like I've taken the path less trodden, I really do feel like it's given me a pretty good ability to see the landscape.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see that, Like, if you have such deep domain expertise in one thing, you may ignore the advice of customers that they give you because, like, no, they're wrong. I know what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or just not see it the way that really is now, because, I mean, everything advances, right, Everything changes over time and what you just need to do is you need to keep on asking those questions, because what was relevant two years ago I mean even in the funding environment, right? So we raised a seed round in 2022 and we got funded sort of like February, March 2022. So still sort of like where the market was quite buoyant, and then six months later, the whole valuation framework had been completely rewritten because the market, there wasn't as much money around or they were concerned about things or economic tailwinds or headwinds or where you know, headwinds or whatever else. So it's like you can't. Nothing stays the same. Processes do high level at the highest logical level. That stays the same, but not practically.
Speaker 2:So that was your first time doing a venture raise, so you'd you'd bootstrapped income access. I know you'd mentioned some of the partners, but this was your first your first.
Speaker 1:what was that process like for you? I loved it. I did I, I. I loved it, I loved talking to people. I, you know, not only did I love it, we were successful, and I really enjoy the people that we got to be involved in the business. So, um, yeah, I again, though I went into the process incredibly thoughtfully, like I had done with the exit.
Speaker 1:When we exited, I had five things that I wanted to achieve and I achieved all five of them. So, going into raising money, I was also very deliberate about what I wanted and so and I got it. So I think that again goes to that focus on the goal.
Speaker 2:Can I ask what those five things were?
Speaker 1:Yep, I wanted to sell to a public company. I wanted just 10 times multiple. I wanted cash. I wanted for all of my staff to stay. You know, like I wanted it, I didn't want it to be a breakup, if I could possibly manage it. And the last thing was that I think that I wanted to be able to help with the transition.
Speaker 2:Well, I think most companies would want you to stay with the transition, but I mean, the other four nailed it. So congrats on that. How much would you say that exit and the negotiation of that term sheet and those terms helped you with the fundraising component.
Speaker 1:Not at all, really, yep, not at all. The reason being is that when you're doing an exit, I found that a lot of the attention was on reps and warranties and making sure that they were buying what they thought they were buying, and diligence into the business. You know, diligence was very sort of similar, probably less rigorous at seed than I was at a cash upfront exit. Yeah, but yeah, I just think that there was probably a lot more on the reps and warranties that I hadn't experienced before, whereas the seed stuff was. What I found most interesting in that process was the. It's the reason I enjoyed that fundraising is, to me, it was a sales process pure and simple.
Speaker 1:it was just a sales process, so I had to find the right customer, the venture-backed business that was going to buy what I was selling, which was equity in the business, and so that meant that I spoke to a hell of a lot of people at Seed and Series A and whatever else venture businesses that just had no idea what we did.
Speaker 1:So, therefore had no ability to see our value or no ability to appreciate what we had built or were building or the role that we played in the industry. So it's really it was really fun I'd have all of these calls with these people. Like I was very fortunate I was able to get a good list together of people that would take my calls and and whatever else. So I start the pitch and you could just see that glaze over. So okay, we're on one of them. So then I just practiced and I'd ask them a question about what was important to them and then I could morph it for the next place and all the rest of it. But I call it the kissing of the frogs. So I kissed a lot of frogs.
Speaker 2:As one does when you're raising venture money. Now you raised a pretty solid seed round and I've heard you mention that you're not planning on raising another round. Correct, correct? Can I ask why? Because we're profitable, Very good. So oftentimes, even if companies are profitable which granted the vast majority, are not at the seed stage, but even so they'll raise more money with the intent to grow, Is that something that just doesn't make sense for you at this stage?
Speaker 1:So we're a Canadian company and we have taken full advantage of the funding streams available through the Canadian government. So I've been able to put together a bit of a war chest through those different programs. So I have it, but I just haven't done it through venture.
Speaker 2:Got it. That makes sense and that has been a subject of discussion that I've seen kicked around in quite a few different places that you know companies are going to raise a pre-seed round or a seed round just to get off the ground, continue to then grow a little bit more slowly and profitably. Do you think that's the way to go, or do you think there is still room for the continue to raise and raise and raise type of model?
Speaker 1:I think it depends on your business model and what your end goal is. I personally am a bit of a control freak, so therefore would like to have as much control for as long as I possibly can, understanding that it's not going to last forever. The other thing is that I'm also wanting to place the business in the most valuable position I can and people will, as people go into raising money, you know, by sheer definition. You've got C, you've got A, you've got B, you've got C, you've got D, and then you've got sort of like in B and C. You start to get in private equity and growth equity as opposed to venture and each and then you've got strategic capital, you know, strategic corporate capital.
Speaker 1:So I think what I've been trying to do is I've been trying to look at the best partnership with finance as I can, and my perception at the moment I say at the moment is looking at probably private equity or growth equity, which means that I need to get to a certain revenue level for me to be interesting in them, with certain metrics Again, begin with the end in mind, and so what I'm really doing is looking at the best value for my shareholders and also the best growth path for the business. So I'm balancing up opportunities and value and I think my job as CEO is to make this business as valuable as it can be at any moment in time. Business as valuable as it can be at any moment in time. So that's why I definitely will raise again. It's just I'm choosing the when for the purpose.
Speaker 1:So, again, being very purposeful about it, like, why am I raising? Because the thing that I have heard and listened to is that you don't raise unless you need to. Because you're giving away valuable equity. And if I already have a bit of a buffer financially, then I'm much better of self-funding my growth as long as my speed is there, because you know the growth speed is also very important, maybe not at any cost and maybe not breakneck speed, but still good, solid growth on a revenue, on top line revenue. I just because I self-bootstrapped the last one, I am very, very clear on what profitability looks like and how to get it. And with the change in the funding appetite, I'm looking at how to straddle both directives, one directive being fast, breakneck speed, the other being profitability and what that means to an investor.
Speaker 2:Love that balance. So what do you do? Does that make sense? It does, yeah, absolutely so. With that in mind, how are you spending most of your time now as CEO?
Speaker 1:On growth, on getting that revenue up. So, because the fact is is, and making sure that the trailing operations of the business are scaling, so we've put 20 to 25 percent new additional people on this year. So that's things like office space, because we're actually also bums on seats. So we have 100 of the staff coming into the office, have 100% of the staff coming into the office, or probably 97% of the people coming into the office.
Speaker 1:I just like that culture, also because we do something pretty unique. It means that everybody is institutionally learning in the company at the same time. So job descriptions, pay equity, you know all of the things that operationally need to happen. But you know, I'm spending a lot of my time filling the funnel in terms of industry relationships, in terms of raising awareness of who we are and what we do, as well as helping the CRO get the good conversations that we need to be for the ideal client, and a lot of this time that I spent in the last 12 months is working out where we win and then doubling down on that and looking for more opportunities in those areas.
Speaker 2:Love that.
Speaker 1:So, over the course of the next couple of years, any trends, any emerging technologies that you have your eye on in your sector, that you're excited about, I am looking at how we grow non-organically, which is also the opportunity to see where we can add value for our clients through a transaction that we do.
Speaker 1:I think financial services, as it becomes more digitally enabled, I think there is a really big opportunity for retention and CRM Very, very, very old conversation, but I just think I don't think necessarily banks are there with how they do it in the way that I've experienced before, so I think that's a really big opportunity and I also think the access to data and then how it's applied to the businesses will be a really big opportunity for financial services. Fintech have got it nailed. I'm not talking about FinTechs in this conversation. I'm talking about credit unions and community banks and banking generally, and not to say that all of them need to do it because they don't. But there are some businesses that are coming up that are used to doing, you know, branch transactions and now are sort of like moving more online. I think that's going to be a big opportunity.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, you've dropped a ton of excellent knowledge already, but I'm gonna ask you for one last one any advice for early stage founders or aspiring founders that you'd share?
Speaker 1:Have courage, because I think to do this journey you need to be courageous, but I think you also need to be incredibly practical. So you can have lofty ideas, but you need to make sure that rubber hits the road in a very practical way. I create plans in my head and in paper about massive growth and where I'll invest, and then I put a line in the sand that says by this date and this time I need to have reached this level for me to continue with that plan. So it's almost like I plan on two scenarios the positive scenario that we win it, and then the scenario that we don't win it. And I do both plans so that when any trigger point comes, I have, I've already thought about it and I already know what I'm doing, so I don't get blindsided.
Speaker 2:So I love, that that's how I do it All right. Well, this was a super great conversation. I'm really grateful for you to spend the time and thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening to See to Exit. If you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you next time.
