Emprender en CUATRO SECTORES y vivir en CUATRO CONTINENTES | Reby y Two | Podcast #299 — vídeo y transcripción

[00:00] did  you  meet  with  kolau  not  directly  but
[00:02] 
[00:02] with  the  rest  of  her  team  and  this  was
[00:04] 
[00:04] quite  a  challenge  because  we  moved  ahead
[00:06] 
[00:06] without  let's  say  their  blessing  there
[00:08] 
[00:08] were  people  who  were  fined  yet  really
[00:10] 
[00:10] yeah  there  are  people  who  find  she's
[00:12] 
[00:12] like  as  a  Founder  which  is  hard  enough
[00:14] 
[00:14] then  again
[00:16] 
[00:16] fighting  against  the  police  like  on  top
[00:17] 
[00:17] of  everything  fighting  against  the
[00:19] 
[00:19] market  and  fighting  against  the  place  it
[00:21] 
[00:21] was  challenging  uh  to  say  the  least  and
[00:23] 
[00:23] then  how  did  what  happened  with  Robbie
[00:25] 
[00:25] yeah  exactly  between  the  news  it  was
[00:28] 
[00:28] recently  in  the  news  yeah  so  it's  um
[00:30] 
[00:30] it's  still  in  in  litigation  so  in  the  US
[00:33] 
[00:33] in  the  US  is
[01:03] 
[01:03] [Music]
[01:15] 
[01:15] engagement
[01:25] 
[01:25] [Music]
[01:36] 
[01:36] [Music]
[02:00] 
[02:00] bienvenido
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[02:12] [Music]
[02:25] 
[02:25] daily
[02:29] 
[02:29] welcome  everybody  I'm  Bernard  Ferrero
[02:31] 
[02:31] today  I'm  with  Jordan  Romero  how  are  you
[02:33] 
[02:33] Jersey  very  good  I'm  with  Kiran  Thomas
[02:34] 
[02:34] how  are  you  kidding  doing  well  thanks
[02:36] 
[02:36] Kiran  is  a  consultant  initially  then
[02:39] 
[02:39] executive  then  entrepreneur
[02:43] 
[02:43] yeah  there  was  a  period  in  between  where
[02:44] 
[02:45] it  was  also  part  of  the  founding  team  of
[02:46] 
[02:46] uh  which  is  today  latam's  let's  say  top
[02:48] 
[02:48] five  uh
[02:50] 
[02:50] a  general  merchandise  retailers  in  the
[02:52] 
[02:52] world  in  the  region  called  Lineo  so  I
[02:54] 
[02:54] was  one  I  was  part  of  the  founding  team
[02:55] 
[02:55] there  as  well  so  okay  part  of  the
[02:58] 
[02:58] journey  okay  so  in  in  entrepreneurship
[03:02] 
[03:02] you've  participated  in  projects  around
[03:03] 
[03:03] Mobility  with  Rabbi  yeah
[03:06] 
[03:06] fintech  with  two  and  e-commerce  with
[03:09] 
[03:09] linear  and  e-commerce  and  you  are  from
[03:12] 
[03:12] India  originally  that's  correct  so  yeah
[03:14] 
[03:14] my  roots  are  there  I  was  born  and  raised
[03:15] 
[03:15] there  uh  so  my  formative  years  were
[03:19] 
[03:19] living  were  there  and  then  I  after  my
[03:22] 
[03:22] education  which  is  engineering  degree  in
[03:24] 
[03:24] computer  science
[03:25] 
[03:25] I  immigrated  to  the  United  States  where
[03:28] 
[03:28] I
[03:28] 
[03:28] started  working  and  got  acquainted  with
[03:31] 
[03:31] what  in  the  US
[03:32] 
[03:32] so  most  of  my  uh  life  in  the  US  was
[03:35] 
[03:35] based  in  Chicago  and  the  Chicago  land
[03:37] 
[03:37] area  a  little  bit  also  in  in  the  St
[03:39] 
[03:39] Louis  Minneapolis  area  for
[03:41] 
[03:41] consulting-based  project  work  somehow
[03:44] 
[03:44] life  brought  you  to  Barcelona  yeah  life
[03:47] 
[03:47] wrong  you  live  here  you're  happily
[03:48] 
[03:48] living  for  a  while  yeah  yes  near  from
[03:51] 
[03:51] where  we're  recording  this  very  close  by
[03:52] 
[03:52] uh  setting  down  Roots  uh  literally
[03:55] 
[03:55] speaking  so  my  uh  uh  two  I  have  two  kids
[03:58] 
[03:58] they  both  go  to  school  here  they're
[03:59] 
[04:00] growing  up  here  trilingual  obviously
[04:01] 
[04:01] they've  trilingual  so  Catalan  in  school
[04:04] 
[04:04] uh  Spanish  at  home  with  my  wife  and
[04:06] 
[04:06] English  with  me  okay  yeah  okay  we'll
[04:09] 
[04:09] talk  about  Ravi  and  and  two  which  I
[04:11] 
[04:11] think  they're  very  interesting  cases  but
[04:12] 
[04:12] maybe  we  can  follow  the  chronological
[04:14] 
[04:14] order  from  your  Beginnings  now  as  a
[04:17] 
[04:17] studying  computer  science  in  India  maybe
[04:19] 
[04:19] you  can  share  with  us  how  how  is
[04:21] 
[04:21] environment  in  India  to  start  computer
[04:23] 
[04:23] science  it's  very  well  known  for  having
[04:26] 
[04:26] great  talent  in  computer  science  and
[04:28] 
[04:28] great  universities
[04:29] 
[04:29] indeed  yeah  and  and  why  did  you  emigrate
[04:32] 
[04:32] why  did  you  go  out  from  India  sure  so
[04:36] 
[04:36] um  when  I  was  in  university  uh  in  the  in
[04:39] 
[04:39] the  late  uh  90s  early  2000s  it  was  a
[04:42] 
[04:42] boom  time  when  you  know  the  I.T
[04:44] 
[04:44] Consulting  uh  phase  of  of  uh  of  the
[04:48] 
[04:48] industry  so  India  was  at  the  time  uh
[04:50] 
[04:50] servicing  most  of  the  West  in  terms  of
[04:52] 
[04:52] BPO  so  business  process  Outsourcing  and
[04:55] 
[04:55] so  on  a  lot  of  Consulting  work  was
[04:56] 
[04:56] coming  and  being  done  in  the  country
[04:57] 
[04:57] India  was  going  through  a  point  a  time
[04:59] 
[04:59] when  we  were  solving  problems  for  the
[05:01] 
[05:01] rest  of  the  world  rather  than  internal
[05:03] 
[05:03] problems  but  that's  not  techno  you  talk
[05:05] 
[05:05] about  things  more  like  accounting  yeah
[05:07] 
[05:07] business  classes  Insurance  yeah  call
[05:10] 
[05:10] centers  and  also
[05:12] 
[05:12] um  development  work  right  so  okay  a  lot
[05:14] 
[05:15] of  enterprise  software  uh  work  was  being
[05:17] 
[05:17] done  income  on  behalf  of  large
[05:19] 
[05:19] Consulting  companies  the  IBM's  Accenture
[05:23] 
[05:23] Deloitte  so  on  and  so  forth  so  it  was
[05:25] 
[05:25] quite  common  to  be  you  know  campus
[05:27] 
[05:27] recruited  by  national  firms  so
[05:29] 
[05:29] deloittees  Etc  start  in  India  and  then
[05:31] 
[05:31] Branch  over  get  yourself  a  H1  Visa  and
[05:34] 
[05:34] go  to  the  America  and  go  to  the  US  that
[05:36] 
[05:36] was  a  difficult  path  so  I  had  that
[05:38] 
[05:38] option  that's  what  I  did  it  was  the  done
[05:40] 
[05:40] thing  one  you  know  it  just  catapulted
[05:44] 
[05:44] your  career  in  many  ways  uh  by  being
[05:45] 
[05:45] able  to  go  there  and  being  sort  of  let's
[05:47] 
[05:47] say  trained  in  a  way  to  go  and  take  on
[05:50] 
[05:50] challenges  in  that  market  right  so  was
[05:52] 
[05:52] it  like  your  plan  from  early  on  like  I'm
[05:55] 
[05:55] gonna  do  these  four  steps  so  I  can  go  to
[05:57] 
[05:57] the  US  or  it  just  kind  of  happened  they
[05:59] 
[05:59] tell  you  this  is  It's  opportunity  it's  a
[06:01] 
[06:01] bit  of  both  so  I  had  the  opportunity  and
[06:04] 
[06:04] also  had  you  know  family  there  so  it
[06:06] 
[06:06] made  the  reason  for  me  to  go  there  a  lot
[06:08] 
[06:08] more  on  your  ring  so  yeah  so  it  was  a
[06:10] 
[06:10] mix  of  consequences  right  it  was  not  and
[06:12] 
[06:12] it  was  a  time  when  it  was  the  done  thing
[06:14] 
[06:14] not  to  say  that  doesn't  happen  now  but
[06:17] 
[06:17] now  there's  more  of  a  homegrown  industry
[06:19] 
[06:19] than  that  you  know  is  solving  big
[06:22] 
[06:22] problems  in  India  this  and  people  are
[06:24] 
[06:24] finding  that  a  lot  more  exciting  and
[06:26] 
[06:26] people  stay  in  the  country  so  it  used  to
[06:27] 
[06:27] be  more  like  the  company  and  the  capital
[06:29] 
[06:29] is  in  the  US  or  some  other  countries  and
[06:32] 
[06:32] then  they  hire  labor  talent  in  India
[06:34] 
[06:34] yeah  yeah  and  what  you're  saying  is  now
[06:36] 
[06:36] there  is  more  businesses  in  India  hiding
[06:38] 
[06:38] their  talent  locally  and  just  selling
[06:40] 
[06:40] their  services  abroad  yeah  so  now
[06:42] 
[06:42] there's  a  concept  of  building  built  in
[06:44] 
[06:44] India  built  for  the  problems  in  India
[06:45] 
[06:45] and  Export  those  Solutions  worldwide
[06:47] 
[06:47] right  which  which  makes  sense  in  the
[06:49] 
[06:49] past  it  was  solving  problems  in  the  west
[06:51] 
[06:51] exporting  those  solutions  to  third  world
[06:53] 
[06:53] countries  and  and  developing  countries
[06:55] 
[06:55] and  now  there's  a  reckoning  that  you
[06:58] 
[06:58] know  there  are  real  problems  to  be
[06:59] 
[06:59] solved  here  there's  capital  in  those
[07:00] 
[07:00] markets  of  course  some  Capital  comes
[07:03] 
[07:03] from  from  from  outside  the  country  and
[07:05] 
[07:05] this  is  much  stronger  value  proposition
[07:07] 
[07:07] really  I  think  more  than  exporting  the
[07:09] 
[07:09] products  is  building  the  internal  Market
[07:11] 
[07:11] I  mean  it's  a  huge  Market  we're  in  Spain
[07:14] 
[07:14] where  40  something  million  people  and
[07:17] 
[07:17] and  many  many  companies  are  based  on
[07:19] 
[07:19] focus  in  the  Spanish  Market  which
[07:20] 
[07:20] doesn't  make  much  sense  but  when  you  are
[07:21] 
[07:21] 1.3  billion  people  then  it  makes  sense
[07:24] 
[07:24] and  growing  and  growing  with  lots  of
[07:27] 
[07:27] opportunity  to  much  of  the  West  yeah  and
[07:29] 
[07:29] and  presently  with  the  current
[07:30] 
[07:30] Administration  uh  that  is  so
[07:32] 
[07:32] pro-business  uh  women  of  India  I  mean
[07:35] 
[07:35] the  current  government  in  India  is  pro
[07:36] 
[07:36] so  pro-business  uh  has  put  a  lot  of
[07:39] 
[07:39] foundational  elements  in  growing  the
[07:41] 
[07:41] economy  right  from  identity  verification
[07:43] 
[07:43] to  imagine  the  scale  of  the  challenge
[07:46] 
[07:46] right  when  you're  talking  about  1.4  1.5
[07:49] 
[07:49] billion  people  being  able  to  offer  them
[07:51] 
[07:51] uh  you  know  fintech  services  like  real
[07:54] 
[07:54] uh  you  know  there  was  an  unbanked
[07:56] 
[07:56] population  of  what  you  know  60  70  now
[07:58] 
[07:58] that's  being  reduced  uh  so  there's  real
[08:01] 
[08:01] value  generation  in  that  in  in  society
[08:03] 
[08:03] in  India  that  that's  on  you  know  that's
[08:05] 
[08:05] coming  at  an  unprecedented  rate  right  so
[08:07] 
[08:07] nothing  has  happened  like  that  in  the
[08:08] 
[08:08] past  so  yeah  so  I  studied  Computing  uh
[08:12] 
[08:12] but  always  had  let's  say  a  flare  or  an
[08:15] 
[08:15] interest  in  pursuing  something  on  the
[08:17] 
[08:17] edge  between  the  intersection  between
[08:19] 
[08:19] business  and  and  and  the  tax  and  Tech
[08:21] 
[08:21] area  so  my  career  in  that  sense  sort  of
[08:24] 
[08:24] weird  off  into  the  analytics  area  so
[08:26] 
[08:27] that's  what  I  first  cut  my  feet  doing  in
[08:29] 
[08:29] in  the  retail  sector
[08:30] 
[08:30] working  for  a  large  big  box  retailer
[08:32] 
[08:32] called  Office  Max
[08:34] 
[08:34] um  in  the  Chicago  Chicago  land  area  so
[08:36] 
[08:36] it  was  instrumental  in  their  post  merger
[08:38] 
[08:38] integration  structure  yeah  Wilson  you
[08:41] 
[08:41] know  experience  especially  at  scale  so
[08:43] 
[08:43] we're  talking  about  uh  at  the  time
[08:45] 
[08:45] the  operations  were  somewhere  in  the
[08:47] 
[08:47] range  of  about  2000  stores  across  the
[08:49] 
[08:49] country  offline  retail  and  its
[08:51] 
[08:51] challenges  when  it  comes  to
[08:52] 
[08:52] replenishment  forecasting  purchasing  and
[08:54] 
[08:54] all  of  that  that  led  me  into  uh  an
[08:58] 
[08:58] opportunity  in  the  career  in  the  retail
[08:59] 
[08:59] sector  uh  in  Consulting  and  Accenture
[09:01] 
[09:01] accenture's  retail  practice  I  did  that
[09:03] 
[09:03] for  quite  a  few  years  and  got  there  was
[09:06] 
[09:06] management  consulting  or  Tech  Consulting
[09:08] 
[09:08] a  bit  of  both  again  so  I  was  uh  so  I  was
[09:11] 
[09:11] I  had  a  very  unorthodox  experience  there
[09:14] 
[09:14] as  well  so  I  was  responsible  for  the
[09:16] 
[09:16] client  management  of  a  very  large  uh
[09:19] 
[09:19] retailer  called  Best  Buy  and  the
[09:21] 
[09:21] international  expansion  it  was  fantastic
[09:23] 
[09:23] it  was  I  was  living  in  Mexico  I  was
[09:25] 
[09:25] living  in  the  UK  so  they  were  sending
[09:28] 
[09:28] you  to  different  places  for  this
[09:29] 
[09:29] Consulting  agreement  so  it  was  the  same
[09:30] 
[09:30] account  but  I  was  responsible  for  a
[09:33] 
[09:33] significant  piece  of  uh  of  the
[09:35] 
[09:35] implementation  and  so  on  so  I  spent  a
[09:37] 
[09:37] better  part  of  three  years  living  out  of
[09:39] 
[09:39] my  suitcase  at  that  point  in  my  life  it
[09:41] 
[09:41] was  great
[09:42] 
[09:42] I  can't  imagine  doing  that  now  and
[09:45] 
[09:45] decided  that  you  know
[09:46] 
[09:46] the  next  stage  of  my  life  would  be
[09:49] 
[09:49] something  in  entrepreneurship  building
[09:50] 
[09:50] on  on  the  experience  I  had  11  I  mean  God
[09:54] 
[09:54] until  that  point  and  then  was  very
[09:57] 
[09:57] fortunate  to  be  make  an  entry  into  the
[09:59] 
[09:59] e-commerce  uh  entrepreneurship  side  of
[10:01] 
[10:01] things  setting  up  uh  lineal
[10:03] 
[10:03] lineupont.com  headquartered  in  Mexico
[10:05] 
[10:05] which  and  expanding  it  into  seven
[10:08] 
[10:08] countries  across  Lata  how  did  linear  get
[10:10] 
[10:10] started  like  who  comes  up  with  the  idea
[10:11] 
[10:12] recruits  the  founding  team  yeah  how  is
[10:13] 
[10:13] the  structure  so  because  it's  a  bit  of
[10:15] 
[10:15] an  unusual  case  yeah  indeed  so  it's  it's
[10:17] 
[10:17] not  entrepreneurship  as  you  would  as  we
[10:20] 
[10:20] would  do  it  today  where  you're  starting
[10:21] 
[10:21] everything  from  scratch  I  mean  it's
[10:23] 
[10:23] something  you  can  do  starting  of  a  boy
[10:25] 
[10:25] band  right  it's  kind  of  you  bring
[10:27] 
[10:27] together  uh  key  players  and  you  put  them
[10:29] 
[10:29] together  give  them  Capital  exposure  and
[10:31] 
[10:31] so  on  and  so  someone  at  Rocket  said
[10:33] 
[10:33] there  is  an  opportunity  in  e-commerce  in
[10:35] 
[10:35] latam  yeah  Samus  pitch  was
[10:37] 
[10:37] do  you  want  to  be
[10:39] 
[10:39] um  I  recall  this  do  you  want  to  be  uh
[10:43] 
[10:43] sleeping  under  your  desk  as  a  banking
[10:47] 
[10:47] executive  in  in  in  in  in  Investment
[10:50] 
[10:50] Banking  or  working  on  the  spam  filter
[10:52] 
[10:52] for  for
[10:54] 
[10:54] for  Google  or  do  you  want  to  be  creating
[10:57] 
[10:57] the  next  Amazon  in  uh  in  Latin  America
[10:59] 
[10:59] right  so  interestingly  enough  that  copy
[11:02] 
[11:02] that  from  Steve  Jobs  no  do  you  want  to
[11:03] 
[11:03] keep  selling  sugar  water  possibly  the
[11:05] 
[11:05] guy  from  Pepsi  some  iteration  okay  but
[11:08] 
[11:08] nevertheless  it's  strong  it  works  it
[11:10] 
[11:10] struck  a  very  uh  strong  chord  with  me  so
[11:12] 
[11:12] I  joined  uh  Lineo  like  two  two  or  three
[11:16] 
[11:16] months  in  so  I  wasn't  I  didn't  get  the
[11:18] 
[11:18] designation  of  co-founder  so  for  three
[11:21] 
[11:21] months  I  mean  three  months  it's  not  so
[11:23] 
[11:23] it's  not  very  much  but  then  you  know  you
[11:24] 
[11:24] had  you  so  I  met  uh  so  Andreas  who  is  my
[11:28] 
[11:28] co-founder  at  two
[11:30] 
[11:30] um  he  was  he  was  the  founder  and  CEO  at
[11:33] 
[11:33] um at  linear  we  had  a  call  I  was  in
[11:35] 
[11:35] Mexico  he  said  come  join  me  so  I  was  one
[11:37] 
[11:37] of  the  first  let's  say  executive  not
[11:38] 
[11:38] executive  but  one  of  the  leadership  team
[11:40] 
[11:40] members  uh  my  rolly  bald  so  this  was  my
[11:43] 
[11:43] first  experience  in  e-commerce  building
[11:45] 
[11:45] out  things  from  scratch  to  I  was  what
[11:47] 
[11:47] employee  number  30  or  40  within  the  team
[11:50] 
[11:50] uh  rapidly  growing  at  its  peak  we  were
[11:53] 
[11:53] about  1600  people  expanding  across  the
[11:56] 
[11:56] region  very  crazy  yeah  this  is  very  hard
[11:59] 
[11:59] to  manage  well  it's  internet  model  yeah
[12:01] 
[12:01] the  vertical  growth  sometimes  vertical
[12:04] 
[12:04] crash  yeah  usually  many  times  right  so
[12:07] 
[12:07] yeah  so  we  we  experienced  the  ups  and
[12:10] 
[12:10] downs  uh  it  was  a  great  learning
[12:11] 
[12:11] experience  great  incubated  model  in  that
[12:13] 
[12:13] you  you  you  build  a  lot  of  skills  you
[12:15] 
[12:15] learn  things  really  fast  so  yeah  just
[12:17] 
[12:17] fond  memories  great  experience  how  far
[12:20] 
[12:20] did  it  go  like  like  before  you  left  how
[12:22] 
[12:22] big  was  linear  so  linear  when  I  left  we
[12:24] 
[12:24] were  operating  in  six  or  seven  countries
[12:27] 
[12:27] Spanish  speaking  excellent  Marketplace
[12:30] 
[12:30] or  e-commerce  so  we  pivoted  into  a
[12:32] 
[12:32] Marketplace  so  initially  in  the  first
[12:33] 
[12:33] year  it  was  you  know  procured  by  uh
[12:35] 
[12:36] model  uh  in  I  think  year  two  or  one
[12:40] 
[12:40] around  then  we  pivoted  into  a
[12:42] 
[12:42] Marketplace  model  yeah  what  happened
[12:43] 
[12:43] with  the  company  it's  a  exited  so  it's
[12:45] 
[12:45] sold  yeah  it's  old  so  Falabella  which  is
[12:48] 
[12:48] a  Chilean  retailer  uh  but  made  an
[12:51] 
[12:51] acquisition  in  2018.  if  you  sort  of
[12:53] 
[12:53] compared  with  capital  raised  and  uh
[12:56] 
[12:56] relative  to  let's  say  valuation
[12:58] 
[12:58] valuation  yeah  it  was  it  was  an  okay
[13:00] 
[13:00] exit  for  the  management  team  not  so
[13:02] 
[13:02] great  but  for  growth  investors  who  came
[13:04] 
[13:04] in  late  with  liquidation  preferences  it
[13:07] 
[13:07] was  good  it  was  a  huge  lesson  yeah  that
[13:09] 
[13:09] unfortunately  had  the  same  in  the  past
[13:12] 
[13:12] right  and  that's  that's  that's  and  you
[13:14] 
[13:14] were  based  where  when  this  was  happening
[13:16] 
[13:16] I  was  based  in  Mexico  City  and  I  moved
[13:18] 
[13:18] to  Barcelona  in  2016.
[13:21] 
[13:21] um  so  after  this  experience  after  the
[13:23] 
[13:23] leading  experience  moved  to  Barcelona
[13:25] 
[13:25] correct  yeah  but  before  the  acquisition
[13:26] 
[13:26] so  yeah  I  was  there  for  four  years  and
[13:29] 
[13:29] then  I  left
[13:30] 
[13:30] um  yeah  missed  the  acquisition  by  like
[13:32] 
[13:32] uh  18  months  I  think  it  was  pretty  it
[13:34] 
[13:34] was  pretty  intense  from  what  I  hear  so
[13:36] 
[13:36] at  that  moment  you  you  met  pep  Gomez
[13:39] 
[13:39] yeah  so  I  know  that  for  for  my  entry
[13:41] 
[13:41] into  into  Barcelona  so  I'd  known  him  uh
[13:43] 
[13:43] from  some  of  the  events  in  the  in  the
[13:45] 
[13:45] startup  space  what  events  maybe  people
[13:48] 
[13:48] everybody's  looking  for  a  co-founder  so
[13:50] 
[13:50] where  did  you  meet  your  co-founder  uh  so
[13:52] 
[13:52] he  was  part  of  Numa  I  think  it  was  yeah
[13:54] 
[13:54] uh  so  they  their  own  events  their  own
[13:56] 
[13:57] events  it  was  an  incubator  or  what  was
[13:58] 
[13:58] yeah  so  it's  part  of  uh  she  had  to  come
[14:01] 
[14:01] to  the  podcast  and  tell  us  what  Numa  was
[14:03] 
[14:03] yeah  you  should  have  him  on  of  course  uh
[14:05] 
[14:05] so  Numa  was
[14:06] 
[14:06] um  I  I  believe  I  don't  know  if  they're
[14:09] 
[14:09] still  around  but  that  was  it  was  a  an
[14:11] 
[14:11] offshoot  of  Mobile  World  Congress  right
[14:13] 
[14:13] so  it  was  part  of  the  mobile  World  fund
[14:16] 
[14:16] they  had  some  participation  in  that  uh
[14:18] 
[14:18] and  it  was  an  incubator  uh  so  Madam  at
[14:21] 
[14:21] one  of  the  events  there  had  some  other
[14:22] 
[14:22] connections  but  the  type  of  event  where
[14:25] 
[14:25] there's  just  drinks  and  some  couple  of
[14:27] 
[14:27] talks  or  something  and  you  just  went
[14:28] 
[14:28] there  too  no  actually  I  had  a
[14:30] 
[14:30] interesting  enough  that  it  reminds  me  I
[14:33] 
[14:33] had  another  connection  to  pep  just
[14:35] 
[14:35] through  his
[14:36] 
[14:36] um girlfriend  at  the  time  he's  a  friend
[14:38] 
[14:38] of  uh  my  wife's  sister  so  it  was  a
[14:41] 
[14:42] random  personal  connection  random
[14:43] 
[14:43] personal  connection  coupled  with  events
[14:45] 
[14:45] and  so  on  getting  done
[14:48] 
[14:48] uh  say  it  was  you  know  a  consequence  of
[14:51] 
[14:51] the  time  uh  pep  broke  the  the  idea
[14:55] 
[14:55] creation  and  so  on  so  he  was  like  pretty
[14:58] 
[14:58] clear  he  wanted  to  do  this  uh  we  met
[15:02] 
[15:02] around  the  time  when  I  was  uh  leaving
[15:04] 
[15:04] prevalia
[15:05] 
[15:05] and  we  were  living  and  then  you  met  this
[15:08] 
[15:08] or  you  met  this  opportunity  and  then  you
[15:10] 
[15:10] left  prevalia  was  it  no  it  was  the  other
[15:12] 
[15:12] way  around  so  I  I  left  pre-value  okay
[15:14] 
[15:14] and  I  I  started  at  uh  with  review  so  you
[15:18] 
[15:18] wanted  to  start  a  company  or  yeah  yeah
[15:20] 
[15:20] so  I  wanted  to  start  something  the
[15:21] 
[15:21] timing  was  just  brilliant  like  uh
[15:24] 
[15:24] uh  when  I  was  having  my  going  away  party
[15:26] 
[15:26] at  prevalia  I  was  already  Robbie  was
[15:28] 
[15:28] running  so  yeah  so  I  remember  discussing
[15:31] 
[15:31] the  welcome  party  next  day  no  there  was
[15:33] 
[15:33] a  welcome  party  it  was  just  me
[15:37] 
[15:38] and  exactly  buy  Scooters  or  whatever  you
[15:40] 
[15:40] do  the  first  day  of  the  company  and  a
[15:41] 
[15:42] week  later  we  were  in  so  it  was  two  two
[15:43] 
[15:43] Founders  yeah  initially  uh  and  then  we
[15:46] 
[15:46] brought  on  about  six  months  later  two
[15:48] 
[15:48] more
[15:49] 
[15:49] um  again  and  Christina  who  basically
[15:52] 
[15:52] joined  us
[15:53] 
[15:53] um  to  build  out  the
[15:55] 
[15:55] engineering  let's  say  in  the  China  angle
[15:57] 
[15:57] of  Engineering  in  China  so  chief
[15:59] 
[15:59] engineer  and  chief  China  Hardware
[16:01] 
[16:01] it's  a  hardware  yeah  Chef  hardware  and
[16:04] 
[16:04] your  Chief  product  or  head  of  problem
[16:06] 
[16:06] yeah  this  product  everything  else
[16:09] 
[16:09] yeah  uh  I  was  actually  the  CEO  initially
[16:11] 
[16:11] I  really  so  when  I  started  when  we
[16:13] 
[16:13] started  pep  was  everything  to  do  with
[16:15] 
[16:15] regulatory  uh  legal  and  fundraising
[16:20] 
[16:20] um  I  thought  you  were  gonna  say  he
[16:21] 
[16:21] didn't  do  that  because  it  doesn't  sound
[16:23] 
[16:23] so  much  fun  he  did  the  regulatory  legal
[16:25] 
[16:25] and  fundraising  that  was  bad  and  I  was
[16:28] 
[16:28] running  all  things  uh  from  a  serious
[16:31] 
[16:31] standpoint  okay  very  soon  I  realized
[16:34] 
[16:34] that  this  was  a  hairy  animal  I  wasn't
[16:36] 
[16:36] excelling  at  a  job  so  we  game  took  over
[16:39] 
[16:39] from  me  so  Gamers  uh  who  came  in  as  a
[16:42] 
[16:42] CEO  uh  also  founder  you  know  you  could
[16:46] 
[16:46] call  him  the  founder  yes  so  did  you  call
[16:48] 
[16:48] him  a  Founder  yeah  yeah  okay  yeah  and
[16:50] 
[16:50] what  the  founder  is  it  Equity  certain
[16:52] 
[16:52] Equity  a  significant  stake  in  the
[16:55] 
[16:55] business  for  uh  for  all  uh  founders  of
[16:59] 
[16:59] course  yeah  we've  seen  Founders  join
[17:01] 
[17:01] Founders  joint  companies  five  years  in
[17:02] 
[17:02] yeah  but  sometimes  they  are  actually
[17:04] 
[17:04] Founders  and  they  own  a  huge  chunk  and
[17:06] 
[17:06] they  actually  get  the  company  started
[17:07] 
[17:07] there  it's  like  it's  such  a  strange
[17:09] 
[17:09] concept  yeah  it's  different  for  for
[17:11] 
[17:11] everybody  it  has  to  make  sense  for  the
[17:12] 
[17:12] team  it  did  it  did  right  so  because  when
[17:16] 
[17:16] guillam  and  Christina  came  into  the
[17:17] 
[17:17] business  game  came  with  like  10  years  of
[17:19] 
[17:19] experience  living  in  China  Hardware
[17:22] 
[17:22] experience  the  connections  on  the  ground
[17:24] 
[17:24] we  built  a  proprietary  scooter  from  from
[17:28] 
[17:28] scratch  so  what  we  had  on  the  streets
[17:30] 
[17:30] were  not  unique  was  unique  it  was  not
[17:32] 
[17:32] mass  produced  off  the  shelf  like  uh  all
[17:36] 
[17:36] the  other  brands  were  doing  at  the  time
[17:37] 
[17:37] was  that  a  good  idea  in  hindsight  indeed
[17:40] 
[17:40] because  we  were  able  to  do  it  very  very
[17:42] 
[17:42] cost  efficiently  so  we  didn't  raise  a
[17:45] 
[17:45] lot  of  capital  but  building  your  own
[17:46] 
[17:46] Hardware  is  it  cost  efficient  really
[17:49] 
[17:49] so  again
[17:51] 
[17:51] when  we  say  building  in  in  our  context
[17:54] 
[17:54] it  was  having  the  right  connections  to  a
[17:56] 
[17:56] Syndicate  of  suppliers  that  have  the
[17:59] 
[17:59] capability  to  put  something  together
[18:00] 
[18:00] relatively  fast
[18:02] 
[18:02] so  you  design  it  designed  it  and  the
[18:05] 
[18:05] parts  are  built  you  don't  create  your
[18:07] 
[18:07] own  battery  and  your  own  wheel  obviously
[18:09] 
[18:09] yeah  but  you  need  your  own  stock  you
[18:10] 
[18:10] need  to  make  some  some  kind  of  upfront
[18:12] 
[18:12] investment  it's  different  that  you  have
[18:14] 
[18:14] a  service
[18:18] 
[18:18] no  I  think  plenty  of  competitors  were
[18:20] 
[18:20] working  with  xiaomi  back  then  I  think
[18:21] 
[18:21] yeah  indeed  but  when  you  compared  what
[18:24] 
[18:24] we  put  to  Market
[18:25] 
[18:25] yeah  it  was  an  advantage  it  was  an
[18:27] 
[18:27] advantage  it  didn't  break  all  the  time  I
[18:30] 
[18:30] remember  as  a  user  it  was  like  a  tank
[18:32] 
[18:32] right  if  you  recall  it  was  uh  and  we
[18:35] 
[18:35] still  have  I  mean  still  a  lot  of  them  in
[18:37] 
[18:37] in  various  uh  inventory  Depots  around
[18:39] 
[18:39] which  which  will  be  liquidated  at  some
[18:41] 
[18:41] point  but  yeah  so  that  was  um so  it  was
[18:44] 
[18:44] an  advantage  and  we  saw  it  uh  early  in
[18:47] 
[18:47] the  journey  uh  and  we  were  able  to  do  it
[18:49] 
[18:49] pretty  Capital  efficiently  without
[18:51] 
[18:51] raising  Millions  like  other  players  you
[18:53] 
[18:53] might  say  you  race  so  the  initial
[18:55] 
[18:55] initial  something  like  when  I  when  I  was
[18:58] 
[18:58] Operation  involved  we  raised  about  in
[19:01] 
[19:01] the  first  round
[19:02] 
[19:02] about  three  and  a  half  million  and  then
[19:04] 
[19:04] another  five  so  eight  eight  and  a  half
[19:06] 
[19:06] million  in  equity  and  then  really
[19:09] 
[19:09] invest  somebody  from  Tesla  or  something
[19:11] 
[19:11] did  I  imagine  the  story
[19:13] 
[19:13] so  it  wasn't  exactly  so  it  was  one  of
[19:15] 
[19:15] the  original  board  members  of  Tesla
[19:17] 
[19:18] every  house  uh  this  investor  called
[19:20] 
[19:20] Simon  Rothman  who  uh  card  is  our  first
[19:24] 
[19:24] check  actually
[19:27] 
[19:27] [Music]
[19:28] 
[19:28] yeah  so  you  get  three  and  a  half  then
[19:31] 
[19:31] five  four  million  you  have  the  China
[19:33] 
[19:33] person  that  knows  the  producers  builds
[19:35] 
[19:35] your  own  scooter  you  build  an  app  yeah
[19:38] 
[19:38] you  view  demand  yeah  we  built  our  own  uh
[19:41] 
[19:41] firmware  how  does  it  started  working
[19:42] 
[19:42] everything  what  are  the  Milestones  of
[19:45] 
[19:45] Robbie  yeah  what  do  you  think  what  do
[19:46] 
[19:46] you  do  the  first  12  months  for  example
[19:48] 
[19:48] yeah  yeah  how  far  do  you  go
[19:50] 
[19:50] um  so  we  started  I  think  in  July  of
[19:53] 
[19:53] 2018.
[19:55] 
[19:55] um  by
[19:57] 
[19:57] I  think  October  November  we  had  built
[20:00] 
[20:00] the  basic  platform  right  so  the  app  no
[20:03] 
[20:03] app  was  just  the  icing  on  the  cake  so
[20:05] 
[20:05] I'm  talking  about  the  iot  okay  wow  so
[20:08] 
[20:08] yeah
[20:10] 
[20:10] the  BMS  the  battery  management  system
[20:13] 
[20:13] everything  was  was  ready  and  this  was
[20:15] 
[20:15] like  from  scratch  to  from  nothing  to
[20:18] 
[20:18] something  right  the  first  proprietary
[20:20] 
[20:20] sorry  the  first  prototypes  we  were
[20:22] 
[20:22] testing  in  November  and  by  first  to
[20:24] 
[20:24] second  week  of  December
[20:26] 
[20:26] we  were  able  to  put  out  50  scooters  in
[20:30] 
[20:30] Barcelona
[20:31] 
[20:31] and  this  was  uh  this  was  interesting
[20:33] 
[20:33] because  uh
[20:35] 
[20:35] we  obviously  didn't  there  was  a  regular
[20:37] 
[20:37] I  mean  there  was  a  regulatory  gray  area
[20:40] 
[20:40] uh  we  were  able  to  explore  it  turns  out
[20:41] 
[20:42] it  wasn't  great
[20:43] 
[20:43] eventually  yeah  yeah  so  uh  but  there
[20:46] 
[20:46] were  some  workarounds  we  came  out  with
[20:48] 
[20:48] the  lock  anchoring  the  scooter  to  bike
[20:51] 
[20:51] bike  racks  and  so  on  which  actually
[20:53] 
[20:53] helped  keep  theft  damage  and  the
[20:56] 
[20:56] littering  problem  address  those  things
[20:57] 
[20:57] we  were  in  a  litigious  process  here  in
[21:00] 
[21:00] our  Flagship  Market  which  was
[21:01] 
[21:01] unfortunate  but  you  know  we  kept  going
[21:03] 
[21:03] to  the  city  with  the  city  uh  did  you
[21:05] 
[21:05] meet  with  kolau  uh  not  directly  but  uh
[21:09] 
[21:09] with  the  rest  of  her  team  and  this  was
[21:10] 
[21:10] uh  quite  a  challenge  because  we  moved
[21:12] 
[21:12] ahead  without  let's  say  their  blessing
[21:14] 
[21:14] uh  but  as  far  as  why  did  they  you  know
[21:18] 
[21:18] why  did  they  hate  so  much  this  kind  of
[21:20] 
[21:20] things
[21:21] 
[21:21] well  they  still  do  right  they  still  do
[21:22] 
[21:22] yeah  well  look  so  I  was  rather  so  we
[21:26] 
[21:26] were  all  very  idealized  right  in  in
[21:28] 
[21:28] pursuing  something  like  this  okay  we're
[21:30] 
[21:30] gonna  disrupt  public  Mobility  uh  we're
[21:33] 
[21:33] gonna  disrupt  in  a  good  way  in  a  good
[21:35] 
[21:35] way  it  can  also  mean  yeah  yeah  but  but
[21:36] 
[21:36] in  hindsight  I  don't  so  there  are  other
[21:39] 
[21:39] markets  like  Saragosa  where  there  is  a
[21:42] 
[21:42] real  uh  mobility  issue  public
[21:45] 
[21:45] transportation  is  sparse  if  you  go  there
[21:47] 
[21:47] at  certain  times  of  the  day  you  can't
[21:49] 
[21:49] find  a  cab  there's  there's  this  Motors
[21:50] 
[21:51] and  whatnot  but  there's  nothing  else  in
[21:52] 
[21:52] between  at  that  time  it  was  the  case
[21:54] 
[21:54] so  there  it  made  a  lot  of  sense  but  in  a
[21:56] 
[21:57] city  like  Barcelona  where  you  have
[21:58] 
[21:58] um  you  know  millions  of  tourists  it  is  a
[22:01] 
[22:01] public  nuisance  I  give  you  that  it  is  a
[22:03] 
[22:03] public  nuisance  right  so  free  floating
[22:06] 
[22:06] uh  it  can  create  problems  it  it  is  yeah
[22:10] 
[22:10] it  does  create  problems  and  I'll  be  you
[22:11] 
[22:11] know  you  have  to  be  honest  and
[22:12] 
[22:12] acknowledge  that  so  and  especially
[22:14] 
[22:14] around  you  know  dense  neighborhoods  like
[22:16] 
[22:16] the  gothic  and  so  on  yeah  it's  not  nice
[22:19] 
[22:19] right  so  people  zipping  around  these
[22:20] 
[22:21] things
[22:22] 
[22:22] um  yeah  things  it  hadn't  been  proven  out
[22:24] 
[22:24] uh  there  were  there  was  a  lot  to  be
[22:27] 
[22:27] desired  was  there  some  specific  incident
[22:29] 
[22:29] uh  no  do  you  remember  like  somebody  I
[22:32] 
[22:32] don't  know  falling  dying  somebody's
[22:33] 
[22:33] dying  on  a  no  not  on  so  fortunately  you
[22:36] 
[22:36] know  but  there  was  one  incident  where
[22:39] 
[22:39] someone  was  hurt  uh  but  nothing  no  no
[22:42] 
[22:42] fatalities  as  I  recall  as  far  as  I  was  I
[22:46] 
[22:46] was  I  was  involved  but  what  did  the  the
[22:48] 
[22:48] city  hall  uh  argument  what  was  it  so  the
[22:50] 
[22:50] argument  was
[22:52] 
[22:52] um  this  is  not  approved  no  one  uh  it's
[22:56] 
[22:56] it  needs  there  needs  to  be  a  proper
[22:57] 
[22:57] process  uh  it  needs  to  be  evaluated  in
[23:00] 
[23:00] terms  of  safety  in  terms  of  all  of  that
[23:02] 
[23:02] we  went  through  the  process  of
[23:04] 
[23:04] registering  each  one  of  these  vehicles
[23:06] 
[23:06] with  the  city  hall  there  was  a  process
[23:07] 
[23:07] that  we  that  we  that  we  fulfilled  a  new
[23:09] 
[23:09] process  because  it  was  a  new  process  a
[23:11] 
[23:11] new  process  but  we  registered  them  just
[23:13] 
[23:13] like  all  the  other  Mobility  operators
[23:14] 
[23:14] like  the  bicycles  yeah  so  we  had  the
[23:16] 
[23:16] motorbikes  exactly  we  had  the  QR  code
[23:18] 
[23:18] and  everything  uh  so  we  we  fulfilled  all
[23:21] 
[23:21] those  requirements  but  you  know  it's  a
[23:23] 
[23:23] political  thing  right  so  you  can't
[23:24] 
[23:24] influence  it  uh  you  you  do  your  best  you
[23:27] 
[23:27] work  around
[23:28] 
[23:28] using  the  experience  that  we  built  here
[23:30] 
[23:30] in  Barcelona  and  and  the  and  the
[23:33] 
[23:33] uh  the  density  and  the  number  of  rides
[23:36] 
[23:36] um  we  were  able  to  drive  operational
[23:39] 
[23:39] excellence  in  terms  of  building  a
[23:41] 
[23:42] capability  of  maintaining  the  fleet
[23:43] 
[23:43] building  Partnerships  with  you  know
[23:45] 
[23:45] 3pl's  third-party  Logistics  providers  uh
[23:49] 
[23:49] building  that  capability  and  exporting
[23:51] 
[23:51] it  to  other  markets  such  as
[23:53] 
[23:53] all  of  these  other  places  that  maybe
[23:56] 
[23:56] eventually  ended  up  operating  in  through
[23:58] 
[23:58] public  tenders  so  taking  this  experience
[24:01] 
[24:01] building  working  closely  with  building  a
[24:04] 
[24:04] legal  strategy  having  a  very  strong
[24:07] 
[24:07] legal  team  that  was  enabling  all  of
[24:10] 
[24:10] these  other  cities  to  you  know  come  up
[24:11] 
[24:11] with  a  public  policy  around
[24:12] 
[24:12] Transportation  participating  in  those
[24:14] 
[24:14] rfps  and  building  long-term
[24:16] 
[24:16] relationships  with  those  cities  so  it  it
[24:19] 
[24:19] to  that  end  it  really  helped  but  it  was
[24:22] 
[24:22] it's  a  shame  that  we  couldn't  operate  in
[24:25] 
[24:25] your  home  City  in  the  home  City  exactly
[24:27] 
[24:27] but  you  know  I  mean  it  is  a  challenge  I
[24:28] 
[24:28] remember  I  was  a  heavy  user  of  Ruby  for
[24:30] 
[24:30] a  while  because  they  were  the  fastest
[24:32] 
[24:32] anything  most  available
[24:33] 
[24:33] ways  of  transportation  around  me  but  I
[24:37] 
[24:37] remember  going  to  Paris  with  you
[24:38] 
[24:38] actually  uh  in  2018  do  you  remember  I
[24:41] 
[24:41] was  shocked  like  the  the  the  the  Seas  of
[24:45] 
[24:45] scooters  Fallen  everywhere  in  the  middle
[24:47] 
[24:47] of  the  of  the  sidewalks  and  same  in
[24:51] 
[24:51] London  there  was  nothing  compared  to
[24:53] 
[24:53] China  and  the  bicycles
[24:55] 
[24:55] but  it  wasn't  a  pleasant  experience  like
[24:57] 
[24:57] you're  in  the  center  of  Paris  and  my
[24:59] 
[24:59] feeling  is  like  what's  all  this  crap
[25:00] 
[25:00] here  in  the  middle  yeah  right  like
[25:02] 
[25:02] that's  that's  that  was  my  and  I  want
[25:04] 
[25:04] tools  like  this  but  it  is  a  challenge  to
[25:06] 
[25:06] the  city  no  but  there  needs  to  be  a  way
[25:07] 
[25:07] to  solve  it  but  a  great  point  because
[25:09] 
[25:09] what  happened  in  Paris  specifically
[25:11] 
[25:11] citing  this  example  they  did  a
[25:13] 
[25:13] referendum  right  uh  six  months  ago  and
[25:15] 
[25:15] and  the  citizens  voted  against  removing
[25:18] 
[25:18] so  they  want  they  want  the  scooters  no
[25:20] 
[25:20] they  voted  against  suitors  ah  okay  so
[25:22] 
[25:22] they  don't  want  anything  yeah  so  they
[25:24] 
[25:24] didn't  referendum  About  Scooters  yeah
[25:25] 
[25:25] wow  yeah
[25:30] 
[25:30] [Music]
[25:33] 
[25:33] it's  great  for  haters  but
[25:37] 
[25:37] it  says  we  can  open  the  box  of  democracy
[25:39] 
[25:39] now  but  the  consequence  is  that  you  know
[25:41] 
[25:41] Paris  is  not  going  to  have  scooters  they
[25:44] 
[25:44] know  this  sort  of  uh  free-floating  uh
[25:48] 
[25:48] Mobility  options  is  going  to  be  gone
[25:49] 
[25:49] bicycles  bicycles  will  continue  it's
[25:52] 
[25:52] kind  of  weird  no  why  they're  not  that
[25:53] 
[25:53] different  they  have  two  wheels  and  the
[25:56] 
[25:56] problem  is  the  sidewalk  no  if  they  are
[25:57] 
[25:57] feeling  the  sidewalk  yeah
[26:01] 
[26:02] no  yeah  the  scooters  right  but  in  a
[26:04] 
[26:04] dense  City  like  Barcelona  and  Paris  and
[26:07] 
[26:07] so  on  where  you  just  don't  have  the
[26:08] 
[26:08] public  infrastructure  it's  very  hard
[26:10] 
[26:10] yeah  but  for  example  Barcelona  got  the
[26:12] 
[26:12] the  circulation  right  like  I  think  we
[26:15] 
[26:15] are  one  of  the  fastest  growing  cities  in
[26:18] 
[26:18] Europe  in  number  of  uh  bicycle  Lanes  I
[26:21] 
[26:21] don't  know  how  you  call  them  yeah  so
[26:22] 
[26:22] that  part  I  think  we  kind  of  got  right
[26:23] 
[26:23] the  problem  is  where  do  you  leave  the
[26:25] 
[26:25] stuff  like  you're  not  going  to take  it
[26:27] 
[26:27] home  when  people  live  in  tiny  Apartments
[26:29] 
[26:29] so  it's  a  good  idea  to  rent  it  and  share
[26:31] 
[26:31] it  but  then  where  do  we  put  them  very
[26:33] 
[26:33] popular  in  Barcelona  but  for  some  reason
[26:35] 
[26:35] scooters  are  very  hated  yeah  but  not
[26:38] 
[26:38] only  the  Public  Services  also  the
[26:39] 
[26:39] private  scooters  are  kind  of  forbidden
[26:41] 
[26:41] or  anything  no  no  you  have  to  go  in
[26:43] 
[26:43] particular  places  you  have  to  wear  yeah
[26:45] 
[26:45] speaking  you're  not  supposed  to  ride  on
[26:48] 
[26:48] um on  the  aceras  so  on  the  side  yeah
[26:52] 
[26:52] but  but  yeah  practically  speaking  you
[26:55] 
[26:55] see  people  zipping  by  you  so  there's  a
[26:58] 
[26:58] nuisance  Factor  right  so  I'm  not
[26:59] 
[26:59] surprised  that  there's  been  a  huge
[27:01] 
[27:01] backlash  and  so  coming  back  to  to  rebi
[27:04] 
[27:04] uh  scooters  were  just  one  mode  of
[27:07] 
[27:07] Transport  so  we  had  bicycles  for  you
[27:09] 
[27:09] foreign  the  plan  obviously  was  to
[27:12] 
[27:12] include  other  modes  of  Transport  like
[27:13] 
[27:13] Motors  scooters  did  you  get  there  uh
[27:16] 
[27:16] eventually  yes  yeah  okay  yeah  so  since
[27:19] 
[27:19] they  disappeared  from  Barcelona  I  never
[27:20] 
[27:20] knew  yeah  so  I
[27:22] 
[27:22] um  did  it  so  it  was  basically
[27:25] 
[27:25] um a  different  kind  of  model  a  franchise
[27:27] 
[27:27] model  okay  you  know  um
[27:30] 
[27:30] franchisees  use  the  platform  to  to
[27:34] 
[27:34] basically  offer  their  offerings  so  yes
[27:36] 
[27:36] and  and  if  there  was  not  no  regulation
[27:39] 
[27:39] problem  would  it  be  a  good  business
[27:41] 
[27:41] because  somehow  I  don't  know  the  the  all
[27:44] 
[27:44] these  players  that  appeared  they  went
[27:45] 
[27:45] dying  one  by  one  and  yeah  so  you  know
[27:49] 
[27:49] there  has  to  be  some  some  problem  so
[27:52] 
[27:52] there's  space  so  there's  very  few  uh
[27:54] 
[27:54] operators  left  from  that  original  cohort
[27:56] 
[27:56] of  American  companies  right  so  like  the
[27:59] 
[27:59] limes  and  limes  still  is  still  one  of
[28:02] 
[28:02] the dominant  players  but  practically
[28:04] 
[28:04] gone  uh  and  then  in  Europe  you  have  uh
[28:07] 
[28:07] the  Swedish  Warrior  which  is  still  got  a
[28:10] 
[28:10] dominant  presence  in  the  nodding  Sierra
[28:11] 
[28:11] tier  and  boy  I  think  are  emerged  or
[28:14] 
[28:14] something  to  actually  in  fact  yeah  so
[28:15] 
[28:15] yeah  they're  they're  still  relevant  uh
[28:18] 
[28:18] and  the  vast  majority  of
[28:20] 
[28:20] other  players  have  disappeared  right  or
[28:23] 
[28:23] practically  disappearing  so  it's  a  tough
[28:26] 
[28:26] model  uh  uh  it's
[28:28] 
[28:28] we  had  the  right  instincts  to  invest  in
[28:31] 
[28:31] in  and  build  a  capability  ground  up  from
[28:33] 
[28:33] the  hardware  and  so  on
[28:35] 
[28:35] um  so  to  that  end  while  it  lasted  it  was
[28:37] 
[28:37] it  was  good
[28:39] 
[28:39] um
[28:40] 
[28:40] but  it's  it's  the  unit  economics  are
[28:42] 
[28:42] very  strong  a  very  hard  way  because  the
[28:45] 
[28:45] cost  to  serve  is  is  very  is  very  high
[28:48] 
[28:48] the  logistics  is  not  cheap  so  the  cost
[28:50] 
[28:50] is  what  uh  1000  Euros  a  scooter  no  no
[28:55] 
[28:55] um  so
[28:58] 
[28:58] um
[28:59] 
[28:59] yes  but  we  were  able  to  do  it  for
[29:01] 
[29:01] significantly  less  less  than  a  thousand
[29:03] 
[29:03] yeah  500  more  or  less  500  scooter  then
[29:07] 
[29:07] there's  a  maintenance  so  the  maintenance
[29:09] 
[29:09] is  very  is  is  problematic  so  maintenance
[29:11] 
[29:11] being  recharging  so  if  you  have  a
[29:13] 
[29:13] replaceable  replaceable  batteries  it
[29:15] 
[29:15] drops  significantly  but  that  adds  on  a
[29:18] 
[29:18] lot  of  cost  and  you  need  people  actual
[29:20] 
[29:20] humans  who  will  change  the  battery
[29:21] 
[29:21] around  the  city  also  operationally  is
[29:23] 
[29:23] expensive  uh  you  need  to  move  the  actual
[29:25] 
[29:25] scooters  to  the  point  because  there's
[29:27] 
[29:27] typically  a  start  point  and  end  point
[29:28] 
[29:28] and  they're  not  the  same  yeah  yeah  but
[29:30] 
[29:30] that  also  depends  on  the  usage  no  so  the
[29:32] 
[29:32] usage  has  a  percentage  of  cost  for
[29:34] 
[29:34] repairing  and  recharging  and
[29:36] 
[29:36] redistribution  right  so  ultimately  it
[29:38] 
[29:38] comes  down  to  uh  so  we  have  to  be  able
[29:40] 
[29:40] to  redistribute  the  fleet  uh  to  certain
[29:43] 
[29:43] points  in  where  there's  demand  is  going
[29:45] 
[29:45] to  be  right  so  if  you  take  uh  what
[29:48] 
[29:48] happened  let's  say  in  the  peak  months
[29:50] 
[29:50] between  July  to  September
[29:53] 
[29:53] eighty  percent  of  the  fleet  would  be  in
[29:55] 
[29:55] uh  in  the  Benoit  area  so  you  need  to
[29:57] 
[29:57] move  those  things  back  to  uh  what  does
[30:01] 
[30:01] these  people  do  they  just  stay  in  the
[30:02] 
[30:02] beach
[30:03] 
[30:03] uh  or  I  suppose  yeah  so  it's  just
[30:05] 
[30:05] congregation  they  just  get  drunk  and
[30:07] 
[30:07] stay  there
[30:09] 
[30:09] so  it  can  be  frustrating  in  that  sense
[30:11] 
[30:11] from  a  user  perspective  if  you  don't
[30:13] 
[30:13] distribute  uh  so  we  we  did  a  decent  job
[30:16] 
[30:16] but  that  was  not  cost  efficient  we
[30:18] 
[30:18] didn't  crack  that  model  there  were
[30:20] 
[30:20] algorithms  that  incentivated  that  people
[30:22] 
[30:22] would  take  yeah  from  one  place  to
[30:25] 
[30:25] another  yeah  so  we  we  did  that  uh  but
[30:29] 
[30:29] you  know  the  start  and  stop  was  very
[30:31] 
[30:31] frustrating  right  so  we  didn't  have
[30:33] 
[30:33] enough  operational  data  to  be  able  to
[30:35] 
[30:35] really  optimize  those  models  to  be  able
[30:37] 
[30:37] to  drive  real  value  because  you  know  you
[30:39] 
[30:39] one  week  you'd  be  on  one  week  you'd  be
[30:41] 
[30:41] off  uh  this  cat  and  mouse  with  a  city
[30:43] 
[30:43] which  is  frustrating  it  uh  it  didn't
[30:45] 
[30:45] help  uh  so  you  mean  start  and  stop  in
[30:48] 
[30:48] terms  of  Regulation  yeah  that  the  police
[30:50] 
[30:50] would  suddenly  yeah  stop  people  right  I
[30:53] 
[30:53] remember  Cesar  telling  me  like  police  is
[30:55] 
[30:55] stopping  people  driving  uh  riding  on  a
[30:58] 
[30:58] rebi  or  other  as  good  there's  suddenly
[31:01] 
[31:01] one  week  it's  like  don't  don't  get  on
[31:02] 
[31:02] one  or  you  might  get  in  trouble  and  then
[31:03] 
[31:03] next  week  he  was  okay  and  they  would  be
[31:05] 
[31:05] fine
[31:06] 
[31:06] if  you  were  driving  I  never  got  one
[31:08] 
[31:08] there  were  people  who  were  fined  yes
[31:10] 
[31:10] really  yeah  there  were  people  who  find
[31:12] 
[31:12] she's  like  as  a  Founder  which  is  hard
[31:14] 
[31:14] enough  then  again  fighting  against  the
[31:17] 
[31:17] police  like  on  top  of  everything
[31:18] 
[31:18] fighting  against  the  market  and  fighting
[31:19] 
[31:19] against  the  place  it  was  challenging  uh
[31:22] 
[31:22] to  say  the  least
[31:24] 
[31:24] um  anyway  so  ready  was
[31:27] 
[31:27] um a  great  experience  in  that  so  you  you
[31:29] 
[31:29] left  after  a  couple  three  years
[31:32] 
[31:32] something  like  that  so  yeah  I  uh  two
[31:35] 
[31:35] years  in  I  left  my  operational  role  so  I
[31:37] 
[31:37] uh  I  exited  I  so  it  was  also
[31:42] 
[31:42] um  the  timing  also  had  to  do  with  when
[31:44] 
[31:44] we  went  to  the  franchise  model  around
[31:46] 
[31:46] the  pandemics  time  frame  uh  I  opted  out
[31:49] 
[31:49] and  it  was  also  a  combination  of  factors
[31:52] 
[31:52] right  so  Andreas  the  CEO  and  co-founder
[31:56] 
[31:56] of  two  had  come  back  from  linear  he  was
[31:59] 
[31:59] in  Norway  getting  ready  to  start
[32:01] 
[32:01] something  up  we  had  a  couple  of  chats  to
[32:04] 
[32:04] build  something  that  would  become  too
[32:07] 
[32:07] was  really  interesting  and  just  you  know
[32:09] 
[32:09] I'd  like  to  touch  upon  this  and  it'll  be
[32:11] 
[32:11] a  perfect  segue  to  get  into  why  two  came
[32:13] 
[32:13] about  and  what  was  the  problem  we  were
[32:15] 
[32:15] solving  so  in  our  experience  at  uh
[32:17] 
[32:17] linear  Lineo  is  a  Marketplace  uh
[32:20] 
[32:20] Merchant  right  so  we  were  selling  stuff
[32:21] 
[32:21] on  behalf  of  merchants  and  about  20  of
[32:24] 
[32:24] our  clientele  clients  where  business  is
[32:27] 
[32:27] making  purchases  on  our  platform  and
[32:29] 
[32:29] typically  these  businesses  required  to
[32:32] 
[32:32] make  or  to  make  purchases  on  invoice
[32:35] 
[32:35] right  so  with  some  deferred  mode  of
[32:38] 
[32:38] payment  some  credit
[32:39] 
[32:39] and  as  big  as  linear  was  it  was  not  a
[32:42] 
[32:42] core  competency  we  could  not  credit  on
[32:44] 
[32:44] the  right  we  could  not
[32:45] 
[32:45] have  a  verify  identity  issue  invoices
[32:48] 
[32:48] follow-up  collections  all  of  that  it  was
[32:50] 
[32:50] a  huge  challenge
[32:52] 
[32:52] and  we  were  losing  a  lot  of  sales  a
[32:53] 
[32:53] typical  experience  of  some  of  these
[32:56] 
[32:56] customers  would  they  would  come  into  the
[32:57] 
[32:57] you  know  checkout  page  and  they'd  they'd
[32:59] 
[33:00] see  pay  with  credit  card  pay  with  cash
[33:02] 
[33:02] they  pick  up  the  phone  call  customer
[33:04] 
[33:04] service  how  can  I  pay  on  invoice  I  want
[33:06] 
[33:06] to  buy  50  TVs
[33:07] 
[33:07] uh  you  know  pay  in  30  days  60  days  in  30
[33:10] 
[33:10] days  we  try  to  establish  some  of  the
[33:12] 
[33:12] sales  would  be  loosen  so  that's
[33:14] 
[33:14] the  point  the  the  the  challenge  that  we
[33:16] 
[33:16] are  trying  to  solve  or  we  are  solving
[33:18] 
[33:18] here  today  with  two
[33:20] 
[33:20] and  you  know  that  resonated  really  well
[33:22] 
[33:22] with  me  early  stage  let's  get  this  going
[33:24] 
[33:24] working  again  with  Andreas  on  on this
[33:27] 
[33:27] was  amazing  so
[33:29] 
[33:29] uh  it  was  you  know  tough  decision  to
[33:31] 
[33:31] make  to  leave  rabi  uh  that  was  very
[33:34] 
[33:34] understanding  can  you  can  you  share  with
[33:36] 
[33:36] us
[33:37] 
[33:37] um because  this  is  something  that
[33:38] 
[33:38] happens  in  startups  when  founders  start
[33:40] 
[33:40] a  company  with  all  the  dreams  and
[33:42] 
[33:42] illusion  of  what's  going  to  happen  and
[33:44] 
[33:44] then  at  some  point  things  go  south  or
[33:45] 
[33:45] things  don't  go  as  expected  and  then
[33:47] 
[33:47] they  have  this  conversation  yeah  so  how
[33:49] 
[33:49] do  you  manage  this  conversation  with
[33:50] 
[33:50] your  co-founders  yeah  so  with  a  lot  of
[33:53] 
[33:53] uh  guilt
[33:55] 
[33:55] uh  and  uh  and  stress  obviously
[33:59] 
[33:59] um  so  it  was  a  tough  time  for  the
[34:00] 
[34:00] business  it  was  you  know  the  pandemic
[34:02] 
[34:02] was  on  uh  the  business  was  slowly
[34:04] 
[34:04] getting  back  on  its  feet
[34:05] 
[34:05] I  had  this  thing  uh  this  was  precisely
[34:09] 
[34:09] three  years  ago  so  September  in  2020.
[34:14] 
[34:14] um  so  yeah  I  I  was  clear  in  what  I
[34:16] 
[34:16] wanted  and  I  was  also  uh  at  a  point  in
[34:19] 
[34:19] my  life  uh  where  I  wanted  to  put  myself
[34:21] 
[34:21] and  my  family  forward  right  first  the
[34:24] 
[34:24] review  experience  was  great  and  where  I
[34:27] 
[34:27] was  within  the  company  what  I  could
[34:28] 
[34:28] offer  in  terms  of  regulatory  uh  aspects
[34:32] 
[34:32] of  things  fundraising  uh  and  so  on  I
[34:35] 
[34:35] wasn't  adding  a  lot  of  value  there
[34:36] 
[34:36] personally  so  it  was  a  reckoning  now
[34:38] 
[34:38] look  I  could  do  better  somewhere  else  or
[34:40] 
[34:40] I  could  continue  here  and  I  think  you
[34:42] 
[34:42] know  when  I  had  that  conversation  with
[34:44] 
[34:44] pep  it  was  hard  but  he  was  understanding
[34:47] 
[34:47] you  know  this  is  ultimately  a  where  your
[34:50] 
[34:50] heart  is  is  what  you  do  and  I  stayed  on
[34:52] 
[34:52] in  a  you  know  advisory  capacity  uh
[34:56] 
[34:56] beyond  that  but  I  I
[34:58] 
[34:58] I  removed  myself  from  a  day-to-day
[35:01] 
[35:01] um  starting  you  know  2020  September
[35:03] 
[35:03] October
[35:04] 
[35:04] and  then  around  January  when  things
[35:07] 
[35:07] really  started  picking  up  with  two  I  was
[35:09] 
[35:09] fully  out  so  fully  out  as  in  also
[35:12] 
[35:12] selling  you  shares  or  you  stayed  a
[35:15] 
[35:15] shareholder  I  stayed  as  a  shareholder  uh
[35:17] 
[35:17] until
[35:19] 
[35:19] um  until  the  the  acquisition  uh  by  Seoul
[35:23] 
[35:23] uh  or  House  of  lithium
[35:25] 
[35:25] which  was  basically  they  let  us  use  a  at
[35:29] 
[35:29] rebbe  this  was  just  after  I  I  left  so
[35:31] 
[35:31] they  were  one  of  the  biggest  investors
[35:32] 
[35:33] the  Lead  Series  investor  is  the  one  that
[35:35] 
[35:35] offered  to  acquire  the  company  correct
[35:36] 
[35:36] yeah  that  offered  uh  signed  well  yeah  I
[35:40] 
[35:40] mean  that's  something  I  wanted  to  ask
[35:41] 
[35:41] about  because  for  but  but  then  in  this
[35:43] 
[35:43] series  hey  if  there  was  a  secondary  and
[35:45] 
[35:45] is  where  you  left  no  I  I  didn't  settle
[35:47] 
[35:47] at  the  series  a  so  I  sold  uh  before
[35:50] 
[35:50] before  the  acquisition  just  before  the
[35:52] 
[35:52] acquisition
[35:53] 
[35:53] okay  and  then  how  did  what  happened  with
[35:55] 
[35:55] Robbie  yeah  exactly  between  the  news
[35:57] 
[35:57] here  it  was  recently  in  the  news  yeah  so
[36:00] 
[36:00] it's  um it's  still  in  in  litigation  so
[36:03] 
[36:03] in  the  US  in  the  US  uh  because  this  is  a
[36:06] 
[36:06] Delaware  Corporation  and  uh  the  last
[36:09] 
[36:09] outcome  was  that  you  know  it  we  need  to
[36:12] 
[36:12] basically  go  to  trial  again  and  yeah
[36:14] 
[36:14] that's  where  it  is  so  this  house  of
[36:16] 
[36:16] lithium  came  to  rabi  and  said  I  want  to
[36:18] 
[36:18] buy  you  or  Robbie  went  to  them  and  say
[36:20] 
[36:20] we  want  to  sell
[36:22] 
[36:22] I'm  not  on  on  top  of  the  details  uh
[36:24] 
[36:24] there  but  basically  they  were  one  of  the
[36:27] 
[36:27] investors  right  so  lead  investor  with  a
[36:29] 
[36:29] with  a  significant  stake  in  the  business
[36:30] 
[36:30] already  prior  to  the  acquisition  and
[36:33] 
[36:33] from  what  I  understand  their  strategy
[36:34] 
[36:34] was  to  build  a  constellation  of  Brands
[36:37] 
[36:37] right  so  around  probability  uh  battery
[36:40] 
[36:40] management  uh  and  so  on  and  ready  was
[36:43] 
[36:43] fit  into  the  the  picture  as  one  one
[36:45] 
[36:45] piece  of  that  puzzle  uh  and  they  had
[36:47] 
[36:47] acquired  another  cost  another  company  in
[36:49] 
[36:49] the  battery  space  uh  and  so  on  and  this
[36:51] 
[36:51] was  basically  the  plan  to  float  uh  an
[36:54] 
[36:54] entity  that  gets  uh  on  the  on  the
[36:57] 
[36:57] Canadian  Stock  Exchange
[36:59] 
[36:59] So  to  that  end  the  review  deal  would  be
[37:02] 
[37:02] you  know  review  would  be  acquired  wholly
[37:04] 
[37:04] uh  by  house
[37:06] 
[37:06] uh  yeah  like  um you  know  cash  to  pay  out
[37:10] 
[37:10] the  the  equity  holders  uh  and  and  some
[37:13] 
[37:13] Surplus  for  for  for  some  early  for  the
[37:17] 
[37:17] management  team  or  exactly  and  that  was
[37:19] 
[37:19] basically  the  team  but  it  was  a  good  a
[37:20] 
[37:20] good  outcome  for  the  founders  and  for
[37:22] 
[37:22] the  investors  if  it  had  gone  through
[37:24] 
[37:24] from  what  I  understand  it  would  have
[37:25] 
[37:25] been  a  fantastic  uh  outcome  for  uh  the
[37:28] 
[37:28] shareholders  acquisition  yeah  because
[37:30] 
[37:30] they  and  for  the  company  that  would
[37:32] 
[37:32] survive  yeah  yeah  but  you  know  the  way
[37:35] 
[37:35] things  ended  up  is  that  uh  what  happened
[37:37] 
[37:37] what  what's  the  Tipping  Point
[37:39] 
[37:39] so  litigation  is  expensive  but  why  is
[37:41] 
[37:41] there  litigation  no  what  happened
[37:43] 
[37:43] probably  is  that  the  market  Fall  so  the
[37:46] 
[37:46] world  financial  Market  there's  many
[37:47] 
[37:47] things  right  so
[37:49] 
[37:49] one  is  uh
[37:51] 
[37:51] yes  so  the  company  needed  a  response
[37:53] 
[37:53] right  so  either  through  an  acquisition
[37:55] 
[37:55] or  through  the  private  markets  uh  as  a
[37:59] 
[37:59] extension  to  the  series  A  or  B  or
[38:00] 
[38:00] whatever  we  have  we  had  a  term  sheet
[38:02] 
[38:02] that  was  executed  and  signed  uh  not  term
[38:05] 
[38:05] sheet  a  sale  document  everything  done  so
[38:07] 
[38:07] the  transaction  the  transaction  was
[38:08] 
[38:08] assigned
[38:09] 
[38:09] typically  in  a  transaction  document  like
[38:12] 
[38:12] this  you  have  like  30  days  to  wire  the
[38:13] 
[38:13] money  and  stuff  like  that  a  portion  of
[38:15] 
[38:15] the  funds  were  wired  as  well  a  portion
[38:17] 
[38:17] of  the  funds  was  wired  yeah  a  small
[38:19] 
[38:19] portion  yeah
[38:21] 
[38:21] so  the  deal  was  had  happened  in  the
[38:24] 
[38:24] second  the  second  wire  never  came  the
[38:27] 
[38:27] The  Joint  statement  the  press  release
[38:29] 
[38:30] was  will  happen  with  them  so  there  was  a
[38:33] 
[38:33] there  was  an  article  crunch  everything
[38:34] 
[38:34] yeah  that's  true  so  everything  went  out
[38:36] 
[38:36] and  then  yeah  it  was  like  uh  I  suppose  a
[38:39] 
[38:39] Twitter  Elon  moment  on  their  end
[38:42] 
[38:42] um  and  they  they've  done  their  best  to
[38:44] 
[38:44] get  out  of  it  so  they  decided  to
[38:47] 
[38:47] walk  back  the  acquisition  yeah  excited
[38:51] 
[38:51] legally  yeah  and  that's  basically  where
[38:53] 
[38:53] we  are  today  it's  uh  that  sucks
[38:55] 
[38:55] you  have  a  Twitter  I  mean  I  don't  lost
[38:59] 
[38:59] yeah  let's  say  no  yeah  so  I  don't  know
[39:02] 
[39:02] that  I  know  don't  know  the  document  but
[39:03] 
[39:03] depends  on  how  it's  written  especially
[39:06] 
[39:06] in  the  US  well  it  looks  quite  effective
[39:08] 
[39:08] explicitly  said  he  doesn't  want  anything
[39:10] 
[39:10] diligence  like  he  signed  the  worst
[39:12] 
[39:12] possible  contract  apparently  yeah  but  it
[39:15] 
[39:15] should  be  quite  effective  in  the  US
[39:17] 
[39:17] maybe  in  Spain  that  could  be  two  years
[39:19] 
[39:19] but  or  more  or  more  yeah  so  you  know  for
[39:22] 
[39:22] practical  purposes  there  is  a
[39:24] 
[39:24] There's  Hope
[39:26] 
[39:26] um  yeah  yeah  I  think  you  know  that
[39:28] 
[39:28] they're  forced  to  pay  and  then  but  how
[39:30] 
[39:30] can  that  we  hope  I  mean  the  company
[39:32] 
[39:32] cannot  survive  like  people  cannot  stay
[39:34] 
[39:34] waiting  for  money  to  arrive  no  that's
[39:37] 
[39:37] true  so  things  are  uh  where  they  are
[39:39] 
[39:39] today  because  of  that  because  of  that
[39:41] 
[39:41] reason  yeah
[39:42] 
[39:42] I'm  sure  there's  an  infinite  detail
[39:43] 
[39:43] right  there
[39:45] 
[39:45] the  thing  is  you  went  then  uh  you  met
[39:48] 
[39:48] Andreas  again  uh  with  it  was  somebody
[39:50] 
[39:50] you  you  liked  when  you  worked  with  him
[39:52] 
[39:52] and  and  you  felt  like  that  was  a  good
[39:55] 
[39:55] opportunity  for  you
[39:56] 
[39:56] um and  and what  and  the  beach  was  what
[39:59] 
[39:59] you  said  before  no  solving  this  problem
[40:01] 
[40:01] that  you're  covered  in  basically  what  is
[40:04] 
[40:04] two  we  offer  an  API  payment  method  for
[40:06] 
[40:06] API  based  payment  method  for  B2B  so  B2B
[40:09] 
[40:09] specific  you  can  simplify  it  by  saying
[40:11] 
[40:11] it's  a  buy  now  pay  later  solution  for
[40:13] 
[40:13] specifically  for  B2B  so  what  that
[40:15] 
[40:15] entails  is  we  enable
[40:17] 
[40:17] um  businesses  that  make  purchases
[40:21] 
[40:21] so  all  people  that  make  purchases  on
[40:23] 
[40:23] behalf  of  your  business  so  let's  take
[40:25] 
[40:25] the  use  case  of  factorial  purchasing
[40:27] 
[40:27] computers  from  Apple  or  uh  or  Amazon
[40:30] 
[40:30] right  so  you  have  an  account  a  trade
[40:33] 
[40:33] account  with  one  of  these  companies
[40:34] 
[40:34] that's  a  real  case  we  do  that  yeah  so  uh
[40:37] 
[40:37] and  uh  and  two  basically  offers  a  fund
[40:41] 
[40:41] fully  funded  invoice  solution  to  Amazon
[40:43] 
[40:43] to  fund
[40:45] 
[40:45] um  the  purchases  on  behalf  of  factory  so
[40:47] 
[40:47] we  don't  pay  Apple  you  pay  Apple  correct
[40:50] 
[40:50] and  then  we  pay  you  correct  and  this  is
[40:52] 
[40:52] an  API  only  so  I  didn't  even  know  that
[40:55] 
[40:55] you  exist  Apple  provides  this  to  us  so
[40:58] 
[40:58] it  depends  on  the  operating  model  and
[41:00] 
[41:00] where  we  operate  we  are  not  a  white
[41:02] 
[41:02] label  solution  per  se  so  we  exist  as  a
[41:05] 
[41:05] payment  so  the  financing  agreement  is
[41:06] 
[41:06] with  you  the  the  end  exactly  so  we  uh
[41:11] 
[41:11] help  the  merchant  delegate  all  of  the
[41:13] 
[41:13] collections  uh  the  risk  the  the  credit
[41:17] 
[41:17] and  the  fraud  risk  to  us  so  it's  closer
[41:20] 
[41:20] to  Atlanta  or  an  affirm  yeah  the
[41:22] 
[41:22] difference  is  the  buyer  is  specifically
[41:23] 
[41:23] B2B  exactly  so  it's  a  much  larger  what
[41:27] 
[41:27] changes  product  space  when  the  buyer  is
[41:28] 
[41:28] a  B2B
[41:29] 
[41:29] for  from  whose  perspective  from  the
[41:32] 
[41:32] business  perspective  yeah  the  risk  is  a
[41:35] 
[41:35] lot  harder  to  assess  because  you  know
[41:36] 
[41:36] you  don't  have  uh  credit  bureau
[41:38] 
[41:38] information  so  it's  a  capability  to
[41:41] 
[41:41] build  that  we  we  have  now  three  years
[41:42] 
[41:42] under  our  belt  doing  it  in  three  markets
[41:44] 
[41:44] do  you  have  algorithms  or  data  or
[41:46] 
[41:46] something  we've  built  when  I  put
[41:48] 
[41:48] factorial  ink  which  is  not  a  real  name
[41:50] 
[41:50] that  I  put  their  company  name  then  you
[41:51] 
[41:51] know  How  likely  you  are  to  get  the  money
[41:53] 
[41:53] back  yeah  exactly  so  we  we  built  we've
[41:57] 
[41:57] invested  and  make  that  happen
[41:59] 
[41:59] um  so  we  give  you
[42:01] 
[42:01] um  a  credit  worthiness  score  and  then
[42:03] 
[42:03] you  know  right  away  whether  you  can
[42:04] 
[42:04] continue  with  the  purchase  or  not  and  in
[42:06] 
[42:06] some  cases  the  merchant  has  the
[42:08] 
[42:08] capability  to  show  whether  the  payment
[42:11] 
[42:11] method  is  relevant  for  you  or  not
[42:12] 
[42:12] they're  factoring  now  so  factoring  so
[42:16] 
[42:16] factoring  happens  in  a  post  sale  context
[42:19] 
[42:19] where  the  issue  or  the  invoice  is
[42:21] 
[42:21] created  and  then  you  sell  the  invoice  so
[42:24] 
[42:24] what  we're  doing  is  real-time  decision
[42:25] 
[42:25] making  right  so  we're  doing  it  at  the
[42:27] 
[42:27] point  of  sale  so  yes  it  is  factoring  but
[42:30] 
[42:30] it's  factoring  with  a  Twist  the  invoice
[42:32] 
[42:32] in  the  user  experience  though  it's  a
[42:35] 
[42:35] much  faster  the  risk  ass  salesman  and
[42:37] 
[42:37] everything  it's  the  same  thing  is  the
[42:39] 
[42:39] seller  no  who  decides  to  do  that  so  I
[42:41] 
[42:41] sell  you  something  expensive  you're
[42:43] 
[42:43] going  to  pay  me  90  days  and  I  go  to  the
[42:45] 
[42:45] bank  and  I  say  I  want  the  money  now  and
[42:47] 
[42:47] the  bank  gives  it  to  me  the  seller  no
[42:48] 
[42:48] that's  another  thing  that  is  factoring
[42:51] 
[42:51] factoring  is  not  a  seller  yeah  that's
[42:54] 
[42:54] how  I  understand  factoring  it's  a  seller
[42:56] 
[42:56] who  gets  this  so  your  account  payables
[42:57] 
[42:57] right  so  your  account  receivable  you  can
[42:59] 
[42:59] sell  your  I  want  to  get  the  money
[43:00] 
[43:00] earlier  exactly  exactly  well  obviously
[43:03] 
[43:03] at  a  cost  for  me  so  you  partner  with
[43:05] 
[43:05] Apple
[43:06] 
[43:06] no  so  that  would  be  great  uh  we  no  so
[43:10] 
[43:10] our  uh  so  in  Sweden  we  operate  with  uh
[43:14] 
[43:14] net  on  net  which  is  one  of  the  largest
[43:15] 
[43:15] uh  e-commerce  uh  players  in  the  region
[43:17] 
[43:17] in  Norway  the  authorized  Apple
[43:21] 
[43:21] distributor  is  uh  office  to  as  a  payment
[43:24] 
[43:24] method  uh  so  we  service  everything  from
[43:28] 
[43:28] SAS  consultancies  physical  Goods  uh
[43:31] 
[43:31] purchasing
[43:32] 
[43:32] and  uh  and  in  the  construction  space  as
[43:34] 
[43:34] well  so  marketplaces  are  also  an  option
[43:37] 
[43:37] are  you  judge  who
[43:39] 
[43:39] we  charge  the  margin  so  no  matter
[43:42] 
[43:42] so  it's  it's  it's  exactly  like  offering
[43:45] 
[43:45] uh  later  no  so  think  of  it  like  you  have
[43:49] 
[43:49] you're  selling  a  product  on  your  site
[43:50] 
[43:51] right  and  you  offer  credit  card  as  a
[43:54] 
[43:54] payment  method  so  you're  basically  we're
[43:55] 
[43:55] we're  basically  the  payment  method
[43:58] 
[43:58] instead  of  you  paying  stripe  you're
[44:00] 
[44:00] paying  us  and  you  have  a  parameter  of
[44:02] 
[44:02] better  conversion  exactly  much  higher
[44:04] 
[44:04] conversion  what  are  they  paying  for
[44:05] 
[44:05] specifically  for  B2B  right  so  so  back  to
[44:08] 
[44:08] your  case  in  linear  so  coming  so  when
[44:10] 
[44:10] they  wanted  40  TVs  and  they  didn't  want
[44:11] 
[44:12] to  pay  up  front  they  didn't  buy  if  they
[44:14] 
[44:14] lost  their  sales  it's  a  lost  lost  sale
[44:16] 
[44:16] opportunity  that  you  that  you  that  you
[44:18] 
[44:18] don't  lose
[44:20] 
[44:20] um  then  the  operational  complexity  right
[44:22] 
[44:22] most  businesses  are  not  in  the  should
[44:25] 
[44:25] not  be  in  the  business  of  credit
[44:27] 
[44:27] underwriting  Collections  and  so  on  right
[44:29] 
[44:29] so  it's  operationally  complex  there's
[44:31] 
[44:31] overhead  that  is  outsourced  to  two  so
[44:33] 
[44:33] two  basically  does  all  of  that  on  behalf
[44:35] 
[44:35] of  those  customers  so  if  the  customer
[44:37] 
[44:37] doesn't  pay
[44:38] 
[44:38] it's  always  your  problem  it's  my  it's
[44:39] 
[44:39] our  problem  exactly  so  you're  very
[44:41] 
[44:41] motivated  to  do  the  correct  underwriting
[44:44] 
[44:44] exactly  exactly  not  just  for  your
[44:45] 
[44:45] customer  but  because  otherwise  you  take
[44:47] 
[44:47] this  yeah  we  take  the  hit  of  course  so
[44:48] 
[44:48] this  is  a  capability  that  uh  what  what
[44:51] 
[44:51] is  what's  the  price  what's  the  interest
[44:52] 
[44:52] rate  so  there's  no  interest  so  it's  not
[44:54] 
[44:54] interest  rate  based  it's  basically  a
[44:56] 
[44:56] transaction  fee  service  yeah  it's  a
[44:58] 
[44:58] transaction  fee  in  interest  so  think  of
[45:01] 
[45:01] it  I  will  convert  it  as  an  interest  if  I
[45:03] 
[45:03] would  be  a  seller  so  think  of  it  as  the
[45:05] 
[45:05] it's  on  par  with  the  transaction  fee
[45:08] 
[45:08] that  you  would  pay  strike  or  for  an  Amex
[45:10] 
[45:10] transaction  right  so  like  a  two  each
[45:12] 
[45:12] percent  to  each  percent  yeah  okay  on  on
[45:15] 
[45:15] a  15  to  30  day  invoice  so  if  if  it's  a
[45:18] 
[45:18] different  product  which  is  basically
[45:19] 
[45:19] installments  which  we  could  do  anywhere
[45:20] 
[45:21] between  three  to  12  months  it  will  be
[45:22] 
[45:22] higher  and  how  do  you  collect  the  money
[45:24] 
[45:24] how  do  they  pay  you
[45:25] 
[45:25] um you  cannot  pay  stripe  no  yeah  exactly
[45:28] 
[45:28] it's  wire  transfer  why  transfer  or  uh
[45:30] 
[45:30] and  then  you  have  an  army  of  collections
[45:32] 
[45:32] agents  that  are  calling
[45:34] 
[45:34] um  you  know  so  we're  pretty  efficient  so
[45:36] 
[45:36] we're  in  the  northern  switch  I  guess
[45:37] 
[45:37] yeah
[45:40] 
[45:40] so  we  do  have  a  small  collections  team
[45:42] 
[45:42] which  is  like  one  or  two  people  uh  it's
[45:44] 
[45:44] very  small  for  a  business  that  only  does
[45:46] 
[45:46] this  basically  yeah  yeah  and  the  UK  as
[45:48] 
[45:48] well  um  so  it's  basically  UK  should  be
[45:50] 
[45:50] maybe  more  challenging  so  our  basically
[45:53] 
[45:53] a  Collections  Unit  is  about  three  people
[45:54] 
[45:54] but  it's  it's  highly  organized  automated
[45:57] 
[45:57] so  our  bank  operations
[45:59] 
[45:59] um
[46:01] 
[46:01] yes  uh  there  are  it's  a  small  it's  a
[46:04] 
[46:04] small  percentage  but  you  know  in  in  this
[46:06] 
[46:06] business  what  you  do  is  you  don't  you
[46:08] 
[46:08] build  up  you  build  up  the  confidence
[46:09] 
[46:09] right  so  there  are  some  first  time  there
[46:12] 
[46:12] is  there  is  first  party  fraud  uh  but
[46:14] 
[46:14] it's  a  very  small  percentage  we  don't
[46:16] 
[46:16] take  big  risks  and  there  is  an  identity
[46:19] 
[46:19] verification  piece  associated  with  with
[46:20] 
[46:21] the  buyer  experience  you  don't  take  big
[46:22] 
[46:22] marginal  drift  invoice  by  invoice  but  in
[46:25] 
[46:25] some  you're  thinking  another  place  yeah
[46:26] 
[46:26] but  it's  Diversified  right  it's  across
[46:28] 
[46:28] Industries  it's  across  multiple  how  much
[46:30] 
[46:30] money  is  Lent  out  right  now  for  example
[46:32] 
[46:32] this  is  the  number  you  track  uh  roughly
[46:34] 
[46:34] is  it  like  in  the  millions  tens  of
[46:36] 
[46:36] millions  so  we're  transacting  in  the
[46:38] 
[46:38] almost  double  digits  uh  volume  per  month
[46:42] 
[46:42] on  a  monthly  basis  so  eight  nine
[46:43] 
[46:43] whatever  seven  eight  nine  million  no
[46:45] 
[46:45] slightly  more  than  that  okay  we're  on
[46:47] 
[46:47] track  to  basically  2x  uh  2.5  x  what  we
[46:51] 
[46:51] did  in  2022  okay  the  the  demand  is  that
[46:53] 
[46:53] growth  is  there  and  we're  and  you  said
[46:56] 
[46:56] Norway
[46:57] 
[46:57] Sweden  Norway  Sweden  and  UK  and  the  UK
[47:00] 
[47:00] is  a  no-brainer  I  mean  if  you're  giving
[47:02] 
[47:02] money  to  the  people  that's  always  a  man
[47:04] 
[47:04] the  question  is  how  can  you  build  a
[47:07] 
[47:07] business  a  sustainable  business
[47:08] 
[47:08] sustainable  business  indeed  so  and  do
[47:11] 
[47:11] you  go  to  SMB  or  you  go  to  large
[47:12] 
[47:12] Enterprise  it's  totally  different  risk
[47:14] 
[47:14] so  yes  so  we  are  we  we  had  to  start  at
[47:17] 
[47:17] the  lower  end  which  is  small  small  and
[47:19] 
[47:19] medium  business
[47:21] 
[47:21] the  risk  is  there  but  you  know  if  you
[47:23] 
[47:23] build  uh  so  think  about  it  this  way
[47:24] 
[47:24] right  so  who's  taking  the  risk  today  is
[47:26] 
[47:26] the  merchant  if  they  don't  offer  any
[47:28] 
[47:28] Services  any  any  buy  now  pay  later  or
[47:31] 
[47:31] let's  say  they  are  just  extending
[47:33] 
[47:33] invoice  or  net  terms  on  invoice  they're
[47:35] 
[47:35] taking  the  risk
[47:37] 
[47:37] the  sales  are  growing
[47:38] 
[47:39] and  what  they're  doing  is  basically
[47:40] 
[47:40] forwarding  us  good  customers  there's  a
[47:43] 
[47:43] need  there's  a  digital  good  or  bad
[47:45] 
[47:45] customer  good  customer  so  the  good
[47:46] 
[47:46] customer  they  can  do  it  themselves  yeah
[47:49] 
[47:49] but  they're  taking  so  nobody  give  good
[47:51] 
[47:51] customer  but  there's  a  working  capital
[47:52] 
[47:52] issue  right  so  if  you  if  they're  going
[47:55] 
[47:55] to  pay  you  in  30  days  what  we're  doing
[47:57] 
[47:57] is  we  pay  you  right  away  so  there  is  a
[47:59] 
[47:59] valuable  position  there  okay  there's  no
[48:01] 
[48:01] collections  they  don't  have  to  have  a
[48:02] 
[48:02] team  running  after  but  why  don't  they
[48:04] 
[48:04] give  you  the  bad  customers  too  if  they
[48:05] 
[48:05] get  paid  today  sure  of  course
[48:12] 
[48:12] we  give  us  customers  exactly  so  good
[48:15] 
[48:15] about
[48:19] 
[48:19] has  to  pay  for  the  collection  people  the
[48:22] 
[48:22] risk  that  you  are  taking  and  the  whole
[48:24] 
[48:24] business
[48:25] 
[48:25] so  it's  a  high  volume  business  it's  a
[48:27] 
[48:27] high  volume  business  it's  like  payments
[48:28] 
[48:28] right  payments  is  um it's  a  high  scale
[48:30] 
[48:30] business  you  have  to  you  have  to  be
[48:32] 
[48:32] operating  you  need  to  get  to  the
[48:33] 
[48:33] billions  yeah  and  that's  for  there  to  be
[48:35] 
[48:35] a  business  yeah  that's  um that's  the
[48:37] 
[48:37] part  we're  on  uh  the  trajectory  of  our
[48:39] 
[48:39] own  and  uh  so  far  so  good  so
[48:42] 
[48:42] so  and  and  you  said  you  it  raised  the
[48:45] 
[48:45] reason  it  raised  money  and  yeah  so  we  uh
[48:48] 
[48:48] so  we  raised  our  initial  round
[48:51] 
[48:51] um  in  2021  so  a  good  time  yeah  so
[48:55] 
[48:55] precede  uh  uh  which  was  led  by  uh
[48:58] 
[48:58] Sequoia  and  local  Globe  uh  and
[49:01] 
[49:01] Visionaries  club  and  then  we  followed
[49:03] 
[49:03] that  up  in  the  summer  with  a  with  a  seed
[49:05] 
[49:05] round  and  then  a  series  a  round
[49:08] 
[49:08] uh  we  we  closed  it  last  October  uh
[49:12] 
[49:12] anymore  yeah  but  you  know  it's  uh  the
[49:15] 
[49:15] timing  was  uh  could  have  been  worse  but
[49:18] 
[49:18] we  did  we  did  well  in  that  sense  uh  did
[49:21] 
[49:21] you  race  in  total
[49:22] 
[49:22] so  the  most  recent  round  was  about  20
[49:23] 
[49:23] million
[49:25] 
[49:25] uh  USD  so  in  total  we're  at  about  28.
[49:28] 
[49:28] the  company  legally  what  is  it  so  we're
[49:31] 
[49:31] headquartered  and  we're  headquartered
[49:33] 
[49:33] and  Incorporated  in  Norway  so  it's
[49:35] 
[49:35] Norway  it's  a  Norwegian  and  the  team  so
[49:37] 
[49:37] the  team  is  distributed  between  uh  Oslo
[49:40] 
[49:40] which  is  where  uh  there's  about  20
[49:42] 
[49:42] people  there  there's  another  20  in
[49:44] 
[49:44] London  Sweden  has  a  small  presence  about
[49:47] 
[49:47] five  or  six  people  and  we  have  a  tech
[49:49] 
[49:49] Outpost  in  in  Glasgow  uh  so  we  built  a
[49:52] 
[49:52] small  team  there  about  70  people
[49:54] 
[49:54] and  then  our  distributed  Workforce
[49:56] 
[49:56] across  other  other  markets  but  that's  a
[49:58] 
[49:58] small  smaller  proportion  of  uh  of
[50:01] 
[50:01] employees  or  remote  where  do  you  see
[50:04] 
[50:04] your  future
[50:05] 
[50:05] so  um
[50:07] 
[50:07] in  the  next  three  to  five  years  being
[50:10] 
[50:10] one  of  the  largest  B2B  Payment  Solutions
[50:13] 
[50:13] uh  with  a  huge  presence  in  in  the  US
[50:16] 
[50:16] just  which  is  the  next  big  market  for  us
[50:18] 
[50:18] to  capture
[50:20] 
[50:20] um  yeah  so  processing  in  in  the  billions
[50:24] 
[50:24] and  of  course  being  contribution  margin
[50:27] 
[50:27] uh  positive  not  profitable  yeah  that's
[50:31] 
[50:31] uh  that's  the  goal  working  towards  that
[50:33] 
[50:33] and  yeah  let's  see  so  the  Tailwinds  are
[50:35] 
[50:35] there  you  know  their  businesses  need
[50:37] 
[50:37] working  capital  relief  and  that's
[50:39] 
[50:39] something  we  do  really  well  and  you  roll
[50:41] 
[50:41] specifically  yeah  so  that's  a  vault  uh
[50:44] 
[50:44] again  I've  done  many  things  at  two  so
[50:46] 
[50:46] started  in  the  product  role  uh
[50:48] 
[50:48] transitioned  into
[50:50] 
[50:50] taking  care  of  all  things  uh  people  and
[50:53] 
[50:53] investor  relations  so  in  internal  and
[50:54] 
[50:54] external  in  that  context
[50:56] 
[50:56] today  I'm  in  the  process  I  I  don't  know
[50:59] 
[50:59] if  I  mentioned  it  earlier  so  I'm  in  the
[51:01] 
[51:01] process  of  transitioning  out  of  an
[51:02] 
[51:02] operating  role  at  two
[51:04] 
[51:04] um  we'll  do  that  over  the  next  four  or
[51:07] 
[51:07] five  months  the  reason  being  primarily
[51:10] 
[51:10] I've  spent  three  years  being  one  of  the
[51:12] 
[51:12] key  members  of  the  team  working  remotely
[51:14] 
[51:14] from  Barcelona  the  company  is  at  a  stage
[51:17] 
[51:17] where  you  know  we  require  a  physical
[51:19] 
[51:19] presence  in  either  Oslo  or  London  for
[51:22] 
[51:22] someone  in  my  way  I  mean  I'm  very  much
[51:25] 
[51:25] for  repeating  yeah  so  why  would  you  say
[51:28] 
[51:28] it  requires  for  me  personally  it  would
[51:30] 
[51:30] be  uh  for  me  to  be  more  engaged  to  be  on
[51:33] 
[51:33] stuff  on  a  day-to-day  basis  and  I  think
[51:34] 
[51:34] you  know  you  have  a  better  velocity  when
[51:37] 
[51:37] it  comes  to  decision  making  higher
[51:39] 
[51:39] engagement  so  on
[51:41] 
[51:41] um  and  for  me  it's  very  hard  to  do  that
[51:42] 
[51:42] uh  from  where  I  am  here  one  one  thought
[51:45] 
[51:45] I  mean  obviously  not  to  you  because
[51:48] 
[51:48] you've  seen  early  stage  many  times  but  I
[51:50] 
[51:50] think  many  people  romanticize  early
[51:52] 
[51:52] stage  and  I've  had  many  people  that  have
[51:54] 
[51:54] been  at  larger  startups  and  they  say
[51:56] 
[51:57] what  they  like  is  the  early  stage  and
[51:58] 
[51:58] then  they  go  to  the  early  stage  and  they
[52:00] 
[52:00] cannot  stand  the  uncertainty  the  chaos
[52:02] 
[52:02] the  lack  of  resources  the  scrappiness
[52:04] 
[52:04] the  constant  fear  of  death  so  obviously
[52:06] 
[52:06] you've  seen  that  plenty  of times  yeah
[52:08] 
[52:08] especially  from  private  already
[52:11] 
[52:11] exceptions
[52:15] 
[52:15] it  wasn't  so  dramatic  as  death  but  there
[52:18] 
[52:18] were  tough  times  right  uh  and  yeah  so
[52:22] 
[52:22] your  people  romanticize  it  it's  tough  on
[52:24] 
[52:24] the  early  days  it  is  very  hard  it's  fun
[52:27] 
[52:27] it  is  hard  but  I  also  think  like  I'm  not
[52:29] 
[52:29] so  sure  if  I'm  dying  to  go  back  to  like
[52:32] 
[52:32] having  to  pull  out  of  scene  here
[52:34] 
[52:34] everything  it's  also  nice  when  you  have
[52:35] 
[52:35] something  to  build  on  right  good  point
[52:39] 
[52:39] um  so  obviously  with  experience  you
[52:42] 
[52:42] don't  uh  it  the  journey  gets  easier  but
[52:47] 
[52:47] not  so  much  easier  right  so  so  linear
[52:50] 
[52:50] was  a  different  example  so  review  was
[52:52] 
[52:52] hard  initially  right  two  wasn't  that
[52:54] 
[52:54] hard  finally  I  mean
[52:57] 
[52:57] yes  fair  enough  yeah  it  was  hard  all
[53:00] 
[53:00] along  uh  but  there's  there's  some
[53:02] 
[53:02] valuable  learnings  but  two
[53:04] 
[53:04] great  team  we  put  together  a  great  bunch
[53:07] 
[53:07] of  people  it  was  hard  things  picked  up
[53:09] 
[53:09] yeah  and  you  started  building  hopefully
[53:11] 
[53:11] the  next  one  you  know  there's  enough  of
[53:13] 
[53:13] a  you  know  pattern  recognition  bank
[53:15] 
[53:15] that's  been  built  up  that  could  that  I
[53:17] 
[53:17] could  I  can  I  can  rely  on  to  make  the
[53:20] 
[53:20] next  whatever  it  is  uh  fine  you  know  so
[53:23] 
[53:23] if  you're  looking  for  investors  for  your
[53:25] 
[53:25] next  venture  you  can  come  on  Thursday
[53:27] 
[53:27] when  we  do  the  pitch  to  investors  yeah
[53:29] 
[53:29] maybe  you  can  be  there  I'm  teaching  your
[53:30] 
[53:30] new  idea  I  need  to  work  on  that  uh
[53:33] 
[53:33] significantly  before  I  come  come  forward
[53:35] 
[53:35] now  uh  we  like  it  early
[53:37] 
[53:38] last  question
[53:40] 
[53:40] um  or  combination  of  questions  who's  the
[53:42] 
[53:42] best  reference  or  person  that  has
[53:44] 
[53:44] influenced  you  a  best  book  best  podcast
[53:47] 
[53:47] okay  let  me  start  with  podcasts  so  it's
[53:51] 
[53:51] a  podcast  I'd  say  I  I  follow  the
[53:53] 
[53:53] huberman  labs  uh  podcast  uh  I  really
[53:58] 
[53:58] value  uh  my  the  content  on  that  uh
[54:02] 
[54:02] that's  one  of  my  is  up  there  I'd  also  do
[54:04] 
[54:04] you  know  uh  Financial  Financial  policy
[54:07] 
[54:07] FP  which  is  really  good  just  to  get  you
[54:10] 
[54:10] that's  a  podcast  it's  called  Financial
[54:11] 
[54:11] policy  yeah  a  foreign  policy  not
[54:13] 
[54:13] finished  foreign  policy  it's  pretty  good
[54:15] 
[54:15] it  just  opens  your  mind  to  uh  what's  out
[54:18] 
[54:18] there  from  a  micro  standpoint  using
[54:19] 
[54:19] Trends  so  on  so  these  are  the  two  ones
[54:21] 
[54:21] that  I  really  follow
[54:22] 
[54:22] from  podcasts  books  I  would  say  I  got
[54:26] 
[54:26] into  The  Hitchhiker's  uh  Guide  to  the
[54:28] 
[54:28] Galaxy  it's  it's  obviously  fiction
[54:30] 
[54:30] classic  classic  I  haven't  finished  all
[54:32] 
[54:32] of  them  so  I'm  the  first  I've  got
[54:34] 
[54:34] through  the  first  three  a  couple  couple
[54:36] 
[54:36] left  so  that's  been  a  really  interesting
[54:39] 
[54:39] read  on  how  to  sort  of  go  through  life
[54:42] 
[54:42] and  not  take  yourself  too  seriously  so
[54:43] 
[54:43] learning's  there
[54:45] 
[54:45] uh  and  then  person  so  you  know  on  the
[54:48] 
[54:48] personal  front  it's  uh  I  have  a  lot  to
[54:50] 
[54:50] thank  my  mother  for  so  she's  she's  no
[54:52] 
[54:52] longer  with  us  so  she  was  a  big
[54:53] 
[54:53] influence  in  my  life  early  on  and  from  a
[54:55] 
[54:55] business  context  let's  say  you  know
[54:56] 
[54:57] learnings  people  I've  worked  with  would
[54:59] 
[54:59] you  say  or  just  you  know  someone  you
[55:00] 
[55:00] look  forward  to
[55:01] 
[55:01] some  preference  for  you  that  you  learn
[55:03] 
[55:03] from  yeah  so  I'd  say  uh  basos  for  his
[55:07] 
[55:07] like  Obsession  when  it  comes  to  customer
[55:10] 
[55:10] centricity  and  so  on  was  uh
[55:13] 
[55:13] is  is  someone  I  would  really  look  up  to
[55:16] 
[55:16] in  that  sense
[55:17] 
[55:17] um  that  that  you  know  that  Obsession  on
[55:19] 
[55:19] on  creating  a  product  that's  great
[55:20] 
[55:20] meeting  people's  needs  and  touching
[55:22] 
[55:22] people's  lives  in  that  regard  yeah  some
[55:24] 
[55:24] words  no
[55:26] 
[55:26] you  know  what  you  learn  about  preferred
[55:28] 
[55:28] equity  and  well  that  happens  everywhere
[55:32] 
[55:32] right  yeah  it  happens  it's  an  expensive
[55:35] 
[55:35] School  expensive  School  uh  no  but  for
[55:38] 
[55:38] all  that  all  said  and  done  I  think  you
[55:39] 
[55:39] know  what  they've  done  for  the  the
[55:41] 
[55:41] ecosystem  at  that  time  they  did  that  for
[55:43] 
[55:43] Europe  and  Germany  particularly  yeah
[55:44] 
[55:44] absolutely  I  mean  indeed  the  internet
[55:45] 
[55:45] they  get  applications  they  get  a  hard
[55:47] 
[55:47] rap  but  you  know  there's
[55:49] 
[55:49] a  lot  of  a  lot  of  businesses  that  come
[55:51] 
[55:51] out  of  that  system  the  linear  Mafia  if
[55:53] 
[55:53] you  will  and  a  lot of  stuff  yeah  so  it's
[55:56] 
[55:56] I  have  a  lot  of  time  you  have  a  lot  to
[55:58] 
[55:58] thank  for  be  thankful  for  for  that
[56:00] 
[56:00] experience  so  it's  not  a  yeah
[56:02] 
[56:02] uh  and  it's  like  in  life  right  you  meet
[56:04] 
[56:04] all  kinds  of  people  uh  some  tougher  than
[56:07] 
[56:07] others  some  different  it's  a  it's  an
[56:09] 
[56:09] area  of  experiences  and  you  just
[56:11] 
[56:11] basically  have  to  take  it  for  what  it  is
[56:13] 
[56:13] thank  you  so  much  thank  you  very  much  uh
[56:15] 
[56:15] it's  just  been  a  pleasure  and  uh  yeah
[56:17] 
[56:17] we'll  follow  your  journey  yeah
[56:19] 
[56:19] foreign