Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome to Power CEOs, the truth behind the business. I'm Jen Goday, your fearless host, entrepreneur, investor and business strategist. Why are we here? Because iron sharpens iron. And when we bring industry leaders, those who are disrupting, those who are having success, to share what's working in business and even what's not, we're all able to learn and grow. As a result, our businesses grow and the ripple effect impacts not only ourselves, but and our teams, but also our communities and our world.
Today, we're going to dive deep into a couple of topics that I know you've been wanting to talk about. Everybody's talking about scaling. Everybody wants growth, but not everybody talks honestly about what scaling reveals once the pressure is real, the cracks that start to show and what happens when the business is forced to stand on its own. But maybe you, as the founder, are not ready. Because the truth is, we don't fully understand a business just because it's growing. We understand it when it's tested, we understand it when their systems are strained. And sometimes we understand it most clearly when we need to prepare for an exit. Today, I'm joined by Jamie Cunningham. He's an entrepreneur who has lived through that full cycle, the growth, the pressure, the exit, the reinvention. He's building again with sharper lens, with deeper discipline and a much more strategic understanding of what actually creates enterprise value.
He's going to dive deep into this with us to give you the truth behind the business. Jamie, welcome to the show.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: It's great to be here. Thank you very much.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: I'm really excited to have this conversation because you've been through the cycle more than once.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: So, you know, they often say that we're forged under fire.
What does that mean?
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Oh, many things for an entrepreneur. But, you know, I think of multiple times through our last startup that you believed that you could prepare for every eventuality. And it's what came from out of nowhere that really tests your ability and what the platform is going to be or what you're building, because that's a fundamental part of. Of learning by fire, I guess, as you go through it.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So when I think about your journey, I mean, we've had this conversation, I've done a lot of research on you as well, before we even met. But when you look at your journey through the growth, through the exit, what did the process teach you about your business that you did not see when you were still building it or in growth mode? Like when you got to exit and going through the exit, what Was that
[00:03:07] Speaker C: blind spot that you wish you would have seen from the first one?
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think great analogy is the first iteration of our product was actually fundamentally wrong. And so going back to a little bit on the trial by Fire, we quickly realized that we were building a product where we were competing to acquire customers with some of the largest companies.
And that was not a sustainable revenue model and path.
And yet we built some fundamental technology that was really valuable. And so we made the decision to pivot to an AI machine learning driven browser extension that allowed us to be a part of every shopping trip, acquire once, move forward. We didn't know that at day one. We did not know that whatsoever.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: So let me ask you the next question because everybody sort of glorifies so
[00:04:01] Speaker C: scaling a business, right?
[00:04:03] Speaker B: What was your illusion or disillusion, if you will, about scale that you believed early that later turned out to be completely wrong?
[00:04:15] Speaker A: There's a few.
Namely, the first iteration started scaling very, very quickly and we believed that we had it and we didn't. And so it was in that moment that you've got to look at, continue to look at the data, make sure you're not driving the data to look at what you wanted to show, but actually beating yourself up with the numbers. And that allowed us to pivot to what the final iteration of the product actually was.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Was there anything that you thought, oh, hey, I'm going to get to this point and I'm going to be able to sit back and not have these trials and tribulations through the process. And like, if you ever. Did you ever get there before your first exit?
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Yes, when we started growing so rapidly, organically through search and expected that we had it. And I think I felt relaxed for all of seven days. But it was a nice seven days until, you know, until we. We really looked into the details and realized that there was more to the picture.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: So let me ask you this, because this comes up a lot and it's a common misconception that once you build your business to a certain level and you're ready to exit it, that because you think it's ready, everyone else who's buying should, or your idea of the value of the company and where it is, you believe it's ready, but when you go through due diligence, you realize there are still some holes in that. Have you experienced that?
[00:05:58] Speaker A: I personally haven't. I think that Covid is. We sold our business during COVID and it was an interesting time, but we were actually brought a number of parties came to us with an interest to acquire our business.
And that's where we started going through the process. And so I wouldn't say we were forced in the process, but it opened our eyes and we learned through that experience and that was an important aspect to it. We didn't make a decision to sell the business.
Something that as founders, I think my co founder, same co founder as our first venture, Nick Zhu, we always have that discussion because you got to be realistic. Because when it does come up, when do you want to engage? Because it takes an immense amount of time and it's not without risk.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: So can you dive into that a little deeper? Because for those who haven't yet gone through the process, due diligence can be brutal and it requires stamina.
Sometimes there's things that you don't expect the first go round because you just haven't lived it. So for those who are watching, who are exit ready or they believe they're exit ready and they're about to go through that first process, or maybe they're getting calls and they're on the fence and they're like, do I want to exit now?
What process do you have when those calls come in to say, yes, I'm ready to go down this path? And then what advice do you have for them as they prepare for that due diligence process?
[00:07:28] Speaker A: I think align with your founder and shareholders on a regular basis. I think that's an important aspect to it.
I think that understanding and really be focused at the details early on. And the more you do in advance, the less you have to do through due diligence and the due diligence process. And I've been through multiple in different iterations.
It's different for every party, what scares them, what makes others nervous. And so really do the work in advance of what the party that's interested in, if that's where your starting point is. If you're going to run a process, there's great investment banks and others that can help with that.
But making sure you do that work early and you're not playing catch up is, I think, a fundamental thing that I will always do going forward.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: So let me ask you, if we
[00:08:24] Speaker C: were to start over again with the very first company and you had the chance to rebuild that same business today, knowing everything that you know today from day one, what would you do differently? If anything,
[00:08:39] Speaker A: that's. It's one that keeps every entrepreneur up at night thinking about these things. It's hard. You know, I think that though we made a major pivot, I don't think we could have foreseen that.
I'd love to say we would have thought of it earlier, but I loved what we were building and what we were driving as a purpose built vehicle to help people see transparency in the shopping, in their shopping experience.
And so I don't think there was a specific example that I would change.
One thing that has carried on with everything we do that I did learn is it's all about people, who you have as advisors, who you have as investors.
Easy money seems easy at later date, it's not. And so being very focused at, at who you're going to spend the next 3, 5, 10, 15 years of your life with is something that I would advise everyone to focus on as number one.
[00:09:47] Speaker C: Oh, I couldn't agree more. And you know, on the capital side it's the same thing because what happens, and I'll tell you one of my biggest mistakes was when I became an investor I just assumed that other founders were purpose driven and had the work ethic and had the respect for the money and that partnership because that was who I was as a founder. And but the reality that I was faced with was that it's not all founders and on the flip side it's not all capital. And so it's really, really important. Folks like when you think about, when you think about partnering with capital especially, it has to be aligned. They have to understand and align with your vision. It has to be aligned capital and you have to know what you're getting into and how involved they want to be and what their expectations are, what they want.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: And one of the things, and we're
[00:10:30] Speaker C: kind of getting really close to the
[00:10:31] Speaker B: segment but one of the things that I find first time founders who are on their first exit really struggle with is it's a sales job to the, you have to sell, but your customer is now the capital.
But it's not just sales, it's sales and relationships. So it's a twofer. How do you shift your focus from hey, I'm trying to exit and what do I want to really understanding the perspective of what capital is looking for.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: I think that's a daily job. And so always aligning, always having that discussion because if you don't have that dialogue, if you don't have that relationship, then it starts to move wider and wider away from your investor base and your capital that you've raised.
I'd advise as best as you can to less surprises, know what people expect and that will lead to success.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Sort of like don't make assumptions, don't make assumptions.
Don't make assumptions, folks. You heard it.
[00:11:30] Speaker C: So what I love about this first lesson that we have is scale's not just magnifying success, it's about magnifying the
[00:11:36] Speaker B: truth of your business.
[00:11:37] Speaker C: It's showing you what's real, what's fragile, what's broken, what needs to reiterate.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Like in Jamie's case, he had to
[00:11:42] Speaker C: completely pivot in order to create that sustainable scale.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: So things that may look solid from
[00:11:49] Speaker C: the outside, or maybe we have project eyes on the inside. And it's always a good idea to go through the practice and really assess your business. So I want everybody to sit with this question before we go to break. Can someone else run your business without you? Because if the answer is no, you're not necessarily scaling an asset, you're scaling founder dependence. And I'd like to go into that a little deeper after these messages.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the Business. If you're just tuning in, you're going to want to catch this and all of your favorite episodes and TV shows on our app. You can go to iOS or on Roku, download the Now Media app. But if you're like me and you are a podcast fan, check out the podcast anytime, anywhere at NowMedia TV. But we're going to continue diving into this conversation because I'm here with Jamie Cummingham, who he has had a couple of exits. He's got a new thing he's building.
And before the break we were talking about scale. We were talking about founder dependence and some of the other things that go into challenges that we might have. Because as an entrepreneur, as a founder, we're really good at building a business, but we may not be the best at exiting one. But then something happens after the exit to a lot of people. And Jamie, I really want to ask you this question because we were talking off the air about this and a lot of times post exit after the like, I just exited. Hoorah. All this amazingness just happened. This, there was this like slump.
And I mean I experienced it in medicine. I experienced kind of like an identity loss, like a grieving process. Some people go to a deep, dark hole. How did you handle post exit? What were the surprises post exit that you encountered and how did you move forward?
[00:14:04] Speaker A: I think understanding what the new rule, what's being asked of you?
And I think a lot of people miss that there is a role after exiting. And I know everyone's situation is different. Some people are, you know, shorter term. Ours was Three to four years.
And I probably could have spent more time thinking about what that, that looked like, thinking about what way I also wanted.
But I can relate on the fact that it was really moments where it's like, I don't own all of this. There's other stakeholders to this. There's that that was a really important and something that took time because everything, little things stressed me out in a way they shouldn't because there was 30 or 40 other people who were also touching on this matter. And I took it home at night like it was my own business at times. And it's part of my nature and why I'm building again. But you know, understanding that having a network around you to help with that, because it is, everything changes, was 30 people that in some, you know, felt like family.
You spent as much time with them as family, if not more.
So the, you know, everything changes and you got to be prepared for that. And so keeping a strong network around you for that and communicating that it's important.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Hey folks, what I'm hearing loud and clear is you have to lean into your community. Have a community of other founders who have had an exit and lean into the support. Do not isolate yourself on an island because if you have an earn out or all of a sudden you have bosses, you have stakeholders who have more of your company than you do.
And instead of putting undue, unnecessary pressure on yourself, lean on that support structure. It's so incredibly important. I can't tell you how many times, Jamie, that I've seen that like post exit, they reach out to me and they're like, I just don't know what to do or how to handle this. And we see a lot of lack of success of CEOs who exit or founders who exit and they have maybe a three or four year earn out and they're exited earlier than they think because the expectations of the person who purchased them are different or not aligned with what they thought the direction of the company was. And so how do you suss that out in due diligence?
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Do your best. I think it's always hard. You know, some of these things don't always come out. You don't really understand.
And I think also the needs of the buyer may change and that's understandable. They're now the owners of your business.
Prepare for adaptability on it. Do your research as much as you can with it.
But I think the structure is important for what your own mindset is in that deal.
Are you okay if they exit in one year instead of four.
Do you want to stay for that long? Do you want to stay for much longer than that? These are all things that at least should be talked about with the buyer.
Whether they happen or not is up to them, I guess.
[00:17:07] Speaker C: Well, and it can always change. You know, the market can shift, AI
[00:17:11] Speaker B: can enter in, and all of a
[00:17:12] Speaker C: sudden you need to do a complete pivot. There's so many things that happen that
[00:17:14] Speaker B: are outside of our control. But I really like that, you know,
[00:17:17] Speaker C: and I just want to drive home how important it is if you're selling and you're gonna stay on it for a while. You have to do just as much due diligence on your buyer as they're doing on you. And I think that's a part that a lot of first time exiting founders sort of miss. So thanks for sharing into that. I wanna shift gears a little bit now and I wanna talk a little bit about something that a lot of people treat as secondary until it becomes urgent, and that's trust.
Especially right now. Trust is a big thing.
Compliance and some of the hidden costs that maybe occur if you grow too fast, you scale too fast, or you try to exit too quickly and you haven't done the work in your business.
So talk to me about trust in your current iteration and how you're building that in. Because you guys have your technology and right now what we're seeing is people are either very averse to artificial intelligence and where tech is going, or they just don't feel like they know or they're empowered in that space. And you're building something to empower people, leveraging technology. So have you thought about where those trust points are? What needs to stay human to keep that? And can you share some of that process?
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think I'm of two minds about this one. I think for us, trust is fundamental. And I find sometimes it's just a word, sometimes people think of it as a marketing ploy. And trust really comes from transparency. Trust comes from, you know, owning up to what you're building, how it's going, if there's changes, communicating those aspects because, you know, it's earned and you can't buy trust. And you know, I think so many people have made it harder to build trust because it is.
Okay, great. How do we, how do we build trust? Whereas everything we've ever done is, you know, based on that transparency, based on driving home, you know, delivering a product that has been reserved for the 1% in our institutions, in our current venture, with total transparency and all of the information up front and so people can understand what the end of it and it's going to take time, got to be patient with it.
But it is, I would, I mean, to us it is just fundamental to what we build.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: I mean, you're echoing something that I say. I play in AI a lot. I'm involved in quite a few AI native companies and startups as well as AI enabling companies. And what I always tell companies that maybe are not AI native but are adding these elements is you never want to put automation in a key trust point with a client.
And you also want radical transparency within your organization. If you're adding and radical transparency with your every, every stakeholder, your investors and all the way down to your consumers. Because in the lack of transparency, if something goes wrong, it's a very big breach of trust as opposed to if you're very forthcoming from the get go, if your team knows, hey, we're doing this to enhance you, to amplify your humanity and amplify our human touch points, then they are bought in and it's a more successful integration or whatnot. So I really like that you talked about that. Now let's talk a little bit about compliance because that word is being thrown around in the tech world and I would like to know how you think about compliance today. Is it built in every layer? Is it a protection layer, Is it a growth enabler? Or do you see it as more of a growth constraint?
Yes, all of the above.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: All of the above.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: I didn't have that as an option.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: No, you didn't.
I think it is so important.
I think as we've discussed, we're building a compliance first product in a highly regulated space and environment. And so spending the time to do that, working through that and being again transparent with that process is important.
I think there is always space to challenge the compliance and regulatory environments in a safe and reasonable way. Don't just take it for granted.
There is space. There's great institutions in many governments in the United States and Canada and beyond that have sandbox environments and other things like that that you can work with. And they're very open to do it, which, which is great.
But I think it's about challenging it, adhering it and adhering to that with transparency as the fundamental part of it.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people are underestimating that layer and that protection. Right now people are sacrificing compliance in favor of moving fast.
But what is the risk? If you sacrifice initially, you lose trust. And we talked about that, but not Only that in a highly regulated industry,
[00:22:39] Speaker C: you get shut down.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: And so at what point do you hit the gas? Like, at what point do you say, okay, I feel confident enough, I've proven it enough in the sandbox. What happens when you take it out of the sandbox? It's still unproven in the wild.
So how do you bridge that gap?
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Keep going? I mean, it's, I think as an entrepreneur, as you know, it's like there's no single point and it never stops. You continue to evolve, communicating with stakeholders to do it. Challenging, moving forward with it, but and moving fast. I mean, it's, it's have your cake and eat it too, in a sense, but it's pushing yourself to live in that world.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: And it's not for the faint of heart.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: No, no. And especially with, in this.
Regulatory environments are changing so fast. Well, and so if you also just build and build and build and build to an existing setting, it's likely it will change by the time you get there. And so being fluid and having our view of it is building adaptability into the platform so that it's not looking at a single regulatory environment, but hundreds of markets and how they look at it so that you can adapt with those changes, not having to rebuild or hard code a new, A new market. It's actually sort of a toggle on, toggle off situation.
[00:24:04] Speaker C: That makes perfect sense.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Thank you for sharing. We do have to take a brief break. We have blown through this segment, folks. We're going to dive a little bit deeper into what's coming. How do we move fast without creating future damage?
[00:24:19] Speaker C: And how do I build trust into my ecosystem? After these messages.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the Business. I am here with Jamie Cunningham and we are talking about, we were talking about trust.
One of those moments where the business lesson is very clear is trust isn't something that you can buy. Trust is something that is earned and it's something that's operational. It's structural. It means to be baked into every step of your business.
And then we talked about compliance and transparency and some of those other things. So I want to pick back up with that conversation. Jamie and I want to ask you, like we talked about having things in a sandbox, we talked about the speed that has to happen. Like, what are the risks of moving fast in a highly regulated environment with all of these compliance things? What happens when regulation shift, for example?
[00:25:44] Speaker A: I think a big part of Nick and my DNA is building towards where you do not have a Single point of failure. And when in a heavily regulated space, we, you know, you can make a big bet. And when you have limited capital, limited resources, what you get yourself to is that if something changes, you can lose your business entirely. And I think in the era of AI, this is even more important because you can move so much faster. And so this is why with Binaxity, we actually made a decision to go global first by reverse solicitation and then allow the data to focus on which markets that we would bet on versus making the bet first. Where you, you know, in our space, things change by the moment.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: So I like this idea of avoiding a single point of failure. And I think for you watching at home, a good question for you to ask yourself is, where in my business am I at risk of, if a single, of a single point of failure? Is it a customer client concentration situation? Is it the market that I'm opening? Like, ask yourself, where is there a potential, potential for a single point of failure? I think that's an excellent place to be to audit your business, especially if you're preparing for exit, because I promise
[00:27:07] Speaker C: you, the investors are going to expose
[00:27:08] Speaker B: that or the, or the people buying your business will expose that.
So let me ask you, you've made a lot of mistakes, Jamie, along the way, you talked a little bit about the reiteration in your first.
Tell me about another really big mistake that you made in the past that you're now designing intentionally with Binaxis to avoid repeating.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I touched on it a little bit before.
And you also talked about it in terms of who you align with, who your investors are, who your partners are. Because there's a moment, and I think everyone will relate to this, where it's just like, I just got to get that partner, just got to get that investor, and they live with you for years. And it's so it's 3, 5, 15 years of your life. It is one of the most important decisions. And admittedly, I did rush at times with that. And we have been very, very slow and thoughtful with our decisions on this, aligning both on a principle basis, but as a direction of approach of how we build the business with our investors.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Well, I would really like you to dive into that because, I mean, we had this discussion off the air, and I thought it was really, really. As an investor myself, I thought it was a really excellent conversation. You are equally as discriminatory and who you'll let onto your cap table as, as most investors are when they consider giving money. And so what informed that do you
[00:28:42] Speaker C: have a decision matrix?
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Like do you have a process? Have you. I mean you've made the mistakes. So how are you ensuring?
Is it the people due diligence is like what is it that you're ensuring?
Or how are you approaching that so that you make sure you have that alignment?
[00:28:57] Speaker A: 50% is. Look at the data, look at past investments and Talk to other CEOs, investors of investments they've made.
But admittedly I would say still 50% of it is somewhere between your heart, your stomach and your head.
Steal from something my father always said and just trusting that alignment as they talk about your business, as they talk about what it looks like five years from now.
You got to trust your instinct as an entrepreneur in this moment.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: And so I'm going to ask you the next question.
[00:29:37] Speaker C: Because capital is necessary in order to develop and to continue to grow and to continue to scale.
And you look for strategic capital. We have had this conversation. Can you explain to the audience the difference between strategic versus non strategic capital?
[00:29:54] Speaker A: Yes. I mean strategic is wide as so many of you will know.
I make a joke about one of my advisors who is, I call my resident therapist because he's been multi exit founder himself. And those moments for a call on a Friday when you've just had an off week or conversations with a partner or investor have just taken a total turn that were not expected.
That's strategic also for us, it's regional, it is strategic from the basis of industry, it's strategic from a product creation basis.
And really look for, for those to be additive to our mission.
And when we do that, it also helps us inform what their desires are themselves as an investor, where they see this going because let's start communicating that.
[00:30:50] Speaker C: I think that's fantastic.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: And
[00:30:53] Speaker C: there's a huge movement of, I don't know whether we call it conscious capital or whatnot, but there's a huge movement in capital space where there's, there's a couple of trains of thoughts. We just want to, you know, preserve and generate and, and, and grow the money. And we don't want to be involved. And then there's the rest of us that are like the check is the least that I want to do. I want you to access my connections, my contacts, my expertise. And so there's a whole lot of active investors that they're literally going to put their dollars where their brain is valued or something else about what they bring to the table. Table is valued. And so I think that's really important for all of you to know like capital has personality. It's different in different ways. And understanding what it is that you want and need versus what it is that they want to need is incredibly important. And we've touched on that. But I just really wanted to repeat it for those of you in the back who didn't hear it the first time.
So I'm going to switch gears just a little bit and I'm going to ask you, how do you pressure test a financial product before it hits the market you're in? Sandbox you're testing it, whatever. But how do you pressure test it when you're going to market finally or right before? Right.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Do your best to find similar products, similar instances where there's an approach.
Admittedly, when you're building a novel financial product, it can be pretty lonely and difficult sometimes to get that feedback.
But there is the data and sometimes you have to go wider than your own home market to get that. And it exists.
And if not, there are great mentors and law firms as you do this due diligence. And again, in an area AI, you can pull so much more about these rulings and who are the lawyers involved and all of these key elements, which is exciting.
And then as long as there's transparency built in, the principles are clean and clear, then that's where you got to make a move.
One part I always stress and I believe and I push our team, it doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to check those boxes, is knowing that you will build it over time. You'll learn things when it's in the wild. And so stick to those principles and make sure you're compliant and regulatory on the right side, that will be, you'll be able to scale at that point and learn and change.
[00:33:30] Speaker B: You know, it's really funny. I think there's a key takeaway here. If I'm building something that's new, which a lot of people who are AI productized AI, you're building something that's relatively new, you might be completely disrupting an industry, maybe creating a whole new product, which we'll dive into in the next segment, by the way. Little teaser.
You know, you can learn a lot from your prior failures.
And you know, I hate the term failing forward. I really do. I feel like if you haven't made 99 failures, you're nowhere near the success that you potentially could be because we learned so much from that.
But I think if you're building something new, ask yourself what failed in the last endeavor? Even if you're new to entrepreneurship, what failed in the last company that I worked for, where were the sticking points? Where were the friction points? And fix that before you build the next.
[00:34:21] Speaker C: It's a really good thing to do
[00:34:22] Speaker B: to take those learnings forward and systemize. How am I going to avoid making that same mistake in the future?
And I think another incredibly valuable point that that was made was, you know, we don't find success alone. We find success by having peers, mentors, capital partners who have been through the fire. Those strategic partners that Jamie was talking about, that can be some of that. It's like your bench. They're there, leverage them. If things aren't going so well, be transparent in conversation and ask for their advice. Because they invested in you, because they believe in you, they believe in the product.
So that's really, I think, the key takeaways that we've had today.
We do have to take a brief break, but what's coming next? The future of financial innovation. We're going to dive a little deeper into how Jamie is disrupting the financial markets and how we can really level the playing field no matter where we are in our journey.
[00:35:19] Speaker C: After these messages.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: Welcome Back to power CEOs the truth behind the Business. I'm here with Jamie Cunningham, and in this final segment, I want to really take a look forward to the future because what we've talked about already today is bigger than a one founder's journey. It's bigger than one exit or two, it's bigger than one product. This is about where is innovation heading, how is capital evolving, and why smarter structure might become the real competitive advantage. But before we dive in, remember that you can stay connected to this show and all of your favorite NOW Media TV shows, live or on demand, anytime, anywhere, by downloading the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS or if you're like me and you prefer to catch the podcast on the move, that is at NowMedia TV.
So let's unpack reverse solicitation. I know, guys, it's jargon. Most of you don't know what that is. It's okay, we're gonna talk about it. Regulatory shifts, financial product innovation, and the bigger system level changes that founders, investors are gonna need to take note of because you're building something that's future facing, that's strategic. And I really want you to kind of explain briefly in layman's terms, what are you talking about when you talk about reverse solicitation? What does it actually mean? And why should founders and investors pay attention right now?
[00:37:15] Speaker A: So we made the decision to launch and build Our business from Cayman Islands, incredible jurisdiction that I highly recommend people to take a look at because of that benchmarking, remarkably high benchmark for access to capital, but also from a regulatory perspective, in my world, anti money laundering, fraud.
Know your customer, know your business at a highest level. And that is, I think we chose it to be hard by design and to other parts we talked about, but also what it allowed us to do is that as the world becomes more global with some of these products, as we become more and more efficient, driven by AI, a company can launch in multiple markets and cover multiple markets and many of those don't have the same kind of structure that the U.S. canada, Great Britain have. And so what we chose to do is to launch from Cayman Islands using reverse solicitation, which means that we are limited to not marketing directly onshore in those specific countries.
But as we start to build brand and reputation, it allows us to work with clients in a huge number of countries around the globe while we use that data to inform us where to launch with our strategic partners in core markets.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: And so where do you see this working already? Have you seen this in another industry or is this in the middle of the night? I came up with this. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: I think the nice part is though, there has been a lot of noise in the crypto space space.
A lot of crypto businesses have leveraged this and have done this, some crossing the line and going beyond what they were able to do. And this is something that you notice.
We've geofenced markets that we're not allowed to be in the United States right now. We work with regulators. Canada, same story.
And we'll spend the time to do that. But we're going to follow the rules and how we do it and so we get to follow that footprint. And I think there has been some pretty interesting cases that other financial products and some of these global neo banks that have been out there that are doing some incredible things and building great value to the average individual.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: So talk to me about why you have launched Binaxity. Okay, talk to me about your why, what was the vision?
Because let's face it, you've had exits,
[00:40:10] Speaker C: you didn't have to do this.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: This is like a big impact, purpose driven sort of startup. And so talk to me about why and what got you to that point.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: For Nick Zhu and I, who was the same co founder from our last venture, it became really clear to us early on that the world changed after our last exit and we saw all of these tools that became available On a financial basis. And as we looked at harder and harder for the next generation to buy a house or access certain assets, and I mean this right across the globe, we set out to sit there and looking at our own kits and to say, how can we provide and give access to some of these tools that have been reserved for the 1% in institutions using today's technologies to fractionalize those in a way that anyone with a job whose greatest asset is time can come onto our platform for 25, $50 a month and we can provide them safe leverage to start to build liquid wealth. And so not trying to max out credit for this or anything, but actually providing a pathway to buy liquid compounding assets and building what could be generational wealth, depending on what that means by region, by individual, but doing that for what is the global mass market and taking those products globally.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: So what are the structural or regulatory
[00:41:55] Speaker C: barriers that are still standing in your way?
[00:41:59] Speaker A: So I think each market is different from that basis.
You know, certain organizations depending on markets, speaking to the us, you know, sec, cftc, that we want to make sure that anything we do is compliant in those structures. And we are doing that today.
But also as a decision to take this across the globe, we've made a decision that almost every market on an onshore basis, we're actually going to partner with exchanges, neobanks, credit unions, regional banks to embed our product.
And they are already doing most of those regulatory hurdles.
And we can then access their network, amplify that drive, the stickiness that our platform brings into their platform and scale quickly globally.
[00:42:53] Speaker C: I think it's brilliant. I always talk about this in the tech world.
If you're embedded within the big people who already have the bulk of the market share, if you're embedded within those companies, then you're winning because you have pretty much assured yourself a pretty cush amount of market share if they embed you within and they begin to use this. So let me ask you, there's a lot of people in the financial industries who are watching. Maybe they sell, you know, life insurance or insurance tools. Maybe they are financial advisors or wealth advisors.
Is that a venue that you would explore with binaxity to open opportunity for a different level of consumer for these people?
[00:43:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think it's aligning on that principle to take these products that have, you know, that these individuals have not had access to and leveraging our platform, the efficiency of our platform to take that to a wider market.
And if that, if those principles are relevant to any financial, any fintech, any Financial institution.
We would love a conversation. And we are actively in discussions with a number of parties globally. And so we welcome the conversation.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: And so let's bring this down to like a super, like an eighth grade, maybe fifth grade level. Like, what does this mean for the everyday population? The 90% who feel like maybe retirement is out of reach or maybe even college savings or whatnot are out of reach currently because they can't afford that. 2,500, 3,000, 10,000, whatever entry point, $1,000,000, whatever the entry point is. What does this mean for them on a visceral level?
[00:44:33] Speaker A: I think with or without us, whether it's $5 a month, everyone should start looking at some of these assets. I mean, there's the broad market indices, there's some precious metals. Bitcoin is another example that we believe in.
And I think that people should be looking at that to build their own liquid compounding asset portfolio.
What we've done is really try and provide safe credit so that we can amplify what a person's able to do. No margin calls, things that have not been available that complicate that, make that difficult and so very simple, easy to understand. And, and so I think that's a pathway. And I think in this new era of AI, we're also getting the world that it's going to be harder and harder to move from a person of income to a person of equity. And that's another sort of North Star for us, is that to create as many pathways for everyone with their own discipline to do it, that they can choose to do this, to start doing this early because time is the most valuable asset here. So the younger the better.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: Absolutely right. And I believe that as we move forward and as AI replaces and displaces, we're going to see that it's going to be a very important thing that people are people of equity and not solely relying upon income. So how can people reach out to you if they'd like to learn more?
[00:46:01] Speaker A: So, I mean, our website and I know geofence in some countries, so www.binacity.com and we're also on LinkedIn as well, if it's in a country that is geofenced currently, as well as my personal email, which is Jamie j a m I einaxity.com and I really would welcome any conversations around partnership around direction of product, around distribution, around regions. And so please.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you so much for your expertise today.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Thank you very much for your time and having me on.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Absolutely. And to each and every one of you watching. This is exactly why I created Power CEOs. To bring you the conversations that help you see around the corner, not just react to what's already obvious. Be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and join the Power CEO's Facebook group to stay a part of this conversation and all of our others. You know, what stood out to me the most today is this next wave of innovation may not come from louder market marketing or faster hype. It's going to come from founders like Jamie who understand structure, regulation, capital flow, and the systems that they're building on the inside. So, you know, as an entrepreneur and investor, I'm paying closer attention to how is capital structured, where regulation is moving and who's controlling the distribution, because that's where the real opportunities are going to come from. The future doesn't belong to the fastest builders. It belongs to the ones who understand the system they're building within. And I think Jamie and his conversation today, what he's doing with Binaxity, is an is a case study that we're
[00:47:29] Speaker C: all gonna want to watch.
[00:47:31] Speaker B: So moral of the story is, today
[00:47:33] Speaker C: wasn't just a conversation about building a business.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: It was really about building what it
[00:47:36] Speaker C: takes to build one that lasts.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: Growth teaches failure, refines structure, determines how
[00:47:41] Speaker C: you survive and thrive.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: And that might be the difference between
[00:47:44] Speaker C: building something impressive for a moment and building something that's gonna really last for
[00:47:48] Speaker B: the long term for each and every one of you. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, including this show. But be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn, join that podcast Power CEOs
[00:47:57] Speaker C: Facebook group, so that we can stay in touch and without further ado, win today, win this week, and we will see you same time, same station next week.
