Behind the Brand®

Rob Khazzam
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Behind the Brand, the podcast that explores how technology, innovation, and other forces of change are reshaping age old industries and giving rise to new opportunities. Join me, Jeff Adamson, one of Neo Financial's co founders, and an awesome lineup of guests to discuss how the world is evolving to meet the needs of customers.

In the next few episodes, we're focusing on the financial industry. In Canada, it's the UK. This is a space that has been dominated for decades by the big five banks who hold 93 percent market share. There's an incredible number of opportunities for innovation in this space. On this episode of Behind the Brand, I'll be speaking with Rob Kazam, co founder and CEO of Float, an all in one corporate card and spend management solution that helps Canadian businesses control their spending.

Float has raised over 37 million Series A led by Tiger Capital and just announced 50 million in debt financing. In February of this year, led by [00:01:00] Silicon Valley Bank, Float enables businesses to eliminate employee reimbursements and expense reports, seamlessly pre approve credit card expenses, and automatically collect receipts.

Prior to Float, Rob was a general manager of Uber for Central and Eastern Europe, and then Canada. In this episode, we cover a lot of topics, from how to go about defining a mission and a vision for your team, to how Float builds their products, and why you shouldn't wait for open banking legislation.

Let's start from the beginning here. You cut your teeth at, at Uber, but before that you were in, in private equity. What made you make the leap from private equity into much more of a managing operational role? Uh, a high growth tech startup. When I graduated from university, I started in the buy sides and private equity investing.

I worked for a, a mid market fund in, in Toronto and, and it gave me a great opportunity to see from one perspective. So from the financial perspective, what business was all about. And over that time [00:02:00] period, we bought about 10 companies. And I got to work as an analyst and then leaders and associate doing financial analysis on those businesses and building the financial model and going to visit the plant and attend board meetings.

And, you know, you meet all sorts of. Different types of companies, you get a sense for the types of problems that they encounter. But after three or four years, I felt like I really had learned the deal business. So how to write a memo, how to line up the debt, how to value a business, how to come up with a cap structure, you know, how to close a deal.

But it kept dawning on me like the people on the other side of the table seem to be creating all the value right like we're we're actually writing big checks to these companies and a lot of owners are cashing out and the real magic is in the business plan it's the it's in what they're actually doing the financial part of the story is relatively small and so I felt To be honest, like on the outside, looking into some extent and growing up, I had dreamed of being an entrepreneur.

And I think after, you know, certainly five years, I felt [00:03:00] I learned enough about private equity to be dangerous, so to speak. So if I want to do this again, or maybe I want to one day try to buy a business like I could do it. But now to run a business, which is really my dream, I need to go work in a business because it's There's just so much.

I don't know. I've never managed anyone. I've never built a product. I've never led expansion. I've never built or operated a plant. You know, I've never done manufacturing. And so I really felt like that was a time to maybe move laterally, take a step backwards potentially, but gain experience that I didn't have so that I could go and be a leader of a business one day, which was the dream.

I'm always curious as to the path that people take towards starting their own firm. When you think of, of, of your journey towards getting to float, why did you start on the, on the PE side? Cause a lot of people will say, well, it's actually, why not just start directly at Uber and then kind of work your way up in the operating side?

Like, why was it PE? Cause some people do consulting and you get that exposure to a [00:04:00] lot of different things, but you know, why did you take that route versus just kind of work your way up inside of a company? And then go off after that. The truth as is often the case is a lot messier and emotional than one would want you to believe.

And the truth is that in high school and growing up, I was really entrepreneurial. I dreamt of running a business and I dreamt of running a startup and I dreamt of creating the next Google. And, you know, I had mentors and people in my life that I saw do that. But the reality is I didn't do very well in school.

I didn't apply myself. I always struggled to focus. Um, and so I didn't actually have good grades. And when I got to third year university and I improved my grades enough to get into, uh, the business school at Western, Ivy, um, I was the last person that got in. I really craved validation. I, you know, most entrepreneurs know, like, There's nothing sexy about being an entrepreneur.

Like, if anything, you feel very insecure. To be honest, when I was at Ivy, I wanted security. I wanted to feel [00:05:00] like I fit in. I wanted validation. I wanted a salary. I wanted a suit. It felt like the thing I should do to become a more secure person. So I think there was that element and that definitely drove a lot of it.

But then there was also a lot of genuine interest in finance. I've been an investor since I was 16 or 17. The time that I was in business school, I also did a lot of stock investing and, uh, It got me interested. So to be honest, I think it was those things. Entrepreneurship was never a path. I think that maybe was a miss, but I don't regret the path.

And in the end, the private equity experience was incredibly valuable for sure. And it made me a better GM because I had a lot of P& L experience. I did the CFA programs, which was really valuable and came in handy as a general manager at Uber. Like I remember when I was in school. I wasn't getting the top marks, I wasn't, wasn't like failing out by any means, but I kind of like, it was discouraging because I was, I was looking at these people who were getting kind of top marks and I was like, these are the people who are going to be making the most [00:06:00] money, these are the people who are going to be getting the best jobs, and I was kind of like, Bummed out about that.

And I'll say no, no, that's not exactly the way the world works, but no one tells you that in university, like no one was telling me, Jeff, don't worry all that much about not necessarily being the top of your class because there's other things that that may become important, like the relationships you're building, the things that you're learning outside of school that might come in handy in terms of building your character and getting all these new experience and exposure.

And like, when I think about what you did, After your P. E. experience, like talk about exposure, like you didn't just join Uber to fill out paperwork, like you went to Central and Eastern Europe, which like what year would this have been? That was um, spring of 2014. I joined in May of 2014. Jesus, so that would have been like right when Russian occupied Crimea.

Yeah, there was a lot of crazy stuff that took place in the months after I joined. And then also while I was leading Central and Eastern Europe, the war took place. There was a lot of. Interesting [00:07:00] things that happened while I was there. This is a little bit, a little bit different than managing Western Canada.

Yeah, it was different. I mean, I, I had that, you know, it took me like most people listen, you know, you hear this and you go like, Oh, it just popped, it popped into your head, but it was six months of what should I do? And I think also I grew up in Toronto. I had a great community of friends and family that I grew up around, but it felt complacent.

I was 28 and I thought I'm five years into this job. The next step is to become a partner here. And then it's going to be really hard to leave. This feels like the last opportunity to leave before I'm stuck here. I don't want to be a partner here. Like, I think I've learned as much as I want to learn here.

And I gotta get out of my comfort zone. You know, I'm Jewish. I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood. I, again, was really fortunate, but I was still friends with most of the people I grew up with. Like, there's an element of just predictability. And at 28, you know, you're starting to settle down. My friends are getting married.

And so I was, I was like, I got to get out of here for at least a year or two. And to be honest, the idea is I'm going to move to New York. So I went to my boss and I [00:08:00] said, I'm going to move to New York and I want to get a job at a startup. And I know you guys are going to be upset. I've been promoted recently, but I was like, I got to do this.

And I want to tell you in advance because, you know, I want to help you find a backfill. And they were like, you're an idiot. And you know, what are you going to do? Go find a backfill You don't even have a job lined up. Like you're telling us you're quitting in advance. This is the stupidest thing we've ever heard, but they were supportive.

And, um, in the process of looking for a job in New York, I met Uber. They wouldn't sponsor my visa to move to New York, but I knew someone that was on the launch team and I went for coffee with him. And I think like one of the lessons I definitely learned in my life, I mentioned I was the last guy to get into Ivy.

I was also the last guy to get a job out of Ivy in private equity. It sounds elite to work in private equity. I was the last. Person to get a job and I met and interviewed at like 80 places. I hustled hard and that's always been a part of who I am. So when I was looking for that job in New York, I met like 80 startups and I went for coffee with everyone and I left no stone unturned and that proved to be me.

important [00:09:00] because Uber told me they wouldn't sponsor my visa in New York. And so I turned the page on them. But shortly after one of the guys I'd set up coffee with who I knew from childhood who was working for Uber abroad said, Hey, let's grab that coffee. And I sort of said like, Hey, I already spoke to Uber.

I don't think it's going to go anywhere, but thanks. And I'll never forget. He said, ah, come on, let's go for coffee. Like you don't cancel on a friend. And I remember thinking, yeah, I should go. And I've always learned, like always network, always go for coffees. You never know where something might lead. And he sat down and I said, Jesus, Jeff, you look like shit.

What have you been doing? And he's like, oh, I've been launching Uber and I've been to Montreal and Australia and like all these places. And he told me about the launch job and that was the beginning of me finding out about that launch job and ultimately joining being a launcher, maybe describe that to our listeners because I, I know what it is from the food delivery days, but describe what a, what a launcher is and why it's such a Bye.

Bye. [00:10:00] A good kind of springboard job for someone's career. Yeah. So the launch job, it's a lot more common now, but Uber was, I think, really the first company to do it. So the title was international launcher and Uber at the time was in, when I joined was in about 60 cities worldwide. So it was actually pretty small.

I don't even think Uber was in Toronto or Canada yet. Uh, it was in Canada maybe, but It was just maybe it was just Toronto with uber black. So uber x hadn't taken off yet. So, uh, the uber launch job was literally the job description was you are the navy seals of uber. You're going to get sent all around the world and you're going to launch uber in new markets.

Going to build supply, build and, and, um, build relationships with drivers, get them onto the product, build the initial market presence, come up with a business strategy, recruit the team. And I was like this super sexy job description, but it was adamant that like, you're going to go all over the world. And when I interviewed for the job, that was something that hammered into me, which was you're going to [00:11:00] do the job of the general manager.

The marketing manager and the ops manager. So the interview process was actually all three of those. You actually did the analytics test for the ops manager. You did the city presentation for the general manager. You did the creative marketing exercise for the marketing manager. She actually had to pass all three.

And then at the end, they They basically said like, okay, look, you're at the end here. We're not joking about this. So if you're a launcher at Uber, you will move every two months. You will have no say in where you go. You will work almost exclusively alone because wherever you go, Uber won't exist. And then once Uber exists, it's time for you to move on.

You're not working in HQ. There's no office. There's like, you're on your own. And I remember them challenging me and saying, are you willing to go to, and they named 15 places because they were adamant that you, you really needed to go to where the opportunity was. And, you know, they couldn't afford to have launchers that were too picky.

So yeah, that was the job description in the interview. And I'll never forget, uh, [00:12:00] for people that are considering a career change at the end of all of this. I called my cousin who is a senior leader at Google and I said, like, Hey, David, so I told you I was going to move to New York and I was going to get a startup job.

It turns out I got a job offer at Uber, but it's to be on this international launch team. It seems pretty aggressive. It's probably a lot more intense than what I really signed up for. I'm going to be moving a lot. And, you know, here are some of the risks and downsides to this, like, I think maybe I should just consider this job at New York.

I was also interviewing for a company called ZocDocs there. And I'll never forget, he was like, what are you doing? Trust me, companies like this don't come along often. And like, I know it's cheesy, but he said, like, I've learned early in my life and career, when you get offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don't ask where your seat is or where your title is, you get on the rocket ship.

And I remember thinking like, Oh, maybe I'll find a job elsewhere in Uber. And he was like, you're an idiot. Go do this. If it doesn't work out, you'll figure something else out. You've had five [00:13:00] years of experience, but if it does work out, look what can happen. And that was, that was great advice. I love the, the just radical transparency that they have in the hiring, because I think a lot of people when you're hiring, you're like, there's so few people who are going to be a good fit for that type of a role.

And so they may try to embellish aspects of the role to kind of like attract more candidates, but they're just straight up saying like, you'll have no say, you're moving every two months, you're doing operations. You're doing marketing, like you're doing whatever it takes and just, just so that everyone knows what they're signing up for.

Did it really pan out the way that you were expecting? Like what, did it live up to your expectations? I think there's an element of personal growth comes from discomfort. Earlier in life, like in my early twenties, I ran away from fear because I didn't want to be uncomfortable. It's the same feeling you have in the fourth or fifth year of a job in private equity where you go, I'm not scared to come to work anymore.

Like I don't have butterflies in my stomach. Like I've done this memo 50 times [00:14:00] before. And that is also comes at a time when you notice I'm not growing that much. And so I think, you know, there's an element of I think applies to everyone, which is if you're learning and growing, you're probably uncomfortable.

You probably have a bit of stress. You know, you probably have butterflies in your stomach when you're learning. You're doing things you've never done before and you haven't mastered them. So I think the launch job was an extreme version of that because, you know, it's your whole life and there's no going home from it.

But it was fun and it was an adventure and, you know, I don't want to overstate it. I also worked for Uber. Uber had a lot of money, you know, uh, entrepreneurs building businesses do way harder things than I did building Uber because I had a great budget and I had a brand behind me. But I think you got to take risks in life.

And I think that most people, if you look around at your peer group or people, you know, I used to always do this growing up. Like I read the Wikipedia pages of entrepreneurs or famous people that you look up to and you go to their like background and go, there's a leap of faith somewhere. And I think [00:15:00] that you have to take that leap at some point in time.

Where was that for you? Like, like, where was that? That first leap? Yeah. And Uber and, and to float, like, how did you? It was Uber for sure. Yeah, it was Uber for sure. Like, you know, I, again, like I was 28. I had a car. I had a girlfriend. I had a condo full of stuff. I'd been making a high salary for a long time.

Uber was literally like, I was like, cool, I want to take off like six weeks and then I'll start. And they're like, you have two weeks. Meet us in Germany. That's it. And I was like, well, where am I going? And they're like, We don't know. Meet us in Frankfurt, two weeks. That was it. Was this Uber or the CIA? That was, yeah, it was Uber.

And, um, and like, I had no information. And my, and they were like, don't bring a big suitcase. You're bringing a carry on and that's it. Cause like I'm flying overseas. Right. And I was actually in the EMEA team. So it was Europe, Middle East, Africa. So it was a one way, one way ticket carry on only to Germany.

That's right. And, and it was, and it was also Europe, middle of my title was International launcher AMIA, you know, you're at Middle East Africa. That was right after they [00:16:00] formed me as a team before it was global. So you could go to Shanghai, then go to Chicago, then go to Montreal, then go to Cape Town, then go to Singapore.

And so, yeah, that was scary as hell. And I also, Like packed up my shit like I packed up my apartment I got rid of my car and like you I moved back into my parents house for like in the weeks leading up and then you just go I'll never forget May 18th getting on a flight 2020 for 2014 and just flying to Frankfurt and I was in a text thread with my boss at the time there was two other launchers joining and I remember walking to the office in Frankfurt getting lost it was like a Regis and it was like My life is about to change in a way that I will never forget, but I don't know what's about to happen.

And that first month, six weeks was wild. And then, and then, you know, that was the training. And then, you know, you have a couple of weeks with some other launchers. And you're there for a launch and then I'll never forget it's like, all right, you're all on your own and it's like you point to a map and it's like you're going there and you're going there and then [00:17:00] and then from that point you're on your own and that's it.

What I love about the launcher job and then I want to hear about float here is. But like for launchers and the Navy SEAL comparison is actually very good because it does kind of feel like you are behind enemy lines because you're, you're starting from zero and you have nothing but incumbents and competitors there.

So every single, like if you're trying to build the supply by getting more drivers on the platform or more restaurants in the platform or even trying to get customers on the platform, they're all using someone else other than you. And especially if it's a new concept like Uber, like before Uber existed, everyone was kind of dissatisfied with transportation, but they weren't, they had no idea what they were missing because no one had really shown them yet.

Were you kind of up against the, the taxi cartel in every single market that you went or were you trying to get people who weren't? Oh, you weren't in the taxi cartel to get the supply, uh, solved. It was a bit of both. I mean, at the time we had, we were launching at the beginning, Uber Black, and then we would launch Uber X.

And so there was like a very fine line where you're going to limo [00:18:00] companies. And the hard thing was like, we needed some drivers to get started. We knew there would be demand for Uber, but you needed like 40, 50 cars on the map to just get going. And we knew we'd have way more signups at the time. And so it was hard though.

And in Eastern Europe, it was tremendously hard because one, I didn't speak the language. I wasn't from there. And people in Eastern Europe for anyone who's from there will will know this people there are very skeptical of foreigners in many cases. And they're also it's a very bureaucratic place. So the idea of licensing thing.

If you think that's difficult in North America, when you launch a product like Uber, like it's a nightmare in the Czech Republic. And so I couldn't even get the Wi Fi installed in an office. Like it took me six weeks. And I had to, you know, it was one of the hardest things I did was to get in office and get the internet set up because no one would accept my signature.

And it was just an absolute nightmare. So there's administrative obstacles. There's convincing drivers. And yeah, I was hanging out in front of, honestly, you know, I remember I'd go to the airport. Eight hours walk up and down in the rain, you know, I'd go to bars. I'd hang out in [00:19:00] front of strip. These strip clubs were really popular with, you know, you have taxi drivers hanging outside and they're gone there.

And, you know, I printed out a card that I made up that, you know, it's in check. I used Google translate, like this is Uber and these are the benefits. And you're just doing this stuff on your own. And I think the daunting part is as a launcher, The job is the outcome. So the market has to launch and you must have this many drivers.

There's all sorts of obstacles you encounter and there's no playbook. So the drivers don't like it said no 90 times. Well, figure out another solution. And a lot of the people there don't want you to succeed. And in Hungary, for example, by the time I got there, the Hungarian government and the tax unions were already drafting a law that was in parliament.

To actually block us from launching by the time I got there because uber had posted job postings there a year earlier and they were already proactively trying to block uber from launching so it was a deep one at what point were you in your in your head thinking all right i've been doing this uber thing for a while now [00:20:00] i've been living out of a suitcase in europe been hanging outside strip clubs trying to hire taxis it's time to do my own thing like you What was the framework or the mental model that you had in your mind to know when it was the right time for you to to move on from Uber to float?

So fast forward, you know, it's 2019 now. We built a big business in Eastern Europe and I got to scale and learn a lot there and work with awesome people and we sold the business there and then I came to Canada and led the Canadian ride sharing business and that was a Bigger, different job, a more mature business.

So I'm not launching markets now. If anything, I'm consolidating cities. I'm, I'm shuttering operations. I'm centralizing teams in Toronto. The name of the game at the time was, it was mature, you know, Travis had just left, Dara was the new CEO was a road to the IPO and, you know, Lyft was entering Canada and my job was like beat Lyft in Canada and frankly, like make Uber in Canada a lot more efficient.

And so, you know, it was not a fun job in a [00:21:00] lot of respects. I. Was the reason, you know, I ultimately consolidated a lot of operations, which means a lot of people leave and, you know, you're changing people's jobs and the company's evolving. And for me at the time, I looked at the set of business problems and I think like You look at the, if you're a business leader, you look at the set of business problems you're going to solve and go, are these exciting?

When I took that job, it was beat lift in Canada, which I was really excited about and centralize and get ready for an IPO, which seemed interesting. But I think at the time it was the set of business problems didn't seem interesting anymore. To me, it was get more efficient and work more with corporate.

But then I think the other thing is back to that first feeling, which is. I'm not nervous anymore coming to work. I don't feel anxious and that means I'm not learning as much. And I really also felt like I'd learned enough to be dangerous and wanted to go like I did in private equity. Wanted to go and now say, can I build a business or lead a business on my own?

And so. Those two things led me to leave Uber and figure out where can I now go and [00:22:00] build and lead a business using what I learned in private equity and learned at Uber. A question I get asked a lot is they're like, Jeff, you were doing food delivery or like first you're an athlete, then you're doing food delivery and now you're doing banking.

They just seem so unrelated. And to me, it's, it doesn't really matter just about the problem. Is that similar for you too? Like you didn't really, were you pretty agnostic of the industry? You just wanted to find a space that seemed pretty broken and that was worthwhile you working on fixing? My process is for starting and getting into completely new businesses.

What's the space? Is it interesting? Do I think it's a good business? So what's the space in the industry? Two, am I personally and emotionally connected to this problem or can I be in a way that's going to get me out of bed every day? And then three, can I work without standing people? And I think those were the three things that I was looking for.

And what I did was, you know, while I've described it in the past, it was a straight line. I did what I did when I graduated, which is I and when I look for that first job at Uber, I looked at everything. So I actually met [00:23:00] with. 50 startup teams. I ran a search fund for a period of time and emailed thousands of businesses in the search of one to buy.

And I also thought up a bunch of different business ideas to start. And my process coming from private equity is just the way I think is you learn a little bit about a business. It's easy to know whether it's exciting or not. You know, I looked at pet food businesses. I looked at it. Finance businesses. I looked at a real estate business.

It's easy to know whether that's interesting and you study it and think what's involved in doing this every day. Am I going to be building a product? Am I going to be building a house? Am I going to be doing renovations? What's involved? And I wrote memos. So I would write like a little mini investment memo.

What is this business involved? What's the opportunity? I would do like a little mini financial exercise and that would help me get a sense for what the business might be. Let me double click on that. So in that memo, you're saying. Like what is this business about, what's involved in running it, what's the opportunity you see, and then some back of the envelope math.

Is that the framework that you were using? Yeah. Yeah. And just so people know, if you're going through this, like it wasn't a straight [00:24:00] line. I almost started a business. In fact, I sort of did. I put together a pitch deck and a model and I went to fundraise for it and it didn't work out. COVID hit, but I created a financial model and I did some industry research and I wrote a memo and I put together a deck.

I also looked at buying some businesses. And so I reached out to a lot and got to know them and some of them got pretty close to selling. And so they'd send me their financial information and I'd write a little memo of this business does X. This is the opportunity. These are the ways we could drive revenue.

This is the strategy. This is my appraisal of the business and I, for me, that's always been a helpful way to think about the opportunity. And when I met my co founders at float or I was known as journal at the time what they were building, they had had something they were already working on. And then I met them and we started talking about where it could go and what the future of the business could look like.

And as I was talking to them about it, I also wrote my own memo and I did a bunch of industry research and I synthesized it. Okay. And it helps me and us clarify what [00:25:00] the business could be. And that for me has always been helpful to absorb an opportunity. What was it about the spend management SME space that got you interested in it?

Like, was it a problem that you had seen in canvassing a lot of these? Small businesses or was it just the founding team seemed quite strong and like walk me through in particular with journal and now float. What was it about this particular space that really, what really jumped out? So funny enough, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't an engineered thing.

Like I met my co founders Griffin and Ruslan and they were. They were building Journal, and they had this idea of a virtual card platform that you could use to deal with a problem that they had, which is that when they were interns at Shopify and Uber, they were asked to organize events like a laser tag event in Ruslan's case, I believe, and pay for them with a bunch of interns, but then they realized they wouldn't be paid back for six weeks, and they had to submit an [00:26:00] expense report, and they told me this problem, like they literally told me the story, and I was like, Oh my God.

I had the same problem when I was a launcher at Uber in February of 2015. I had a 150, 000 euro, true story, uh, credit card expense report in February of 2015 because I'd been buying thousands of iPhones and we would give the, you know, we would, we would give out, I would program as a launcher, thousands of iPhones, which took forever and hand out the cables to connect them to your car and the cigarette lighter to charge them and the holster so that it wouldn't fall on the ground.

And I was like, You know, I had all this problem at Uber where I was so empowered on the front lines, but like, I got stuck with these terrible administrative financial processes, and I'll never forget calling Uber, you know, my boss, and then it got escalated to the CFO, and they wouldn't reimburse me, I didn't have the receipts, and I was like, guys, there's Do you think I bought like 10, 000 iPhones in Romania for fun?

Like this is clearly my job. And by the way, I'm working seven days a week. You know, I'm burnt out. I haven't worked out. You know, I'm, [00:27:00] I'm, I'm on the tip of the spear here for, for this company and this mission. And I'm passionate about it. Get out of my way and help me get it done. And so when Griffin and told me that I was immediately like, Okay, I've had that problem and then I and then I really reflected and I spent some time talking to business owners and future customers of floats and when I talked to them about the space, I learned about what did I learn?

I learned that businesses are really dissatisfied with the banks. I learned that finance teams spend an enormous amount of time reconciling the spending that their teams and departments do on a monthly basis at the end of the month, that they spend a lot of time chasing receipts and invoices. And I also learned that the B2B payments industry is modernizing.

So I read a Payments Canada report that said, there's almost 4 trillion of B2B payments that are being processed every year in Canada. And it was attached, it had a bunch of research that said, and here's how it's [00:28:00] changing. And here's how frustrated businesses are. And so those were really interesting nuggets that informed My decision to build float with Ruslan and Griffin and then obviously the corporate card was that the real magic that first MVP push a button get a card for any business in Canada and three business days or less was a tremendous insight because we learned talking to customers that that took upwards of six weeks and.

They got cards with very low limits. And so those were the nuggets of insights that led me to go. I think there's something here. And just to, I always share with people because it's never as simple as this. And if you're ever thinking about taking a big leap in life, it's scary and it's never as simple as I'm making it seem.

I remember talking to my now wife and saying, these guys are younger than I, than I thought as partners I would work with. And this is really early stage. Like this is the earliest stage thing I could do other than starting a business. And this is probably pretty risky, but I like this [00:29:00] space and holy cow.

I really care about who I work with. And these guys are not messing around. In fact, they added me to a standup invite, a calendar invite. And I'll never forget after the first meeting, I said two things like, wow, these guys are brilliant. They've already built something fantastic. And they said, Oh, if you want to help out, we'll add you to this standing calendar invite.

And the calendar invite ran seven days a week. And it was like for an 8am standup. And it'd been going on for like 16 months. And So I knew whether, whether I got involved with them or not, they were going to build something. And that was the final thing for me. And I've been incredibly fortunate to have super dedicated founding teams, but the Samara brothers and Andrew Chow here at Neo as well.

And I feel like there's a bit of a difference though. There's some founders that are playing for keeps, and then there's some that are kind of, and I'm not judging at all, like it is difficult to just decide you're going to make the leap. And especially when we did it skip like for context, like I was laughing when you're telling me the 10, 000 iPhone story because we hadn't raised any capital.

We're maxing on our credit [00:30:00] cards and so we couldn't afford iPhone. So we actually had placed an order with Alibaba for tablets. We couldn't afford iPad so we actually found on Alibaba, they were actually like, we went through several generations, these like, off brand, like, you plug them in, like, some of them would spark, and like, like, like, start on fire, they had like, weird adapters, and like, they wouldn't work in North American plugs, they took six months to arrive, and we'd order like a hundred at a time, and we, but we were able to get them for like, twenty five dollars.

That's what we were doing in the early days of skip and we'd have to go and install them in person like, but I love though is that you're kind of doing the same thing, but you just were venture backed and you're already working kind of at a company that had a little bit more scale, but we're both kind of doing the same thing like you're just trying to like find hacky ways to solve a problem because I imagine now Uber isn't giving away iPhones anymore.

I'm sure that you're not having to convince people the same way that you would have had to back then. And to make that leap in the early days is very difficult. So I'm not judging those people who might be on the fence, but then when you [00:31:00] meet some founders who are just like super committed already, there's no wavering, they're, they're going to go hard at it and they're going to crash into a wall.

They may. Jump off of a cliff, trying to solve the problem, but they're going for it. That is, there's something about that momentum. It's, and it's all in your head too, basically. Cause I'm assuming the business didn't have like money pouring in and clients lining up, but it's like the fictional momentum and inertia that is all just built by the will of solving the problem.

Whether you're going to succeed or fail, you're going to make a go at it. That to me is almost magnetic. It has that pull to it. It's. That can bring people together. And it sounds like you had that in that early team at journal and float. Yeah. I mean, and I, and I saw that in my co founders and I learned at Uber, how important that was, you know, that was ingrained in Uber.

You know, when I went to Eastern Europe, like there was a hundred reasons for it to not work. And my boss I'll never forget said we win and we succeed. Not because we've [00:32:00] actually been smarter than anyone else necessarily, but because we've willed our way to a better outcome. No drivers in the city or drivers don't have access to cars will build a leasing business.

Uh, in Nigeria, a launcher went, you know, Oh, drivers don't have access to phone. So don't have access to email. We'll, we'll build an operation to enroll drivers in, in, um, in email services. And we'll, we'll set their email accounts up and do it that way. Like where there's a will, there's a way. And, and I think the reality is that the odds are stacked against you.

There's a million reasons. For a company like skip or neo or float or any business to not go anywhere. They get built by people who go. Um, I will go through every single rabbit hole. I will unearth every rock and I will prove that this business can exist or I will prove that it's impossible. And I think that that's what I've been drawn to in my life.

And certainly an uber, which was like, yeah. There was a million hard moments and there was a million obstacles. We had so much crazy stuff happen even at [00:33:00] Uber, but you recruit and work with people who are passionate about what they do and will will their way to a better outcome. And that's been float.

You know, I got started with my co founders in March of 2021. We had four customers like there was no revenue in the business, but there was a good, a good solid nugget of a product. And we looked at every obstacle as just something that we could overcome. So, okay, we can't hire anyone while we have interns.

We, you know, set a goal to raise money. And we said, well, we don't have any customers to raise money. We don't have any revenue. We're going to get 60 customers in six weeks. That's how we're going to raise, uh, raise our round. And we, we sat seven days a week, 12 hours a day and said, that's the goal. We won't stop.

We're getting 60 customers. If we have to call 6, 000, we'll call 6, 000. That's the deal. Uh, when we couldn't hire engineers, I remember we got together and said, here's the deal. We have this many people. That we reach out to this few respond to our emails. This few actually agree to have an interview. I'm going to do nothing but recruit.

And then we still couldn't [00:34:00] do it. And then Ruslan did nothing but recruit. And then it was me, Ruslan and Griffin. And we said, we're going to have a competition to see how many engineers in Canada we can email and reach out to. And I think we've You have to have a bit of a brutal mindset at that time to just simply do the things that are going to get you there, and it's fun, and it's hard, and it's everything.

I'm curious to know, like, I find that problem solving mentality, and I love what you said around, I'm going to basically, like, do everything possible to solve the problem, or I'm going to prove that the problem can't be solved. But I find that in food delivery, and in what you guys were doing at Uber, you had so much freedom.

In terms of the ways that you could, we could problem solve. Like I remember one time we had to get food delivery bags to couriers. And so we couldn't afford to lease space to give away the bags, like having like, I think they called it green light at Uber. So we would actually create these things called skip hubs.

And then they were just bags stored at restaurants and the restaurants would give out the bags to, to couriers on our behalf. And we would just give them free delivery for doing that. But it [00:35:00] basically meant that we had like free, virtually free storage for all of our bags. We could have 10 of them in one city.

But in banking and in what you're doing at flow with, with spend management and kind of getting into banking as well, I find that there's so many more constraints that you have to work around. Like you can't just build your own payment rails and like you can't just hold money on behalf of your clients.

How have you found the problem solving from Uber? To now working in a heavily, heavily regulated industry dependent on partners everywhere, lots of third party technology you have to use to has it been harder for you or is it just pretty much the same level of difficulty to different industry. Yeah, so it's definitely a challenge, but I think the same principles apply and and you know, one, I think willing your way is important, especially in the fintech industry where there are a lot of challenges and I think the other thing we talk a lot about is working backwards.

So. What's an amazing customer experience that we want to create and then working backwards to how [00:36:00] do we make that happen in light of the constraints that we have? And that's a famous principle, obviously from from Amazon, but we talk about it a lot. I think that that's something that has worked well for us.

You know, like as an example, customers want to be able to load money into float and be able to spend it quickly. And we know that that's really important for businesses and they want to process payments quickly. The payment rails in Canada and the money movement rails in Canada make that very difficult.

And our answer is, well, we're not going to be satisfied with telling all our customers, Hey, sorry, you know, the Canadian banking system has these problems, blah, blah, blah. No, that's a loser mentality, a victim mentality. For us, we go, okay, okay. We're going to create a synthetic experience whereby our customers can load money into float sooner.

And we're going to build a risk and a compliance team and use really smart data science and computer engineering to allow us to give our customers that experience [00:37:00] while mitigating the financial risk that that might create for float. And that's one example. The other example is to just do what it takes.

You know, like a good example would be in Canada to move money On behalf of customers. Um, as I'm sure you know, you need to, you need to become a money service business. It's a, it's a license and it requires a huge amount of compliance and risk work. We just said, well, guess we're going to do that. And I think that that's sort of we're in the business of being customer obsessed.

We're in the business of doing the things that are required to build great experiences. And I think we try to, you know, people will say, well, are we a software company? Our team will ask, are we going to be a banking company or a fintech company like that? We don't care. What is the vision? I mean, the vision is to build amazing experiences that improve Canadian companies, access to capital, deliver frictionless financial experiences, meaning they can do things really quickly and have things at their fingertips.

Access and achieve [00:38:00] superior levels of savings and earnings with their money. Those are the three things that we want to deliver. And if we need to become a bank to do that, we'll become a bank. If we're a software company in some parts of our business to do that, we'll do that. If we need to have a team of people up float doing operational work to drive those outcomes for our customers, we'll do that.

That's what we aspire to. And, um, it takes you on a, on a winding road of functions and activities, as you know, to actually create those experiences. Yeah. So it's less about what you are. It's more about what, what are you actually doing for the end client or end customer? Yeah. Like I'll give you an example.

We, we thought last year, you know, interest rates are going up. Inflation is high. We have a very, very difficult. Macro economic environment for all businesses right now. And we hear from our customers often, you know, we have such poor returns on our cash. Like, you know, they load money on the float and they spend it, but we hear from them often.

And then we feel this too, like, you know, where are we, um, how do [00:39:00] we get greater returns on our, the money that we have lying around? Cause every business has that. And so this isn't something we've done previously. We've been largely a software company and we said, what if we, you know, we You know, working backwards could enable our customers when they load money into float.

We're not a bank. We don't have a savings account, but if, if the money sitting in their account with us before they spent it, even if it was for a couple of days, a couple of weeks. You know, accrued interest or some sort of yield. Wouldn't that be powerful? And so we went to a bunch of different partners and banks and said, if we put this pool of capital together from all of our accounts, what could we unlock that would not be available to them if they all went individually to do that with smaller sums of money?

And that led to the launch of float yield, which is a great offering that offers customers 4 percent annually on the capital that they have in, uh, in float. And I think that, you know, That's something that was very much developed through that, that sort of line of thinking, but wouldn't necessarily have been obvious to us two years ago.

One of the topics that's on everyone's mind is open [00:40:00] banking. And I know that it's, it's one that you're aware of. Um, we just had Abraham Tashian a few weeks ago. I'm just curious, like, what's your take on that? Because Everyone seems to be working themselves up about it. When I've talked to you about it, you seem much more relaxed than, than the vast majority of FIs out there that are almost losing their minds about whether it's coming.

When's it coming? What's it going to look like? How have you approached it? Yeah, we follow it with great interest, concern, but also, frankly, a bit of a mindset of whatever happens, we'll will our way to the outcome we need for our customers. And, you know, we hope And pray that, uh, there's great political will for a better outcome for all Canadians, because that will create the conditions that allow for more competition and more innovation.

You know, I think that most companies don't want to be brutal and have a brutal mindset of where there's a will, there's a way. A lot of companies will just give up, especially [00:41:00] if they're startups and incumbents will just rest on their laurels. So Hannah Zady, I think, you know, I saw recently on She had a great beta kit interview and talked about this.

She's such a great. You know, thought leader in the space. And I think her, her perspective I share, which is this is not just going to be an interest industry led thing. Like that's not realistic. There has to be greater political will to create the conditions that will allow for competition, improved access information, but at float, regardless of what happens, we will do the things necessary to create great experiences for our customers.

The question is how hard will that be? And will the government play a leadership role, not a passive role, but an actual leadership role and ensuring that Canada is not left behind? Because I, I think that that's really what's at stake. But as a company, like anything else externally, you try to influence it positively, but you have to come together as a group of people and say, We'll make the best of this for our customers [00:42:00] and we'll be fierce and we'll, we'll try to be, we'll try to be trailblazers.

Look at how far neo has gotten. Look how far well simple has gotten. You know, I, I think that ultimately innovation comes from people facing an objective set of obstacles and just going, well, we'll figure out a way. Um, and we need, we need the regulator to, to do their part as well. I think we see eye to eye on that.

And Hannah is a great ambassador, I think, for, for FinTech in Canada. You know, I, I even got an email from a client this morning on this topic. And my response was that, um, I'm hopeful more as a Canadian, that open banking comes in a way that creates value for all Canadians, but concerned that, you know, the, the kind of lobbying power of the incumbents will kind of help maintain the status quo just for longer.

And I think it's a, it's a broader issue that we have in Canada right now. And that is a little bit of too much apathy. And I imagine even just with your own experience, Rob, with PE and Uber. And now with flow like you've been exposed to kind of daring to [00:43:00] do different and great things. And you can see the outcomes that come from doing those things.

And that's why, that's why we're such a big fan of what you guys are doing at float and why I'm a bit advocate for you guys, because I think what you're doing is super important. I think you're a model of what not only other entrepreneurs should do, but also just some of the changes that we need to make in this, in this industry.

And just want to thank you so much for taking the time and coming on and sharing your story. And we're a happy client of float as well. And so thank you for. You and your team for working so hard to build an amazing product. And for those that haven't used it yet, speaking on behalf of a client, it's an, it's an amazing experience.

It's made our, our entire business run a lot more smooth. We do a lot of traveling as well, and it just made it a lot easier for us to run our business, focus on the problems that we want to solve and allow you to focus on this problem. Cause we can't, we can't solve it all. So, uh, yeah, thanks. Thanks so much for, for what you're working on and also the, for taking your time to come on the show.

Yeah. Same to you, uh, you and Andrew and the, the Neo team building something special, huge fans and, uh, thanks [00:44:00] for, thanks for having me on. This was fun. Just even when the first time I met you, I could tell you have a very like intense, hardcore mindset of solving important problems. And so, uh, I would also.

Recommend anyone else to check you out. Where can people learn more about floats if they're either an applicant or if even if they're a client? Yeah, if you're interested in checking out float float card dot com, you can find us both as a customer and also a careers page. If you're interested in opportunities, you can find us on linked in as well.

We've got a great Great active team posting a lot of things about our products, what we're doing, new opportunities here. So we'd love to hear from you. Awesome, buddy. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot.

for tuning into behind the brand. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you're interested in learning more about neo financial, visit us at neo financial. com behind the brand is production of neo financial and media lab. YYC hosted by me, Jeff Adamson, strategy, research and production by , Philippe Burns, [00:45:00] dario Boettcher and Kyle Marshall.