Catching Up On Readings: Top 10 Strategic Tech Trends 2023

This feature from Gartner identifies the top ten strategic technology trends that organizations should explore in 2023. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Featured Videos

Building a Public FinTech Company From Scratch: OppFi CEO Todd Schwartz (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What about the technology? Did you build all that?

Todd Schwartz: I do not believe in going out and blowing a bunch of equity to build this beautiful shiny technology system. In four years, it’s probably not going to be the best system with the rate of change. I used off-the-shelf solutions and did API integrations into them. I spent little on technology. I didn’t have a CTO for the first five years. They were all variable costs. I didn’t have to outlay a lot of equity. I was able to grow with a variable cost model.

596th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Julien Pham, Third Culture Capital

Julien Pham is Founder and Managing Director at Third Culture Capital (3CC), a firm focused on investing in the healthcare space.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | TuneIn | RSS

Video FAQs

Building a Public FinTech Company From Scratch: OppFi CEO Todd Schwartz (Part 3)

Todd Schwartz: The technology wasn’t there. I didn’t know anything about lending. I didn’t know any other way to do it except take $100,000 of my own savings and open a one-room office in the north side of Chicago, get a printer, and use Excel to originate loans. I applied for the CILO license. Six months later, I was granted the license. I was getting referrals from the pawnshop.

I made the first 3,000 loans in person by myself. I handed the check to every borrower. I got to know every borrower. I understood why we were better. There were no prepayment penalties. I had to hire people. We were getting so much referral volume. We have such high customer satisfaction. We weren’t really measuring it, but I could just tell by the way people were overjoyed and the referrals we were getting. Our interest rates were much lower. Our payment terms were much more beneficial.

596th Roundtable Recording with Julien Pham, Third Culture Capital

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

Roundtable Recap: November 17 – Spotlight on Healthcare Investing

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Julien Pham, Founder and Managing Director at 3CC Third Culture Capital, a firm focused on investing in the healthcare space.

Afterlife

As for entrepreneur pitches, we first had Brett Maxfield from Los Angeles, California, pitch Afterlife, a concept-stage venture that is waiting for financing to get off the ground.

Efeedo

Next, we had Javed Christi from Saint Charles, Missouri, pitch Efeedo, a revenue stage venture in the crowded restaurant POS space, that is looking to raise financing.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

>>>

Building a Public FinTech Company From Scratch: OppFi CEO Todd Schwartz (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How did you steer your career from that point on?

Todd Schwartz: I went through the crisis of 2008. That’s when I learned a lion’s share of what I know today. I learned about investing. I learned about allocating capital. I learned what not to do. I learned it not from having success. We got ourselves in a little bit of a pickle. It was a very tough situation. Unwinding a lot of that was painful.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Niche E-commerce Venture

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

I’ve always been bullish about niche e-commerce. Here’s the story from 2016 of an entrepreneur who has successfully bootstrapped a company in high-end light fixtures, Elite Fixtures CEO Steven Annese.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Steven Annese: I’m a child of an Italian immigrant. I was born in New Jersey. It was in the 70s when most of the Italians migrated.

>>>