Thought Leader in Financial Technology: DealMaker CEO Rebecca Kacaba (Part 1)

Equity Crowdfunding is evolving. This conversation highlights some of the trends.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to DealMaker.

Rebecca Kacaba: I was a capital market attorney for over a decade before founding DealMaker. The idea for DealMaker was born out of the problems my clients were having in trying to raise capital. It was too expensive and it was taking too long. I wanted to solve these problems for them.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Sankaet Pathak, CEO of Synapse (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You are talking about US accounts for Indian residents?

Sankaet Pathak: Yes. Their thought process stops there. They’re more focused on how much money leaves India versus what other obligations come as a function of it. Primarily, US regulators are still more relevant.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. At some level, I feel like you might get some traction if you offer your services to Indian banks that want to provide it to their customers.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Sankaet Pathak, CEO of Synapse (Part 1)

Sankaet is building interesting infrastructure products for FinTech. Lots of insights, also, on open opportunities within the field for new entrepreneurs to latch onto.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Synapse.

Sankaet Pathak: I’m the Founder and CEO of Synapse. If you haven’t heard of Synapse, we are what’s considered a Banking-as-a-Service provider based in San Francisco.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: SurgePays CEO Brian Cox (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How big is this segment you’re catering to?

Brian Cox: I always say a third of the country. Miami Herald did an article this year talking about the impact of the infrastructure bill. There are a couple of programs that are based on income level qualifiers. One of those is the affordable connectivity program which is how we provide the majority of our broadband. They did some math and found that 6.4 million households in Florida qualified for this program.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: SurgePays CEO Brian Cox (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What are the gating items on the education side? What are the needs of this community on education?

Brian Cox: It’s funny you ask that, but that thought had crossed my mind. I have two sons in high school. I was thinking about education and how boring school is sometimes but how interesting learning is. We were talking this morning about how I took three years of a language. I got an app now where I’ve learned more Spanish than I ever learned in school because it’s fun. Fun is functional.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: SurgePays CEO Brian Cox (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You have come this far and you are in 8,000 stores, and you have done it with commission reps.

Brian Cox: Yes, and by finding smaller companies that have plateaued. We were able to acquire them and rebrand them. It doesn’t matter what kind of services you’re giving that clerk behind the counter if he doesn’t realize that this is more convenient.

Sramana Mitra: Aside from wireless prepaid and you talking about broadband wireless, do you have other products that you sell?

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: SurgePays CEO Brian Cox (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I imagine that because this consumer base doesn’t have credit cards, the entire e-commerce capability will be enabled by something like what you’re talking about. Amazon is one e-commerce vendor but Walmart probably wants to get to that segment and various other people who cater to that customer base. Even the food guys.

Brian Cox: The government has done a tremendous amount of studies on the health impact of low-income neighborhoods and their reliance on the corner store. We use the word convenience store because, to us who can just hop on a car and go to Target, it’s a convenience.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: SurgePays CEO Brian Cox (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let me probe something very specific. When you made the switch by digitizing that whole process of scratchable prepaid cards but were still catering to this low-end consumer base, what was the go-to-market strategy? How do these consumers reach you and find you?

Brian Cox: That’s a great question. I failed every which way possible in trying to go direct to the consumer. The only way to truly reach the consumer from my perspective was to go into the neighborhoods they live in. There is a false sense to this influencer thing. Our market is not enamored by Silicon Valley influencers, if you will.