About This Episode:

Today I’m pleased to welcome self-professed ‘fintech nerd’ Simon Taylor to the podcast. Simon is the Co-Founder and Head of Strategy and Content for Sardine.ai. Sardine enables all companies, whether big or small, to improve risk management by having the world's best API for fraud detection and compliance. Simon has been immersed in the technology of financial services for as long as he’s been working and is consistently voted one of the most influential people in Banking, Insurance, and Fintech by banks, his peers, and a number of industry bodies. Simon is a co-host of both ‘Fintech Insider’ the #1 Business Podcast in Europe and ‘Blockchain Insider’ the fastest-growing business podcast, and author of the Fintech Brain Food newsletter. 

In this episode, you’ll hear about Simon’s path to becoming a fintech wizard and industry leader, thoughts on the pandemic and its continuing effect on fundraising and VC, insights concerning the state of digital banking and its future, and advice for first-time fintech founders.

Startup Growth Stories is hosted by Don Muir, CEO, and Co-Founder of Arc Technologies. In each weekly episode of this podcast, you'll hear from first-time, bootstrapped, and unicorn founders about how they secured their first customers, convinced their first employees to join and grew their business. Founders and industry insiders share their greatest successes (and failures) and the things they learned along the way. In the final minutes of each episode, guests get vulnerable - they share very personal stories about the impact of their work on their well-being, their relationships, and their families.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

[1:26] Simon Taylor calls himself a “fintech nerd” 

[03:18] Fintech and what’s happening in the economy

[07:12] What we’ll see looking into 2023 - Reset your growth expectations

[08:50] Fintech founders – start looking at specifics, not general advice. What works for YOU? Pricing, operating models, talent acquisition, etc.

[11:35] The past Fed’s zero interest rates, venture capital investors, and founders - Hopefully, people learn the lessons from this. The market always wins

[15:08] What Simon is seeing in private markets – he’s 60% sure the Fed will end up probably ‘breaking the bond markets’

[19:23] How should fintech startups who are credit-focused think about their next move and access to capital?---Start thinking about who those folks are, start building relationships with them, depending on what your sources of capital have been historically 

[21:36] The BaaS ecosystem and the emergence of digitally native challenger banks on the consumer side – They provided access when nobody else would. Regulators are now looking at smaller banks not designed for millions of users

[25:50] What is it that has unlocked this opportunity for these digital banks? Why has this product taken off? What's been the gap that they're serving in the market? (1) solving a consumer pain point, and (2) it was a revenue model baked in - Cash App, Venmo, Chime, etc.

[30:38] Takeaways, and advice for first-time fintech founders -