127: Money Talks #30 | Starling Goes Unicorn | Roblox Goes Public | Walmart Feeling Super | Square Goes Tidal | Ireland Accelerates

0:06 Hey there, I'm Pete Townsend, and this is money, never sleeps. We look inside the minds of entrepreneurs and at the crossover of startups and apprise Finance, technology and Life. As We Know It, This episode of money. Never sleeps is sponsored by Pat fintech training partner. The demystifies fintech and digital Finance for financial services professionals Owen, Fitzgerald and I are back with another money talk segment this week when we trip through the wires to Starling Banks, latest Ray's investing in Roblox direct listing, Walmart super app versus the bank of Walmart, the square and titled Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z tie up and National startup accelerators, International startup accelerators and pre accelerators. All right here, on this week's episode of money. Never sleeps.

0:56 Hey pal, how's it going? Good, and you, I'm doing great. Do it the day trading today. We'll talk about that later on, okay? It's not day trading. If you just buy and don't sell right, that's true. As long as it doesn't happen in one day then it's not day trading. Exactly. Does the next day count? It's just a by, but we'll talk about that will talk about. We got so much to go through tonight. I'm thinking as I'm going through a few of these stories this morning and this afternoon that you could really go down a rabbit hole here with some of these stories and it's the more you're in this and the more you know about the different players you start making These associations you start seeing these patterns and saying, wait a second. If you did this, this that and the other thing anywho, it's all good stuff.

1:37 Do you want to dig right into it go first. Okay, first story, we're looking at tonight is Starling our good friends at Starling bank, they raised two hundred and seventy two million pounds at a 1.3 billion pound valuation. That was announced just a couple of days ago and we've got a story where a number of these things were covered by our friends at sifted. People check that out. But Owen 50, put up their pay wall. Did you see that? I did. See that this really annoying? No. I understand. Obviously, I'm not sure. I'm not giving that about their. They're trying to earn a living and everything. It's really annoying for me who just want to pay our now, why I shut down my ft subscription because sifted went live, right? And now what I ended up paying for the Ft subscription annually, I'll have to then now pay for sifted by what you gonna do.

2:23 Anyway, the series D round was led by Fidelity management researcher fmr out of Boston. Where I Did my career back in the 90s? Alongside the Qatar investment Authority? Got a good friend from Bermuda who is from Qatar, I'm sure he knows some of the folks, their pension manager RPM. I real pain and the investment for a millennium management who I did a little project with a few years ago, called Bond clearing, which I won't get into was terribly boring and terribly insane at the same time. One of the other things, I noted the investor one of the big investors from the early days. Harry mcpike. He cashed out for cashed out a portion. Did you read and bowden's book backing on it? No, I read the book. Now. Okay okay. Anyway in the book banking on it, the Ann Bowden wrote that. I just finished reading recently. She talks about her initial investor. Harry mcpike.

3:09 He bankrolled Starling in the early days with up to 48 million pounds that he invested in three tranches for 67 percent of the equity. That's a big number, right? Harry mcpike was the founder of the quantitative trading firm, quantized he lives on board is 92 foot yacht in Nassau in the Bahamas off a little place called Paradise Island. Yeah. So he's pretty it's he's pretty Wealthy. Yeah it was a strange person involved in the whole thing with me because like you can understand everyone else's involvement under background. He just seemed to be to bring the money. A lot of money. It does Harry was a needle in the haystack type Ambassador, right? I mean I think Anne was at at a point in time where it looked like it was pretty dire and the funding was absolutely critical and through an introduction. Through an old associate, she got the entry point to Harry, she went to go see him in the Bahamas. Don't want to ruin the story for anybody, right? But from where it is right now, he still owns 40% of the company.

4:04 Okay? So and is now down below, 25 percent of the equity since 2019, and she's probably down to fifteen percent or less after the last two rounds. But from reading the book though, she's no Gordon Gekko. Right. Her passion was never about the massive accumulation of wealth, so and about the I win, you lose type of things, you know, just different kind of individual and she was asked in the article about the Comment from the UK pension fund, real pain on whether it was risky for them to invest in Starling and and said, it's absolutely fantastic. Pension funds. Invest in large stable companies, Starling is bigger now and profitable. They're not VCS. These are investors that invest in real solid numbers with real solid growth, which is a admirable position to be in right now.

4:52 For Ann Bowden and Sterling Bank. That's it, like, it's a really positive piece for them to pension fund investment because even look at us, one's own Revolution. Sounds like it's typically always VCS ponying up again. Keeping the fund, the business, whereas from a from an exit strategy long-term support when the view the pension fund is potentially a better support, they're not looking to get turned up money around very quickly. Yep there's pockets of us you know far deeper pockets and with with some of the individual VC's. Yep. And it's reminiscent of coin basis. Either series D or Series E where tiger Global Management which is a private Equity Firm but having a big name like tiger on a cryptocurrency. Business was a big win and also Wellington Asset Management who is one of the stalwarts from Boston for Fidelity or from they came into the coinbase series dear series because it's a big joke.

5:41 You look at you look at that list of investors and you have Fidelity and then you have real pain as well. That's a very different group of investors with a longer-term strategic view on it as opposed to further funding from the VC. So I'd say it's the fundraising is very positive. But actually the makeup of the fundraisers is even more. Positive terms of the long-term future of the. Yep. Yep, I really like it. But I mean it's a stage that they're at, you know, they're profitable to Starling book revenues to 12 million pounds in the month of January and their net income is more than one and a half million pounds. So according to our friend, Brian McMahon from expert dojo and his eye for early-stage startups, that have the potential to get to 10 million in monthly recurring Revenue, right? And and her team have done that a few million better.

6:23 So, who was the next darling bank? If you think it's you, please get in touch. Absolutely. When, if it's you we're talking right? Now, so just let me know. Yeah, yeah. So if you can get to 10 million, in monthly recurring Revenue, you're getting well. What's referred to as unicorn material, dry fight your unicorn status. I think exactly. So that is a 1 billion Revenue valuation. If you're a 10 million monthly, recurring Revenue, 120 million ARR, 7 to 8 x multiples of Revenue to get to your valuation for a fintech and that is conservative. All right. That's it was going to say that's pretty reasonable. Like I thought you would think on the face. You are so cute. It were expecting 12 to 15 if not more for a fintech.

7:03 So to said that's quite conservative, which keeps very conservative, it's kind of like cutting it in half. I was talking to a couple of Founders today about take all of your Revenue projections and cut them in half, right? And it's going to take twice as long to get to that level. Couple of guys, I was talking to you today that were talking about the amount that they would need for funding and they were both showing me their early stage projections where they were profitable within three months and I'm like, well if you're going to be profitable within three months, you don't need. Funding right. You don't usually see if you're gonna be profitable in three months, right? So but no got them going the right direction. But I one of the other things with this is well is that the new funding is being put towards launching Starling in Europe and for anticipated ma perhaps a peer-to-peer lender to grow. Its lending book.

7:47 I know that you were tweeting about that a couple of weeks ago, when you were saying, hey my Ulster Bank have a loan book there. That might be interesting. Yeah, seems that sort of thing you would take make sense. Obviously, you know, I was treating In relation to Revolution, maybe it doesn't make sense for them with no background in lending and it's a far different kettle of fish as they say. But obviously with starting being more focused on the business side of it, you could argue it as an opportunity for them to look at loan books, peer-to-peer lenders or others who might have a loan book for sale and acquire a decent chunk of customers on that basis. So see the challenge with going across Europe, is the different regulatory requirements and the different Market requirements? You know, it's not easy. A lot of that money will go towards, whatever is Needed to go into new markets.

8:31 So you know you could see there's a it may not be enough given that to be a period of time before they're starting to build up some profit in Newmarket. Oh yeah. But I'm sure if, if they were letting good old Harry, you know, take a few tens of millions off the table. They had to be in a position because are regulated bank now of having capital adequacy and having them enough left in the war chest, do what they wanted to do, right? So the one of the Articles said there is still no date for the Irish license and had said that they had Gun building out the team there. We know that obviously with Elaine DM shout-out to a lane. She heads up. Starling in Ireland. It's a friend of the show. So but European expansion. This sights are set on Ireland. Ireland is a small country of 5 million people, but it is the first Natural Bridge for a UK business with English as its first language to get into Europe, which seems crazy 50 years ago, that UK would need to seems crazy to get into Europe. All right, but obviously, you know, strategically and actually, I'm thinking back to my comment from a few minutes ago, you know, getting the license in Ireland covers Europe from the registry point of view, obviously. So, you know is reduces the cost of going into some of those markets.

9:44 So it's a big thing, what you get, you get it done in Ireland. First, I've talked to a few companies about this is that Ireland's got a very unique demographic for a country of five million people and you've got a good proportion of tech-savvy individuals. Just from all of the different types of multinational businesses that have been here across all different segments of Technology over the last 3040 years. And what that's created in terms of how people engage with technology in Ireland, right? And being able to have that type of population here in, what is I looked at some numbers recently where the 6th wealthiest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita because of all the revenue pump through Ireland's it by the multinationals, right?

10:30 It goes back out again. It doesn't go into our pockets, well, some of it. But anyway, I think there is a very unique demographic. So it makes for a good breeding ground for your European entry point, right? Get it done here and then you're going to 27 different unique cultures, right? You know, and it's that's going to be a harder nut to crack. Anyway, last point on this while Manzano revolution in 26, have all raised at higher valuations than this one point. Two billion Starling now out Pieces, all of them in terms of value per user at 650 pounds per user, right? That's, I think out of this entire story, I think that's the one.

11:11 Now, after reading the book from Ann bowdan that she would point to would be the most proud of yeah, definitely. Right. It's not the big valuation. It's not the money coming in. I'd say she's proud of the investor profiles that have come in, but the fact that they've been able to pump up the value per user to 650 pounds, that's pretty yeah. Cool. All right, next one. Speaking about pumping up, Roblox right there. Direct listing went on to New York Stock Exchange today at what was a reference price of $45 per share. That opened up at 6450. I know, because I got in for a small investment, very small investment, just to kind of undo. Some of my frustrations about the trading options that I have here in Ireland at. I used one of my us accounts, not like, you know, Gordon Gekko saying to Bud, Fox.

12:00 Use the offshore accounts. I'm using a, an account that is monitored by the IRS and we're all gains are reported by Fidelity to the IRS. So it's all good anywho so they went to direct listing. Instead of an IPO like a number of companies before them Asana, palantir Spotify and slack up coming from coinbase. They're going to do one as well. So it's not backed by Underwriters as the current shareholders just convert their ownership into stock based on trading prices in private markets, right? I don't know what they might have been trading at in the secondary markets before they went live on the New York Stock Exchange today because we've seen that with some of these others where employee shares, or employee share options, or derivative of those are trading in secondary markets, right?

12:45 But opening up at 6450, bounced up to 70 up to 80 then back settled down around 70. I think towards the close of the market today, just seeing them go public knowing the revenue model, which I think we can get into a little bit. It would kind of mind-blowing to me. You see this video game that my kids have been playing for the last couple of years? Yeah we're one of the kids just walked over to me and said, Dad Dad, can you download Roblox for me? I'm like yeah, sure why not, what is that? It's like, I don't know. One of the one of the guys outside one of the kids outside said I need to play it like all right here you go. Yeah that was kind of before we have this control Mind Set On Top of iPads. Look, same, you know, I try limited but actually, it's one of the few games I don't mind them playing as long as that are chatting to whoever random stranger in some parts of the world, but actually from like usability and skills. And Like coordination.

13:30 All I like good stuff that you get from gaming, whatever, build outings and the community side of it, I think they really enjoy it. So I have a lot of time for the kids playing Roblox in particular, but I just think it's a fascinating business and a potential opportunities of us especially to buying and selling and the e-commerce platform and engine that runs within the game. I think that's really cool and there's no discount for that. Yeah, that was eye opening piece for me. And obviously looking at this before, pulling the trigger on the investment, getting my head around it. A bit more is seeing how Jesus Simon Taylor said, Weeks ago, everything is fintech right in his fintech brain, food newsletter, and I'm thinking is everything crypto here, right? Because Roblox developers can get paid in Robux right and in-game currency. Yeah, yeah exactly.

14:14 That is used to buy new avatars used to buy new gear for your avatar, right? And there are now developers that are making a living off this as you can convert that back into Fiat and how many million people? What were the numbers? The numbers in February, thirty two and a half million Daily average users. It far exceeds the Facebook and everything up from thirteen. Thirteen, fourteen million this time last year. Wow. But again, come back to what you were saying there. It's the ability to build your own game within the world and taught grade your character and then being able to cash out of it like this huge opportunity. A good reference point for tonight. Had Travis Scott do his entire concert with in the game. They made lots of money out of that by having sponsorship associated with the concert, I think it was packing McCormick.

14:56 Had a really good article that he wrote on a few months back about. What he calls the metaverse. The online Universe, where buy products to be developed purely online metagaming setting, like, lots of money is going to be flowing towards out. I love to find, this may be put in the show notes. Again, it's pointed out that actually Within These Universe of 32 million users everyday, the amount of opportunity to build new products or do some really interesting stuff is untapped potential there. Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, I think metaverse is right word there. It's just a whole new virtual economy. That. And I was saying to someone the other day that the danger of this digital working, right? Or remote working is that you don't have to leave your house, right?

15:39 So making sure you get outside every day is a big thing. We always want our kids to go outside every day, right? So the more and more they get hooked on this stuff but yeah. Just to take the controller away. It's an interesting one because obviously I laughed when you were saying everything is crypto but something like grow box which is the in-game currency like to me is the prime example of a digital currency. See potential usage. You see Bitcoin obviously starting to become more widely adopted but actually here's a currency within a game that's been used potentially by 32 million people every day. It's a potential for that like that. To me is what digital currency could become. It's a closed loop environment whereby that currency can be used in a hundred different ways. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And that's part one of the big things for me. Would defy, right?

16:21 Is that you hold eith, you can stake, eat, you can earn other tokens you can then do swaps. You can generate yield and Within this whole ecosystem, you can just continue to earn you continue to invest, you can borrow and without ever converting it to Fiat and cashing out. But when you do want to cash out, there is the absolute facility to be able to do that. That one of the mind-bending things for this was in the CNBC article that talked about it, where they started out the article with Ethan garance key was about 10 years old. When he discovered Roblox, he dove into its games mostly to Eyes with other kids nowadays 20. He has his own Roblox game that he works on full time with his girlfriend, l a couple met on the app earn more than forty, nine thousand dollars in the past month, from their action game.

17:12 Called Bad Business by selling outfits and weapons players can use to make their characters look cooler. And perform better, right? Absolutely. You are an in ecosystem where there is a currency that you use to do things with and then when you want to leave that ecosystem, you take your money with you and Go use it somewhere else. Wonderful. I think we're just going to see in more and more and more of that and I think the wow yeah the plugin of the nft world, the non fungible token world to these links with other types of experiences I think is going to be a gateway to so much more of this going to be pretty cool to see. Definitely way more to come into space. Definitely way more to come in this space.

17:56 This episode of money, never sleeps. It's sponsored by Pat fintech. Mystifying fintech and digital Finance for financial services professionals, Pat fintech enable Financial Services professionals to transform their capabilities into the digital age with dedicated virtual training programs, geared towards those that can develop deliver in monitor optimally customized user experiences, balanced by appropriate governance, control and oversight. To learn more about Pat fintech. Go to money, never sleeps. That IE /. P80 fintech. On to the next one. Well, there we go. Right. So speaking of everything being fintech Walmart is proposing or suggesting subtly between the lines or whatever, that everything is fintech and the headline is Walmart's fintech ambition. A super app, not the bank of Walmart. Okay, so back in January, Walmart announced that they were building a super app.

18:57 This was kind of lost in the headlines. I thought it was the bank of Walmart, right? That they were going to be building. Just a chime of n Mo a revolute type app but that's not it. They announced in January this partnership with rivet Capital to develop an offer modern Innovative and affordable Financial Solutions. That I just say Innovative. I said at the Irish way wonderful but it's funny. I took a look at this, right? I took a look at rivet Capital now they say it takes money to change money, right? That is their part of They're mantra', when they're making investments in early stage fintech it does take lots of money to change money and lots of money from Walmart, right? So I wonder what the deal is like for Walmart to be paying Ribbit capital and as I just said, this isn't about building a digital Bank. This is a heck of a lot more WeChat that have his Revolution okay and one of the things about WeChat is that it's all based on these things called mini programs that are running inside a super app.

20:00 You don't need to download a new app from the app store for each new service that you want to plug into this. You just you just go right and I'm trying to think about Ribbit capital or only there's 20 some-odd faces on there a team page, right? There's probably another I don't know 30 40 max that are with Ribbit Capital. They're not gonna have the bandwidth to build anything. Well they just be advising or if you look at their Investments a firm, Brax chain, a little This is coinbase. Credit Karma, figure revolute, Robin Hood, lots of good names. Lots of knowledge, in-house fishing. They're going to farm the development of these many programs as side gigs to, some of the portfolio companies.

20:44 Definitely, definitely. Look at this. This is a really interesting one, because when you first think of Walmart's like, it's not to do it over here but like I was looking at it earlier, 220 million customers on a daily basis. Go through the doors of a Walmart. They've got ten and a half thousand stores. Globally become City majority in the u.s., you know, we're talking again, it comes back to the Amazon conversations, we've had in the past and Facebook and WhatsApp and so far, it's just finding further ways to monetize your existing customer. So people you go to Walmart everyday, like to continue coming back. So now it's a case of how many different solutions. Can we provide them in one place? So, within our Walmart app and I think they get the nail on the head there with the rivers Capital piece, you know, their team can't do it, but they clearly have the access to the even the list of names you mentioned, there are Each of those has a specific value add to Walmart, you know.

21:33 Absolutely. Absolutely. And the big news this week on this whole thing with Walmart is they hired Omer. Ishmael and David Stark from Goldman Sachs who are key, players and leading Marcus's growth to more than 97 billion dollars in deposits, right? So one of the Articles was suggesting, hey, you five years ago, you started doing this with Goldman, to build this city, Zap. And what is now becoming an investing app at least in the u.s. you want to go start all over again and do this for five more years with Walmart, but the big thing is know, you're doing something so much bigger than Marcus, right? If they can pull this off, the opportunity set, that was being referenced.

22:18 So the super app would include their Shopify Marketplace, which is good. Wonderful connecting, the self-service online display ad platform for partners that they bought a couple Of years ago, something called Thunder, I think. And this means that if with a fully online experience, you still want to be able to pump up these display ads that people would normally see when they're walking around Walmart, right? So be able to do this in real time. Figure out who's on throw up and add bid right away, who's going to be the one that takes that users attention within milliseconds and pops up an ad in their face, right? So that's part of it health centers, existing investments in e-commerce.

23:00 Logistics supply chain and inventory management to link everything up, right, this on-demand replenishing of products into the warehouse and a bunch of other products and services. Not currently affiliated with Walmart, right? Which is kind of everything. So, if they do this, right? This could be massive, it's just, are they going to be able to move quick enough? Given that it's Walmart and looked at the key piece, maybe the river couple relationship and that could be, it's a case of, let's not build it, let's just integrate it, you know, if they can do that obviously their potential then to move quickly or not. Exactly. Like the interesting comparison here is with Starbucks and I always use it anytime I do guest, lecturing on fintech. I always talk about that heading everything is a fintech and I use Starbucks as an example. Because the last time it was publicly flagged, the amount of I think it was around this time last year or maybe 18 months ago at that in that particular quarter Starbucks, had more customer deposits.

23:51 If you want to call them not on their Starbucks cards than most US Banks held in that quarter. So if you take that example of what would I do? My wall. Our card. Well, I'd probably top it up or if I'm topping it up and there's always going to be a consistent balance, just sitting there have. I got some sort of investment solution to some sort of short-term thing that aren't some money for me. You know, you're looking at a firm is obviously one of the companies they're working with rivers, and they obviously just announced this week there, it was a really strange announcement in the sense that they announced a debit card for their buy. Now pay later solution, so a debit card where you pay buy now and pay later. Sounds to me like a That card. But anyway, it's all the Democrats, but again, you could see that.

24:32 I mean, even that slotting in immediately as part of your Walmart card or whatever, your customer card is the opportunity to buy on credit at the checkout in store you know just multiple options for them and being able to slot in or integrate. Those solutions could also do a huge amount for some of those. Underlying companies I can affirm if they start white labeling, certain Technology Solutions that they have our offers that they have. Oh yeah, yeah. And this is going to be a pi to up the Wazoo, right? I was listening to Sam hinkie on that podcast. So do you send me invest like the best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy? And he was saying something like, people don't use software software uses software. Yeah, and it's just apis everything and that's where this is all headed. One of the things I thought as well. Oh, and was thinking about the American culture, and you said, 220 million a day people going through their doors and buying things whether online or offline. You know, there is a huge concentration of folks in Middle America, and well, all over the country where Walmart is just kind of where you go forever.

25:29 Nothing. When I was visiting my sister and her family out in Reno. Nevada, few years ago, Walmart was massive. Everything was, are you need to go buy beer? You went to Walmart, you need to go buy food, you went to Walmart, you needed some new clothes, he went to Walmart, you know? And so they've got that massive customer base. You tried to do that in Europe, you're not going to get too far Tesco but that's just UK and Ireland, and with brexit, even complicating, that a bit, the big one in France where we used to go To get our wine Kara for. Yeah. You know you going to do that now. It's not big enough, there's no cross-border, retail, there's no cross border. Each has, some of them will be big enough, a Demarcus, like maybe a car for, but how far they're going to go on the product side.

26:12 Most of these guys offered rewards. So make sense, if they offered one or two other products but nothing of the scale of Alexa Walmart. The reality is, it's Amazon who already offer 10 of these products to their Prime customers. Like you said, if you have customers that, use Walmart for everything. Well, then adding one, or two more services means they're automatically. To get those customers. Yep, absolutely. Just thinking about who could be perhaps a tech player then that could build it in Europe. Connecting the dots. I mean, even e-commerce. So, fractured here, Amazon is not the biggest player. It's all a bunch of national players that because it's just become so complicated with the Amazon that European outlet, and I was thinking about that today, when I was sending my godson, a gift card was, is amazon.co.uk.

26:56 Its UK business, right? So, it's outside of Europe now, and Is all types complications being applied on top of that. So people are just looking at other places, you know. But anyway, someone is going to have to find a way to accelerate this a bit in, in Europe, because we're kind of on the fringes here, you know? No, we chat and the US will Walmart are going to do it. What's going to happen in Europe. Speaking of accelerating other things that I thought were worth mentioning here in Ireland, the applications are now open for in drc's. New accelerator, the ndrc is a national digital Research Center, Dogpatch Labs who have been a big star. Startup hub for the last. Jeez, it's been five years. Now, nearly maybe closer to six years here in Dublin. Run by Patrick Walsh. Ooh, CEO of Dogpatch Labs, but also the ndrc they want that government contract.

27:42 Shut up Patrick and the new accelerator that they're running, what they announced just recently was that one? It's a nationwide accelerator. It's not just going to be run out of Dogpatch labs and Dublin. It's also being run out of the RTI Hub and carry Republic, a work and Cork and the porter shed and Galway were That are based good friends of the show. Shout out to Ali Walsh and his family. They are a great Bunch. The other part of the big announcement is that they're making 100,000 Euro Investments through safe, a simple agreement for future equity and Owen. I know you and I had talked about the safe a couple of times in different topics and we'll leave it at that, or the last few years the safe, and it's uncapped on the valuation with a 20% discount on the valuation. So, that is the first national accelerator in Ireland. And that is making that scale and size of Investments, which is going to be pretty classic fantastic for the sector. As part of the program, there are 40, entrepreneurial mentors, I applied but didn't get a call back, just so everyone knows I haven't heard back from Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z either on their Bitcoin, trust board.

28:47 So, will, you know, I'm not going to listen for that. But the accelerator has two phases over six month. Period from the 21st of June, through September is demo Day program. Capper applications are open until Sunday. The second of A so worth taking a look at if your startup now accelerators are different from pre accelerators. There's another one. So start a boost. This is run by Gene Murphy and he's a co-founder, Blake Caldwell, shoutout to Jean. He is a friend of the show as well. He was on episode 94. Only videocast, remember how could we forget? And their spring cohort has their applications which will close on Monday March 22nd. Now it's really interesting, this interplay between accelerators and pre accelerators, right?

29:29 Accelerators. I think just taking the techstars metric and techstars or a big Global accelerator. They say that 70% of the startups to go through their program, get funded, right? Which is a very positive stat and the whole idea of a pre accelerator is to get you into those accelerators, right? So I don't know what startup boost metrics are but you know, let's say it's okay. 70 percent of the graduates get into and accelerate, right? And then 70% 80% of the accelerator, get into a VC. Situation, right? So some good stories there, the programs that start a boost or running. As I mentioned there is an Irish cohort but the one that they are accepting applications for now all running remotely, obviously they're based in Detroit Kenya LA to Pittsburgh Toronto UK and Vancouver with new programs, launching in South, Florida, and Washington, d.c., right? So they're scaling this big time, which is great to see the third one.

30:25 I wanted to mention was expert dojo we had Brian McMahon on the show. Back he Is episode 108. They have their applications open for their next cohort, kicking off on the 5th of April, their tagline is investing in international companies looking to take over the world, right? So it's kind of the Unicorn Camp, right? You are not a unicorn yet. We got we got to get you there. And they are later stage than startup boost and to kind of contrast them with ndrc in Dogpatch Labs. Expert Dojo is based in Southern California and they're connected with all the top us startup investors, right? So that's a little bit of a different story. Expert Dojo based in California entry point into the US market connected with investors. So little bit of a different story there for the two of them and then start of boost obviously, being a pre accelerator, which is, you know, one stage before that. But lots of good stuff going on there. Expert Dojo obviously run by Ryan with man, who's a native Irishman in Santa Monica, California. He was like, I said, he was on episode 108. I am sourcing Irish Investments for them. So get in touch, if you've got the potential to hit that magic number of 10 million dollars, Monthly recurring Revenue. So we got a few more there but there's a lot looking at some of these.

31:34 Oh, and is there any that you want to pick it? Did. What I thought was interesting, it was a couple of things in relation to square, it, add some big announcements or last couple weeks and she had picked up on a tweet from Pascal and Pascal. Bouvier and middlegame showed it to Pascal was specifically around their acquisition of title, which is a music streaming service owned by Jay-Z and of tjz came on board, then which was just fantastic anyway, but the really interesting thing was, you know, around was a lot of noise in the market. As in didn't seem like a good move, my view on it, I think it's focusing on a creators and the opportunity with our title, obviously allowed artist to make money and to control their own rights and controlled how their music is distributed. It gave him a lot of ownership on it and to me the opportunity then going through a process of acquiring, the like the title is that it gives Square the opportunity then to provide Financial Services or product Partnerships or whatever with the Creator's who then obviously have that massive distribution Network to the fans.

32:28 So actually charge for what I was sitting 200 million dollars, it probably seemed like a fairly low price in the scheme of things. When you think about the potential, wider hundreds of millions of fans that their potential accessed and through the creators that apartment. And I'm sure there's a lot of different product lines that could be rolled out in terms of working with some of the artists. So I actually thought like I said I taught for three hundred million dollars I think they're getting a good deal given the potential opportunity but it's called. Yeah I know I saw that too. And I mean do you think that there's going to be some okay you have a mechanism there for Artists get paid, you have square. That makes it easier for people to send and receive money. Is there going to be just sharing of pipes and plumbing? Do you think and that the square technology will become more of an enabler for a better title outcome for artists getting paid?

33:19 Or do you think it might go the other way as well? If you look at some of the other things that are almost like there's only fans and Cameo and its most other products that are in the market, that allows celebrities Artists to monetize themselves. This brings it all into one roof. How does the artist take advantage of the access to square? Do you know? There's more immediately truth are sayings and their Distribution on the ticket ownership and the ticket revenue and stuff like that square doing a huge amount with Bitcoin and Kasia. And you talked about nft Zoran tokens sort of probably further development Jack made it very clear. He really wants to support the Creator economy and that's really brought he's going after the celebrities and that the high profile ones at the start. If we look at the different segments of the market, Market that you could argue or underserved, there isn't really a digital bank for the Creator economy on the basis that they don't fit the normal type of Bank customer. If you drill down to the smaller artists and musicians, you know, maybe there's a bigger play there, so maybe this ends up being the bank of choice for artists, and musicians and creators.

34:18 It's yeah, it's enabling people get paid, right? It's the royalties. As soon as the song gets played, you get you get a few pennies dropped into your cash app account, right? Cash app, I saw today, are For a general manager for the UK. Pretty quick. Start out as well. How is Dublin to yeah? No, no, it's based out of Dublin, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That popped out like so that, that's interesting. Yes, big story. More and more teaser so many that are coming over. It's ridiculous, but it's us companies. Moving in UK companies already. There that are moving over to Ireland. It's just n Fuego right now. So I just thought that was an interesting one given in a similar vein is to Cairo. Block example whereby, it's just, you know, there's a way to potentially Sighs within a particular service or whatever and it's truly a completely different approach banking financial services.

35:05 And that's what typically out there. Oh yeah. I mean we Jack Dorsey at the steering wheel here and his love of Bitcoin. He you got imagine his love he's got enough love to go around a few more tokens, right? Especially like you said the non fungible type and ftes. We saw Kings of Leon just on Friday, put out their new record as an NF T, right? And you know there, You a shins around, these things are going a bit Lula right now, but I think it's just early days exuberance that is driving some of this. It will settle down but it is a legitimate way for an artist. Get paid every single time that token changes hands. You've got a little bit of a cut going back to the artist right? Because I am in typically, it's awesome interview with Ed Sheeran A couple of years ago.

35:53 We talked about how he's made all his money by doing his big Stadium tours. Like he has to because he doesn't get much of a cost necessarily. From the record sales, whereas this could potentially be a direct way. Like I said to gas for your royalties from the song, to be played your direct sales of your tickets so that you're getting the majority of the fee. As the artist, the guys providing a ticket sales or whatever Ticketmaster and are getting a coat of it, but actually, you're collecting the rest. It's very straightforward to flow through and the process and everything is very transparent. So you know, I think it could be a really interesting space to watch. Yep. Yep. I think so one of the thing I wanted to mention this was again the same hickey stuff. The same hiki. You put into the newsletter on was just brilliant and I knew about them and I thought I had been following the 76ers.

36:35 And like I said, when I was writing this, okay, you know, I'd always been more than a passing interest, but I think our shared interest in Innovation, but in areas, you don't expect it. I read it a couple of times including the news that his resignation letter is genuine need fantastic. Insight into his business philosophy, and his mindset around long term Innovation and its really interesting article for people to read and understand and the He goes about explaining it and the long-term process like I just, I couldn't believe as I got deeper and deeper into it. Like, you know, this is actually incredible view on approach to take to it and it's a shared view well fed and Charlie Munger, I need a mosque and Jeff Bezos and I just thought it was fascinating and then obviously, I came across it interviewed I sent on to you with Patrick O'Shaughnessy and invest like the best that the more and more.

37:19 I read about it. I mean, everything in tomorrow's. I just guys fascinating business mind way approaches. I was really hoping and he hasn't as of yes replied to my tweet where I mentioned them in the newsletter. So I'm hoping maybe The showed out on the show will give us the reason to for me to tweet at them and get them on the show. Yeah yeah. We will definitely put the podcast Link in the show notes and what I like, the best coming out of that was Patrick O'Shaughnessy. Asked him, what did you bring from business into basketball? And what did you bring from basketball into business? I forget, but the first one was, but the second one was, it's the power law rule, right? That he brought from basketball back into business, was that something ridiculous such as 10 years in a row Errol, when LeBron wasn't hurt, his team, went to the finals, right?

38:03 That the best player can drive things. He told the story about acquiring James Harden, as a 22 year old and getting everybody to tuck in their shirts. Right? Okay. You dog in town? Yeah. Right. And that you can take some of this Superstar mentality and apply it into the startup world right now. You need a team, right? You absolutely need a team but I have seen such the big difference that charismatic leaders make in start-up land. Its Absolutely crazy. One of the other things he mentioned was in this was the j.p. Morgan poking and prodding story around. They killed Chase pay right? And that Sam hinkie mentioned something about a fictitious 10-person startup where the big boss comes in and says we need to build new payment infrastructure and one of the guys pipes up and said, have you been to Townsend Avenue in San Francisco?

38:52 And I love the fact that it's Townsend Avenue. Do you know these guys called stripe? Their kind of building all this stuff? So it's kind of like Jamie dimon. Would you? Signed off on Chase pay before you killed it last week. But when you originally signed off on it had you not been downtown San Avenue in San Francisco. And seeing what's right? We're doing right. And then also today as reversal a Jamie dimon reverse triple backflip that JPMorgan are launching a crypto currency, exposure basket of Bitcoin proxy stocks, right? So thanks to my friends in the crypto Club out in asia-pac. One of them who goes by the pseudonym crypto, as they put me onto one of their signal groups, just after crypto baz and I had a booty call. We had a virtual Rendezvous in talking crypto, on Sunday, of all days. My kids weren't very happy about that, but he's an old friend for Bermuda.

39:38 So II, went ahead with that. I don't think he wants me to share his real name because he is trading during the day. So, but it's just a time zone difference thing anyway, so Jamie's, you know, flagellation 's a couple years ago around Bitcoin being a Ponzi scheme and all that type of stuff. So I guess there is something to this cryptocurrency thing after all, Jamie is their most and I only really give him a hard time. Obviously, he's Built incredible business, he's heading up an incredible business. He says a lot of things but you know, due respect to the guy. The only reason I poke fun at him as I think he's prepping for a running for president us but we'll see. And apparently there's a similar announcement coming from Black Rock Around what they're doing around crypto as well. So anyway, fun stuff. Thank you. Jamie dimon anywho. Anything else?

40:21 That was tickling your brain today? No, no. That's kind of fish. That's all of the stuff I've been looking at the moment because a really interesting project, Slides that I'm working with at the moment. Seeing some really interesting stuff in the e-commerce space, amazing growth like absolutely ridiculous growth. That is somewhat of a company has to open working with recently in the e-commerce space couldn't believe it in the nine months that they're in operation. But the more we're looking us it was collected. Read the superhot model and try to take that piece and apply it to some of the clients and working with saying very much from a point of view of, you know, the more smaller players and I'm meeting it's like, okay well you know, maybe I have another client whereby, if they were to take a bigger picture, In terms of The Wider product or service, they want to offer to their customers.

41:03 Maybe you two guys should have a chat because you could slide into the other one, you know, as part of their ecosystem. And so spend a lot of time thinking about things as an ecosystem, at the moment trying to get people to think about their business model at the moment like that. Absolutely nfx. Came up with a new definition of some Gateway Marketplace, or something like that. Enterprise Gateway Marketplace is being a new definition of startup, right? Which to me feels like ecosystem. I'm aware Of three new Marketplace ecosystem, digital stores that have a Irish story as part of their business that are landing in Ireland, in the coming months. Everything's coming at us from so many different directions here.

41:44 It's wonderful. Glad I started this five years ago. You know. Yeah, definitely. All right, pal. We'll cut it there tonight. That's it. Enjoy have a good ones you too. Adios. That does it for this week folks and you can learn more about the stories we covered in the show, notes on our website money, never sleeps that I eat. So check us out online and subscribe to our weekly. Money never sleeps newsletter as well. Also, thanks to Conan Brophy, from create town, for mixing and editing this episode coning is an excellent medium and get in touch with when you're thinking about launching your own podcast. As for me, I'm the founding partner Nuria Ventures. And I'm an early stage startup advisor, and investor focused on fintech and digital assets. You'd like to talk to me about your business. Drop me a voicemail.

42:29 On money never sleeps that I eat finally till next time. Thanks for listening. See you