The Fintech Marketers and Leaders Podcast
00:30:36 · Pranav Sood
On the commercialization side, which maybe was more the initial angle of your question, I think there it's a combination of things which are strategically critical for you and also responding to the demand that you see or could see in the markets that you find interesting. And so when you think about someone like us, our ambition is to be a global winner. Our ambition is to be a global leader. And as a consequence of that, we need to have a significant business outside of markets where we were born. So you can't be a global winner if you're an Australia only business or you're an Australia business with a bit of Hong Kong. You need to be in EMEA. You need to have a presence in The US. You need to be able to knit all of that together into a coherent whole. And so some of the international expansion that you do is driven by that strategic imperative, which is the need to be global. Obviously, then there's a double click, which says, Okay, well, yeah, sure, I need to be in EMEA, but which markets in that region do you think we should be in? Because it's not guess what? EMEA is not a single market. It's a patchwork of countries, all of which have different needs and different products and all the rest of it that you need to bring to bear. And so that's when I think you do more of the kinds of analyses that maybe you're alluding to in the question, which is to say, well, number one, what's the demographic perspective on the country, businesses in your TAM, etcetera, etcetera? Number two, what's the lift from a product perspective? Number three, what's the minimum viable entity from a resourcing point of view? And with all of that stuff together, you can form a view that says, Okay, we should prioritize this. I think maybe the other thing that I haven't mentioned, but which is critical, is responding to demand. So if you're lucky enough to have customers ready in a market who are asking you to come there, that is just about the strongest signal that you can Yeah,
00:32:30 · Shameer Sachdev, Pranav Sood
[00:32:30] S1: absolutely, yeah. [00:32:31] S2: Respond to. So all of those things are things we take into consideration. And if I make it really real for me here in London, we're already across EMEA in terms of our customer base. So we have customers across Mainland Europe, in The Middle East as well. As I look into 2023 and beyond, I think we're very excited about Israel as a market. We think there's a lot of potential there. The kinds of businesses that get born in Israel tend to be the kinds of businesses that will be great customers for Airwallex. We're very excited about some of the countries around the Benelux region, so particularly Netherlands, where we've got an office already and a bunch of people, but also we see a lot of cross border business and e commerce. And then we're looking at some of the larger European markets as well, where we can see the potential for our products, but where I think some of the questions around the deliverability become quite interesting. I've yet to see an analysis of which market you should enter in Europe for any product that doesn't immediately conclude that Germany is the biggest and most attractive place to be. It's also, as I've experienced at GoCardless, it's one of the more difficult markets to enter from a go to market perspective.
00:33:42 · Shameer Sachdev
[00:33:42] S1: It's just funny you say that, yeah, it tends to always be the dark markets and then the Nordics and then, yeah, it's always seems to be the go to areas to go to on paper, but then it's like cultural nuances kind of get bought into that and other issues. I think we've covered a kind of a huge amount in the time that we're speaking. I think it's sort of one question really kind of left to ask, which is, what's the outlook for yourself and what's the outlook for
00:34:15 · Pranav Sood
[00:34:15] S2: AirWallax? I mean, look, I think the future is very bright for AirWallax. We have been very fortunate to be backed by some fantastic investors. Despite the market downturn and some of the challenges that tech businesses have faced, we have been able to maintain our valuation, you know, raise money from new investors on the same terms actually, which is doubly good. And so, I think we're in a really strong position to be able to capitalize on the growth that we've seen already and on the opportunities that we continue to see to invest in growing the business. For myself, I don't I never know how to answer that question. I'm super excited about the challenge of building Airwallex's business across EMEA. I think we have I'm really fortunate to have a really stellar team of folks who've been there and seen it in other amazing businesses, the Stripes, the Revolutes, the, you know, deliveries, the booking.coms of the world. And so what energizes me is partly the nature of the challenge and the problem that we're trying to solve intellectually. As I mentioned before, I'm a historian by training and so there's a sort of intrigue that comes with trying to solve a problem that the Medicis and all the others have tried to solve at one point or the other and never quite managed it, find quite attractive. The other thing that energizes me is having the chance to work with the people that I mentioned, the kind of stellar talents who do a bunch of stuff that I don't know how to do much better than I could ever dream of doing it. And so hopefully the combination of those two things will make us successful into the next years. But certainly from my point of view, it's the challenge and it's the opportunity that continues to excite me.
00:35:57 · Shameer Sachdev, Pranav Sood
[00:35:57] S1: The only thing left is to get into our quick fire round and learn a little bit more about you. What podcasts are you listening to at the moment? [00:36:05] S2: My favorite podcast, I'm I'm gonna go with the theme of being a history buff, is a podcast called The Rest is History with a guy called Tom Holland and another guy called Dominic Sandbrook on it. They are basically two mates. Both of them are very acclaimed historians in their own right, but they're basically two mates. They don't take themselves too seriously and every week, usually a couple of times a week, they'll just talk about something that's really interesting and I always learn something from it and usually laugh along the way as well. [00:36:36] S1: Amazing. What you reading at the moment or what book would you recommend? [00:36:42] S2: I've actually just come back from Japan. So I was on holiday in Japan the last couple of weeks. My little brother lives in Tokyo. And so I'm on a real Japan vibe at the moment. So if anyone out there is into Japanese murder mysteries, then I'd be happy to recommend But ordinarily, I tend to read a lot of non fiction and particularly biography. So, what have I read this year that I really liked? I read a brilliant set of biographies of Lyndon Johnson by a guy called Robert Caro. It's a really heavy lift. So if you're not into US presidential history or American history as a whole, then probably not for you. But if you are, then it repays the effort and the reading a thousand times over. It's one of the best things I think I've ever read.
00:36:42 · Pranav Sood, Shameer Sachdev
[00:36:42] S2: I've actually just come back from Japan. So I was on holiday in Japan the last couple of weeks. My little brother lives in Tokyo. And so I'm on a real Japan vibe at the moment. So if anyone out there is into Japanese murder mysteries, then I'd be happy to recommend But ordinarily, I tend to read a lot of non fiction and particularly biography. So, what have I read this year that I really liked? I read a brilliant set of biographies of Lyndon Johnson by a guy called Robert Caro. It's a really heavy lift. So if you're not into US presidential history or American history as a whole, then probably not for you. But if you are, then it repays the effort and the reading a thousand times over. It's one of the best things I think I've ever read. [00:37:30] S1: What's your favorite FinTech app? [00:37:33] S2: I mean, obviously, Airwallet. Other than Airwallet. As a consumer, as an individual, I use Revolut. I'm very happy with it and I often overseas and so that has been a lifeline in lots of places. [00:37:49] S1: What's the best bit of life advice you've ever received? I