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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business of Tech powered by two Degrees.

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Speaker 1: I'm Peter Griffin with my second interview from London. This

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Speaker 1: time I'm talking to Hardy Michelle, co founder alongside Shaquill

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Speaker 1: Lala and Ben Robertson of the AI powered fintech startup Marlou.

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Speaker 1: Hardy's a veteran of the New Zealand startup scene, having

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Speaker 1: helped build Chare's Eads from the ground up. He's now

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Speaker 1: in London building Marlou, an AI powered operating system for

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Speaker 1: wealth managers and advisors. The core idea is simple strip

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Speaker 1: out the soul crushing admin compliance paperwork and manual note

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Speaker 1: taking that can eat up around seventy percent of an

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Speaker 1: advisor's day and let them focus on what they actually

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Speaker 1: signed up for, real human quality advice. We talk a

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Speaker 1: lot about the rise of AI in the financial sector,

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Speaker 1: but Hardy isn't any big advocate of so called robo

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Speaker 1: advice or automating the entire process seeds an essential ongoing

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Speaker 1: role for humans in the loop when it comes to

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Speaker 1: dispensing financial advice. Marlou is a type of hyper specialized

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Speaker 1: smart assistant that listens to client meetings structures. The key

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Speaker 1: advice points and auto generates drafts of advice documents in

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Speaker 1: minutes instead of days. Hardy also talks about why this

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Speaker 1: isn't just about efficiency, but transforming the economics of advice

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Speaker 1: so more people can actually afford it. Marlo, which was

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Speaker 1: founded in August twenty twenty four, recently raised four point

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Speaker 1: six million New Zealand in a seed funding round led

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Speaker 1: by Blackbir Adventures, with a host of successful founders also contributing,

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Speaker 1: which is always a good sign. Hardy recounts his Estonian

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Speaker 1: adventure working for light Chair, which is like the robin

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Speaker 1: Hood of Europe, and what it's like growing a key

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Speaker 1: we start up in multiple countries simultaneously while it still

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Speaker 1: has its roots back here in Wellington. Here's Hardy Michelle,

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Speaker 1: co founder of marlu Hearty Welcome to the business of tech.

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Speaker 2: How are you doing fantastic?

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Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Well, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: I'm back in the tech space after meeting Matt Herbert

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Speaker 1: from track Suit yesterday. This wonderful place. You just had

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Speaker 1: a big gathering of New Zealand Australian founders and investors

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Speaker 1: a couple of nights ago. Rowan Simpson trade Me co

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Speaker 1: founder was in town, so it definitely seems like this

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Speaker 1: is a bit of a gathering point for antipathy and entrepreneurs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's becoming a second home. So if you're visiting

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Speaker 2: or in town, drop on by, you'll definitely run into

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Speaker 2: a few familiar faces.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called the tech space in Farringdon and a

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Speaker 1: lot of businesses here, big, big buzz and yeah, and

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Speaker 1: how long have you been in London? Now?

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Speaker 2: I've been here for just over three years. So I

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Speaker 2: was previously at Chasia's in Wellington where I was there

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Speaker 2: for kind of six or seven years and actually got

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Speaker 2: headhunted for a roll over here kind of just as

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Speaker 2: the kind of pandemic and travel was starting to become

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Speaker 2: a thing again. In kind of mid twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 2: I received a LinkedIn DM from, funnily enough, some Estonians.

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Speaker 2: And you would think when Estonians are sliding into your

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Speaker 2: LinkedIn dms that you may not want to respond, but

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Speaker 2: they looked really interesting and so kind of the long

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Speaker 2: story short was there were two Estonian founders who were

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Speaker 2: previously at wise the money kind of transferred company that

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Speaker 2: you might have come across that as a phenomenal Estonian

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Speaker 2: founded business, and that actually kind of spun out of Skype,

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Speaker 2: another very well known company. So Estonia Punch was massively

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Speaker 2: above its weight. And these two had been very early

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Speaker 2: at wise, they'd been responsible for building a huge amount

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Speaker 2: of the product and that business kind of across operations,

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Speaker 2: product and engineering, and they decided to build a retail

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Speaker 2: investing platform very similar to Chaz's. And they had gone

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Speaker 2: all around the world looking for people who had actually

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Speaker 2: built these companies from scratch. And really what that meant

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Speaker 2: was the infrastructure that was required to kind of run

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Speaker 2: the you know, the systems, the money flows, the share trading.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of infrastructure that's required to do that,

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Speaker 2: and not many people have actually built it. And they

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Speaker 2: looked all around the world and they found me.

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Speaker 1: Wow, So light Year. I think it's been described as

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Speaker 1: like the robin Hood of Europe. So another shared trading platform.

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Speaker 1: So what was that like? Sort of coming to London

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Speaker 1: but a very different environment to obviously what you were

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Speaker 1: dealing with in New Zealand one country, were much smaller country,

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Speaker 1: much closer access to all the regulators, and had to

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Speaker 1: figure out what you needed to do to suddenly being

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Speaker 1: in London working for Estonians with the European focus.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a massive shift, I would say.

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Speaker 2: So for like contacts, there was a between that LinkedIn

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Speaker 2: DM me having spent a couple of days interviewing and

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Speaker 2: receiving a full offer to relocate that included my now

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Speaker 2: wife as well and visa sponsorship, and we moved six

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Speaker 2: weeks to the day after that. So it was very

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Speaker 2: clear from the outset that there was no messing around here.

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Speaker 2: It's like we were doing this and we landed in London,

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Speaker 2: and so the business was set up between Talent and

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Speaker 2: Estonia and London. We're building teams in both places. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: we ended up launching twenty two European countries at once

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Speaker 2: straight off the bat. We you know, were licensed both

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Speaker 2: in Europe and in the UK, and then eventually became

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Speaker 2: directly licensed in the UK. So you're just dealing with

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Speaker 2: this kind of just phenomenal scale, but also a huge

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Speaker 2: amount of local nuance and context that you don't necessarily

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Speaker 2: get in New Zealand because you're only dealing with one market, right.

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Speaker 2: So it was a really amazing experience and kind of

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Speaker 2: taught me one how to think about kind of building

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Speaker 2: at scale and being in big markets and then two,

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Speaker 2: the team there was exceptional, So it was early robinhood wise,

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Speaker 2: you know, Revolute Skype, kind of all of the big

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Speaker 2: global kind of fintech success stories that kind of cherry

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Speaker 2: picked some of the best people from those companies. So

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Speaker 2: it was amazing for me to kind of place myself

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Speaker 2: into that environment, really test and challenge myself and take

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Speaker 2: away a huge amount of kind of personal learning and

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Speaker 2: knowledge in addition to you know, the day to day.

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Speaker 1: What insights did you get into working with colleagues and

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Speaker 1: founders from Estonia's there's some similarities smaller advanced nation like

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, but just what they've managed to achieve on

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Speaker 1: the digital economy front, both as a nation but in

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Speaker 1: terms of some of the companies that they've created, and

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Speaker 1: that serial entrepreneurship where people are investing in the next generation.

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Speaker 1: Is a bit of that going on in New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: But they really have cracked it in Estonia, haven't they.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I would really encourage people to travel and go

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Speaker 2: to Talent if you have the opportunity, you can kind

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Speaker 2: of do Helsinki and Talent in one weekend because you

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Speaker 2: can varry between the two. But I was basically building

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Speaker 2: a team in talent. I was there a week a

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Speaker 2: month for kind of eighteen months, spent a huge amount

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Speaker 2: of time, and they're an amazing group of people for

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Speaker 2: a few reasons. One, they're kind of essentially first generation,

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Speaker 2: you know, like business owners as how it would frame it.

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Speaker 2: So you know, they were part of the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 2: Most people there over the age of thirty, you know,

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Speaker 2: grew up with a huge amount of hardship. And so

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Speaker 2: you know, through the founding of Skyte and Wise and

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Speaker 2: now several other companies that have spun out, they've seen that,

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Speaker 2: you know, being entrepreneurial, working really hard, getting equity and

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Speaker 2: upside is a real and concrete way to generate wealth.

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Speaker 2: You know. So I think the said I saw was

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Speaker 2: like Wise employees one percent of Estonians as an example. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and they're able to earn you know, like really well.

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Speaker 2: Wise is now ipo, Skyte was acquired by Microsoft, I think,

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Speaker 2: and it's just been a real way to realize wealth

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Speaker 2: in that country. And so everyone is just so driven

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Speaker 2: and on board with the mentality of we're going to

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Speaker 2: work incredibly hard and we're going to do it in

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Speaker 2: this like incredibly productive way. And then kind of the

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Speaker 2: overarching pieces that the you know, Estonian government is incredibly

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Speaker 2: forward thinking and tech first and so you know, for example,

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Speaker 2: I have like an Estonian like e residency for example,

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Speaker 2: so you know, you go through an application process, you

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Speaker 2: pay one hundred euros and you actually have the ability

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Speaker 2: to start a business in Estonia. And they have you know,

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Speaker 2: a very fair tax system. Basically everyone holds their assets

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Speaker 2: within a business. They have a flat twenty percent tax rate.

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Speaker 2: You can you know extract or kind of pay out

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Speaker 2: a certain amount tax free every year. It's really interesting,

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Speaker 2: but anyone in the world can come and build a

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Speaker 2: business in Estonia. There is a key concept. So it's

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Speaker 2: really really interesting.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're really yeah, setting out putting all the ingredients

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Speaker 1: in there for to encourage that sort of entrepreneurship. So

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Speaker 1: hopefully we are we're part of this group called I

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Speaker 1: think the D seven or something, which we do talk

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Speaker 1: to Estonia and Ireland and Denmark and that quite a bit.

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Speaker 1: So hopefully we're we're taking on board some of those lessons.

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Speaker 1: But just going back that, yeah, quite an extensive startup

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Speaker 1: experience all the way back to a really cool startup

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Speaker 1: book track, which as someone who've been publishing and that

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Speaker 1: really loved. You know, we're basically an audio soundscape for

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Speaker 1: a book that you would buy. That would have been

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Speaker 1: a really interesting project to work on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was fascinating. That was my yeah, kind of

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Speaker 2: first foray into working for a startup. And yeah, we

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Speaker 2: built amazing technology and worked with you know, incredible companies

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Speaker 2: Audible for example, and the US. You know, probably unfortunate

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Speaker 2: market timing. I would say, like had that company been

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Speaker 2: founded a few years later or with the technology that

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Speaker 2: we have now, I think it would have been you know,

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Speaker 2: really well changing. But there was a timing element that

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Speaker 2: that wasn't quite right. But you know, I was able

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Speaker 2: to work kind of alongside the founders to really kind

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Speaker 2: of drive and understand kind of everything that they were doing,

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Speaker 2: how they were operating, how they were raising capital, and

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Speaker 2: so yeah, it was just the perfect kind of early

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Speaker 2: learning experience in the way that I would probably phrase

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Speaker 2: my time in New Zealand was just trying to learn

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Speaker 2: from the best possible people who ahead of me, who

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Speaker 2: I could absorb knowledge off with the goal of one

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Speaker 2: day starting my own company.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then obviously that that was a great experience

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Speaker 1: at Shears's. You had those you know that founding team

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Speaker 1: is one of the strongest founding teams to have a

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Speaker 1: three CEO relationship that after all these years, are still

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Speaker 1: going strong with you sign your Brooke and Leyton and

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Speaker 1: seems to work really well where they have, you know,

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Speaker 1: complementary strengths, but they will make decisions collectively to care

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Speaker 1: there and just proliferating in terms of the the service offerings,

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Speaker 1: you know, going into credit cards and all sorts of things, loans,

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Speaker 1: So helping set that up. Being head of operations, you know,

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Speaker 1: back in the early days, that must have been quite

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Speaker 1: a job, you know, trying to figure out how do

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Speaker 1: we put this all together in a way that is compliant,

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Speaker 1: is trustworthy, get people out of these stodgy brokerages, and

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Speaker 1: you know, tens hundreds of thousands of people are investing

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Speaker 1: every week now as a result of the groundwork that

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Speaker 1: you helped lay.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was such a cool experience on reflection, incredibly

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Speaker 2: hard work at the time, And I think the interesting

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Speaker 2: thing for me is I was kind of the first

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Speaker 2: person to join the business who wasn't one of the

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Speaker 2: founders and didn't actually know anyone, so I was introduced

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Speaker 2: through some mutual friends. I was moving from Auckland to

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Speaker 2: Wellington at the time. It was kind of all very

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Speaker 2: serendipitous and kind of my decision making process was I

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Speaker 2: actually grew up doing a bunch of cycling, so I

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Speaker 2: wrote and track Cycling, I representing New Zealand. I won

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Speaker 2: national titles kind of through the age group, so it

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Speaker 2: was super fun. And one of the people I cycled

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Speaker 2: a bit with was Elliott Crowther from push Pay, and

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Speaker 2: I didn't know too much about what he was doing

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Speaker 2: other than you know, he was like selling home ventilation

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Speaker 2: units with HIV and then he started this kind of business,

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Speaker 2: push pay, and it was around you know, egiving and anyway,

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Speaker 2: they tibsequently ended up ipoing right, and I wanted to

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Speaker 2: buy push pay shares because I knew Elliott, and I

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Speaker 2: got halfway through the sign up process with ASP Securities,

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Speaker 2: I think it was, and I pulled the pen and

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Speaker 2: I only had, you know, maybe five hundred dollars to invest.

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Speaker 2: Even if I paid the brokerage, it still would have

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Speaker 2: been a phenomenal investment in that point of time. But

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Speaker 2: I'd actually never invested before and I really wanted to,

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Speaker 2: and I knew that there were a bunch of other

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Speaker 2: people that I knew that were in the same position

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Speaker 2: and kind of having come from a few startups beforehand,

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Speaker 2: like they had enough capital to pay me for at

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Speaker 2: least twelve months, and like that was a pretty good bet.

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Speaker 2: And I was moving from Auckland to Wellington anyway, So

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Speaker 2: to be honest, that was the extent of my thinking.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't necessarily that we were going to go on

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Speaker 2: to be the company that Shares is now known at.

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Speaker 2: It was like the ingredients were correct in terms of

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Speaker 2: the team was seriously impressive even in those early days.

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Speaker 2: You know, everyone I talked to said the same things

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Speaker 2: about having worked with them and who they were, which

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Speaker 2: meant a lot. And I was open to taking some

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Speaker 2: risk and making the show from Auckland to Wellington and

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Speaker 2: kind of figuring out what had happened. Like to be fair,

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Speaker 2: I'd only done like an accounting you know, one oh

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Speaker 2: one paper in it. I had no idea about this world.

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Speaker 2: But it really comes down to backing yourself to be

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Speaker 2: up for the learning curve, to be ambitious enough to

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Speaker 2: know that you can figure it out eventually. Over time,

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Speaker 2: you'll make some mistakes, but generally if your course great,

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Speaker 2: that's fine. And so The journey for me was I

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Speaker 2: was essentially kind of a one person team or basically

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Speaker 2: taking a bunch of Layton's work off him. That was

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Speaker 2: doing everything from reconciling deposits. I was texting people for

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Speaker 2: withdrawal confirmations off my personal mobile phone to begin with.

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Speaker 2: Like all of that was manual. It's just me being like, hey,

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Speaker 2: you've got a withdrawal for you know, five hundred dollars

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Speaker 2: to an account ending in this number, Please confirm yes

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Speaker 2: or no. And so we essentially built out this operations

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Speaker 2: function to span everything from customer support to financial crime

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Speaker 2: and compliance, clearing and settlement, tax custody, investment, on boarding,

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Speaker 2: you know, like all of the above. It was an

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Speaker 2: incredible machine. But that kind of started from a position

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Speaker 2: of kind of one person doing all these things manually

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Speaker 2: off spreadsheets and then figuring out how to productize that,

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Speaker 2: how to bring people on board to build the team.

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Speaker 2: So that kind of eventually after five years, that operations

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Speaker 2: function was kind of sixty or seventy people. It was

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Speaker 2: across eight teams, and you know, we built everything ourselves

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Speaker 2: in house. We had the licenses and we were seamlessly

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Speaker 2: processing you know, huge volumes hundreds of millions or billions

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Speaker 2: worth of train it's on a very regular basis.

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Speaker 1: It's billions a year now. It's incredible and a beautiful

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Speaker 1: experience as well. That's the thing, like a laser focus

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Speaker 1: on the user experience and making it really simple. That

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Speaker 1: was the real breakthrough. And I think the great thing

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Speaker 1: about Cheersy's you know, it didn't come up against some

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Speaker 1: of the barriers that others in our fintech sect to do,

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Speaker 1: where that you come up against the bank basically in

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Speaker 1: the middle of it, where you have to try and

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Speaker 1: get the customer's data. It's changing now open banking, but sharebroking,

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Speaker 1: and that avoided that problem, which was nice, which was

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Speaker 1: able to allow Cheersy to grow really quickly.

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Speaker 2: And I think it was also the founding team had

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Speaker 2: such a clear vision and belief and they were unwavering

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Speaker 2: in that where I think most people in that scenario

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Speaker 2: probably would have wavered, and it wasn't obvious for the

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Speaker 2: first two years the number of no's that you would

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Speaker 2: receive from people like I was part of the first meeting.

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Speaker 2: I was in there with the NSID acts when we

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Speaker 2: first went and said we're going to become a market participant.

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Speaker 2: We were laughed out of that room. The rhetoric was no, no, no,

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Speaker 2: you should not become a participant. I'm being using on

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Speaker 2: stock Exchange. But the thought process from our perspective was one,

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Speaker 2: we absolutely are, two you don't know who you're dealing

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Speaker 2: with here, and then three just continuing to ask questions

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Speaker 2: to understand the rationale and the thought process. So it

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Speaker 2: was just like okay, tell me why, Okay, tell me

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Speaker 2: why again until you get all the way back and really,

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Speaker 2: like you know, the thought process or the belief that

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Speaker 2: we couldn't become a participant wasn't grounded in any truth.

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Speaker 1: That says a lot about management and the insine egxs

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Speaker 1: and some respects with a lot of our companies that

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Speaker 1: are going going oh sure.

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Speaker 2: To their credit, they came to the party once they

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Speaker 2: realized that we were not going to go away at

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Speaker 2: that stage. And you know, clearly like Chares, he's brought

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Speaker 2: like fantastic tail winds too Exchange as well, like it

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Speaker 2: was super cool to the point where when we became

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Speaker 2: a credit and did the first trades, that particular person

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Speaker 2: in the war a pink suit. Yeah, so you know,

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Speaker 2: it was their way of saying like, okay, eat my

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Speaker 2: hat here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's probably been the single biggest thing

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Speaker 1: to encourage participation in investing in New Zealand companies. You know,

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Speaker 1: ever probably I mean the ASP security is they're still

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Speaker 1: going and all of that, but what a clunky experience

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Speaker 1: that was, and that's forced them to improve their game

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Speaker 1: and Hatch and others have come into the market as well.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, it's just one of those moments, that sort

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Speaker 1: of uber moment really that that happened. So what great

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Speaker 1: experience is there? And I guess that brings us up

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Speaker 1: to Malu. So you come to London, you're working with

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Speaker 1: the Estonians. That was like a blistering couple of years,

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Speaker 1: and I guess that gave you the confidence to go, right,

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Speaker 1: I understand the fintech world really well. Now I've had

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Speaker 1: many years of experience, it's time to do my own thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. There were kind of two trains of thought. One

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Speaker 2: was I felt like I'd really round it out probably

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Speaker 2: the most seeing piece of my knowledge and learning, which

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Speaker 2: was kind of how do you build the machine at scale?

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Speaker 2: What does that actually look like? Which you know, kind

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Speaker 2: of just by operating New Zealand or Australia, you kind

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Speaker 2: of like limited and your understanding of and so that

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Speaker 2: was really evident to just learning from you know, operators

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Speaker 2: and people who had done that too was massive. And

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Speaker 2: then probably the second piece was I'd done a bunch

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Speaker 2: of early stage investing actually with Blackbird. Yeah, so when

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Speaker 2: they got set up in New Zealand kind of around

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty twenty twenty one with Samantha Wong, the kind

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Speaker 2: of Australian partner who came over to New Zealand and

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Speaker 2: set up Blackbird in New Zealand, they established a scout program.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if too many people kind of know

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Speaker 2: about it, but it was the likes of myself kind

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Speaker 2: of archbolve from track to kind of like three or

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Speaker 2: four others, and their goal was to see every early

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Speaker 2: stage you know, pre seed or seed deal in New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: And like sam couldn't do it by herself having just arrived,

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Speaker 2: and so kind of the exchange change was, hey will

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Speaker 2: teach you the world of venture investing as we see it,

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Speaker 2: and Blackbird are some of the best in the world,

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Speaker 2: like objectively at this and so we were able to

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Speaker 2: write small checks into companies on their behalf and subject

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Speaker 2: to kind of an expertite due diligence process, but also

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Speaker 2: take part in kind of a very structured set of

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Speaker 2: sessions and series with not only other investors at Blackbird,

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Speaker 2: but other funds around the world. Got to be part

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Speaker 2: of investment committees for all kinds of companies and deals

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Speaker 2: that they were looking at, like really kind of open

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Speaker 2: our eyes as to what venture investing looks like. And

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Speaker 2: so that complemented kind of both sides to the table

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Speaker 2: for me, which is, on one hand, how successful companies

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Speaker 2: actually built, which is a lot of hard work, blood,

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Speaker 2: sweat and tears, and then how kind of investors actually

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Speaker 2: evaluate companies, and then it can be a disconnection between

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Speaker 2: those two things, right, And so I felt like I'd

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Speaker 2: seen both sides of the table, and we took a

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Speaker 2: pretty unusual approach, which was most people go and work

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Speaker 2: on the wrong thing in a market that doesn't matter,

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Speaker 2: or it's not materially growing, or there aren't strong tailwinds

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Speaker 2: to act as a force multiplier for your work. And

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Speaker 2: kind of the role of venture capital is to fund experiments,

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Speaker 2: and so bear with me here, but basically venture capital

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Speaker 2: is to fund experiments where you're trying to answer a

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Speaker 2: true false question and if you can answer it true,

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Speaker 2: then you unlock huge upside and another set of true

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Speaker 2: false questions you need to answer. And so we took

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Speaker 2: a completely new approach which as far as I'm aware,

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Speaker 2: no one in New Zealand or Australia has ever done before,

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Speaker 2: where we said we are going to raise a little

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Speaker 2: bit of money to answer a true false question in

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Speaker 2: twelve months, which is can we land on an idea,

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Speaker 2: can we validate it, can we get a product and

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Speaker 2: market with paying customers within twelve months? But that we

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Speaker 2: are absolutely convinced of that, We have conviction about where

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Speaker 2: we've applied rigor and the foundation is just like so

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Speaker 2: solid that we are confident we can spend the next

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Speaker 2: ten years working on this and it's going to be

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Speaker 2: a massive business. So we were able to raise from Blackbird,

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Speaker 2: and we actually had twenty angels on top of that.

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Speaker 2: It was a relatively small amount of money, about six

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand Ye Zealand dollars. That was enough for myself

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Speaker 2: and my co founder Shack, who was also at Chazeas

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Speaker 2: to basically go through the search process. It was extremely

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Speaker 2: uncomfortable at times, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for people.

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Speaker 2: But kind of the key insight that we landed on

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Speaker 2: was we've built investing products from millions of people around

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Speaker 2: the world, we never gave any financial advice, and that

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Speaker 2: was super frustrating. Right Like, you know, I'd done probably

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Speaker 2: tens of thousands of support tickets at Chaze's in a

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Speaker 2: light year, and the question that would always come through

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Speaker 2: is what should I do with my money? How should

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Speaker 2: I invest? Should I buy? Should I sell? You know,

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Speaker 2: also phone calls with kind of larger customers who had

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Speaker 2: made deposits that are triggered enhance due diligence or a

404
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Speaker 2: source of fun, source of wealth, and you would always

405
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Speaker 2: ring them up to have a chat and it would

406
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:02,040
Speaker 2: always come back to hate, what should I do with

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Speaker 2: my money? And so it was incredibly frustrating because we

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Speaker 2: could never help anyone.

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Speaker 1: Right now, Why is that, like with Shars, he still

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Speaker 1: hasn't gone into financial advice. Is that just the regulatory

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Speaker 1: threshold you have to reach to do that just is

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Speaker 1: so much more complicated.

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Speaker 2: I think it's just a question of resource and focus,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's something that every retail investing platform

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Speaker 2: globally is moving into. I think it makes most sense

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Speaker 2: probably to build a wealth management business, to be honest.

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Speaker 2: So you'll see Revolutes building one now, Robin Hood's building

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Speaker 2: their own wealth management business. And so at the time

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Speaker 2: this was kind of a few years ago, we looked at,

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Speaker 2: you know, do we do robo advice? If robo advice

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Speaker 2: was kind of as good as it was cracked up

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Speaker 2: to be, we'd all be using it right now, And

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Speaker 2: the reality is we're not. Do we bring human advisors

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Speaker 2: onto the platform, which I think is like a really

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Speaker 2: positive good thing to do, or you know, do in

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Speaker 2: house your own kind of wealth management business where you

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Speaker 2: can have like a high touch service. Obviously like would

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Speaker 2: cost more, but kind of you can figure out a

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Speaker 2: way to deliver that experience in a way that aligns

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Speaker 2: with kind of the ethos and the values of your company.

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Speaker 2: And so, like Check had actually written kind of the

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Speaker 2: board papers at Shares is evaluating all of these things.

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Speaker 2: We'd both spend a lot of time talking to advisors

434
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 2: all around the world, and it's something that we really

435
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:21,840
Speaker 2: believed in and felt was important because in my view,

436
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,639
Speaker 2: the importance of financial advice at the right time and

437
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 2: some of its life can be transformational and it's not

438
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 2: just what should I invest in, it's you know, scenarios

439
00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:34,360
Speaker 2: every day, Like, you know, can I afford to retire?

440
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:38,399
Speaker 2: Can I support my parents as they become older and

441
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 2: stop working. I've got this inheritance because of you know, X,

442
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 2: Y Z and family tragedy or event, or I'm separating

443
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 2: or I'm growing my family, or I need to have

444
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 2: a bigger hat. Like all of these things a massive

445
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 2: problems to kind of navigate in life, and they're fraught,

446
00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 2: they're very emotionally complex, and we're typically not set up

447
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:03,520
Speaker 2: to deal with them very well. And so that's the

448
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 2: value of an advisor, right Like if you were to

449
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 2: ask an advisor, hey, what am I actually paying you for?

450
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:13,919
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily the differentiated you know, portfolio strategy or

451
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 2: asset allocation, because no matter who you go to buy

452
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:21,399
Speaker 2: and large, you're getting a very similar kind of product.

453
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 2: But what you're really paying someone for is the relationship

454
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,960
Speaker 2: and the trust for me to understand you, your motivations,

455
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 2: your goals and to be there to guide you through

456
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 2: these moments and to make the best possible decision for

457
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 2: you kind of given everything that we know, Like, that's

458
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 2: what you're paying for. And the human element is the

459
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:45,360
Speaker 2: key there because it comes down to trust and understanding

460
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 2: and that's exceptionally hard to replicate, and I think it

461
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 2: will continue to be an exceptionally hard thing to replicate.

462
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 2: And so we went and actually spent six months last

463
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 2: year in house. We didn't write a line of code.

464
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 2: We went to kind of firms all around the world,

465
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 2: from your individual advisor up to you know, like your

466
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 2: enterpriser and New Zealand like keep we Saber firms for example,

467
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 2: and we spent time, you know, days at a time

468
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 2: with manager directors, CEOs, heads of compliance, general managers, practice managers, advisors,

469
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 2: lead advisors, power planner support stuff, call centers. Because we're

470
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 2: not advisors ourselves. Our superpower is building great products and technology,

471
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 2: definitely with a consumer lens and focus. And we went

472
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 2: in house. And this was part of our approach and

473
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 2: our thesis that we laid out for Blackbird. It's like

474
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 2: you need to go so to go fast to build

475
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 2: a generational company, and that means having done the work

476
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 2: and find insights that compound over time. So like what

477
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 2: can we learn or where can we form a view

478
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 2: that other people haven't found or as a result of

479
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 2: them not having done the work will never reach and

480
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 2: that gives you a big advantage in the early days.

481
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 2: And so we went ahead and we did this work.

482
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 2: And kind of the overarching takeaway would be the wealth

483
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 2: management and advice industry is a very, very challenged at

484
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,640
Speaker 2: the moment, and there's a kind of variety of forces

485
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 2: that are acting and kind of driving that. One massive

486
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 2: increase in reggatary and compliance burden, and so that's resulting

487
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 2: in seventy percent of advisor's time not being client facing,

488
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 2: doing kind of menial like low value paperwork, which doesn't

489
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 2: necessarily improve the advisor experience. It definitely doesn't improve the

490
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 2: client experience. It doesn't necessarily lead to better outcomes in

491
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 2: a lot of the cases.

492
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: It's just like anti money laundering sort of checks, and.

493
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 2: It's evidencing the suitability of the advice that you've given.

494
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 2: I agree with this in principle, it's more just the

495
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 2: mechanism that it has to be delivered in. So, given

496
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 2: everything that I know about you, Peter, here's why the

497
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 2: advice I'm giving you is suitable for purpose, good value

498
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 2: for money. But the result is that you know, like

499
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 2: a fifty page document which no one reads, so it's

500
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 2: not particularly digestible. It becomes much more of a tick

501
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 2: box exercise and you know, we'll file that in the

502
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 2: cabinet and like that's all good, but when it pulls

503
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 2: away from the core purpose or you know, your service delivery.

504
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 2: What we've seen is limiting the pool of one advisors,

505
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 2: So the number of advisors has been shrinking, and two,

506
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:22,719
Speaker 2: the number of clients they're able to serve as also shrinking.

507
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 2: So we came across firms that have completely shut off

508
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 2: onboarding or advisors who have one hundred and twenty clients.

509
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 2: They haven't onboarded a new client in two years. They

510
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 2: would love to, but they're at capacity with the amount

511
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 2: of work that's associated with each incremental client that comes

512
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 2: after that point. And so the opportunity for us is

513
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 2: they're dealing with heavy manual paperwork. Generally it's like very

514
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 2: low value and their existing software I would describe as

515
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 2: Windows ninety five esque. It's very clunky and it really

516
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 2: fights them and so it's not loved. And I've never

517
00:27:57,760 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 2: met a group of customers that has had a more

518
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 2: visca reaction when you ask them, hey, can you tell

519
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 2: me about the software you use? Your CRM. Do you

520
00:28:05,680 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 2: enjoy using it? What's your experience been? Like like crazy

521
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 2: crazy responses that we've had. We've had, you know, people

522
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 2: going red in the face, swearing, like all just the

523
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 2: most unimaginable things. And so that presents a huge opportunity

524
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 2: for us when you kind of put this confluence of

525
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 2: things together, it's like what we believe in is that

526
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:30,439
Speaker 2: there should be more advice, that the advisor needs to

527
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 2: be turbocharged. Essentially, the human in the loop remains incredibly

528
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:38,720
Speaker 2: important for the actual advice delivery, and the best thing

529
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 2: that you kind of are equipped to do is to

530
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 2: build relationships with your client. It's not to do everything else.

531
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 2: And so the opportunity for MALU is to basically be

532
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 2: the operating system or the piece of software that wealth

533
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 2: managers and advisors live in on a daily basis to

534
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 2: get the work done that they actually need to do

535
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:00,719
Speaker 2: and uplift them kind of above the paper the menual

536
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 2: tasks so that they become I would describe as like reviewers,

537
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 2: not doers. So you finished a meeting with your client,

538
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 2: you know that you need to put together an annual

539
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 2: review later. For example, that could take you a week

540
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 2: or you might need to outsource it to someone else

541
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 2: to do, whereas we can now deliver a draft in

542
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 2: two minutes and it's ninety five percent there, and you

543
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 2: can spend thirty minutes doing a once over and a

544
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:25,239
Speaker 2: check off to tweak and edit and understand you know,

545
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 2: how that document has essentially rived at that place.

546
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: So you're using a lot of artificial intelligence here. But

547
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: this isn't a robo advice player or anything like that.

548
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: This is taking all the admin and burden off financial advisors,

549
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: so they've actually got more time to focus on understanding

550
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 1: what their clients need.

551
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the way that we're described as like, you know,

552
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 2: clients not paperwork, or you know, your your purpose is advice,

553
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 2: not admin. Like if you were to ask any advisor,

554
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 2: you did not get into this profession for the admin.

555
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 2: You've got in it for, you know, the reason of

556
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 2: helping clients, building trust, delivering advice. And so the way

557
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 2: we delivered the product was one as a wedge with

558
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 2: a note taker that it's hyper specialized to financial advice.

559
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 2: That might seem counterintuitive to people, but it's extremely powerful

560
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 2: for a couple of reasons. One, there's a huge amount

561
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 2: of nuance in the advice space. So if you were

562
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 2: to use a generic transcription tool as part of a meeting,

563
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 2: you just get a chronological A to Z of that

564
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 2: exact conversation, And an advice conversation could be ninety five

565
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 2: percent relationship building and there could be five percent kind

566
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 2: of smattered throughout that conversation that's actually relevant to advice

567
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 2: your goals, your motivations, your rest tolerance capacity, fees, all

568
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 2: of the above. And so we can use templates to

569
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 2: extract and structure the most relevant pieces of the advice

570
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 2: conversation for your internal facing compliance purposes. But then also

571
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 2: like an external facing follow up to a client for example,

572
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 2: so an advisor no longer has to take notes after

573
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 2: the meeting, have second person in the meeting taking notes

574
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 2: for them, rely on anything else other than our products,

575
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 2: and because where so will hyper specialized to advice, we

576
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 2: become an incredibly powerful tool and product and part of

577
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 2: their day. And the feedback that we've had is incredible,

578
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 2: like unsolicited on a daily basis, This is changing my life.

579
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 2: This is the best thing that's happened to me in

580
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 2: twenty five years of the industry. Hey, I can onboard

581
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 2: more clients already and we're only just getting started. And

582
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 2: now what we're able to do is move into the

583
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 2: post meeting workflows. So you have the context for a meeting,

584
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 2: you have an incredible kind of set of information, and

585
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 2: now we can begin to action and undertake work on

586
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 2: the behalf of the advisor, for example, generating advice documents. Yeah.

587
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: It's incredible, isn't it. And there are other companies in

588
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: this building I think that are doing a similar thing,

589
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: for instance in healthcare for GPS. So it starts with

590
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: transcription and having a conversation, as you say, feeding it

591
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: into a general transcription service. It's powered by AI. Like

592
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: an offer or something like that isn't going to get

593
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: you the results. It's all the work that you do

594
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: to fine tune that for a particular use case such

595
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: as financial advice. That's the real power of it.

596
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and it's really resonated. So you know, we

597
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 2: have been live in market for seven months now. We

598
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 2: have paying customers in the UK, South Africa, Australia and

599
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 2: New Zealand. We're doing Singapore shortly as well. I'm there

600
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 2: next week. So this is like globally applicable. We are

601
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 2: seeing like a huge amount of kind of pool and

602
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 2: demand for the product. And yeah, it's a super exciting time.

603
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 1: You've just raised some preceed money, what four point six

604
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: million dollars? Yes, yeah, correct, so's the what's the plan

605
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: for what runway will that allow you to use?

606
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 2: It mainly allows us to accelerate product development and so

607
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 2: that's kind of twofold one. It's resource the team up

608
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 2: more to make the most of the opportunities that we

609
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 2: see in front of us, so go faster and as

610
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 2: a result of having more people, you know, within reason,

611
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 2: actually be able to ship the product faster as well.

612
00:32:55,280 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 2: So it's to grow our teams you know in London

613
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 2: and Sydney and in Wellington, and then also look at

614
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 2: opportunities in other markets too.

615
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I've just been reading great book nineteen twenty

616
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: nine Andrew Ross Sauken, getting really inside what happened with

617
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: the Great Crash of nineteen twenty nine and drawing parallels

618
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: to today. Are we in a bubble? Yeah, an AI bubble.

619
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot of people who invest

620
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: are looking for better quality advice to navigate, not just

621
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: be sheep that are jumping in the latest thing. That's

622
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: what happened in nineteen twenty nine, although back then it

623
00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: was all margins. You know, people were borrowing to buy shares,

624
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: which is never really a good thing, and then the

625
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: margin calls came in and they're all bankrupt, you know,

626
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: so interesting your views on what the future of financial

627
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: advice is. Obviously in the background is artificial intelligence and

628
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: robo advice, and it stands the sense that this is

629
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: a very data driven industry. There's huge amounts of data.

630
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: If you can get hold of that data, there is

631
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: incredible value that may augment or even replace some of

632
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: the functions that that advisors play just looking at it

633
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: screens of data coming into them.

634
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 2: My view on the future of advice is that it

635
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,760
Speaker 2: will be hyper personalized. It will be available to anyone

636
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 2: at scale, and this is probably more of the kind

637
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 2: of tenure of you. I still believe in the value

638
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 2: of the human in the loop. I think the main

639
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 2: constraint there is regulation. Regulators will not move to, at

640
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 2: least in my opinion, you know, open up huge swaths

641
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:30,280
Speaker 2: of the advice market to a complete kind of software

642
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 2: driven experience that maybe possible. Who knows, like a lot

643
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 2: will play out in that space. But I still very

644
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:37,720
Speaker 2: much believe in the value of the human and the loop,

645
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 2: and ultimately our goal is to transform the underlying unit

646
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 2: economics of what it means to deliver advice. So at

647
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 2: the moment, it's very much if I wish to grow

648
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 2: my advice firm or offer advice to more people, I

649
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 2: need to make a set investment in terms of growing

650
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 2: headcount or ability to resource all the admin that is

651
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 2: associated with each new client, and I don't necessarily have

652
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 2: a set return for that. So it's changing that equation

653
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 2: saying that you can grow your firm without having to

654
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 2: make these big bets or take on additional risk, and

655
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 2: ultimately bring down the minimums which are now existing and

656
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 2: actually are going up at a lot of these firms

657
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 2: either you know, liquid assets of five hundred thousand or

658
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 2: a million dollars for example, and start to move that

659
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 2: equation in the other direction. So, for example, I think

660
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 2: the average advice fee in the UK has increased like

661
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 2: six percent in the last twelve months, and so really

662
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 2: it just continues to price consumers and people who need

663
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:35,879
Speaker 2: access to advice out of the market. And so for us,

664
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 2: the mission is transform the underlying P and L and

665
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 2: the unit economics of what it means to deliver advice

666
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 2: to a customer so that we can actually reverse that,

667
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 2: and I think that to me is the more pressing problem.

668
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:49,840
Speaker 2: Then we're just going to have an AI you know,

669
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,759
Speaker 2: driven advisor that's going to deliver advice to everyone, Like

670
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 2: that could well happen in the future, but you have

671
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 2: to understand like the fundamental drivers of what it means

672
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 2: to one be an advisor to deliver advice, and then ultimately,

673
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 2: like why you will doing this? It's to deliver a

674
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 2: better experience for the end consumer. Yeah, And I think

675
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 2: that's probably the second piece that gets lost in all

676
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 2: of this. It's a lot of software. I think in

677
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:14,800
Speaker 2: the AI space at the moment, it's never been easier

678
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,359
Speaker 2: to build. That is true, but it's also been never

679
00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 2: been easy to deliver a really shitty product experience. And

680
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 2: I think if you look at adoption of many many companies,

681
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:27,720
Speaker 2: they have very high churn. It gets you know, forced

682
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 2: from management and a business setting down upon teams, and

683
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 2: a lot of the individuals won't adopt it. And so

684
00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 2: our goal is to build a product that is delightful,

685
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 2: is loved, so you know very much the shares is framing,

686
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:44,720
Speaker 2: but for business setting like is truly valuable and allows

687
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 2: the end user to realize value very very quickly. And

688
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 2: then from there it's about how do you actually elevate

689
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 2: and uplift the experience for the client. So a lot

690
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 2: of people right now will say, hey, there's this manual

691
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 2: piece of paperwork. There's steps one, two, three, four, five.

692
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 2: We're just going to understand what they're steps are, and

693
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 2: we're just going to use AI to like, you know,

694
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 2: write the paperwork or kind of take that down to

695
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 2: steps one or two. Whereas our view is you need

696
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 2: to understand the outcome that you're trying to achieve, what

697
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 2: the customer and client experience is at the end of that,

698
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,279
Speaker 2: and then just design with that in mind, forget everything else.

699
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 2: And so it means that you can kind of fundamentally

700
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 2: re architect how a lot of this work actually gets

701
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 2: done in the background. And I think that's part of

702
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,760
Speaker 2: this kind of Shares is a light year and consumer

703
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 2: late approach which we're bringing to this kind of antiquated

704
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:33,320
Speaker 2: when those ninety five esque like industry, when it comes

705
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,360
Speaker 2: to software, it's build for the consumer, build something that

706
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,439
Speaker 2: they love that you know, stacks up against any other

707
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 2: kind of social or social media either that they might

708
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,439
Speaker 2: use in terms of experience and force adoption. So I'll

709
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 2: give you like a really concrete example. It doesn't matter

710
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,320
Speaker 2: whether you're an individual advisor or whether you're the managing director.

711
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:53,720
Speaker 2: You get the same experience when you come to our product.

712
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 2: It's self serve onboarding, sign up in two minutes and

713
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 2: you know we've got a test or a demo meeting

714
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 2: for you, or you can upload your own or you

715
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 2: can add Marlow to a meeting straight away. So the

716
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,280
Speaker 2: time to value is very very quick, but it results

717
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 2: in like a bottom's up, like sales motion. So I

718
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 2: did a demo on Friday with a pretty large UK firm.

719
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 2: We already had two of their advisors and customers of ours.

720
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 2: And so what that means for the first time ever

721
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 2: is that the advisor in this situation as a product

722
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 2: that they love, they can turn around to their management team.

723
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,479
Speaker 2: They can bang their fist on the table and say

724
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 2: this is changing my life. I love it. We need

725
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,399
Speaker 2: to roll this out across the whole firm. So it's

726
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,760
Speaker 2: a very different kind of sales process and cycle, and

727
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 2: in a lot of cases is resulting in way way

728
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 2: higher adoption. Of the product and durability. So to give

729
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:48,320
Speaker 2: you some numbers, we have had almost zero churn after

730
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 2: seven months with hundreds and hundreds of paid seats globally,

731
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 2: all on monthly contracts. You can leave us at any

732
00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:58,080
Speaker 2: point in time. But it's because we are starting to

733
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 2: get that kind of ingredient in that next in terms

734
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 2: of B two C to B which is built for

735
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 2: the consumer and the individual and have them kind of

736
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 2: advocate on your behalf to roll out the product. We

737
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:13,800
Speaker 2: have advisors who are running training sessions for their colleagues.

738
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 2: We have firms who are talking to their competitors about us,

739
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 2: and like the anecdote that comes back is, I can't

740
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 2: believe I'm doing this, but I'm talking to one of

741
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: our beggest competitors and I've given them a demo of

742
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 2: your product, which is an incredible piece of feedback to

743
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 2: have it. But it's because the focus is on the

744
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 2: user experience and the value that you're delivering opposed to

745
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 2: in a lot of cases just automating steps one to

746
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 2: five and then trying to extract as much money out

747
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:40,879
Speaker 2: of someone as you possibly can.

748
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pushing up the price of giving that advice

749
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: as well making it inaccessible. So yeah, that's great. You've

750
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 1: got a team back in New Zealand of small team

751
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,959
Speaker 1: and Wellington of engineers working on the coding and then.

752
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so we're kind of building engineering and product

753
00:39:55,760 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 2: across Sydney and Wellington. We kind of have a go

754
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:03,800
Speaker 2: to market function now for Asia Pacific out of Sydney

755
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 2: and are doing the same in London as well, so

756
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 2: kind of go to market for UK, Europe and other

757
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 2: countries in that time zone. So South Africa for example,

758
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 2: or East Coast US works pretty well for us. And

759
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 2: then also building kind of like marketing and growth function

760
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 2: in the UK as well. So our view is like

761
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 2: New Zealand companies should be building global from day one.

762
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 2: You need to be in big markets, and it just

763
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,359
Speaker 2: makes sense to front foot a lot of the pain

764
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 2: that most companies experience and go through, which is we

765
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 2: spend a year or two in New Zealand maybe Australia,

766
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 2: we kind of do okay or reasonably well, and then

767
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 2: we decide or raise our level of ambition and then

768
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 2: go offshore. And you could have just kind of chalked

769
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 2: up all those learnings made the mistakes earlier in the

770
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 2: piece and be so much better off for it. So

771
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 2: a lot of people ask, oh, how do you work

772
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 2: a cross time zones or and the answer is we

773
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 2: figure it out as we go. We have the opportunity

774
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 2: to build cultural infrastructure, is what I call it in

775
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,959
Speaker 2: terms of how we run the company, how we work

776
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 2: together onboard people allow people to kind of do great

777
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 2: work or get their best out of themselves, and it

778
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 2: results in a really high level of autonomy, but very

779
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 2: kind of clear guidelines for how we operate, and as

780
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 2: we grow, the onuses on the whole team to provide

781
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 2: feedback and input into how we shape that because we

782
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 2: don't have all the answers. But in my opinion, you're

783
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 2: way better off to being big markets because it's a

784
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:26,839
Speaker 2: force multiplier for everything that you do from day one

785
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 2: and you can just back solve all of these problems.

786
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 2: It's not to say it's easy, but it's much better

787
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 2: off in the long run. And the reality is, like

788
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,839
Speaker 2: we run a twenty four to seven operation, Like we

789
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 2: work pretty big hours, but it's incredibly rewarding and we

790
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time on planes going back and forth.

791
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 2: But we're kind of at the age and stage where

792
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 2: you know, we're up for that. We're making this choice.

793
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 2: We're fully opted into this. Yeah, and it's for people

794
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 2: to kind of like be up for that, to join

795
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 2: the mission or not. And it's a great filter.

796
00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: And like this is the norm now for there are

797
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 1: more people employed by New Zealand tech companies offshore than

798
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: in New Zealand by a rapidly growing margin. So this

799
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: is the reality global from day one for tech companies

800
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: and we've seen incredible success s. That's where the high

801
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: growth comes for AURA first, AML, all these other companies

802
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: that often have a co founder that has moved to

803
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: the US or the UK to build that bridgehead. That's

804
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:27,680
Speaker 1: the recipe now.

805
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's a great community of people who have

806
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 2: kind of gone before and done that. Now, it's still

807
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,879
Speaker 2: really important to me that we, you know, operate out

808
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 2: of New Zealand or have a presence there, you know,

809
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 2: to transfer learning's economic value like everything else back. And

810
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 2: we're seeing more and more successful companies be able to

811
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 2: keep their entity there for example, not have to flip

812
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 2: it to the US or the UK or another country.

813
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 2: It kind of like it can depend depending on what

814
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 2: age and stage and tiples dictated by investors or certain

815
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 2: other factors down the line, but the New Zealand connection

816
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 2: for us is super important and we think that we

817
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:07,359
Speaker 2: have like a really really good talent pool there and

818
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 2: kind of one of my personal goals is like, how

819
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 2: can we find, you know, super bright, young, ambitious people

820
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,879
Speaker 2: and how can we kind of share our worldview with them?

821
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 2: How can we get them over to the UK. It's

822
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 2: super easy to move here. Yes, it's a long way away,

823
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,760
Speaker 2: but like I want to be exporting as much talent

824
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,480
Speaker 2: as possible or signing people up and saying like, hey,

825
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 2: you've got to do your first six or twelve months

826
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 2: in New Zealand, like learn the business, get across the

827
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 2: New Zealand Australian context, and then move over to London

828
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:36,240
Speaker 2: with us. Like we just have kind of this talent

829
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 2: pipeline and machine that you can't get anywhere else, and

830
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 2: we get on really well. We've shared cultural context and

831
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 2: understanding and it's just a great way of building like

832
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 2: a global business in my opinion. So that's something that

833
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 2: I'm keen to kind of keep pushing alongside everything else

834
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 2: that we have going on, and it's important to us.

835
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: Well good luck for the future. I'm sure you'll be

836
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: raising more capital before too long at the growth rate

837
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 1: that you're experiencing at the moment. And congratulations on that

838
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 1: international expansion South Africa, Singapore coming online as well, so

839
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: plenty of upward momentum. So congratulations and thanks so much

840
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: for coming on a Business of Tech.

841
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the chat. Thank you.

842
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Hardy Michelle, co founder of Marlou,

843
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: explaining how AI can finally free financial advisors from the

844
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:32,439
Speaker 1: mountain of admin so they can spend more time doing

845
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: what matters given quality, human centered advice. I think Marlou's

846
00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 1: approach is a really great case study in using AI

847
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 1: to augment people, not replace them. If they can help

848
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: financial advisors reduce the admin associated with dispensing their advice,

849
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 1: that will hopefully mean more affordable advice, lower fees, but

850
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: more importantly, better advice as these advisors are freed up

851
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 1: to focus exactly on what their clients need. So thanksfull

852
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: listening to the Business of Tech powered by two Degrees.

853
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe

854
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Peter Griffin and I'll

855
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:11,279
Speaker 1: be back next Thursday with more on the Business of Tech.

856
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: Catch you then