Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Karl Messer and Tim
Speaker 2: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. When we talk about financial inclusion,
Speaker 2: we think about the participation of different groups within the
Speaker 2: traditional financial ecosystem, think banks and financial services and the like.
Speaker 2: We talk about people being unbanked versus people being banked.
Speaker 2: And according to a FDIC survey from twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: it's the most recent year that data are available, unbanked
Speaker 2: rates were higher among lower income households, less educated households,
Speaker 2: black households, Hispanic households, working age households with a disability,
Speaker 2: and single mother households. Also, differences in un banked rates
Speaker 2: between black and white households and between Hispanic and white
Speaker 2: households in twenty twenty one were present at every single
Speaker 2: income level. One person who thinks a lot about financial
Speaker 2: inclusion is Sheena Allen, the founder of Mindful AI. She's
Speaker 2: also the founder of a former CEO of Capway, She's
Speaker 2: spent her career thinking about financial inclusion. She joins us
Speaker 2: now from a Los Angeles she in a good to
Speaker 2: have you on the program, How are you?
Speaker 3: I will how about yourself.
Speaker 2: We're doing really well. I want to talk about your
Speaker 2: most recent startup, Mindful AI. You're focusing on the idea
Speaker 2: that helping those folks out there who have a vision
Speaker 2: but don't necessarily have the skills too or education to
Speaker 2: create that vision that they have in mind. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is like the promise of AI, right.
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be.
Speaker 2: It's supposed to be. Okay, are we there?
Speaker 3: You know the point of mine? Well, so Mife was
Speaker 3: a parent company. One of our first products is about
Speaker 3: people who are or have a idea for some software,
Speaker 3: usually an app or our website. But the problem in
Speaker 3: AI is we are still full of gaps and biases
Speaker 3: with a lot of the data that goes into making
Speaker 3: these advanced systems and these language models. And that's the
Speaker 3: part that we want to change in Mindful.
Speaker 2: Do you see because you're a big part of your
Speaker 2: career is focused on financial inclusion when you were at Capway,
Speaker 2: do you see similarities between financial inclusion or lack thereof
Speaker 2: and inclusion when it comes to AI?
Speaker 3: I do the parallels are when I was you know,
Speaker 3: a Capway and I still continue to do that work.
Speaker 3: In other aspects, we talked about unbanked underbank. I'm born
Speaker 3: and raised in Mississippi, so the state that has the
Speaker 3: highest population of unbanked the underbank residents. So that was
Speaker 3: family that was family members still live to some degree.
Speaker 3: You look at the fact that Mississippi, I use that
Speaker 3: as an example. We just got to Chase Bank maybe
Speaker 3: in the last year year two. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people think that national banks are everywhere, but that's
Speaker 3: not the case. By the time, it's local banks, it's
Speaker 3: community banks, and all the times there's no banks at all.
Speaker 3: And so a lot of what we dealt with at
Speaker 3: Capway was people who didn't have access to the system,
Speaker 3: and if they did have access to the system, did
Speaker 3: they trusted, did they have the knowledge that they have
Speaker 3: the access. We saw an expedited piece in financial inclusion
Speaker 3: with COVID, because of course people couldn't walk into a
Speaker 3: bank branch. But similar to financial inclusion, a lot of
Speaker 3: the biggest issues it's lack of data, it's lack of knowledge,
Speaker 3: it's lack of access from both sides. You got to
Speaker 3: think when we got our twel hundred dollars from COVID,
Speaker 3: people were surprised that a lot of people came out
Speaker 3: and said, well, how am I supposed to cash this check?
Speaker 3: I don't have a bank account. I can't get out
Speaker 3: of docum deposit. Now, I think we're seeing that an
Speaker 3: AI from the aspect of people are starting to realize
Speaker 3: just how many, how much of biases are playing a
Speaker 3: role some of the advancements that we're seeing.
Speaker 1: So talk about some of the products that you have
Speaker 1: mindful AI and how those products are specifically helping black businesses. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So one of our first products is a product called
Speaker 3: app it out like map it out, but it's app
Speaker 3: it out, and the entire idea of it is taken
Speaker 3: get giving someone who has an idea for an app,
Speaker 3: for a website or some form of software, but they
Speaker 3: don't have a technical background, and how do we use AI.
Speaker 3: One aspect of AI, which is called room is taking
Speaker 3: text to software. That's the AI piece of it. But
Speaker 3: the way that's happened, particularly for black businesses and small
Speaker 3: businesses is when you think of black businesses, if you
Speaker 3: look at the stats, to look at the data, most
Speaker 3: of them only employ one person, which is themselves, and
Speaker 3: usually don't they don't have that money to hire a
Speaker 3: tech team to offshore to outsource and most of them
Speaker 3: don't have a technical background, and so how do we
Speaker 3: create something that help some advanced We are in a
Speaker 3: digital space, a digital world. And while yes it's great
Speaker 3: to have on social media, so Facebook page, Instagram page,
Speaker 3: which is also a great way to engage with customers.
Speaker 3: Can an app help you? Can a website help bring
Speaker 3: more sales, more customers? And so for people who struggle
Speaker 3: there and they don't have that access, they don't have
Speaker 3: that knowledge, they don't have the money to hire someone,
Speaker 3: how do we take app it out? How do we
Speaker 3: take room AI and create that text and software particularly
Speaker 3: for them?
Speaker 1: And how many give us a sense of just I
Speaker 1: guess the scale right now of mindful AI. Who are
Speaker 1: your customers and how has that grown since you know
Speaker 1: you started the company to where we are now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we focus right now strictly on like
Speaker 3: the non technical aspect. We have some other products that
Speaker 3: are coming right now. App it out is what we
Speaker 3: focus on. We're working from everywhere from enterprise to individuals.
Speaker 3: So it's a mixture, it's not one or the other.
Speaker 3: Also small businesses. And it's interesting because we have two
Speaker 3: sides to app it out bringing customers for both sides.
Speaker 3: We keep a human aspect to it, so we have
Speaker 3: everything from like workbooks to courses to boot camps, and
Speaker 3: then now it's working on this more small language model. Really,
Speaker 3: as we're bringing in room for the text to software,
Speaker 3: we're seeing that growing from once again individuals to more
Speaker 3: of now enterprises and small business and enterprises, so we
Speaker 3: continually see it grow. I think people underestimate how many
Speaker 3: people are non technical but would love to have some
Speaker 3: form of an app or a website or some form
Speaker 3: of access to technology that oither once again they don't
Speaker 3: know about or they don't have the funds to do.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering about the startup landscape right now and what
Speaker 2: it's like going out there and looking to raise money
Speaker 2: and talking to angel seed and in venture capitalists investors
Speaker 2: right now, what's the vibe you're getting from them when
Speaker 2: you pitch them.
Speaker 3: AI is still kind of a hot trend right now.
Speaker 3: It is cooling itself, but overall in the startup space,
Speaker 3: what is for myself of them speaking to peers, just
Speaker 3: knowing the space in itself, It's actually still tough, you know.
Speaker 3: I don't think we will ever see it. I don't know,
Speaker 3: if I'll say ever, it will be a while before
Speaker 3: we ever see the funds flowing the way that we
Speaker 3: saw in twenty twenty one and some of twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two four things to the shift. We're still wing on
Speaker 3: interest rates to be cut, you know, we're hoping that
Speaker 3: they come sooner than later. But a lot of investors
Speaker 3: are not deploying capital. If they are deploying capital, what's
Speaker 3: required to get that money is a lot of different circumstances.
Speaker 3: It used to be, Hey, I have an idea, I'm precede,
Speaker 3: I need this to do X y Z. Nowad is
Speaker 3: what is your attraction? What is your revenue? And if
Speaker 3: you don't have that, do you have a true path
Speaker 3: to revenue to custom attraction? What is your goal to market?
Speaker 3: Is it feasible? How much does it take to get there?
Speaker 3: So a lot of more questions are being asked, a
Speaker 3: lot of more requirements are being needed in are to
Speaker 3: get money that the startup landscape, the investment landscape is
Speaker 3: still very much a rocky roll right now.
Speaker 2: How many news are you getting forevery yes?
Speaker 3: Now it's crazy cafway I would have probably said twenty
Speaker 3: to one's.
Speaker 2: I mean I've heard. I've heard worse, like you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of experience.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, Yeah, no, you're right, Cafway wasn't as bad.
Speaker 3: This one is is a little bit different. It is
Speaker 3: as and once again you're in the hot space. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it is the fact that you're having to pitch
Speaker 3: to way more people now. And I think the issue
Speaker 3: that we've seen, honestly or for me the CEO who's pitching,
Speaker 3: is a lot of investors are still taking investment meetings,
Speaker 3: but they're not honest about the fact that they're not
Speaker 3: deploying capital, and so that plays a role into it. Also,
Speaker 3: it's like I would rather just tell me that, hey,
Speaker 3: right now, we're not deploying capital, and I could have
Speaker 3: saved that meeting. But I think a lot of investors
Speaker 3: still they still want to be part of it. They
Speaker 3: won't know what's going on. They want to have the conversations,
Speaker 3: keeping their network. But as the CEO from the other side,
Speaker 3: you know, it hurts because you know, we're trying to
Speaker 3: raise money. We need to get to more yeses for
Speaker 3: people who are actually deploying capital.
Speaker 1: She know, we only have about a minute left, but
Speaker 1: I'm looking at your background and It's quite impressive. You've
Speaker 1: been the founder of multiple startups. What kind of advice
Speaker 1: would you give to young people who are maybe from
Speaker 1: a non technical background but want to get into the
Speaker 1: startup space.
Speaker 3: Find great mentors, find great sponsors. All these two different things.
Speaker 3: Mentor sponsors and find networks where you can find people
Speaker 3: to be quargrt team team is extremely important. I've been
Speaker 3: a solopreneur. Is extremely tough find great team members in
Speaker 3: networking place and how you do that?
Speaker 2: Shina, thanks so much for joining us on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 2: We do really appreciate it. Sena Allen, founder of Mindful Ai,
Speaker 2: also the founder and former CEO of Capway. Sina joining
Speaker 2: us from Los Angeles,