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Speaker 1: That's a Bloomberg business splash. You're listening to taking Stock
Speaker 1: with Kathleen pim Fox on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Taking Stock. Matt Miller here with pim Fox. We are
Speaker 1: joined by Mike took In, the CEO of Talent, uh
Speaker 1: technology company that helps clients compile and analyze data from
Speaker 1: different sources. That I'm going to get an explanation on
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing about the company right now in
Speaker 1: this moment is that they just price an ip O. Mike,
Speaker 1: you just price an IPO a dollar above the range.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on that eighteen dollars a share and it's trading
Speaker 1: up today on the first day of trading. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: everything went well with this I P O and it's
Speaker 1: right now. It's kind of spent. Procedure is a difficult time.
Speaker 1: How did they go for you? Matt? It was beyond
Speaker 1: the numbers? Obviously, it was a terrific day for us.
Speaker 1: We felt like the market was very receptive to the
Speaker 1: offer that we had, and our bankers told us it
Speaker 1: was one of the most oversubscribed offerings they've seen in
Speaker 1: four and a half years. So what ex act leaded?
Speaker 1: When I say that you help clients compile and analyze
Speaker 1: data from different sources, I mean we do that to
Speaker 1: a lot A lot of companies do that. What exactly
Speaker 1: do you do a talent? We help companies become data
Speaker 1: driven because we're in a world where the better companies
Speaker 1: are able to use their data, the more effectively they
Speaker 1: can compete. In every industry, there's companies that are completely
Speaker 1: changing the game based on using data, and as a result,
Speaker 1: our customers can use their data more effectively to drive
Speaker 1: their An example would be so, for example, every company
Speaker 1: in the world needs to make better decisions on sales
Speaker 1: and marketing, which sales, which marketing um uh messages, in
Speaker 1: which marketing campaigns are driving, which sales opportunities to drive,
Speaker 1: which customers, which customers are therefore more profitable, and so
Speaker 1: all that kind of sales and marketing analytics are things
Speaker 1: that we can help them with. Hey, Mike, I wonder
Speaker 1: if you could just help people a little bit about
Speaker 1: your background, because this is number two for you to
Speaker 1: a certain extent. I'm sure he's done a lot of
Speaker 1: other things, but I remember rapp at seven and I
Speaker 1: wondering if you could tell us about that company and
Speaker 1: how you got connected to this world of technology. You bad. So.
Speaker 1: I actually started out in my career as an engineer.
Speaker 1: I was a computer designer UM with a master's electrical engineering,
Speaker 1: designing computer chips. So then I got my lobotomy, went
Speaker 1: to b school and UH worked for then um eight
Speaker 1: half years at Microsoft in two stints. UM my first
Speaker 1: CEO opportunity, as he said, was rappid seven. Had the
Speaker 1: privilege to work with a terrific group of folks in
Speaker 1: Boston and took them from five million to fifty million
Speaker 1: and four and a half years. And then three years
Speaker 1: ago had the opportunity here to join Talent. I jumped
Speaker 1: at that and excited to be here. Today. Customers include
Speaker 1: Air France, City Bank as well as General Electric. And
Speaker 1: this is all about real time analytics or is it
Speaker 1: about research? Um, it's about real time analytics as well
Speaker 1: as really any way that companies want to leverage their data.
Speaker 1: It might be in real time or it might not,
Speaker 1: but every company has day it all over the place.
Speaker 1: It might be in the cloud, it might be in
Speaker 1: different applications, and they need to bring it together, clean
Speaker 1: it up, make sense of it before they can start
Speaker 1: driving their business from it. That that's the part of
Speaker 1: the business that we help them with. So I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to understand what kind of solution you have. Do
Speaker 1: you come with a platform that Talent already has. Do
Speaker 1: you have Taylor ready solutions for the companies with whom
Speaker 1: you work, Um, how exactly do you get the data?
Speaker 1: Do you only use data that they have? I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get a little more into what Talent doest.
Speaker 1: So we use all of their companies existing data. We
Speaker 1: don't bring our own data. And it's a platform that
Speaker 1: they can use to develop solutions. We don't have customized solutions.
Speaker 1: So what it is is a platform that allows you
Speaker 1: to pull data from all the different places or take
Speaker 1: a real time for you just pin was just mentioning
Speaker 1: and clean it up. Data is always has mistakes and inconsistencies,
Speaker 1: and you need to be able to blend data from
Speaker 1: a multiple different places. I can give a couple of
Speaker 1: examples if that will help. But so some g genius
Speaker 1: came up with this awesome platform and then you guys
Speaker 1: have helped him bring that to market. Basically, we had
Speaker 1: a founding team that had a unique insight into how
Speaker 1: the market was evolving, and um, they thought this the
Speaker 1: approach that we had technically was significantly better than the
Speaker 1: market and they've proven to be right. Go ahead and
Speaker 1: give examples, but the context, I'm just going to bring
Speaker 1: up his Business Objects because the team that started Talent
Speaker 1: are behind Business Objects, which was sold then to S
Speaker 1: S A P. Yes, we have a couple of our
Speaker 1: exact teams from Business Objects and we had our chairman
Speaker 1: UM was the founder and CEO of Business Objects for
Speaker 1: many years, Bernhard the Toad, and so yes that he's
Speaker 1: been super super helpful along the way with the lessons
Speaker 1: that he's learned from building Business Objects, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I'll take give an example UM. Right now, every one
Speaker 1: of you has had alerts UM phone calls from a
Speaker 1: credit card company saying this transaction might be fraudulent. Well,
Speaker 1: how does that happen? What they need to do is
Speaker 1: look at that transaction and all the pull up all
Speaker 1: the data from that and compare that to other transactions
Speaker 1: they know are fraudulent. That process of pulling data together
Speaker 1: and UM screening it for potential fraud is something that
Speaker 1: we can help them with. I get these phone calls,
Speaker 1: by the way, constantly, I feel like I must just
Speaker 1: make typically fraudulent purchases a lot, literally once a week.
Speaker 1: I'm wow, my credit card isn't working because they think
Speaker 1: I'm someone who's stolen my credit card. Uh all right,
Speaker 1: let me ask about the growth prospects because obviously, if
Speaker 1: people are thinking about an I p O the market,
Speaker 1: the stock, they might want to buy it. Um why
Speaker 1: should they put what's the argument for somebody getting in
Speaker 1: after the I p O, after the pop? What kind
Speaker 1: of growth prospects are you looking at? Well, what what
Speaker 1: talent offers is a combination of strong and accelerating growth
Speaker 1: UM with at the same time, we're already cash flow positive,
Speaker 1: and that's really unique relative to the companies that we've
Speaker 1: seen over the last four or five years. We've been
Speaker 1: growing our subscription business around per year UM for the
Speaker 1: five quarters. And uh as far as the proceeds, I
Speaker 1: always like to read that lion the Bloomberg story. You
Speaker 1: raised almost a hundred million dollars. What are you gonna
Speaker 1: do with it? You invest? This is part of an
Speaker 1: exit strategy? What's what's what's the money for? Well, since
Speaker 1: we're already cash flow positive, we don't need the money
Speaker 1: to run the company, and so that gives us an
Speaker 1: opportunity to look for acquisitions. We can look for small
Speaker 1: tuck ins that allow us to accelerate into the markets
Speaker 1: that are close to what we're doing, or speed up
Speaker 1: our ability to UM build deeper solutions. I should have
Speaker 1: started with that question. Great answer, all right, Mike, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Real pleasure to talking to Mike.
Speaker 1: Talent CEO Mike Tookin, sorry, CEO of Talent, on the
Speaker 1: company's I p O and the outlook for acquisitions. Taking stock.
Speaker 1: Coming up on taking stock will take stock of the
Speaker 1: Bank of Japan and what it isn't doing in order
Speaker 1: to spur economic growth in the country. The latest monetary
Speaker 1: easing fell short of investor expectations.