Operate Podcast

Nicky Senyard takes me on the journey of her career as a successful entrepreneur and how that passion led her to do it again for a new customer segment in the financial services industry. Her company, Fintel Connect, is at the intersection of 2 major trends in the digitization of marketing and banking. 

Since we both work a lot with community banks, we also discuss the state of digital products and marketing there, as they have historically been less advanced in embracing how to meet their current and prospective customers online. Nicky and team are working diligently to help them!

She's a great inspiration for other entrepreneurs as well and shares several great stories in our conversation. 

And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures

Nathan Baumeister is a co-founder and the CEO of ZSuite, and it was a pleasure to have him on the podcast. We talked about the founding of ZSuite within a community bank, and how it's now working with dozens of banks to help them with commercial escrow accounts, and also expanding bank deposits as a result of it.

It's been a pleasure to get to work with him and his team, and become an investor in the company in the past year.

Nathan is a super talented guy, exceptional leader, and is very experienced in the bank tech industry. We can all learn a lot from his perspectives on the industry, business and life. 

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures

It is so fun to get introduced to awesome new people, and I had a strong feeling that Teddy Mitrosilis and I would have a good conversation and connection. We did and I think you'll enjoy his stories and ideas thoroughly. (Thanks for the introduction, Mallory Maske!)

We talked about his journey to becoming an entrepreneur, how the market wanted something different from him than he initially anticipated, and how he's working with a number of people on their personal brands and stories, and challenging them to think about creating value for others in their organizations. We also talked about our shared experiences on LinkedIn, which we both use extensively.

Not surprisingly, Teddy has a strong drive and process, which has served him well in athletics, business and life. Great lessons to learn here.

And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

Rex Salisbury has a great story as his path into venture capital and transition from Andreessen Horowitz to founding Cambrian. It was fun recording our conversation so he could tell that story and inspire others who can now consider other paths to get there. His development of a community of fintech founders was definitely rooted in great timing and his personal passion, and also led him to realize that investing in this community was what he was also meant to do. 

His instincts led him to San Francisco where he thought his community would be, then to A16Z and ultimately to starting his own fund. 

Enjoy this conversation and the many things Rex has learned by serving the community around him.

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

Charles Potts is my favorite bank technology historian. And he happens to also be my partner in BankTech Ventures. This was a conversation I wanted to have and record for a long time, and I'm excited to share it.

Charles is currently the Chief Innovation Officer of the ICBA (Independent Community Bankers of America) and it is a perfect role for him, as he is part banker, part technologist, part entrepreneur and part futurist. He gives a great history lesson in here on how bank technology has evolved.

We also talked about bankers' priorities in 2023, how the ICBA ThinkTECH accelerator came to be, what's ahead for it, and the questions and advice he finds that he is consistently giving to bankers across the country.

Enjoy this one!

This episode was an absolute treat. Eric Sprink is what I call a human energizer bunny. He demonstrates abundance to his peers in community banking as he’s taught dozens of others how to do banking as a service right, which we talk about in the conversation.

Eric is the CEO of Coastal Community Bank in the greater Seattle area, and yet his community bank now supports millions of customer accounts through some very large partners whose names you’re likely to recognize.  He’s been a banker for most of his career, yet exhibits a growth mindset that is not so common amongst his peers. It's served him well as they've been one of the top performing banks in the country in the last few years.

I’m also fortunate to count Eric as a partner in BankTech Ventures. It’s been an absolute pleasure to know him for the past 5 years. 

It was great to have Wayne Miller on the podcast and record our conversation, which wasn't far from a typical one we have all the time. Wayne recently joined ICBA to continue and expand the great work he's been doing with bank technology innovation and startups, and he's a key enabler of the future of community banking. Wayne and I talked a lot about what is on banks' agendas for the new year and how we're all working together to help them.

I consider Wayne sort of a "founder whisperer" as he's worked with well over 100 of them in the last 6 years through a couple accelerator programs he oversaw. And with a focus on business development for the startups going through the program, it has been true business acceleration for them, and a big reason why it was named the fintech accelerator of the year a couple of years ago.

Enjoy Wayne - some great sound bites, stories and sayings. One of my favorites is "if people aren't buying what you're selling, you don't have a business."

Thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

Brent Jackson saw the opportunity for Torpago inside the finance and accounting organization of a prior company. I always enjoy when a founder just sees the opportunity and goes for it.

He has a good focus on customers and ensuring he has happy ones with stories of high impact. And while he's in a hypercompetitive market of corporate spend management, he's carved out a great niche and continues to grow quickly.

Brent has also been scrappy to get the company started, built and growing, and he's added great members to his team in recent years. It's been a pleasure to get to know Brent in the last couple of years.

Enjoy this conversation with a coachable entrepreneur who is growing himself and his company simultaneously.

And thanks to show sponsor, BankTech Ventures.

It was a really fun first episode to start the year. Ron Shevlin from Cornerstone Advisors had a lot of great thoughts and insights to share and we covered a lot of ground.

Ron talked about the strategic imperative for community banks and had a number of very clear action items banks can take to have more success in the coming years. 

A few areas we discussed:
1. Financial products vs. services

2. The re-thinking of and opportunity in what defines a bank's community

3. How banks can learn a lot from the health care industry

4. What he would do as a new bank CEO

5. What it means to really build a capability of partnership

6. How to attract more digital and younger talent into banking

If you are in financial services or fintech, this is an episode you will absolutely enjoy to kick of 2023. Happy New Year, Operate listeners!

And thanks to sponsor, BankTech Ventures!

Serial entrepreneur, Howard Makler, has been growing Innovation Refunds at 200% per quarter this year. Few companies ever do that quarter over quarter, as the numbers get big very quickly. It's been amazing to watch, and I was thrilled to have him join me to talk about the experience, his personal and leadership philosophies and what's unique about this opportunity vs. others he's built.

He also highlights how important passion and purpose are in fueling us day to day. Enjoy this conversation with Howard!

Thanks to episode sponsor, BankTech Ventures