277. Meet the CRO Who Cofounded a £100 Million+ Valued FinTech w/ Theso Jivajirajah | Yonder

0:00Amardeep Parmar:Theso, Inside Out. So co-founder of Yonder, we've had Tim on here before. You've scaled massively, you've got ads all over the tube, and you're building a massive fintech. But you went viral for something completely different recently, right? So tell us about your bathtub story. So actually it was a it wasn't actually supposed to be me in any sort of ad we actually wanted a celebrity some sort of celebrity that's done teaching in the background or in the past so maybe like I forgot the the actor's name but he was on in between is him and I know he's done teaching in the past and also Ramachranga Nathan because he was a teacher in the back but it was just too expensive to get them so they went all right what do we do we have Fiso he's the problem chief risk officer he's someone that can explain APR he's Australian it's a complicated message the big short let's take inspiration from that Margot Robbie style chuck let's chuck this over the bathtub that's how I got into the bathtub it was wild so what happened in this ad for people who haven't seen it yet so in the UK you've got APR which is uh the cost of credit effectively and they it's it's unhelpfully named as annual percentage rate which is also the same name that you give to an interest rate but the APR that they're referring to is the cost of credit including any fees that you charge so a lot of people will look at our credit cards and go these companies charging 66 % and that's not the interest rate that's just the cost of credit including the fee but the fee is actually going towards paying your rewards and your the perks that you get for the actual product so but if you do actually borrow you're paying a much lower rate it varies between right now 12 % to 28 % and then you said about your under is obviously a debit cards, credit cards.

1:42Amardeep Parmar:What makes it different to what's out there already? So I guess when we started the company, we wanted to first provide access to expats, being an expat myself, as well as Tim, one of my other co-founders. But then we quickly pivoted into a rewards proposition. We noticed that there's not a lot of rewards cards out there. So we decided, okay, because there's no rewards cards out there, let's create a rewards proposition that people can actually use. So we moved away from flights, but like, can you get benefits for your everyday things? We know that people love to go out to eat. We know that London's a huge city where we started.

2:16And we know that we wanted a lot of expats to basically go and explore the city and also even British citizens themselves to go and explore the city, explore the niche, independent kind of restaurants. And that was the inspiration behind the actual product.

2:28Amardeep Parmar:So Tim came on here like two years ago in the state, right? Yeah. So what's been the big development since then? Like how have you changed in the last couple of years? Yeah, I think so two years ago, we would have been 15 people, 15 to 20 people. We're now pushing 60. We've got roles currently open and vacant. I think the company itself, it's interesting, like there's a different dynamic when you have more people in an organization. That's definitely been different. We're planning a launch into Netherlands in Q1 of next year, so that's going to be quite interesting. So starting the international expansion journey.

3:04And obviously the debit card, as you said, that's been pretty phenomenal. I think the other thing as well we also own the only credit card we can actually load your card So say you get a card with a 1 ,000 pound limit, but you want to spend 11 ,000 pounds because you want business class tickets to Australia You can actually load your card with 10 ,000 pounds and then buy a business class tickets and still get the points for it Right, so you can basically increase your purchasing power. So in terms of what we've changed That's basically the three major things that we've we've changed and it's gonna be pretty exciting I think over the next year, year and a half.

3:37And is it 2019 you guys were funded? 2020. Well, 2020, me, Tim and Harry came together. I'd say, let's just say the official start is February 2021, where we spent a year trying to get our license. And then we launched in March 22.

3:51Amardeep Parmar:So you're Chief Risk Officer, right? So what does that actually mean for the people who are maybe trying to build a fintech and they're not sure about that role and how it fits in? Yeah, so from a financial services perspective, to put it really simply, and this is what I tell my team, I am here to protect the company and the protection can work both on the compliance side so making sure that we maintain relationship with our regulators and if they want information from us manage that entire process and make sure that they're happy if they're not happy we make mistakes there's fines involved and things like that which is a cost and the other side is you know managing frauds financial crime managing lending and ultimately there's money that's being lent it out i want to make sure that all of it comes back so the team has to basically protect us from a financial perspective and from a regulatory perspective and obviously starting when it was just the free of you back in 2021 and then now where you are today your role is going to change so much part of it is now getting in bathtubs but like how else is that the new role and like your role adapting and like obviously you're having to grow as a person as well yeah i think the biggest thing is not actually the role i think it's actually the person right so i think the main thing was when we first started the company, it almost felt like a university assignment, right?

5:02We have a pre-seed fund of about£850 ,000. We know it needs to last two years. We don't even know that we're going to get our license, right? So we have to put the application in and we're going to try and stretch the money out for two years, two year assignment, basically a small university degree. But obviously as it gets picked up and things start going well, you start to build the company and then now you're not only building a product that consumers are going to love and they're going to use and they're going to be engaged with but you're also building an organization you're building somebody's career you're coaching them you're trying to make them better and you're trying to instill a culture that almost has an entrepreneurship background even within the startup that we're actually building interesting from there like we've had you know three or four people that's gone off to build their own company or into the entrepreneur entrepreneur first

5:52Amardeep Parmar:program which has been pretty exciting what's interesting too i remember you said like earlier how you'd never want to be in the spotlight, right? So obviously now you're under the spotlight. And what's interesting to me, it's like you're a very good speaker. So it's kind of almost funny that you haven't been in the spotlight more because you come across very well, very confident. And what was it that was keeping you away from the spotlight and not wanting to showcase yourself? Well, I mean, the first thing is I'm surprised by that. So thank you for that feedback. I'm going to take that away. I think the main thing was I just wanted to just build stuff, right?

6:23I didn't get into this. I don't think anyone gets into this to try and be in the spotlight, but it was never. You'd be surprised. Okay, fine. So I'm one of the people that am not. And, like, I think what I really wanted to do was actually just solve the problem. So that's my primary goal, like, see a problem. Let's see what we can try and solve it. That's the stuff that excites me. You know, speaking to you, like, we can speak candidly. Like, I'm super impressed by what you've actually built, and I really just want to be a part of it. So I think that was the main aim for me being here today. But generally speaking, the thing that excites me and then gives me nourishment in terms of like my day to day is being able to solve problems.

7:01And then also being a role model for my children that, you know, things don't come to you easy. You need to there's going to be problems. You need to solve it. And it's like basically demonstrating that.

7:10Amardeep Parmar:One of the things for me, right, is that 200 some people in this podcast, the best guess usually the ones who don't really want to come on. Yeah, because it's the people who they're coming on because they care about something else. whereas the people who just want to come on just because it's about marketing themselves they want to seem important they're often less useful for the audience right so i have this kind of interesting dynamic of like people who want to come on i'm generally saying no to them people who don't want to come on i'm kind of like hey how's it going like just surfing back i could probably do the same thing to you right it's like hey you said you're going to come on but you haven't replied for like two months like that kind of thing but it's interesting because for the audience as well kind of having that lens is quite important because learning from the people who don't come on podcasts all the time or don't do a lot of like public speaking sometimes that's where the best lessons are because those people aren't driven by the spotlight or the attention that some of the other people are too and you mentioned your kids there that right so we obviously had this chat a bit earlier too about like how you think about the future for them yeah and like your own like parents as well about being an entrepreneur from an Asian background and the expectations of society can you talk a bit about that yeah so um you know growing up it was an asian household and the thing is it's like you go to school you have to go to university because once you go to university you get a good job and then you're going to earn money and then you'll have a more comfortable lifestyle and you know as i've gotten older and had my own kids i realized why my parents did that right so from their perspective they fled a country that was going through a civil war, so Sri Lanka.

8:45And from their point of view, I can truly appreciate it. It's like, gosh, I need to leave this country. I need to provide an environment for my children where they're going to be successful. They're going to be in a safe environment. And that becomes the core thing. Like, how do I create an environment that is safe? Going out, getting a university job and going working at a corporate that's probably not going to fail as an organization is the safe environment. So you will always push your kids to go down that path. Creating a startup is not safe right there's an expectation that is going to fail 99.5 % startups fail right so but at the same time the learning rate that you get from startup is astronomical right like we've talked a little bit about like my learning rate um in the last five years is probably the most I've learned since starting work which was over 20 years ago um I need to get past like this idea past my wife now but one of the things I want to do is once my kids you know finish high school I give them some sort of seed fund and I'm like your job is to now go come up with an idea and go build this business and you have two years to try and do it and I don't care as dad I don't care whether you fail but what I want you to do is actually learn that entire process and then write that down because from a business perspective if it fails fantastic you've learned a lot and you can go take that to whatever you want to do next whether it be an apprenticeship or you go to university or if it goes well look what you've just done you just created a business that you can now carry on and see you know where you can actually take it so it's almost like a fast-track university or a fast-track MBA if you want to call it that way the thing that I haven't worked out which I'm still battling with myself is university is a great place like meet people we spoke about that earlier and build connections and things like that are they going to be missing out on that type of thing but how do I recreate that kind of environment I think the bay community that you guys are creating, you know, even if you were to extend it outside of Asians and invite other non-Asians in it, that's a great opportunity for, you know, my kids to actually get into at that later stage.

10:49I think that's fantastic.

10:50Amardeep Parmar:You talk about failure there and, like, learning about that and the importance for children to learn it. But also with your job as, like, chief risk officer, your job is to kind of stop the failure too. So how does that kind of marry as you're building a startup out and you're obviously mitigating risk, but at the same time, the only way a startup works is by growing fast and breaking things and things failing so how did you kind of marry this to your mindsets of okay we need to try things and things not to work out at the same time as your job is to make sure things do work out does that balance like does that temper your growth in some ways yeah that's it's a great question um and i think what it comes down to is it's not risk management is not about making sure that nothing breaks risk management is making sure that you're managing the risk right So really, it comes down to judgment.

11:36I'll give you a really good example. Let's just say you need to break things for revenue to occur. Let's just say as an example. And I decide, you know, I'm not going to break something because my job is to manage risk and therefore I'm not going to break something. Revenue doesn't come. But if I break something and then revenue comes, but then I find a way to fix it and then you know do it that way that's probably a better outcome. The interesting thing is we do this on a day-to-day basis right we take risks all of the time. Theoretically if I don't want to get wet by the rain right I'm living in London right rains all the time if I don't get by the rain I'll just stay home 24-7 but everyone leaves their house they manage the risk by taking an umbrella because it's going to limit the amount of rain that they're going to get but ultimately they're still going to get wet a little bit right so then it's a very similar mindset when it comes to even in business as a CRO that's how I think about it it's like how do I minimize the risk as opposed

12:38Amardeep Parmar:to eliminate the risk hello hello I hope you're enjoying the show so far I'm Amadeek Palmer co-founder of BayHQ and the host of this show for those of you who don't know BayHQ is the community for high growth Asian heritage founders and investors in the UK over 7 ,500 people have attended our events. 200 people have been for our impact programs and obviously there's been over 250 episodes of this podcast. If you want to join us and take part in the programs and come to the events go to bayhq.com forward slash join. We also just released our first ever book called Startups for Outsiders which you can get on Amazon now and the link is in the bio.

13:21Amardeep Parmar:Hope to see you soon at our event. Hope you enjoy the rest of the episode. And how do you feel at your attitude saw that changed over time as well because obviously you said when you started out it was a big decision for you to start this right yeah and then now you're thinking okay well my children's also going down this path so how have your thoughts about like that actually was like we've got to just try things and like bounce the risks but that entrepreneur mindset because you didn't come from that right yeah the issue is like even when we started right i the way i justified it to myself i was like okay look i'm taking a huge pay cut to do this um i personally don't have an mba worst case scenarios at the end of the two years I can learn so much that I'm pretty employable at the end of the two years right so that's how I manage the risk and I was like the cost of it is maybe you know a hundred thousand pounds how much does an MBA cost a hundred thousand pounds right so what am I really losing here you know the people and the people at home don't really know but like my wife's a doctor as well so she was able to like support uh while I was going through this journey.

14:21But in terms of how the idea of managing risk has changed over time...

14:26Amardeep Parmar:I'm just going to tee you up there. You want to be like, thank you so much to my wife for supporting me for that journey. Yeah, absolutely. I could not have done this without my wife. So in terms of how you think about managing risk, you can break more things when you're smaller, because the impact is going to be less. But as your company gets bigger, as you break more things, the impact is going to be more. So you then need to start... It's a spectrum. Basically, managing risk is a spectrum. You've got break things, high impact to the business, but the real impact financially is going to be small.

14:55But as you're bigger, you break things here, the impact is going to be huge. So you need to start paring back how much you actually break. And it's managed by the impact that you're going to experience. One of the things that we do at work is every six months, we speak to every department in the organization and we say, what are the big risks that you're If something was to fail, what's the impact it's going to experience? If the impact is high, tell me what you're going to do to try and mitigate that. And then we work out with the mitigation, does it nullify the impact? Does it minimize the impact?

15:27And then me, Tim, and the leadership team will look at it and be like, these are the risks that we have. These are the biggest risks that we have. Do we accept the risk? What are the things that we want to do to try and rectify it? And then we just keep monitoring that. So from a risk management perspective, that's what we do. But the goal is to never eliminate it, ever. You should never, ever eliminate a risk. I was telling someone at work today is like, one of the most interesting insights I got from my old GM from Commonwealth Bank was leadership exists because there's potentially fires and they have to help call the fires.

15:56If there's no fires and the team is working everything and everything's no fires, it's all smooth. You don't need leadership. Everything, they should operate on their own with like standard check-ins and one-on-ones, right? But like fires exist, therefore leadership exists and leadership are like the escalation point. So it's not about limiting those fires.

16:13Amardeep Parmar:It's also that thing too, right? for anybody investing in you anybody working for you they're working for you because you're taking risks and you are going to do that growth side of things right otherwise you could go and work at a more mature company but then they're not going to have the same excitement they're going to have the same growth and journey and next be able to grow with the company as you have and which like phase of the company you think you've enjoyed the most do you enjoy it when there was you take loads of risk but there's no rule there's no nothing really feels to go wrong compared to now where maybe there is a lot more to lose but then also when you do take risks the payoff is so much larger yeah i think both are great both are great actually what i'm actually enjoying now is seeing other people take risks even in my team it's like you come in it's not about me telling them hey i need you to do x y and z it's we have this problem how do you go and want to solve it and part of that solution could come could have risks with it and i'm seeing them take those risks and as a result they're also growing and that for me is exciting um so that part of the that part of this and the i the interesting thing is when i first started this the last thing i was thinking about was actually building an organization it was actually building a product but now that we've got this product and then people are starting to enjoy it i'm looking at the team and i'm like look how much the team is growing look how much they're learning um and that's now giving me like nourishment uh when i go to work day to day yeah and what's interesting too is obviously there's going to be so many different risks you've taken and there's gonna be some that maybe kept you up at night like okay did it do say the right call or not and others which maybe you just brush off which ones maybe you took a big call and it's really paid off and like that like you're obviously going to get a huge chance of satisfaction from that right are there any calls you made which really stand out to you from a work perspective i've got a massive risk i took from a life perspective whichever i i basically left my job at common bank in australia after working there for 10 years and it was a pretty set job to just move to the UK because I chased a girl who's now my wife and I came here with no job um interestingly I applied for banks bank roles and then I kept getting rejected because I didn't have Australian I didn't have uh British experience uh and then I found out later it's because my visa is a two-year visa they didn't rely they didn't think that I was going to stay and stick around um and I think that was probably the biggest risk that I've ever taken it's like turn up to another country um and then see how you get on and even then it's like there's a pattern now with two years I was like it's two years the worst thing that can happen is I just jump on a plane to fly back home right so like with all of these things like it's limited and there's always an exit right there's I'm blessed and fortunate enough that I live in a Western country so like I'm not in a war-torn country but the risks that I take they're not huge right I'm not I'm not a doctor doing brain surgery or anything like that right so it's almost I'll be ashamed of myself if I wasn't taking the risk because it is I'm taking relatively speaking are not huge and one of the risks is actually taking their shoes by international markets yeah so you said you're going for the netherlands first what's behind that decision what was makes netherlands the best yeah so um one of the things we've thought about when we go into europe is our app is english right so what's the what's the market that is english speaking and then they're english friendly when it comes to like apps and things netherlands one of them um their market is also they're not very credit heavy but they love rewards and they love you know using debit and things like that so given our debit proposition and we wanted to go into a market uh with debit uh it seemed like a really really good fit um as a country it's also a smaller country in in comparison to to europe i don't know how dutch people will actually feel about that but like generally speaking it's smaller so for us to be able to have a nice entry it's factual yeah it's a smaller population yeah and it's also closer to the uk and it's like yeah so from an entry point it seemed like a very very good fit um just to see how things are going to go um there are obviously a lot of things that we need to work out like you know how does ops work and how does operations scale how do we make sure that culture translates from a uh from the uk into netherlands if you've got you're hiring netherland people in netherlands are they different culturally to us um things like that like and those are the challenges that are interesting that we'd love to be able to solve but yeah that was the main reason i think as a market they're just a bit more attuned to debit and rewards propositions in general and is the goal obviously to go netherlands first and then move on from there or are you thinking about things there yeah expand into different uh european countries obviously each different each country is going to have its uh different battle so i don't think we'll ever treat okay now that we've cracked netherlands therefore europe's off for grabs it's never going to be like that.

20:49I think every single country that we would expand into will have its own battles, its own challenges, even the way the market will operate, the feedback that we will get. It's going to be very, it's not going to be a cut and paste. It works in London or works in the UK, therefore it's going to work in Amsterdam and work in Berlin, for example. We just have to learn. Let's treat it like a startup within a startup. And just to make it like how the company's grown so far and like other risks on the horizon too is anything that you know maybe it's not on the

21:19Amardeep Parmar:roadmap for right now but you'd love to do in the future and it's gonna be a new challenge for you to work out the risk around it and how how do you enter that new space so whether it's international expansion or is anything where you're looking forward to like that new challenge yeah i mean there is one that comes to mind look you know we you start off with a credit card you go into a debit card the natural pull from customers is going to be then what's the next product and then trying to do what that next product is so I think that the main challenge is going to be or the main exciting challenge is going to be where does our consumer base actually pull us what direction does it pull us in and I think one of the things I want to take see where we can balance is what happens from a company perspective if the consumer base in the UK is pulling us in a direction that's different to Europe.

22:11I'm very conscious of you have a UK headquarters and therefore you kind of follow UK and then everyone else is kind of like a satellite office. We've seen that happen with larger companies. I'd like to go into a place where that's not happening that way. But I think there's going to be an exciting challenge. We're consciously trying to think of every single new market as its own market and we treat them individually as opposed to you're just a follower or whatever we decide to do in the UK. But I think that's going to be the main challenge.

22:40Amardeep Parmar:You said the debit card was one of the more recent launches that was huge, right? Was there anything that surprised you about the consumer behavior and how they took it up? Yeah, it's a definitely different customer base. One of the things that you see differently from debit and credit is the way consumers think about credit and debit is different. Credit is definitely a very considered purchase. So they will have to interact with, say, five to seven different interactions where they've heard about Yonder, heard about Yonder credit before they go, I'm going to sign up for the Yonder credit card.

23:12Debit is, it's a debit card. The worst that can happen is I have a debit card and I just don't use it. Whereas credit is like, I have a credit card, it's a credit check and things like that. So what that's driven is a different consumer base that's willing to try. But what I'm interested in is like, and we're doing the analysis now, which is what does that crossover look like? So if it was a a Venn diagram, you've got these people that love credit, you've got these people that love debit, but then you've got this middle that are basically using debit as a trial to see whether they want the credit product.

23:43And that's also interesting in the stuff. I mean, it's still early doors, like we only launched in June and we are more people and then we need to see usage and things like that. But that's something that I'm excited about looking at.

23:53Amardeep Parmar:So is the flow generally the people who use a debit card would then go to a credit? Or are you seeing a lot of people the other way around too? Or the people who already have the credit card, then the debit card? They generally don't go back the other way because ultimately, because the rewards are the same, the spending, the mechanics of the product is the same, credit gives you a credit line. What we are seeing is there are consumers that are just, they've grown up in families maybe during the financial crisis, back to the barf and the big short, where they've seen their parents struggle financially.

24:20So they're like, I don't want credit. They're a major aversion to credit. So even if they are credit worthy, they decide, you know what, I just want a debit card. I want the loyalty, I want the rewards, but I don't want the credit aspect of it. And that's perfectly okay. And then sometimes they might switch. Or then you've got these consumers that are like, before I make a decision on Yonder, I want to see what the product is actually like. And they pick debit because it's a low barrier to entry. And if they do like it, then they can switch to credit.

24:47Amardeep Parmar:So we are seeing that behavior as well. So one thing we're doing now, right? So we had Tim on a couple of years ago. So 200 episodes later, if we get you on again, we hopefully have like we're gonna have a rug soon we're gonna have like a tv on the wall here yeah i'm gonna play that dish right so it'll be in two years time what would you hope to say has been the biggest achievement in the past two years and then we'll play it back for you to watch when you come back on next time yeah so in two years time i would want us to have at least 500 000 customers maybe more um we would want to be in about seven to eight different markets

25:27and ideally we have another product line that's out for multiple consumers.

25:32Amardeep Parmar:Whereabouts are you now with users? We have about 60 ,000 to 70 ,000 users. So that's nearly almost 10x then. Awesome. So hopefully we'll see you back here saying how you actually got a million customers now in the next few years and we'll see how that works out. Hopefully it is a million. Yeah. So we're going to move to a quick five questions now. Yeah. So, who are three Asians in Britain you think are doing incredible work and just shut them out? I can't think of three. I can think of two. And the reason I can't think of three is because you've already interviewed most of them. You can say someone interviewed.

26:07Say someone interviewed, no problem. So, I'll call out two that you have it. So, James He. So, he is the CEO and co-founder of a company called Artificial Societies. They're doing great work in the space of AI, but around the lines of product testing. So if you think of doing user research and things like that, you can basically chuck your idea into a community of AI bots and then they can feed you back what they think of the products or the idea that you've done. I think it's incredible. I've got a soft spot for James because he was a direct report of mine where I onboarded him straight from Cambridge.

26:46So he's doing great work there. I think the other one is Prince Dure Raj. So he's the founder of the Tamil Prince, Tamil Crown and Tamiler. And I just, just watching his journey from going from one gastropub, that's also highlighting Asian flavors and then what he's done across there. And then also highlighting the fact that it's Sri Lankan. I think it's, it's pretty phenomenal. I think what I've known from him is like, he's relatively a very quiet guy. he just wants to get his work done and I can really I really admire that given that's what I want to do personally but I think yeah those are the two that I find incredible.

27:25Amardeep Parmar:I've heard so much about the Tamil Crown and the Tamil Prince, it's like I need to go and I think by the time this comes out we'll have announced it so next year we'll also be interviewing restaurant founders and consumer brand founders, we've been very much focused on tech products so far so if it's about and he wants to come on, I'd love to hear the story because he's created a brand that so many people love which is amongst our community it's quite hard to get a restaurant that so many people seem to be saying oh it's amazing and recommending it and they've done incredibly well there yeah and next question so if you want to find out more about you and yonder where can they go to yeah so i mean you can find me on linkedin i managed to work out how to actually change the the url so just go to linkedin.com and it's forward slash theseo that's t-h-e-s-o um and yonder is yonder.com we managed to get that website address and that's yonder y-o-n-d-e-r dot com like the word and if people listening now could help you in some way or help yonder in some way what could they do i would love for everyone to just go to the yonder site um have a look at the products and then see whether it's a car that excites you and then interests you and then and then sign up um if you have any questions at all about the sign-up process and anything like that as chief risk officer um i'm the one that helped built it so i'm more than happy to answer those questions you can dm me directly awesome so thanks so much for coming on and as the person who doesn't like being in front of camera i think you've done exceptionally well thanks any final words no and i really appreciate you um having me on here i think um it's true what you say like you make guests feel very very comfortable uh so props to you man and props to bay i think i've been following a journey since you started as well and it's incredible what you're doing for the aging community so congratulations on that.