#007: Samir Shergill - Raising Millions to Build the Next Generation of DTC Banking

I was management consultant for 3 years in New York, and it was like the smartest people in the most unhappy situation ever. And it's really interesting to me, like, looking back now, like, we were working 12, 14-hour days, whatever it might be. It was like a badge of honor, right? Because you're in this weird kind of like mindset the culture of the place has that says like, oh, this is what's expected. The reason I was miserable was firstly, I felt that we didn't need to be putting in these 12, 14-hour days. I didn't see the value of this. Like, we're doing— we're jamming on some deck that some 'SVP at some random company' to look at and do nothing with and put it aside. But equally, I've also been miserable at work where I've worked like 4-hour days. It wasn't almost a function of my happiness was not really correlated with the number of hours. It was, did I feel like the work and the hours I was putting in, I felt were driving something forward for me. And so when it comes to my own time, as long as I feel like I'm putting it in into the right set of things, I'm pretty happy.

Sameer Shergill is the co-founder and CEO of HighBeam, a neobank for fast-growing Shopify brands. They've also raised over $7 million in funding from some of the best early-stage funds in the country, including FirstMark Capital and Mayfield, among others. In this episode, we cover Sameer's real-time fundraising journey, why e-commerce brands have been largely failed by traditional banking options, and his internal decision process behind making tough decisions and taking a leap of faith to build HighBeam. Welcome back to episode 7 of the Turning Pro podcast. We have Sameer Shergill from HighBeam with us today. Thanks for joining us, Sameer.

Thanks for having me.

All right. I want to jump into the first question. We're going to talk about HighBeam and business for like the rest of this, but I want to start with the fact that Samir has two kids, young boys. And so I want to start with how do you map and plan your life with your family in mind first and then layer in business over it?

Well, the assumption there is I put family first, which is not—

I want, I want to invest.

I mean, I see this, I'm like, what's the chances? No, no, no. I think it's interesting. It's somehow it's easier doing it as a startup founder, which sounds weird because you have control. So I can do things like leave for an hour in the middle of the day to go, you know, take him to his soccer practice where he runs around or whatever. And like, I never could do that before. So while the time might be less, it's actually more quality time if you can kind of commit to it. The other thing I think is that because doing a startup, like you're so stressed for time so quickly. They just start doing things like, oh, I calendar every 30 minutes, which I used to think was ridiculous, but now you have to do it. So, but that means that I can actually slot in family time and actually be committed to it. So you almost like value your time more. So you end up being better at it, which is not to say that it's not tough, but like everything else that's not important kind of falls away. So from that standpoint, you know, I mean, not saying it's not tough, but it's not been as tough as I thought it would be. It was one of the big things 'cause I was doing a startup We just had Rohan at the time, who's now 3, and it was like, is this the right life stage for me to be doing this? And it was a big discussion point between us because it's a family decision at that point, right? And so it was very different than most founders at that life stage. But for me, it's been like, I also think I'm just happier. And so even though I'm more tired and sometimes the stress and ups and downs, but I'm just a happier, more kind of like present person because you have to be at work. And that kind of translates over to being better. Um, that's my side of things anyway. I'm sure my wife would have a different point of view maybe, but that's kind of how I think about it.

What about just in terms of like, I feel like there's an element of this, uh, forcing function around rigorous prioritization, right?

Right.

Because like for founders who don't have kids, right, we can kind of just fill in that free time with, I mean, in hindsight, things that really don't matter or like, right, are important. You have like other people to worry about. And so you can't really like mess around maybe the way some other unproductive founders do, where they like quantify, oh, I was so busy today because I sat on my laptop from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM. And it's like, okay, let's actually talk about the things you got done. You're like, wait, maybe I actually didn't do anything all day. For you, it's like, I know I have this window where I need to get things done because I have to go home to like my kids and my, my wife.

Totally. And I think it's also like you can kind of lie to yourself that you're being productive just by putting more hours in. So it's like if you have a certain amount of hours and you have to go do something else, like where do you recharge and where do you get kind of your mental energy back? And where do you kind of get the energy to go say, okay, now I'm gonna go be more productive and do this. You probably are better off doing 7 hours of like really solid productive work than like 12 hours of like grinding yourself to death. But like if you don't have something in that 5 hours that you have to do, you're not, you're probably gonna grind for the next 5 hours 'cause that's the most important thing in your life, right? So, Whereas because I have that 3 hours or 4 hours of family time I have to do, maybe it does force me to be more productive or it forces you to make ruthless prioritization that otherwise I wouldn't have to. I guess, you know, it's hard to prove one way or the other, but I think there is an element of that. Like, it's like what parts of your life outside of work give you the most joy? And do you actually make sure to put that in the calendar and do it? Like, I think a lot of, times people end up not doing it because they view it as like somehow not working hard enough or not wanting it enough. But I think in the long run, that's probably doing a disservice to your energy and your ability to actually do the job and be most successful. Right.

So I want to, I want to dig a little deeper on that, this notion of like quantifying success. I think for me as a, as a founder, I would say relatively earlier on in my career to a lot of other founders, I always got stuck in this notion in my own head when I would, when I made the jump to become a founder and I had friends in like consulting and banking, would talk about these 100-hour weeks that they were working. And there would be days where like, I just, you know, I didn't have anything else I had to get done that day yet. I would really struggle to like get up from my laptop, like step away from work and accept the fact that like maybe I only worked a couple hours this day. I'd be curious to hear in your own mind how you think about that quantification of success, both for yourself and also like the culture you've built with your employees. Like, are you tracking? You know, I need you to be working X amount of hours a week, or it's like, I don't actually care how you manage your schedule as long as we can quantify the output, or is it a mix of both?

No, it's a great question. And after business school, I was management consultant for 3 years in New York, and it was like the smartest people in the most unhappy situation ever. And it's really interesting to me, like, looking back now, like, we were working 12, 14-hour days, whatever it might be. It was like a badge of honor, right? Because you're in this weird kind of like mindset the culture of the place has that says like, oh, this is what's expected. Like, you just start out of business school, you're gonna work 14-hour days, and this is just what we do, right? Consulting has this, banking has this. But I don't think that— the reason I was miserable was firstly, I felt that we didn't need to be put in this 12, 14-hour days. I didn't see the value of this. Like, we're doing— we're jamming on some deck that some SVP at some random company is going to look at and do nothing with and put it aside, right? Like, what's the value of this 14 hours? But Equally, I've also been miserable at work where I've worked like 4-hour days because the company I worked at got bought out and I'm sitting around now working at AT&T for like the next year, right? And so it wasn't almost a function of my happiness was not really correlated to the number of hours. It was, did I feel like the work and the hours I was putting in, I felt were driving something forward for me. And so when it comes to my own time, as long as I feel like I'm putting it in into the right set of things, I'm pretty happy. And that's like quantifying me for success. Like of the hours I put in, if I look back, did I feel like I was working on the right set of things and I was like happy for that work to be put in? That's super, super key. The number actually is less important. And we made a decision right outta pandemic to be in person. And the reason we did that, which was counterintuitive to a lot of companies at the time, was I just didn't know how to build a company where we had the trust with each other in terms of not counting hours or, but just like, if we're not together working on this at this early stage and get to know each other and like kind of like really work on these things together, like how are we going to do it? I didn't know how to build a remote company. So we said, we're not going to do it, which is an interesting choice because in retrospect, like there's a lot of reasons to do it. A lot of successful people have done that. I just know how to do it. And so that's why like we don't have to deal with the problem as much of like, oh, how many hours this or that? Because we're all in person and usually, you know, we're pretty good with as long as we feel people are bought into what the outcome is we're working on it. So I think my perspective has changed on like what used to be a badge of honor that you worked 14 hours and this and that. Like that's kind of useless. The most important thing is like how outcomes obviously, but like, How engaged and productive and happy were you during those 14 hours? And I'll take 5 hours of productive work over 14 hours.

Yeah. I think separating out two things you're saying here, there's one, the ruthless prioritization and just pure productivity gains, which is important to say. If you're going to see your kids at 6:00 PM, you got to get stuff done faster. And that's important. But the lightness and the happiness portion of it is so important. Ben, you and I doing this on Friday for 2 days a month. This morning while I was sprinting to get work done, did I get it done faster? Yes. Was I stressed to come here sometimes? Yeah. But this makes me so happy. And then it allows me to show up in everything for the next week with I'm lighter, I'm faster to smile, faster to laugh. Something about working with Samir for the past, what, 6, 8 months or something like that, I swear, every— we have weekly meetings. Every time you show up on the Zoom, I'm like sprinting from thing to thing and then I get on and you're just calm. Every single time it's, hey dude, just with a big smile. And we get work done faster, a better working relationship because there's a lot of partners that I work with that are clearly stressed out of their minds and they're just trying to sprint and get stuff done. And it's like, I don't like working with you as much and we're not going to be as— we're not going to get as much stuff done together. So tell me more about that. Showing up with that lightness and that happiness.

Right.

It's, it's interesting because I think a lot of people assume that if you're not stressed, you're not working hard enough, and that if you're not stressed all the time, you're just not trying hard enough, because obviously if you're not stressed, it doesn't matter to you. Um, and I think that over time what I realized was I just— of course the stress exists and you have to kind of deal with it in effective ways, but it just doesn't help move things forward for other people if you show up stressed all the time. So whether with your team, whether it be whoever, like you have to communicate how you're feeling and it's important. Like this is what it is or isn't. But I never really had the personality to be like, oh, you know, I'm gonna scream and shout because this happened. That doesn't mean that you have to take action. Like if something's not working, you have to change it. You have to be decisive. You have to be, make decisions. You have to kind of like push forward, but you don't need to be a jerk. You don't need to be stressed about it all the time and project and be a, and ass about it. Like, I think that there's this false narrative that if you're not like this egotistical, kind of like stressed, I'm gonna break everything in my path, you can't be successful. And, you know, there's examples of people doing that and how you define success. But for me, it was always more about like, I want to do really interesting things that I find intellectually and emotionally challenging. And I wanna work with really smart people to go do that. That is one thing I think consulting taught me was like management consultants may not be, it's not for everyone, but they do learn how to internalize stress and hopefully push it out in productive ways because they have to, right? You're not going to scream at your client, right? You kind of learn that. So that's one skill probably I picked up from there as well. But I do think like I don't have patience for people that take out their stress on others because I view that as like a selfish activity. So I'm like, if you're screaming at someone, why? Just because you feel like you have the right to scream at them, no matter what the situation is. I just find that like, I don't want to be that person. I don't think it's productive in the long run. Like you might get that person to do something right away at that point in time, but chances are if you're building a long-lasting relationship, it's not gonna work. And so that's kind of like my mindset and how I kind of approach it.

Yeah. Can you, you've also held some like pretty serious, leadership positions even before Hyping. Can you give us a snapshot, like 2-minute version of from out of college until starting Hyping?

Yeah. Um, so out of college, um, went to work in Microsoft as a software engineer. Um, was there, like ended up leading a team, but left to go to business school. So went to HBS and then was at McKinsey for 3 years. So my probably most formative corporate experience though was at AppNexus. So AppNexus was an ad tech startup in New York. When I started it was about 100 people, when it got acquired it was about 1,000 people. And basically my, towards the end I was helping set up our international business, which was really fun because I got to go from country to country in Asia Pacific and LATAM and just open mini app nexuses. So it was, at the time I was single, it was like Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, São Paulo, Mexico City, Singapore, like, and just open mini app nexuses. And the team grew quite large, but it was like this startup within a startup, because you're opening new offices and each startup was different because you had some of the infrastructure from AppNexus to set it up, but it's in a different country. And I love that, right? Because business is different, culture is different, like, and so that to me maybe gave me an understanding of like what I enjoyed doing, because you get to do all these different things with different types of people. Like one of my favorite stories was like, we had enterprise deals with, you know, we're selling to like, let's just say Brazil's largest newspaper. And then we're going like this Japanese agency. And in Japan I learned like we had this big deal with Yahoo Japan and the deal kept going on week after week after week. And I realized it was because they were too polite and they kept saying yes in Japan, but really they were not convinced at all. And every week they'd come and say like, oh yeah, yeah, it's great. It's just a little thing. This is little thing. We could never get over that little thing. And it was like 2 months. And you compare that to Israelis where they'll come and like scream at you, but the deal is done the next day.

I'm an Israeli.

They'll scream, but the deal's done the next day, right? And so I love that. And I love the act of like understanding how different people think and how can you relate to people. And that's a large part of what came with HighBeam was I love our customer base. Like these are people that are brands that are building businesses and I get to interact with them. And that's the part, surprisingly for a tech company, that I enjoy the most. So I came from engineering and product and I like building things, but I love the, how do people, when they care about something, engage with you? So for me, and this is maybe a little bit of aside from that, is like working with people who care about what they're doing is the biggest unlock in terms of my satisfaction and my least satisfaction. So like, when I look back at consulting and why I hated it was the people that I worked with, not the consulting team itself, but the people we were doing the work for, the EVP, the SVP of this Fortune 100 company, they really couldn't care less. It was not important to them. They had their own political agenda. It wasn't important. If you can work with people who care about what they're doing, and we're fortunate that our customers care about what we're doing 'cause it's so important to them 'cause they're building their business, that's the real kind of like, part that energizes me and keeps me going, even though it's ostensibly a tech company, right?

But do you, do you think that notion of like doing the thing you care about, do you think that spills over into like the personal lives of people as well? Like I think about my friends who are bankers who objectively hate their life and will tell you they hate their life. Like I always wonder how much of that energy will like blur the lines for them and all the things they do away from work, personal, like health and wellness, fitness, etc. Like, do you find that because you have that mission and that like drive with your professional life that it's actually helped you to optimize in the other parts of your life in a way that you're like fulfilled and you enjoy it?

I think so. I think that it's interesting. My wife and I were talking about this the other day. Like, when I was unhappy in my professional life, let's just say, you know, in consulting or whatever it might be, it's not like you can compartmentalize that. If you're unhappy, you're unhappy, right? And so it's like, you're unhappy, you're unhappy. And it's the flip now is where there's a lot of trade-offs that she and my family have made in terms of like the amount of hours you work and, you know, the risk you take monetarily and all these things. But she said one of the underrated things she didn't realize was she thinks I'm just happier as a person and that makes me more present and engaged in other parts of my life. And I didn't even think about that when I was starting a company or wanting to do it. But I think you can't really, you can turn certain things on and off, but you can't turn off how you feel and how that makes you kind of act towards others and like all of that stuff. So I think that some people are better at compartmentalizing than others. I think people that work at hedge funds are very good at it. Like they have to like look at millions of dollars moving up and down and the stress of that as like an abstract. And so they can probably compartmentalize that very well. And that's why they're good at it. Like the best people I know at hedge funds look at it very academically. It's kind of like poker players, right? Like it doesn't matter if it's like a million dollars on the table. It's like you make the right decision based on the data you have. So those people, maybe they're better able to do it. Maybe the best bankers can do that, but that probably wasn't me. So probably there's a good reason why I'm not doing that. But I don't think most founders fall into that because they're actively choosing to pick somewhere where they're personally vested in the outcomes so strongly that my guess is for most of them, it does bleed over. I'm curious what you guys think, but I think that probably does.

I think one of the things I wanted to ask you about, I feel like some way, shape, or form, this, this little anecdote always comes up. I gave up I quit my management consulting job 12 hours before my first day.

Wow.

And I never went because I was like, I just don't think this is what it is that is for me.

Good for you.

But when you think about like this, and I'm curious, do you think it's a stigma or you think it's real where people like go work in banking or consulting for 2 or 3 years, like get that experience and then go on and do whatever it is that you want to do? I was the guy who was like, I feel like I can just try and go figure it out. And if I bet on myself, I'll always find a way to solve whatever that problem is. Like to the notion of would you rather bet on the entrepreneur who's reading about building businesses for 20 years, the one who's been building them for 20 years. So I never made it there, but I'd be curious, like, if you could go back, would you still go do the consulting for a couple of years and then start your company? Or if you knew from day one that you always wanted to be an entrepreneur, like you would just say, I'm going to jump in and try and figure it out.

Well, there's— I don't know if I want to be an entrepreneur from day one.

So that's, I guess, the second half of it is if you don't know, then maybe it is the right path.

I still don't think— I actually think I wouldn't do that right now. Like I would've gone and found another startup and maybe not been the founder, but gone and jumped in and learned at a startup. I think that, um, it's easy out when you don't wanna make a tough decision is to go do banking or consulting. If you can go do it, it's an extra stamp, makes you feel good. It's like, okay, this is what I'm expected to do. I'm just gonna go do it. It's like kind of like, it's like no-op that you're like, if I can go do this, I'm just gonna do this for 3 years. It's a way to defer a hard decision. But the reality is, is like, make the decision now. If you, and that's something I think I look back on is like, if there's a tough decision to be made, just make the decision. Like, don't lie to yourself and say like, oh, in 3 years I'll make the decision. Like really what you're doing is you're kicking the can down the road. And a lot of people like, you can lie to yourself for a long time. People end up with like 10 years in consulting lying to themselves. And they're like a senior director or partner and like, oh, I never liked consulting. Like, why don't you get out? And just like, well, every year I saw this thing and they got more money and this and that. And like, yeah, but you know, so I think that's part of it. And so if I had to do it again, I would not do consulting. I would try to expose myself to as many experiences as possible so that I learned what I love doing earlier. And that would be probably a startup where like seed stage startup where you are seeing how the sausage is made and kind of seeing all these different things and then you could learn more from that. I think I kind of lucked into AppNexus at a right time where I got to do a whole bunch of different things there and then learned what I liked and didn't like doing. But yeah, that's probably how I'd see it.

Can you, so the reason we call this podcast Turning Pro is because we're both obsessed with this idea of there's kind of levels of commitment of taking yourself seriously or taking a business seriously. There's not only starting a company, we've all started companies, but there's also a point after starting the company where you level up again and you kind of recommit and double down or take it even more seriously. And so were there specific catalysts? I mean, I've seen Highbeam grow over time, which is really cool to have like front row seat, but can you walk us through like any specific stages of, okay, I'm committing to this, raised capital, but then doubling down even more and maybe turning pro to a different level?

Right. Um, I think there's phases. I think that Part of it's like you have an idea and everyone has ideas, right? And like I had this idea that finance was mission critical to helping people build their business. They weren't getting the support they needed. And I felt really strongly that I could help with that. Now that's just a very generic, not generic, but it's just kind of a vision. It's not really based in reality of any sort. And then there's like different precipitating things that cause you to say like, oh, this is real. Like, you know, getting your first institutional funding round. Like, that's a big deal, even though it's like not necessarily directly related to the customer outcomes, but it's like someone's believed in you enough that, you know, we love our VC investors, but that felt like it's real now. Like, we've gotten this money, now we get to go build this. That was a big event for us. Like, our first large customer, when they moved their Shopify payouts over to Highbeam, and we saw the money hit our bank account, it's like, oh shit, this person trusts us with their, money in their company. And like, we saw that money come in and we were like, wow, that's kind of crazy. The first time we built the product where we had the banking rails and we were like moving money back and forth, like, whoa, this is crazy. Like there are those seminal moments and those are the parts, that's the part that you get when you build things, as you guys know, like that's, those are the highs, right? Where you're like, oh, this was great. And so I think that it comes in phases and as the company grows, I think the people that were along with you at those stages, that's what becomes kind of that foundation that the rest of the company builds on. And I saw this with AppNexus, like the first group of people that you built the company with and had those shared experiences together, those are the people that like kind of you want to keep, whatever analogies, go to war with or can keep kind of building with and on. And that, that's kind of why we do it, right? Those things that, those joint accomplishments that those activities, like for us now, for example, it's like, We want $1 billion of, you know, signed up customer, total annual sales or whatever it might be. And that seemed like an insane number. And now we're like, say at $500, $600 million or whatever it is. And I can see it there. And I see that moment will be a huge moment for the company, right? And that's like another level up now. So you don't know what those things are necessarily, but when they happen, you're like, oh wow. It's like almost like, this picture that you had is starting to come true. And that's kind of like why I guess for me, it's the fact that you get to do that with other people and the number of people grows. And I think when I talk to Brian O'Kelly, who was the founder of AppNexus, who I think is one of the smartest entrepreneurs and he's built multiple successful companies, He talks about like the fun stuff is also this earlier stage stuff where you get to be directly involved in the accomplishment of those. And as the company scales, you're more the one trying to put the right people in place to go do the work, to go do that. And it's like, that's, I'm very aware of the fact that this is a fun stage for the company where I get to be directly involved in the accomplishment of those things and on the ground doing it. And that may not, hopefully that won't be always the case, but that's kind of, a large part of like, oh, it's real because you're the one actually doing the work. Does that make sense? Yeah.

We've had a couple conversations, probably January-ish, February-ish, where I feel like both Verbatim and Highbeam were not hit our stride, but there was definitely a point where like, I feel like every week you and I would sync up and you're like, it's growing. And I'm like, yeah, it's growing. And then every week that would happen more and more. So like, tell me, there's definitely phases of any business, a season. Where it's kind of like one foot in front of the other. You can see the vision, it's working, but it's not this overwhelming surge. And we've talked about this being the default option in a space, and I won't pinpoint a date, but I feel like there was definitely a point where all of a sudden I started hearing Samir and Highbeam everywhere. And what was that like? What do you think contributed to that? What caused that?

The honest answer is I wish I knew, but I think that— So I'm going to do it again. Exactly. If I could figure that out. It's one of those things though, I think, where like you grind and you grind and you grind, and at some point it just seems like things come together because someone says like, oh, I heard about you guys. And I'm like, from where? I'm like, I don't know, someone XYZ told me or ABC told me. And it's part of us like getting critical mass on the number of customers and critical mass amongst the number of people that are talking to each other about you. But what I realized, like you can't really fake that. You have to like really do the work so that you have those first 10, 15 customers who love you and really believe in what you're doing. And then that starts to compound and you can kind of get to that point where it seems like an overnight thing, but it's because of all this other stuff that you've done. What the tipping point is and why that occurs, I don't know. I honestly still don't know. I'm like, there was no like one event that necessarily had it, but it just seemed like at that point, like, oh, Okay. My, my guess is it's something like this where you're trusting your financial partnership or your content marketing. It requires a high degree of trust, and trust usually is probably through one degree, someone having used the product, or at most two degrees, someone says that this is a good product. And so in spaces where that's important, you have to get to that first 10 or 15 customers and proof points, and then you suddenly hit this point where the network being as condensed as it is, everyone has wanted to be 2 degrees removed from you. And it's a good kind of like, you know, virtuous cycle.

I mean, you guys must obviously had a conversation previously, but the thing you just said that resonated with me is this notion of like the default product. Like if you're entering a space where that's the opportunity for you, product wins, right? Like if you can nail those first 10 or 15 and you actually give them a good experience and they're actually happy with your product, odds are, if you know you're directionally in the right area, everyone else is going to be like, oh, what do you use? What do you use? And if you have those champions, it just multiplies itself.

That's right.

And in a product-led company, like, that's how you win, is having a product where your customers are just bragging about it because it's, it's alleviated some pain point in such a meaningful way.

And we've talked about it before, but like, the fact that, for example, if Verbatim is creating a new category or type of offering, if you believe that the timing is right, which is as important as anything for this offering to exist, and there's no incumbent and you feel like you have a good shot at becoming that incumbent, that default option, now that's a huge position of strength. Like, look at Shopify, right? Like, if you're trying to build a competitor to Shopify, you're like, okay, you know, even if there's not huge network effects, still super hard for someone to break in because like, why would I choose someone else? Klaviyo, right? Like, sure, you can build a Klaviyo competitor, but like, they have a stranglehold on that right now, right? So for me, our thesis always was that within things are becoming more verticalized because software allows you to achieve scale that you otherwise wouldn't have to have in a services-led environment. So let's look at just e-commerce or restaurants, like a Toast, right? Or whatever it might be. Like, it's going to become more verticalized. And we saw like for finance, everything was still horizontal. Like there wasn't a vertical solution for e-commerce that was like the de facto default. There was a verticalized solution for email and for various marketing tools, even website on Shopify, but not for finance.

Why do you think that is?

So we get this asked all the time. It's like partly because the ability to— the hurdles were so high to start a bank or to start a credit provider or to do all these things that you would never bundle them into a verticalized solution. For us, think of it like AWS and tech startups. If you had to build all the servers from scratch, starting a tech startup would be like prohibitively expensive. But AWS comes along and now to build on top of that, suddenly, oh, whole new slew of startups. The financial infrastructure changed significantly in the last 2 years where people like Unit CurrencyCloud, software-driven fintech platforms that allow you to build vertical solutions started appearing for the first time. So we think we're the first wave really of being able to build on these foundational financial building blocks. So until now, software has been building on software building blocks like AWS, Google, whatever. Now you have the building blocks both in software and financial products that you can combine together. So I can build a banking solution and actually move the money for you, combine it with the software and do something new. Whereas before you'd have to go log into JP Morgan or Bank of America to go do it. And that's, I think, new and has been very hard to do. And so the fact those building blocks exist give us a window, and that's why I'm so excited about— like, we have to take that window. Um, I think you'll see more verticalized finance solutions because the underlying tech to do it is available for the first time.

I think— and this is coming from someone who's not an expert in the space, and you can tell me if I sound crazy— but my personal perspective on it is there's a lag time on anything related to do with money. Like, people associate money with safety, correct? And in our environment, safety is like the big bank, all these regulations, what's comfortable.

I don't want—

I don't want to like risk just putting my money in this new startup's like account and it's just going to disappear. I don't know what's going to happen. And so on the same note of it, for you, it's like if you're the one that can crack the code on it, you're gonna win because The outsized return is so large, but it's like, how do you, how do you come block by block and overcome all those hurdles, objections from customers, but also trust from regulators that you actually are qualified to do what you say you're going to do?

Totally. And it's really interesting. And we thought a lot about this when we launched the product was if you think about it's all of us based on trust, you're giving someone your money, right? So the reason banks used to have massive buildings was basically because it was how they built trust. Like, people would say, like, well, why do you trust this big bank? Well, look at the big building they have. That's why they did that.

A real thing.

That is exactly why they did it.

Did you know that?

They—

this is new information.

They would build, like, these— you go— when you walk into a bank, you know why it looks like a cathedral? Like, these vaulted ceilings and all that stuff? Because it's trust. Because they would have people walk in and say, like, oh, I trust this bank. They got this huge building. They got this thing here, right? This seems amazing. And so that's why banks invested these millions of dollars into that, right? And that's why If you're JP Morgan or Bank of America, that was the world you grew up in because you would walk into the branch and you have these huge buildings and it looks great. So what's the equivalent of that online? It's your product, it's the design, and it's the experience with the product. So you can't half-ass it and build like a glitchy, you know, beta and say like, but trust us with your money. Never gonna work. You have to have a product and experience online that is the same as that beautiful building. And so we spent a lot of time and effort in building that before we launched. And we, we, we invested in engineering and product as like our number one thing, which is sometimes different from a lot of people in kind of the fintech world because they're like, oh, we'll just throw this front end together and hack it and make it happen. Like, no, no, no, we're building that building online so that people trust us. And if you can do that, then you can start to build, feel like, oh, but that takes time, right? And you have to be very clear about what you're doing there. So it's an interesting kind of slightly different type of startup than a pure tech software startup because it has financial products involved, because it has that requirement of trust. But I really enjoy that. I like the fact that, like, we have to combine software and finance in a way that's going to change how people think about their money movement. Because why is it that essentially banking has not changed in 75 years? Like the same exact pipes, like ACH payments and wires. And this again, the weeds, like it's the same process since the '70s, right? Why does your wire only clear 9 to 3, right? It's crazy. There's reasons behind it, but a lot of it's the friction with trust and a lot of it's just because the tools to do it haven't been available. So we're in this window now where that's all going to change. I think in the next 5, 10 years, like what you think about as a bank is going to change. What you think about as Your advisor is going to change. All of these things that on the finance side were done through services like your accountant or your wealth advisor, or there's a reason that the trust was so important that it's so hard to say, like, I can't just build tech and take that away. Like, there's a reason that that trust is a core part of that value proposition. So we have to figure out, you know, baby steps. But that's a huge part of the business. That's slightly different than, you know, a regular tech startup.

Yeah, I think at the same time it's interesting to see— this literally happened to me last week where I was on like my HighBeam bank account for my business, or verbatim, and I was transferring money or setting up a recurring payment and it was done in like 2 seconds. And I was like, cool, because that's what I expected. Yeah, it's like premium experience. And I swear to God, literally the next thing that I had to do was send some like angel investment wire from my personal Citibank account, which I set up with my parents when I was 18 or whatever. And the session kept timing out on my laptop. I was at a WeWork in Williamsburg or something. It kept timing out and asking security questions. And I was like, geez, I literally just trying to send a wire and I couldn't navigate it. And it timed me out and it locked me out. And so I went to the local Citibank branch. And it's so funny because you mentioned these beautiful ceilings. If you go to the Citibank on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, it's a shithole. And you have to log in with your card and then people wait They tell you to wait for 30 minutes and no one's there and it's in this terrible building and you kind of come out of this haze and you're like, what is going on? Both the physical and the digital experience are terrible. And then you go back to using HiBeam and it's night and day.

Well, it's also like the structural reasons that that exists go around trust and regulation and all the stuff that's going on the banking side right now. There's reasons behind it and you have to have both, right? You have to have regulation and all this stuff, but they've basically built machines and businesses whose core purpose for existence is to meet the regulation and grow by basically ensuring that they are kind of like financially engineering their way to certain balance sheet metrics, whatever it might be, not through customer service, not through providing the right experience to customers. So if your fundamental business as a bank is not to provide your customer with the best possible experience, How can you survive for the long run? The answer is JP Morgan, or whoever it is, they've done pretty well so far. And there's structural reasons why. I just don't think that that's defensible in the long run. And there has to be a reorientation to like, as most businesses, like you go fat and happy and then someone comes along and says like, wait a minute, you're missing the big picture here, which is you are treating your customer like a hostage, not like a someone that's a customer that is you have the privilege of serving. What is going on here? And that's the part that I think both frustrated me as well as kind of got me really like, you know, interested in the space. But also, like, there's so many people that try to take advantage of that situation. Like these, in e-commerce, for example, there's all these like cash advance loans. And like, there's this asymmetry between the person providing you acting like it's a good deal, but they know it's not. They're going to suck out your cash flow. They're going to charge you 40% APR. They know it's garbage, but they're just going to do it and you're going to take it because you're like, oh, it's just preying on people. And that's the part that just so frustrated me. And like, and that's the part where I feel like Amazon, for example, does a great job of this, right? They know who they are. They're like, we're going to always operate in the customer's best interest. You may hit us, but we're always going to operate in the customer's best interest. We'll lower our prices. We'll do like— they have like the North Star. Our customer is going to come first no matter what. And because of that, I think they've built this massive, massive business, right? And so I think that I always think about like, what is our North Star? And like, are we actually going in? It helps you make decisions on a day-to-day. Like, we're just not going to offer this product because we think it's not transparent. It's not in the customer's best interest. We're not going to do it. So once you establish that, it just a lot of things become easier. Like we were talking about the high-yield account, right? Like, we could try to keep more of the spread for ourselves when rates go up. But we've decided that no, no, no, we're trying to operate in the customer's best interest. That's why we're here to make them more successful. And so we're not going to offer a credit product that doesn't make it clear what your APR is, we're not going to offer kind of like these other things, which, you know, sure, it has come to trade-offs, and it comes with revenue implications and all that stuff. But it makes it easier for the long run to say like, Okay, we know what we're building.

Yeah, I'm curious on your end, you're at a stage right now with Platter. Have we decided on the name Platter? Yes. All right. Um, that you're building like the infrastructure, the brand, core products right now. How are you thinking about that with the customer in mind?

The customer is really driving all of it, to be honest with you. I think for us, especially because the space that we're playing in, the challenge we're trying to overcome is distilling information. It's like information overload, analysis paralysis, and we're trying to be that middleman that can actually take like all of these things and bring it down into a simplified version of here's what you actually should be looking at and how you should be thinking about it. And so for us, it's, you have to be rigorous in terms of your communication streams with them. I think the, something a mentor told me a long time ago that really resonated with me is operating under the notion of knowledge versus belief. It's like thinking something versus actually knowing something. Um, especially when you're in the B2B SaaS world, like being able to actually drive data-driven decisions down to the name of a business or the messaging of a value prop or like an onboarding process. I think you need to be willing to be vulnerable. Like I have to be able to ask you the questions that matter and be willing to like hear the answers that are actually going to help drive the needle. Like we have our early customers that have been our champions since day one, who knew very well that we were building the plane while flying it, who'd be like, no, no, Ben, like that's not it. Like this is not how it needs to work. It should be like this. And I'm like so appreciative of those things and continue to like force that open communication with early customers to allow us to then get to a place where we can like hyper-scale with conviction across the board. Like we did our homework on this, this, and this. And so I feel comfortable that now like the masses will be receptive the way that like our early customers were.

That part about like, I love that being open to vulnerable or like admitting not knowing, because I think that also can come across nowadays as like everyone's expected to be like certainty, right? Like I know the answer. Whereas the truth is like most of the times people don't, right? And it's like if you're not admitting it to yourself that you don't know the answer and you're willing to learn, That to me is like huge, right? Because without that, people are just like always, you know, there's just blind spots and they're just like not going to change and they're not going to kind of build the right thing and they're not going to build the right business because they're just like, no, no, no, I know the answer, right? And so I think being vulnerable and being like admitting that, look, I don't know the answer, but I'm here to learn. I'm going to try to figure it out. I— that's huge. And I feel like people that I'm really respectful of, people that like actually do that, like one of the questions I always think about is like, what opinion have I changed recently? Right? Like everyone, I'm probably wrong about multiple things, but like, have I actually learned something and changed something about an opinion about something? You know, we were talking maybe like poker players do this, right? Like they change their opinion on the strength of their hand as data comes in all the time. That's what they do. You know, hedge fund kids do this. Like, but what do I do in my day-to-day life that I've changed my opinion on something? If I haven't, It's probably because I'm not, you know, doing something right. And I don't think enough people think about it that way. Like, also everything's so polarized and everything is just so fraught with like, you know, tension on things. And like, it's like, no, no, I could be wrong. Like, I can— let me learn. Let me figure this out. I think that's it. I'm curious, like, if you guys think that way as well, like, or like how you approach trying to understand and change your opinion on things and if there's examples recently where that's actually happened.

Yeah. I mean, I can just speak to, so many of you have Prince who was on this podcast, episode 1, I think episode 1.

It was episode 1.

Factor Quality, we've been working with everbatim on the content side. And we work with Prince, their founder. We work with their head of revenue and we sync with them every week and they're very much almost quasi co-founders of kind of our new direction because it happened inadvertently. We've always been friendly, but there's a certain point where you kind of put all your cards on the table and you not just become friends, but you proactively ask feedback even though it's really awkward at first. And I remember I was talking to Andrew, their head of revenue, and Prince. I was like, honestly, guys, we're debating doing these two offerings, which is useful for you? Literally, how would you build this and walk us through it? And are we doing it wrong? And I think they took a step back and they were like, yeah, I think you guys are doing it wrong right now. Here's what I would do, and this is our willingness to pay for it. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, you were a customer of ours and you were telling me exactly how to price this and exactly how to structure this. And they were like, yeah, perfect. If you build that, this is what we pay.

And here's the invoice for my consulting services.

Exactly.

Um, and it was the most valuable session every week that I look forward to.

Um, And wait, wait, I thought High Beam was the most valuable session to look forward to.

Now we can only talk about Arsenal because I can't believe I didn't know that.

I know, you know, this is gonna be the biggest drain on productivity is now we're gonna spend 20 minutes talking about Arsenal and like 5 minutes about work.

I'm so excited for our next session. Seriously. That's crazy that we didn't know that.

No, I interrupted you. Go ahead.

But no, no, it was just like, to your, to your point of like putting, not just putting one card on the table, we're thinking about going in this direction. 'What do you think?' Fully level setting. I mean, even working with Ivy now, you know our revenue, you know what will take us to the next level. And now even working with you guys, because we bank with you, I feel like even you and I, even over the past few weeks, have a new level of like, 'Hey, we are very much on the same page now,' and we can speak freely about, 'What do you think will take us to the next level?

Because you know our revenue and you know what it's going to be.' But I think like if you want to actually grow, you need to be willing to have those conversations. And I think the other piece of it is you have to be diligent about actually forcing yourself to reflect and figure out the areas where you might change an opinion or might change a perspective. Because it's also very easy to just like go through the motions and wake up 6 months later and think to yourself, wow, I haven't really course corrected in any way because I've just been so caught up in my everyday.

Totally.

But nothing has evolved or improved. I think One, uh, opinion that I've had shift over the last couple months, maybe controversial, maybe not. I used to have this association in my head that like a big title or a lot of money was directly correlated with the person's knowledge base. So like I would get in a call with someone who's like the head of this or the VP of this, and I wouldn't say certain things because I didn't want to offend them or insult them, or they'd look at you and be like, yeah, of course, obviously I knew that or whatever. And then when you start to talk to these people, when you're like dry building the business and it's the opposite, I'm thinking to myself, I cannot believe how much money you're getting paid and the position you're sitting in for how little you know about the thing you're actually supposed to be doing. That's, that's like an opinion that I've completely shifted on lately, which I think is honestly just given me confidence as an operator myself that like I don't need to be making as much money as this guy or need X number of years in these positions to be able to actually like compete, whether that's in business or something else.

Well, that's why I think that kind of going full circle, we were talking earlier, like being in a startup and it forces you to have that mindset because without that you're gonna fail. Like your business is not gonna succeed if you don't, if you're not vulnerable, if you're not, you will not build a successful business. But so that forces you to have that mindset where you're open to learning, open to change. And that won't be just the startup world, it'll be in your life. And to me, that's the exciting part, right? Which is like, so therefore you as a person now are more open to learn from different types of people. You're more open to talk to different types of people, you know? And that is, you know, for me, the most rewarding part about when I meet someone new who has nothing to do with me. Like I used to, you know, when I was in business school, you meet a lot of bankers and consultants and like, that's usually very boring. With the same type of people, but you meet someone who's an artist, right? And their worldview is just so different from mine. I value my rationality as a way to approach the world, and they might not. And they view me as being this, like, well, that's just such a sad way to live. What matters is how you feel, which is fair, right? That's the end of the day what matters. But when I talk to that person, I'm like, wow, that was something new. I did not get that before. And so how do you expose yourself to that stuff. At work, I think running a startup is the best way to expose yourself to that by far. And I'm fortunate to do it. I still think about in my rest of my life, I don't have that much time now and other things, but how do you expose yourself to that? And that's where most of the really interesting conversations in life and everything come from that sort of stuff. Have you talked to someone that was fundamentally different in terms of your worldview? I don't take it personally. We might disagree on things, but how can you— and I feel like nowadays it just seems like that is more fraught than ever. And it's, I don't know if you guys feel this way, but it's like you end up like this kind of groupthink around like all our people, we talk the same or we think about stuff. And that's where maybe also international travel for me was like super, super helpful because people have different like norms and think of things differently. I'm curious about how you guys think about that.

And if, um, for me, I think a big thing is being intentional about doing different things away from work. So like trying new things forces you to go down a new rabbit hole of curiosity, whether that is talking to people, learning new perspectives, seeing how you react to certain things. One of the things we've talked about a lot, like I woke up one day and decided to run the New York City Marathon. Like I never ran, I never ran before.

Right.

Um, there were so many parts of that experience outside of the actual running that like opened up my eyes, that like got me thinking about certain things. And so I think I'm at a point now where like work is like one thing that stays consistent and like, I know what I'm building. I know what I'm working on. I'm going to use the other window of time to like try new things to force myself to grow and learn in other ways where I can just like pick something up and put it down and pick something up and put it down. Cause you're not going to like do that with your company. Of course.

Yeah. Wait, tell me more about, um, like creator side of things. It's interesting because if it was anyone else that I, uh, saw they're doing podcasts and they're doing like creator stuff on the side and YouTube and vlog stuff, like whenever we're catching up, You're somewhere else doing some like creator-focused, um, and it's not just a hobby. It's a priority. It's important for you. Um, anyone else, I would be like, damn, they're not working on their company. And with you, I'm like, I know he's grinding right now because if he's taking time for this stuff, he is showing up. And like, tell me again, it's not balance, but it's like, I need these things to execute and do better and show up at work. Tell me more about that.

So I actually had a conversation about this yesterday with someone. Um, I think for me, I always have— I have a creative outlet in my mind, like an itch that I always need to scratch. And sometimes you'll meet someone who might call it distraction, someone might call it hedging. Like, objectively, an investor in a business is going to be like, if you're not spending every second of your day on this, then like your business isn't as good as it can be or isn't where it needs to be or whatever. Um, but my perspective on that is like, that's not the right relationship for me because at the end of the day, like, you're, you're just trusting that I'm gonna get done what I said I'm gonna get done. And it's not really— it doesn't matter how I do it as long as I do it. Like, there's obviously levels to that, but I think for me, that creative outlet is so important for me. Some people, they choose for their activities or their hobbies or the things they do for fun to be like, you know, go to the bar and like just lay on couch and watch Netflix or whatever. Like, the me doing anything in like the content world, the creator world, that's my like outlet. I need to do things creative. I need to be able to stimulate my brain. Look, I'm very passionate about the company I'm building, but like, if it wasn't that, I'm going to be like exploring something else creative. Like there's, there's confines in terms of how creative you can be when you're building a SaaS company.

Sure.

And so for me, if I don't do that, I feel like I just get stuck thinking about it, which actually makes me unproductive in other ways. I've found now that I'm more productive than I ever have been, despite the fact that I'm doing more things than I ever have. Because I'm so motivated by it. Like, I'm so— I'm more energized now than I ever have been. I have to be very good with how I manage my time, but like, I wake up in the morning excited to like do the things I'm doing because the array of opportunities within the confines of what I'm working on is endless, which is what makes me happy.

Yeah, see, we just watch Arsenal on weekends.

Exactly, exactly. It's like— but what I'm curious, like, what do you find gives you energy? Like, in that? Like, I, I really find it interesting, like the more you do, the more energy you have almost, right? Like, so what things give you energy that makes you feel like, oh yeah, that was, that was, that was great.

So I would say the first driver of it is curiosity. So like when I'm curious about something, the ability to actually go after whatever that curiosity is, is exciting to me. And then I think the other thing is I'm so fascinated by like leaning on others as a forcing function to try things or think about things that I maybe wouldn't have myself. So what I mean by that is like meeting someone who's interesting, who wants to do something, right? I'm like, I never even thought about doing that. Like, I made the comment to you before that I just ran a 5K on the F1 Austin track, right? It's like a very random thing, but I would have never like woke up one day and be like, you know what, like, I want to figure out a way to go run a 5K on the F1 Austin track. For me, it's— I'm a relationship person. I love being able to like tap into other people's curiosities and passions and get like a glimpse of it because I also have been someone from, uh, an early phase of my life. And Gary Vee is the person who said this that really resonated with me, but like, I prioritize experiences over everything, right? Like, I think money is great, but it's like, if I could have, you know, $100 million at my age or this laundry list of experiences and opportunities— like, I'm confident that the money will take care of itself if I continue to stay the course and work hard. But like, there's not that flexibility to do certain things goes away when you have, you know, a family and kids and whatever. And so right now I'm very much focused on like being able to like do the things that I'm curious about. Like, I, I have so many friends who will see things that I do and they'll be like, wow, that's so cool. Like, I wish I could do that. I'm like, what do you mean you wish? Just like go do it. And I understand there's barriers sometimes, but I think so many people get stuck like longing to want to do things and they'll never actually take the leap of faith because that uncomfortable period is so scary to them. It's back to what we were talking about before about leaving banking or leaving consulting. Like, why don't people do it, there's an unknown to it and they don't trust themselves to figure that thing out. And so I think what allows me to be this way is like, if you don't trust yourself, no one else is going to trust you. Yeah.

Wait, Samir, I'm curious, when you were traveling, I mean, similar to your creator outlets, when you were traveling around the world, like you were working, but I'm sure you also had like just a ton of experience in Mexico or Singapore or wherever it was. Um, I'm curious, how did you change fundamentally as a person? Because those experiences will change you, even if you're there for a couple weeks or months at a time.

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I, I think that it's, you learn about what you take for granted in your own life and examine that because people have different views on that, right? So it's like how people view work-life balance in Latin America, it may be very different than Japan, right? And not good or bad, one or the other, but it forces you to examine like, what do you want outta life? They're like, yeah, I go to work, but like what's most important to me is my family and friends. And I get to go live this life where I spend this many hours. And you're like, you're like, wait a minute, is that what I want? Is how does it, it forces you to like reexamine your own assumptions because you're coming from a place where everyone else is kind of like you in terms of like their expectations, what the society expects of them and all these things. And so when you travel internationally, like those get challenged, first of all. I think people also are much more open to talking to outsiders. So it's easier to talk to someone who's not from— I love Japan. It's one of my favorite places. Um, but Japan in some ways a very insular society, but you are always an outsider there. So in a way it's easier for them to talk to you and for you to talk to them because it's almost like it's so far apart. So when they're talking about, you know, the need and how they feel a sense of belonging to their company or community and what the expectations are and how that drives you know, why they stay for a lifetime at a certain company, all these things. It's like, it's really interesting because it comes back to then, where do you draw your identity as a person from and your sense of responsibility and all these things? And you know, you don't think about that, but then you're forced to now. And so you kind of examine your own self and say like, oh wait, maybe I should think about it this way or that way. It's kind of like people are, you know, people are patriotic 'cause they're born somewhere and they just like through dint of that, they're like, oh, I love this. And sure, there's not that there's not to love, but like, if there's different models of how to exist or live out there, if you're not gonna listen or think about it, at least you're not, you're doing yourself a disservice. And so, and actually business school for me is that as well. Like I was engineer and all I dealt with was engineers. And again, there's this groupthink about how you approach things. And then the good thing about business school was like you had people that were like fighter pilots in Iraq that came and were like, you know, now in business school. So you were talking to a person I would never interact with. And getting their point of view and their worldview, that's the stuff that you're like, oh, interesting. And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about. Like, that's the stuff that I felt like helps you yourself challenge your own assumptions and forces you to learn. Otherwise, I think my problem was I can get comfortable and I can just coast. And I have to constantly push myself to not coast and be comfortable and put myself in uncomfortable situations. And the more you put yourself in uncomfortable situations, the more you grow. And startup is by definition always uncomfortable. And so that's kind of why I like it in some ways. And when I've been most miserable is when I've been the most comfortable. Because I'm just like doing the same thing over and over. And so like towards the end of engineering at Microsoft, it was great. I love these people. Like, but I was just doing the same stuff over and over. And I was just like, you know, it's too easy. I'm not learning. And it sounds like, you know, obviously it's a first-class problem to have, well-paid, you're not doing much. But like, I was miserable. And it's the same thing, I think, which is like what I kind of think I love now about the startup is like you're always uncomfortable. There's always something. It's always like pushing you. Because if you stand still, you're dead. So you have no choice. Like, you know, what is it like your default? Are you default alive or default dead? Like until we're default alive, it's you got to keep changing. And that's kind of, for me at least, like forces me to keep learning and that keeps me happier. Probably.

If you crave the uncomfortableness or can withstand it, I think, I mean, I think just at large, the people who can are definitely going to be the people who are more cultured, who have more experiences, who have more of their own personal perspectives. Because when you get stuck in this monotony, you're not like, you're not doing new things, you're not trying new things.

And it's your point about experiences, right? Like, what is the driver for that? Like, when you experience something, it's like putting yourself outside of your comfort zone to learn something about yourself, like running a marathon, like I don't know what that is, but like, sure, I'll try it. Like that openness, I think that's super important, right? And I feel like a lot of times people would benefit just from being forced to do more of that. Like, you know, go outside your comfort zone, like meet people you wouldn't otherwise talk to. Like, you know, go talk to someone with different religious or political beliefs. Like I feel like that's the sort of stuff that if you do more of, that's the, to me, the interesting stuff.

What's something that you've done lately outside of the work environment that you would say has put you out of your own comfort zone?

So one thing we did, like, I was very much a crypto skeptic when crypto came out and still am. But, you know, I was like, let me approach it with a kind of like plain, you know, let me understand a bit more about here. And so within crypto, I was even more skeptical of the NFT space a while ago. And so for my cousin, this is random, but he knew Kate Moss, the supermodel. And so we did a, we built an NFT with Kate Moss and we launched it and we sold it and we did this whole thing. And so we went through this whole process where it was like really interesting and we didn't make a ton of money or anything. And we learned a lot. And, but I came out on the other side saying like, you know what, I don't know exactly what, but there is something interesting here. And there are people that are doing interesting things. And I don't know exactly what it is, but it was like, I could have just sat on the sidelines and said, like thrown my like shade at the situation. And I'm not saying I'm a convert or anything, but you know, let me go in and try it. And it was just like completely random conversation. My cousin who runs an ad agency, like he happened to be connected and he was like, yeah, you know, she's been hearing about all this NFT stuff. I'm like, oh, let's do it. And so we did it. We did like over the course of a month, she shot a couple of videos. We, you know, put it on, we kind of like sold it. And that was interesting to me. So that was my like brief foray into crypto NFT, but like stuff like that. I feel like is kind of what you were saying about delving in and learning about something. How do you do that in a way that's not just sitting on the sidelines? I think everyone has opinions on everything. A lot of times there's something that someone told you. A lot of our opinions are distilled from, oh, someone said this, or you heard it on Twitter, or whatever it is, but you haven't thought deeply about it. And that comes all the way from I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm saying like all the way from like religious beliefs to political beliefs to like, is this right or wrong or whatever? But like, I'm just always skeptical of that unless you've actually done the work yourself and being honest with yourself about like, do I just believe this because someone told me this or actually I've gone and done it and understand it? And I think that that's the part where the more— it's hard because you don't have time and you, you know, you have to do these things. But like the more you can find those moments, That's the stuff that is exciting, I think. And I was thinking about this the other day. I think that the reason I love founders in general of startups, or our customers are all founders, is because they default towards doing, not complaining. In life, there's this spectrum on doers and complainers, and a lot of it's a question of agency. Do you feel that you have the control and ability to impact things and so you can go do things? Or are you just going to sit back and say, "I'm a victim of my circumstance, I'm going to complain." I'm not saying that there's right and wrong to both sides. Sometimes you can't do it. But most startup founders are, for the most part, their mentality towards doers. They think that they can change things. They think they want to do it. They want to happen. And that's who you want to surround yourself with. If you surround yourself with complainers, you're going to end up being a complainer. That's the reality. And a lot of large companies, even my friends at Google or Facebook, super smart people, like same as I used to be, they're just complainers. They just complain all the time about like, you know, this or the system or that. And like, I'm like, I just don't wanna live that way. And so I don't know, that's part of the kind of like unforeseen benefits of turning pro or doing a startup or whatever is I think that's a large part of it. And that having done both sides, I think that's, The biggest benefit I see of kind of the things we're doing now. Yeah.

I think at the end of the day, you need people that can kind of like poke holes in your fabric of reality or poke holes in like the bubble that you live in or the routine that you're stuck in. I mean, even us becoming friends, like that's definitely poked holes in like what I think running a startup could be like the creator and athletic stuff that you do on the side. I mean, even doing this right now, like this I would've never done had we not met. I think having people that make you uncomfortable, but really just like pattern interrupt. Like, hey, this is a different way to be running an early stage company. And also having people that, it's funny, my, um, a buddy of mine, and we'll name him, um, had a friend over. We were like watching a movie. We were watching Pulp Fiction a couple weekends ago and he came over and he's a senior software engineer at Google. Nicest guy possible. And we were chatting and he, he's like, works like typical, like 9:30 to 4.

Yeah, exactly. With 2 hours of lunch in between.

He was, uh, It was like that meme about like what your unemployed friend doing at like 2:00 PM on a Wednesday. And it was funny, we were talking, he was like, I told him all about Verbatim and what I was doing. And he was like, all he got from that was like, oh, you were in venture before. He goes, yeah, venture capital. It seems cool. And I was like, this is a good pattern interrupt of what I don't want to be or the people that I don't want to be around. But at the same time, the flip side is, um, like my girlfriend's very much an artist at heart. Right. And so is my mom. And sometimes we'll be home. And my dad and I are both like entrepreneurial, very Type-A focused, and we all go on walks together after work. My dad and I are just trying to get everyone along and like we're moving, we're moving fast. We're all trying to walk to the gym. My dad and I are talking business and he runs a consulting shop too. And my girlfriend and my mom are 2 minutes behind staring at this tree and they're like, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. This can become an art piece and we can recycle this this way. And again, my dad and I, drives us crazy sometimes, but like, that those pattern interrupts are so valuable. And whether it's you or something that you don't want to be or someone that you do want to lean into, I think it's the most valuable thing.

It's a random aside, but like, do you find with your significant other or relationships, like, having a difference in those two things is actually helpful? Like, and how does that play out? And like, does it change your mindset when it comes to work or other things like that?

100%. I mean, having someone to, um, I think just having someone that— I mean, you're married, girlfriend, it's different. But having someone that you want to build something bigger than yourself with. I feel like before meeting Karina, who's my girlfriend, it was always Adrian. It was always me and my friends and my family. And now it's what can we build bigger than either one of us and build towards that? And so anytime, even though I'm dedicated to what I do. I love what I do. I think we can all say about that with our companies, but now there is something that will always be above that, that we are working towards. And it's not just a future goal, but it's a daily lifestyle of like, hey, this is how I want us in our relationship to show up together. Sometimes that doesn't mean working like 8 to 9, what we were talking about before. Like, hey, reminder, maybe that doesn't fit in the relationship that we want to build towards.

I think having— there's, I think there's certain values within the confines of the relation— a relationship that I want to be similar, and then there's definitely some where I don't want to be, right? Like, I think the, the one that's like, uh, like important for me is independence, uh, curiosity, and like motivation, right? Because like those can be channeled. You don't need to like build a software company and like stay up all hours of the night like working on it the way that I do. But you need to have passion towards something. Like, what I don't want is for you to just like sit at home all day and just like go through the motions, like what we've kind of talked about this entire time. But with that being said, I do want to be able to have someone where I don't have to— like, I can actually stop talking about business, like at the end of the day, because admittedly I'm terrible at that. Like, we always talk about the notion of how a lot of my business friends have blended into like my personal friends that I spend my time with because it intellectually stimulates me. But there are a few people in my life who couldn't have this conversation, which is actually like the biggest blessing because when I'm with them, I don't.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like you want someone you have like a— there's like the Venn diagram of like there's overlapping things that are important to both of you that are non-negotiables that without which it won't work. But you have to be different enough and kind of challenge each other in different ways that that's part of the benefit of being with someone. You can't be with yourself. Like, that's like the worst. Like, it's a complete narcissist. You're like, you know, like you're like, I want— I'm the mirror image of myself and that's the person I want to spend time with. You're like, that's pretty— that's like not a good—

that is the definition of narcissism.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Anyways, I think we're— I think we're good.

Perfect. Samir, or good as in like—

no, we can probably wrap up.

Okay, cool. Samir, seriously, this was fantastic. Thank you for coming on. I've known you for almost a year, but like, yeah, we got to do more of these in-person hangs. We'll have you on in what, a dozen episodes or something? We'll have you back for round two.

I'd love to. And I'd love to hang out, you know, outside the confines of a podcast as well. Now that we know we're Arsenal fans, we should always see a game or something. We should do something.

Who would have thought? Can you talk into that camera and tell them briefly what is HighBeam? How can they find you?

Yeah, HighBeam is a banking and finance platform for online brands. HighBeam.co or just email me at Samir, Samir@HighBeam.co.

Love it. Thanks for having me on.

Thanks, dude.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.