Found Live featuring Tala founder Shivani Siroya

What's up everybody? Welcome to Found Live. I'm Jordan Crook and I'm here with Daryl Etherington and Tala's Shivani Saroya. And we are very excited to be, to be joined by Shivani and also just to be joined by you. We don't often do the Found Podcast live. Uh, but we're here and we're doing it. And the cool thing about every 2 weeks, to be clear. Yeah, but I mean, it's new still, right? Like, it's not—

we're still really early into the, the— I just want people to show up every 2 weeks, so I'm just reminding them.

They should. Yeah, it's not like we never do it, which isn't what I said. So don't blame Darryl for being nitpicky. He wasn't feeling well yesterday. It's fine, we'll get through it. Um, the cool thing here is we're gonna record this podcast live Found is all about the stories behind the startups. And we're super, super lucky to have Shivani here from Tala because what a cool story. From everything I know, I can't wait to hear the rest of it. But from what I know, it's a really, really cool company. Some just housekeeping notes before we get started. So you are live right now watching us on whatever platform you've chosen, YouTube, Twitter, wherever else it is. If you click the link in the caption, you can come over to Hopin. The reason you might want to do that is because if you register for free and come over to Hopin, you can actually chat and ask questions with us live. So we're there, we're watching it. And if you have questions for Shivani or for us or whatever, you can actually be a part of this podcast conversation. So I think that's a pretty good deal. So if you're interested in that, go and click on the Hopin link and register.

Yeah, it's great because we've had people in the past ask questions that I didn't think of and that were better than the questions I came up with. Maybe not better than Jared's questions, I don't want to presume, but, you know, they were better than—

No, no, I mean, there have been some really, some thought-provoking questions that have come from the audience, so I think it's fair to say that they could beat me out, especially today. Like, I'm not feeling my best.

Are you not?

I think you've I think you gave me something digitally.

So Shivani, to be— this is— we— I should address this now. It's been referenced multiple times, but yesterday I was like, oh, I feel awful. I just woke up feeling awful and super weird, and I was very concerned that like, uh-oh, I did it. I finally got— I finally got COVID. Like, I so far, knock on, I guess, particle board, whatever my desk is made of, um, I haven't had it, but Uh, yeah, I just felt really weird and loopy yesterday, but today I woke up feeling super fine. So then I took a rapid test that I happened to have on hand, and it was like all clear, A-okay. So it's just one of those things where now it's like every time anyone's sick, people are like, uh-oh, do I have this thing? I don't know if you've had that experience yourself, but it adds a level of panic.

I do, but then I took— yeah. I guess I— so I also never got it. But I always think of it as prior to COVID, I traveled a lot for work internationally and also domestically. And so I got a lot of germs. So I always think of it as like, I don't know, colds are good. We should all just be fighting something a little bit so that we can build our immunity. That's true. That's a good strategy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're three never covids in this podcast.

Wow. Well, that's for us.

But yes, I think we know. I'm like maybe we shouldn't keep talking about it.

No, I know.

Not invited.

I'm testing. I'm testing the universe right now. Bring it. Okay. Well, cool. So should we? Should we bang it out? You guys ready to podcast? I feel like we've given the people time to get over to hopping if they want to.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And like. Yeah, thanks for everybody for joining us. I think you got this amazing behind-the-scenes peek. You got to hear about our brushes with COVID illness, I guess. Our COVID feelings. Yeah.

Oh, and also, I do want to address for the live audience, and probably should during the podcast at some point, that they are doing construction downstairs, and I have no control over it. So if you hear thumping or anything, I mean, we're live.

This is live.

That's what happens when you're live.

We're real people, and this is live.

Anything could happen.

Yeah. You should see the mess surrounding me too. I mean, it might look pretty behind, but no, it's chaos. Great. Well, if everyone quickly knocks on wood, so no COVID, because you guys definitely just jinxed yourselves. Um, if we're feeling ready to go, we can have Found Live recorded in 3, 2, 1.

Hey, and welcome to Found Live. I'm your host, Darryl Etherington, and I'm joined by the rainbow to my pot of gold, This is a cool one.

Oh, I love that one.

I know, because we're breaking with tradition. It's not actually related to our guest today.

It's related to the day it is, even though the podcast doesn't come out on St. Patrick's Day. So you're kind of—

I don't know what— when St. Patrick's Day is. I'm following by—

I think it's today.

This is Maggie's cue.

It is today.

It's today. And I love— I am a rainbow. There's a rainbow behind me. I'm super gay.

It's perfect.

And you are a pot of gold. I'm so blessed to have you in my life, Darryl. And my name's Jordan, by the way.

Yes. Yeah, and we've got Jordan here, of course. So very exciting this week, we're doing a live recording of Found. Found, of course, TechCrunch's podcast where we talk to the founders behind the startups and get the whole story. And it's, you know, a terrific, in-depth look at people's founder journey, and not everything that you would hear just from reading an article, right?

Mm-hmm.

So we do this every other week, and then next Thursday, so in between our shows on Thursdays, you can hear Equity live. So please come back and do that. That's our other podcast here at TechCrunch. And if you're watching this on Twitter or YouTube, that's great, that's fine, we love you, we want you to do that as well, but you should come to Hopin, which is the platform that we use for interactive elements here. So that means you get to ask your questions of our founder, live on the show. So you can go ahead and find that either in the description, or pinned on Found and TechCrunch's Twitter, and you can register for free and come in to hop in and join us here. And I also want to remind folks today, before we get into the episode, that coming up, we have one of our marquee events. So Early Stage is coming up on April 14th. That is the ultimate educational resource for startups. There's legendary experts in fundraising, marketing, and operations there sharing their insights and tactical advice. Every session has tons of time for like a live Q&A. And it's our first in-person event since the start of the pandemic. So we're very excited. I'll be there. Jordan will be there. You probably don't care about that as much as the guests who are awesome. And, you know, they actually know stuff. Me and Jordan are just there to ask questions.

All the other people will be there too, not just like the speakers, but like other founders will be there. That's right. I don't know if like, if you haven't been doing the in-person something thus far, then this is cool because you can go and like meet other people.

Yeah, and great way to get back into the swing of things.

Yeah, I'm so sick of my current group. Like, let's get some new faces in here, right, Dale?

Yes, I only love my dogs now.

That's all.

We also have a special deal for people tuning in today. So this is related because it's another great place for startup advice. And resources. That's TechCrunch Plus. That's our subscription product. And we're gonna give you an offer for 25% off a subscription. So you get deep dive interviews there with startup founders and investors, you get market surveys, you get all kinds of things. You can subscribe to TechCrunch Plus at techcrunchplus.com. And if you're already on TechCrunch, if you're doing a dual screen or whatever, just go follow any links for TC Plus, and you'll get a prompt to subscribe. And you can enter the code for that 25% off. That's FOUND, the name of this podcast. And just do that while you're checking out and then you get the discount. All right, Jordan, let's get on with the show.

Yeah, you covered a lot of ground there. I was actually just slacking.

Oh, I thought you were subscribing.

Yeah, I get the discount. No, I was, I was Slacking that we should probably do like some of these promos at the halfway mark because it just feels like so much. People, all people really give a shit about right now is hearing Shivani talk.

So people get more excited.

We paused that for too long. Yeah.

But go like, who's our guest today, Jordan? Tell us.

Our guest is Shivani Saroya from Tala.

And, uh, hi everyone.

What's up, Shivani? Thanks for being here. Thanks for sitting through all the promos.

That was— yes, I know it's probably not pleasant for you, but we You got to tell the people, though.

Smiled through it all.

Yeah, you did. You put on a brave face. So can you maybe launch us in for folks who don't know, which— what are they doing? Why don't they know yet? But just in case they don't, why don't you tell people high level what Tala actually does and is?

Sure. So what Tala is, is a financial services platform. That works through an Android application that allows anyone in the world that is underserved by financial institutions to receive access to credit, to be able to save with us, to be able to spend with us. And so it's really a holistic financial services account that is really designed for the global underestimated.

Great.

Underestimated.

I like that. That's a good— because I've heard underserved quite a bit, but I've never heard Underestimated use, but I guess that gets at the ethos of the company.

It does.

Yeah. And I can tell you a little bit more about that. But it's pretty intentional to use that word underestimated versus underserved, or, you know, bottom of the pyramid, base of the pyramid. A lot of other words have been used. But we feel like it's really about potential at the end of the day. And when we think about underestimated, we think it's really that there is locked potential as well as overlooked. And so, yeah, kind of changing the concept of it and then really thinking about, okay, over time, how do you actually unlock that potential and measure that as well?

Great. So one of the main questions I had about Tala was like, based on the population we're talking about, how do you establish a baseline? Right? Like, if there is no financial track record to go on and your first product was loans, right? Credit. So, like, how do you establish, like, okay, this person will pay back that loan, right? So how do you—

For folks at home, like, it's basically people who are— they're not addressed— they're not bank credit bureaus, right? So they don't have a score or presence on the common sort of, like, trust metric that banks look to, I guess.

Right.

Yeah, it's totally right. I mean, I'll just go into quickly, like, why does this massive problem exist? just to understand what's missing in the system. So there's 2.5 billion individuals around the world that actually lack access to formal financial services. And the reason for that is the fact that credit bureaus don't exist in most of these markets. But it's like, okay, well, I ask myself, why is that? Why don't credit bureaus exist? And so it's really because national ID systems don't exist. And so As an example, one of the markets that we work in, in the Philippines, there's 17 different forms of identity that are accepted.

Wow.

And so it's not really easy to just walk into a bank and then have the bank really understand it. It's time-consuming, it's costly, it's all in person. And so when we think again about the underserved, they're not living normally just, you know, in close proximity. Or when you think about that loan officer, They're not necessarily going to go find customers themselves. They're just waiting and want to make the process simple. So that's one piece of it. But the bigger piece is that 85% of the world is still cash-based.

Mm-hmm.

And so they're spending money, they're saving money, they've got all that purchasing power, but we just don't see it because it's not sitting again in on a credit card statement. It's not sitting in a place where you can just connect into Plaid and bring that data in. And so it's all in cash. And so that's the other piece is credit histories are missing. And so it's hard for us to really understand what is the true capacity of these billions of individuals. And then the last piece is that overall there's just a stigma, right? And I think that was at the end of the day, really, when I think about my journey and starting the company, it really did start with this aspect of these individuals are just fundamentally not trusted, and they are looked at as risky. And so, uh, it became kind of a social justice piece for me as well. Um, and so kind of adding it all together, you realize, okay, this is why this systemic problem actually exists, um, and underlying it is really an infrastructure problem. Right.

But then, so like, if when you come to that realization, right, is it, is it then Is the risk on the part of Calais to then start from like a position of trust, or do you do scoring with signals that are available that are maybe non-traditional?

It's actually a mix of both. So I actually think exactly what you said is true, which is fundamentally we started with saying we trust you. And so actually having, you know, approval rates that are higher than a traditional bank is really, really important to us because we want that customer to immediately be able to gain value from us, which is also why we started with credit. So when we think about our first market in Kenya, it's— they were turned away so often, um, even by, you know, traditional institutions, microfinance institutions. They were having to go to loan sharks or family members. And so when we actually put out our first loans into the market, customers turned around and actually said, this is the Kenya we want, right? And it was fundamentally kind of flipping the system, putting the power in their hands to download an app, you know, give us permission to access the data, and then to actually be able to test this model. And then from there, it was really saying, okay, based on us putting out these initial loans, we worked backwards to build a credit model. And so at this point, we now have our own proprietary credit scoring.

Oh, great.

Nice.

That's based on what? Like you said, to capture that data, what is it like? What kind of data is it looking at on the phone to understand if you've been not served by any financial institution? How are you measuring that?

So I guess I jumped forward before telling you a little bit about my journey. But part of the journey was actually studying daily life data. And so I ended up actually interviewing and observing the life, the daily life of about 3,500 individuals around 9 different countries. And what I realized was that there's an enormous amount of this information. I would go to work with them, I would sit in their stores, and I would understand how many customers came in that day, how many products they sold. I was there at the end of the day when they counted their cash. I would go with them to the, like, the market afterwards and understand, okay, how do you decide how much to put towards inventory for the next day? Do you decide to pay this particular bill first? But essentially just following money around and really witnessing all of that kind of mental math. And then I asked myself, okay, well, what do I see as commonality? Where would I actually be able to find this information? And so that's what led me to mobile devices. And when we think about, again, the kind of data that exists on mobile devices or Android devices in these markets, it is actually a lot of information that can be proxies for cash flow history.

And so it's essentially your whole computing life, right?

Exactly.

It's the one device for most people.

Exactly. And because it's the lifeline, even if you switch, let's say you're You'll never really switch your phone number. It's the piece that allows you to continue employment. If you're a business owner, it's how your customers are coming to you. And so what we find is actually, you know, that SIM card as well as the phone number, that is consistent.

So it solves your problem of the various identities, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And then, and then, I mean, there's another piece of it, which is you also want to add in— we've also built our own digital identity verification as well as KYC, because even if a customer keeps that, they may still have different identities or different IDs that they're bringing into the application. And so, yeah, you have to also kind of verify all of the pieces together.

Right. So I would love to get more into your background then. So you were doing this work I know you were a consultant, right? And you worked in the financial services industry. So you were— were you on the ground doing this and you thought like, oh, someone needs to tap this and it's not going to be anybody that I am employed for or will be employed for. I need to do this myself. Like, how was— how did you decide I want to do this as a founder and I want to build a business around it?

So my background's a mix of working in investment banking. But then really when I was doing those interviews, I worked at the UN Population Fund. And so I was working with an economist to understand cost-benefit. Really, she was approaching it from this place of, hey, we know that there's so much money that go into these development programs, whether it's, you know, health programs or microfinance programs. But what we don't really understand is what's the outcome?

Hmm.

And how do we really, again, understand if you give someone a $300 loan, where does it actually go in the system? All we know is that this individual repays us. But when we want to understand, you know, progress out of poverty, we really do need to understand how the money is being used. Um, and so that, that's essentially what happened is I was tasked with, with, uh, you know, putting the inputs into our cost-benefit model. And kind of like, long story short, uh, they turned around and they're like, well, we don't have the inputs. So you're here for 4 months, figure it out.

Hmm.

And if you ever meet me in person, I am very petite. And so I don't look intimidating. And so I got a list of customers and essentially asked if I could interview them. And what I realized was if I asked questions, depending on the day of the week, the time of the week, I got different responses. And so I was like, okay, well, this isn't accurate. And so then I asked, you know, could I just like come to work with you? And so I would literally go to their homes in the morning, go to work with them. And again, being petite, I just was like, I just have my notebook. It's just me. I'm gonna sit here and then observe. And it really worked out. And I kind of got the bug where I was like, wow, this is really, really interesting information. So I did about 600 customers in our first market. And then they said—

You yourself did that?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

I was like, you can't scale that. But it sounds like you can. It's just you.

Well, it took 4 and a half years.

But yeah, and so they just kept sending me to the next market and the next market. And obviously, I think, you know, it's like the problem hit me over the head. I had so much information, um, but more importantly, I, I really viscerally believed in the population. Um, and so came back to the US and, you know, quit the UN because I didn't really need to collect more data.

Right.

I felt like something had to be done. So learned how to code and started using my savings to test the model.

Nice.

Learned how to code just like as a sidebar, just like, and then I just like quickly learned how to code and just built it.

Added this crucial part in. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I think it's, we talked to a lot of people who are like, I think we were talking about early stage, but I remember, you know, the advice often from them or from founders on this is you've got to talk to your customers early and make sure you're like, You have that close feedback loop, but nothing even comes close to the experience of like having followed— what did you say, 600? You said 600, right? Like 600 people in their daily lives.

Well, more than that, right? Like total.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That and like before they even became your customers, you knew them on a very close basis, right? Like you knew their actual daily routine. So that must have been invaluable when you were going into discussions with like first hires, with investors, with everything? Because for me, you know, we've— I remember hearing a lot about, you know, expressing the value in the underbanked for quite a few years now, right?

Yeah.

The concept of maybe social scoring, there's all kinds of different approaches, right, to how you get around this and kind of unlock that potential. But you've had such amazing early traction and You know, great funding success, right? I think, I don't know if the round from October was your most recent one. Is that right?

Yeah, that's the most recent.

Yeah. But like, just done tremendous there. So, when I'm looking at all that, I'm like, what is the secret to Tala? But it sounds like this is really the secret. I mean, was that the case when you were in these conversations with investors? Or what was really the thing that kind of convinced I think, you know, it's—

I think it's a good question because the first thing I always tell people is, you know, people that join the team in general, I never thought I was going to be an entrepreneur, right? I never thought I was going to be a CEO or a founder. And so for me, I think the difference was maybe approaching it from just, hey, I see this massive problem and I didn't really see blockers because I never thought it needed to be done in a particular way. I just knew, okay, I come from a private sector background. I also come from a data science background. And so now I'm going to think about what are the tools or the path that gets me closest to actually solving this problem. And so maybe there was a little bit of naiveness in that.

Probably very useful to have that, right? It can be.

Well, because I just was, yeah, I was just willing to ask for feedback all the time. And so whether it was an investor, a potential teammate, you know, a partner, anything, I just really, one, I just wasn't worried about sharing the idea. So I was able to hone in on that model just by conversations and then not feeling disappointed. And then I think the second piece is You know, because again, I wasn't just focused on raising capital in those early days, I was focused on getting a prototype out so that when I had those first investor meetings, I actually had results. I could actually talk about the product and talk about the whole, like, you know, the why of it, who the customer was, and then what data I was already seeing. Wow.

Can we talk about the fundraising part? Right? Because like, I mean, going in with an MVP and also being like, hey, I've spent the last 4 and a half years talking to potential customers is like 2 big wins, right? Like 2 big boxes ticked right off for those investors. But like, what, what else went down basically, right? Like, what else were you talking about? What were some of the early questions that you got or like hesitancies that you kind of had to, had to deal with? And also, how did you go about choosing the right VCs for you?

You know, I think the first piece I'd say is, you know, in terms of, uh, what were some of the challenges, I would say that scalability initially. You know, a lot of, a lot of investors said, oh, it's great, you know, it works in, in this market, you know, Kenya, but can it actually work across the world? Um, you know, because there was that question of, uh, you know, are culturally the markets the same. Um, and so it's kind of, in, in some ways, I have to admit, that was the only part of the journey that might have been disappointing for me, which was, you know, I— we don't hear that a lot when we say, oh, you've made it work in the US, right? Um, you know, can you make this work in other markets? And so it was really like a developed market versus emerging markets kind of feel. Um, which— Yeah.

Yeah, there's just a little stuff where it's like, oh, well, this is great. Now let's import it everywhere. And yeah, yeah, it'll, it'll work. It'll work because it worked there.

Did it feel like a fair challenge though? Like you said, it was disappointing, but like, are those markets significantly different? Right? Like the scaling from Kenya to the Philippines, like, what does that actually mean? Was that challenging? Were they right that that would be a challenge?

It was. Model-wise, no. So data models-wise, data availability-wise, no. But when we think about, you know, the, the other part of this problem isn't just data, it's actually infrastructure.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think what a lot of people don't know about Tala is we've actually built a lot of infrastructure on the backend to be able to actually build a financial services platform on top of it.

Yeah.

And so going from Kenya to the Philippines, the Philippines looks entirely different. National ID systems don't exist. And then really, there's not really a dominant mobile wallet. And so it was also figuring out, okay, how do you create an interoperable payments layer so that you can actually deliver the cash? So definitely, like, I think as a neat, like, new founder, you get disappointed when you hear those kind of pushbacks. But then you realize actually, okay, when we did go into the Philippines, It was challenging.

Right? Yeah.

So, it's good to be challenged.

Because you still have the confidence of like, well, I know the fundamental problem is the same. It's just, it's the in-between parts that we need to address. Those are very thorny in-between parts when you come to financial systems, right? And like, how money moves infrastructure-wise, like you were talking about, right? That can be a monumental task. But I feel like then once you have the rails in place, like, it is scalable across the entire population, right? You need to do the hard work once in each market, but then you're set up, right? Is that kind of how you got around that, or what was the answer once you went back to those folks?

Yeah, that was exactly it. It was really saying, okay, the way I answered it actually was that the Philippines, turns out, resembles most of the world. And so, um, it turned out that Kenya was actually kind of it. And we know this, it is a little bit of a unicorn in terms of the kind of technology and infrastructure that exists. Um, but the Philippines actually works the, the way Mexico works, the way India works. A lot of other countries resemble it. And so what we were able to show is, okay, we do need to build some new stuff to make our product work in the Philippines, Well, once we do that, we can go very quickly into Mexico. We can go very quickly into these other markets. So that was kind of that impulse of being able to say, oh, okay, investor, we have this massive market opportunity. And by us going into our second market and you helping us do that, we will be able to unlock a lot more markets. And so again, that scale piece can be achieved.

So did you—

when you're talking about you helping us, did you pursue strategic investors who specifically had kind of the skill sets to help you navigate some of those infrastructure challenges?

Not in the beginning. In the beginning, I really focused on investors that understood, you know, this is a massive opportunity we're going after. And so investors like Lowercase Capital, thinking again about ecosystems that we're building, and then thinking more from a customer lens. And then in the next few rounds, then I think by our Series C, essentially, we brought in a strategic, which was PayPal and And again, it was more exactly to your point, saying, what can we learn from their team in terms of how they've scaled across markets?

Did you have any— like, I was talking to, I think her name is Rachel Carlson from Guild Education. And there's some reminiscent bits here, right? Because Guild focuses so much on like, kind of like the blue-collar worker or the no-collar worker learning and leveling up. And she was talking about her litmus test for investors because there were some investors who just fundamentally misunderstood from the get. They were just like, oh yeah, my son really wants an MBA. Maybe that'll work for him. Or, I have a graduate student cousin who really wants to get into IBM and get a job there. Is that right? And she was like, okay, well, you just don't get it and you don't have any curiosity about this thing that you don't get. So I know it's a no-go for you, right? Like, did you feel like you had to navigate that piece in fundraising as well, where it was just like, oh, you're just not gonna get it and you don't really— you're not curious, so like, I'm just not gonna waste time anymore? Or were people like really— because it does feel like the unbanked, right? Like this whole— it— like Darryl said, it's very popular in terms of like entrepreneurs thinking about it, right? And like understanding, okay, it's a clear problem, it's a big problem, we all know it's a problem. And it could be massive financially to solve that huge opportunity. So like, yeah, like, I mean, we hear these pitches all the time, and yet Tala has been so wildly successful. But I'm just curious if there were investors that still didn't get it, or if that was something that you had to deal with.

Totally, totally. And I think I started getting— I mean, I think an investor that joined us probably in the Series A or B, he told me this thing once, and I think it's one of the best things I've ever heard, where he said, your job in those early meetings is, is actually to get to know as fast as possible.

Right.

And to know that. And, and it became clear to me really quickly, you know, who, who was going to be interested and understood it and was going to be a part of this, um, so that I actually didn't focus on those people. And so it's again that, that aspect of like, as a founder, so much of this is like how do you emotionally keep doing it as well? And so for me, it was like, oh, that person doesn't get it. That's fine, right? Like, I don't want that individual on our board because then I'm gonna be troubled by that all the time. And so instead, I looked for individuals when we were having the conversation that would actually— there's like that subtle thing sometimes, I don't know, that investors started doing, which was They would switch from, oh, I'm like, I'm excited to do such and such thing. But they would actually switch from that to say, I can't wait until we go, right?

Yeah, they're already part of the team.

We do it. And you're like, oh, all right, that's very different, you know?

Yeah, that's funny. Because I always— I mean, I see that all the time, right? Like, especially on VC Twitter, and just talking emails, whatever. We always see VCs saying, oh, we did this. And I'm always like, No, you didn't do anything. You didn't do a single thing. I'm being mostly funny, but I do take a little bit of like, is that a good signal or is it like you claiming credit? But it sounds like that you find that that is actually a positive signal, like this person is going to be very involved. They see themselves as aligned to the thing that we're trying to do. It's a good signal for you as a founder.

Maybe before the check comes through. Right. Like, it's a good signal before they've written the check. And then once they've written the check, like, stop taking credit.

Stop taking credit. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at least it gives you a sense of, like you're saying, Jordan, right? At least in the beginning being like, all right, we're going to be all a part of a team. And so you start to get a little bit of a sense of, you know, how do they think about it? Is it really just them directing feedback at you or We're all taking it in together. I don't know. I also think of it as, again, the journey that Tala's on. It's one that it, you know, again, the work doesn't stop for us until we get to that $2.5 billion, and even then there's going to be more. And so I need folks that are actually willing to be partners, right? Yeah.

So one of the questions that I had, because I, I do want to kind of like, and I feel like we've been doing this, is like dissect Tala's success. Because again, like, it can't be overstated how many— I, I know just for me personally how many pitches I've gotten and pitches and all of the stuff that are, that are focused around the same area. And one of the questions that I had was around, like, prioritization, right? Because you guys have done a lot. Like, you think about just geographically spreading across the globe, and then also how you introduce new features and products, and, like, the timing of that, and where resources and energy go. And you seem to have done it really well.

Mm-hmm.

And so I'm just wondering, like, is there a central North Star, or is that something that's taking up most of your time and energy trying to figure that out? Or is there like this guiding principle that you're like, okay, we know what we have to do next because of this kind of like anchor that we always lean back on? Or how do you go about doing that? Because you seem to have done it really well.

Thank you. I mean, it always feels really messy inside. I think the first part, it might come back to, for me, it's that North Star. I think it guides also our culture internally, our values internally. And so a lot of it just all lines up together for us in terms of this aspect of trust. And so if I go back to that, as well as go back to really our, our mission as a company is to accelerate what we call financial agency for the global underestimated. And so if we're thinking about agency, We think of it as, okay, how are you, customer, underserved, underestimated customer, actually an agent of your financial life? You need to be able to actually have access to capital, and then you need to be able to have choices and control. And so we started with that access piece first and launched the credit product in Kenya, and then from there said, okay, unless we prove that we can take this credit product globally, we can't actually really prove that this underestimated population can be served in this scalable way. And so that was the first critical thing that we needed to do is actually get to geographic expansion and also prove out. And again, I think this was really a big piece for us is we're a mission-driven company, but we're a for-profit company.

Right.

And it was really important to prove that the portfolio could be profitable across these markets. Because, again, the customer is thought of as one that doesn't have capital. And so, you have to be able to show that there's value on both ends by serving them.

This is like something that I wanted to touch on too, because you have a product that has this credit facility element, right? So, So, I'm presuming that you were also going out to lenders and saying, like, oh, we need access to your capital to back these loans that we're providing. And, like, which is— we've talked to founders before who have that kind of dual thing where they're like, okay, I have to go pitch myself to investors, and then I have to go and turn around and pitch myself to banks for this totally different thing. Which requires a very different identity. So, what was that like for you early on? And did it require a lot of convincing? Was it weird to shift brain modes from like VC side to bank side?

Totally. Yeah. I mean, VCs are looking for, you know, the 5x, the 10x multiples. They're looking for that. And then banks are looking for consistency.

Yeah.

They just want to see predictability in your business. And then, and like the wild swings is definitely not Yeah.

They're like, oh no, here's the door. Yeah.

But I would say that we stepped into it. So we gradually started there and we said, once we got, I think, our first nos on the traditional lender side, we said, okay, well, we need the capital to be able to prove that the loan book actually works. And so we actually went to our equity investors first and we said, would you be willing to experiment with us? So rather than actually use our equity dollars on this, we want you to give us debt. And so we did. And so that was, that was pretty cool. We created a really small facility initially, and it was great for us because we actually got to test out and essentially prove that all the mechanics of how we would do this in a more formal way actually worked. So we did the reporting out, you know, all of, all of the measures were proven out. From there, we moved from individual to venture debt, then we moved from venture debt to institutional. And so essentially moved all the way to off-balance sheet.

Great. Yeah. So you just built up the base so that you could go to the traditionals and be like, look, it works. You can see how it works.

Yeah, we had the historical data by that point.

That's great.

Yeah. So what, like, thus far, can we talk a little bit about, like, Your leadership style? Because thus far you've described yourself as like petite and like sitting there with your notebook, right? But like you're making big decisions with a big workforce under you, right? So like, how do you think that the people who work with you most would describe you and the way that you kind of like lead the company?

Question. Thanks.

Freaking out the audience so far.

I mean, I think they would describe me— I'm definitely collaborative. I think, I think maybe what you touched on is I do have a North Star. So there is that aspect of, you know, I want everyone to actually be able to, again, learn, grow, stay curious, and ask the questions. And I'm learning this over time. sometimes when you do have that kind of really focused conviction, it can help your team to actually just come in and cut through some of the noise and get us closer, faster towards our destination. And so I think they would actually all say that Shivani actually knows exactly what we should be going after. And then I think the how starts to actually be where teams can get creative and can actually, again, excel in their own growth and skill set. But I think our team would actually say that the what and the why are pretty clear for me.

Well, that like makes it a little bit easier, right? Because like there's some level of predictability with you as well, where like we, we know that she's either not going to go for this or she's going to be totally for this, right?

But you can always backwards logic from the goal, right? And be like, does it serve the goal? And, you know, yeah, that is, that is super useful and not as common. I think it's like a thing maybe listeners will think like, oh, but like, you know, a lot of—

should be—

others have that, right? But no, not the case. Speaking from personal experience, you know, people have all kinds of priorities and they might be very, uh, changeable day to day, right?

Yes, totally. Especially with like in the VC world, right? When you like sold equity, like those, that sometimes that feedback can become overwhelming. And especially when you have a term sheet with 20 different names on it, like, right, it can start to feel very rubber bandy, I think, for founders, you know, to like stay oriented to something central.

I totally agree. And I also think, I mean, you know, I think a a lot of founders have had to be tested in ways, you know, in the last 2 years than they've ever been, right? Where it's like you have that clear North Star, but you also just, you want to survive because you want to be there for your customers at the end of that time.

Yeah.

And so that can be, I think, difficult when you especially have that kind of bold vision to not be able to take some of the bets that you want to make.

Yeah, speaking of the past few years, I think, like, I think I read in the TechCrunch article that, like, in some ways, you know, the pandemic has had benefits for you because it means people were doing much more on their devices than before.

Right, less in person.

Like, even for cash transactions or stuff like that, right? So, but you also alluded to the challenges of running a company, right? So, like, what has that been like for you? Like, did you Have to pivot to a remote model? Or how did you deal with it as a leader and leading?

And also having like scared and stressed employees, right? Like things were pretty chill up until the pandemic hit. Trump wasn't going to be president anymore. Like things were looking up. And then March was like, yeah.

Um, it's actually, and this week, uh, We celebrated the second year of one of our executive team members. He just joined. He joined the company actually 2 years ago exactly yesterday, which was, I think, the day after the pandemic. So just to put it into context, we were, we were, there was a, we were all very happy and then I'm like, oh God.

Yeah.

But no, I mean, we've got a global team. We took the entire team remote in 48 hours.

Wow.

And I would say that, I don't know, one of the awesome things about being such a global company and working in these markets, we had a very different seat at the table than I think most founders do. Because we were sitting in the US, obviously experiencing it. We're also able to see firsthand what were all 4 totally different markets across 3 continents How were they actually facing it? And it ended up like, again, at the time was so, so hard emotionally, just logistics-wise. You know, we couldn't lose any business continuity and we actually didn't. So we sent out laptops, we got internet into the homes of a lot of our teams into— in our markets. We did all of that in 48 hours.

Wow.

And then, um, you know, the cool part is we are now remote first. Um, so it ended up being something that we decided to keep. And so we kept our office spaces, but more for intentional meetings and gatherings. Um, but now we can actually hire anywhere. Um, and so that, that feels cool. Really, really hard at first. Uh, took us about, I would say, a year to really get, um, good at it, but I feel like we're getting better day by day.

Yeah. So was it a challenge for you specifically? Like, how did you feel about the remote shift? And how do you feel about it now? Because I know it's like, depending on what your, your previous experience was, it can be a major change, especially if you're trying to like oversee an entire organization, right? It's a very different kind of, kind of approach.

You have to like have a— but if your North Star is trust, right?

Yeah. Well, so we always had a global team. So in that sense, it's never been an issue, right? I was always doing calls morning, night, you know, um, and, you know, I think the thing I miss the most is probably not being able to travel to our markets as much as I used to do.

Yeah.

And so that actually was the hardest is, you know, for me, again, that North Star is this customer. And so for 2 years, I haven't actually been able to be firsthand witnessing it. And we haven't been able to do as much of that in-person user research as we used to do. And so that's been, I think, the challenge is figuring out, okay, what are new ways to kind of derive those local insights?

Right.

And we've used a lot of technology to do it, but I think it's kind of, it's great that now the markets are also opening up. And so we're getting back to being in person with our customer at least.

Yeah. Did that change around your roadmap? Did you say like, oh, we're gonna like pause some expansion things and then focus on building out features instead or something like that? Because it sounds like it would be hard to do more geo expansion if you can't do this in person.

So, we had 2 things. I would say the pandemic for us really changed, to your point. I would say the aspect of how we wanted to deepen value. So it was really saying we had already opened up 4 markets by that point. And you're right, we had other markets on the list, but the pandemic showed us that our customers really needed more than credit immediately.

Mm-hmm.

And they didn't have, you know, those digital ecosystems. And so I'll just give you a quick example of how bad it was. In the Philippines, they had a military lockdown where They weren't allowed to leave their homes. Only one individual was allowed to leave once a day. Wow.

Um, and so, yeah, very different than the US lockdown. I'm Canadian, so we had a semi-real one. We never had the, uh, US never had a real one.

Okay.

Sorry.

I mean, you talk about Canada, you shit on them.

Cheap shot. Just got a cheap shot.

I was in New York during the March, and it felt very real.

I know.

I'm not trying to minimize your experience.

Whatever.

I'm sorry.

I hope you do get COVID.

Think about in the Philippines, because this sounds like it was very serious.

Yeah, no, take us back there.

Daryl upon the Philippines. No, I mean, I think for us even hearing about that, right, the fact like sunlight, air, like you can't leave your home, right? Um, and so getting into that kind of mindset and realizing, well, As a customer, I still want to be able to pay my bills. I want to be able to receive cash. So they were getting remittances from family members outside of the Philippines, but they literally could not pick up the cash because they weren't physically allowed to leave their homes.

Wow.

And so that made us realize, okay, well, we've got to go beyond that. We've not— we need to give them that digital experience and that, that kind of digital account. Um, and so that is really when we said, okay, we're going to double down in our 4 markets And really focus on that holistic set of products before we get back to geographic expansion.

Nice. And so, was that just moving something up? Like, you had planned to do that already, but it was kind of like much, much later on, or was it something net new?

No, we had always planned to do that. But I would say, you know, again, we're trying to do it more simultaneously versus saying we're, we're not going to intentionally do that.

And we're just going to focus right now on Did you see any other big changes in behavior with customers and sort of their habits around spending and saving and things like that during the pandemic?

A little bit. I think this customer is someone— it's a customer that already experiences a lot of volatility, which was actually, I don't know, I think just incredibly inspiring when you hear about it, where we would— we called our customers, we talked to them about what was happening, what bills they were deciding to pay, how were they navigating the crisis. And so many of them were like, this is not new for me.

Right.

This is my life in general, you know. And so in that sense, they were better able, I think, than, you know, markets like the US to withstand it. And to know how to actually get there.

Or uncertainty or whatever. So like, it was like, just because this is called the pandemic doesn't mean anything. It's just another variable in the mix, right?

Totally. And then I think the big question was, I think what we learned the most was not wanting to lose their standing or position in the Tala ecosystem. And so that, that actually became really interesting to understand. It was like, wow, we have a real relationship here.

Yeah.

And so then it became, okay, to your point on changing the roadmap, we really focused in for the first year of the pandemic about how do we preserve these customer relationships? How do we actually, again, help them through that emotional way, even if it's not necessarily increasing their lines of credit right now? It's ensuring that they know they can always access us and that we'll be here for them when things get back to normal.

Yeah. So, oh, go ahead, Darryl. No, no, you first.

Well, I was wondering about identity, like, because it sounds like you— there's a, there's a strong emphasis placed on, um, the relation, the customer relationship, right? And it sounds like it, it's probably more than what we would think of with our traditional bank. I mean, especially in the US, there's like a million banks, isn't there? I don't know. In Canada, we have basically 4 banks because it's semi-nationalized or whatever. But we still don't have our identity tied to our bank, right? It's like, I don't know, it's— I have a bank. I chose them for no real reason except that they were one of the ones available and my parents brought me to them one day to open a checking account, right? Like, but for your customers, it sounds like you have— you strive to have a much more integral relationship. I mean, do you focus a lot on that part of it, on experience outside of the banking and the actual product? that you provide?

A lot. Yeah. So we've got, you know, financial education modules within the app, how we do our messaging, how we do our servicing. It's all kind of tied to that experience because ultimately it goes back to those 3 things for us, which is access, choice, and control. And so if we think about kind of how that customer is moving through our ecosystem, We want them fundamentally by the end of it to really understand and to be in control of the experience that they are navigating through. And so we need to keep on giving them more information about it, to be able to keep talking to them about it, giving them more choices in that experience, but then really like just being the enablers where they, they can then actually be those agents.

Hmm. So I have— we're like getting close to being out of time, but I have one question that I wanted to ask you that might feel out of left field. But like, as you look back at your entrepreneurial journey and you had one do-over, what would it be? Another kick-ass question.

I know, stumped.

I feel like if were you to ask me this question, Sharon, there would be no shortage of answers.

It's like, I need multiple doors for sure. Yeah.

You know, I think, um, maybe, you know, uh, without going in detail, um, I would say that there was— there, you know, throughout this journey, um, I would say as our company has continued to mature there have been those times where, you know, not to say that our North Star has ever changed or that I have let go of it, but there have been times when I think I have thought a lot more about the longevity versus the boldness of it.

Hmm.

And starting— and I think that kind of as you go through the journey, sometimes I would say you lose that risk appetite.

Mm-hmm.

And so the only thing I can say in terms of like looking back that I would change, um, is there was one moment that I definitely felt like my risk appetite changed because, you know, I started to bring in a lot of other things into my consideration or into my scorecard. Um, and the good news is I would say that it's gone back to what it used to be. And so I just wish maybe for those particular few months, I didn't— I hadn't changed that.

So how do you regain your risk appetite if you're— I mean, that's because that's, I think, a challenge a lot of folks face, especially as they're—

Yeah, more people on the balance sheet, more customers, right? Like more investors, more debt. Like, I mean, all of those things make it hard to go back to being like, no, let's take this risk. Let's take a chance on this. Let's place a bet. You know?

Yeah, I think for me it went back to being like, I never thought I was going to do this. I never thought I was going to be an entrepreneur. And so I've got this chance to do it. And so I don't know, it's not— not to like quote the Gandhi quote, but at the end of the day, for me, it always comes back to that, to say, you know, we actually have the right team. the resources, the capital, the investors. Um, so again, what's the point in doing it if we're not going to actually try to do it, right?

Yeah, you're here, you're here now, take the shot. Like, that's—

It is insane psychologically how, like, when you have what you want, it's— it becomes about not losing it instead of, like, right, you know what I mean? Like, it is a weird And it's not just like in work or whatever with money. It's like everything. You're always like afraid to lose the good, the good bit. Like, we got so far, like, let's just protect it, you know?

Yeah, well, even if it's not good, I mean, yeah, let alone if it's like status quo, it's comfortable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, and I think there's a balance, right? I think there's the balance of, you know, of course, as a company grows, you also do want to show that you can be predictable, you can be consistent. But you've also got to be able to kind of still put out some of those, I think, big wins and big bets. Because that's when, like, at least for us, we've got to unlock billions of individuals. And so if we incrementally think, and that's what I told— I think I realized is that the incremental wins for us weren't going to get us there.

Right.

And so I just needed to get back to being bolder and more convicted about where we were going.

Cool. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, I have one. Oh, Jordan, I had one where it's kind of a— it's a great question, I think.

But okay. Well, if you think that it's great, it better be great though, because I think that mine is pretty great too, and I'm too pro.

Jordan's not gonna like it. Uh, Shivani, you might like it, but I just— when I was looking at your, uh, website, I was like really just like enraptured by the fact that the 2 A's are different typefaces in the logo.

Yeah, I'm so glad you noticed that.

This is her. This is great.

I loved it. I was like, oh, this is great, and it makes a ton of sense with the brand. But I want to hear your, uh, if you have any thoughts or explanation behind it to see if I can— if I was right about my guess about it. Yeah, like, it just— it feels like it's like, well, I mean, we're doing— we're serving—

Well, let her do it before you predict it.

I know, exactly. I didn't want to give it away. Go ahead.

Yeah, don't give it away.

Um, no, it's super intentional in that, um, we— so the, the typeform, uh, like, it basically resembles architecture in our markets. And so it was really around, again, how do you develop something? How do you have a brand and the visual experience of that that you know, again, it's going to be one that's global, which is again the point of the name as well, but also has that kind of local feel. And so it was from things that we see in our markets. So whether it's the, you know, the A that's got the kind of houses like this, or in markets like, you know, India and Mexico, you've got more carved or rounded architecture. Yeah, so we went through a lot to kind of come up with it.

Wow, that's great.

I love it.

I mean, I'm the, I guess, the design nerd of the two of us, but I thought it was really good. And I think— what's that face mean? You can like design too, I guess. I don't know. But yeah.

Stop underestimating me.

I don't—

I'm not a nerd about anything.

Well, thanks very much, Shivani. It was great to have you here today. And Had a blast talking to you. Really, really enjoy hearing about how Tala came to be and its mission. And I think, I think you're doing a great job and can't wait to see more out of Tala.

Thank you so much.

All right, that'll do it for Found. Take care, everyone.