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John C Morley (00:09):
Hi everyone. I'm John C Morley, the host of the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW and inspirations for your life.
John C Morley (01:03):
Well, hi, everyone. It is John C Morley, serial entrepreneur. Welcome back to the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW. I can't believe we are in July's wonderful, fabulous month. And for those of you that missed out just a few days ago, the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW, JMOR Unboxing, and JMOR Reviews channel shows celebrated their second birthday at the Oakland public library would like to extend an official thank you to all the folks at BJ's, especially Donna for doing an amazing job with the cake. Appreciate that. And in addition to that, I want to thank Nicholas Romanello for coming out from the Franklin lakes EMT and talking to us about some very interesting topics. They're very serious about having people live a great life and being able to use those wonderful services when they should need them.
John C Morley (02:04):
All right. We had a great time. We had cake, we had fun, and we'll do more live shows. So, we'll contact you if you are in the New Jersey area. And we're getting people on the show for our live shows within a month or less. And our non-live shows are taking about three or four months. So, we are prioritizing people who want to come to our studio in person. So definitely want to share that with you. We've got lots of stuff happening. So, the new it's the new AR VR headset, which some of you may or may not be familiar with any way that headset is supposed to launch, Apple's saying sometime in January, and it's going to have an M2 chip in it along with 16 gigs of Ram.
John C Morley (02:56):
Now Apple's mixed reality headset has had lots of rumors for months, as you know, and it's going to be pretty interesting. And so, I remember augmented reality. VR is virtual reality. So, when we talk about augmented and virtual reality, do you know the difference? So, what if I asked you right now, what is the difference between augmented AR and VR? What, what, what do you think is the difference? So augmented reality augments your surroundings by adding digital elements to a live view, often by using a camera or a smartphone. Virtual reality is a completely immersive experience that replaces the real-life environment with a simulated one. So hopefully that helps you guys and you know, what's coming up the pike, and it's going to be interesting to see what they're going to do with that, but, but we'll keep an eye on that to let you know, you know, what's going on.
John C Morley (04:01):
And next, I would like to welcome you to the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW. I've been talking about him for a while, and I want to let you know that I'm looking forward to talking to him. His name is Tristen Pelloux, and Tristen has a lot of interesting information to share with us. You know, a lot of times when, you know, we get guests on the show, you're saying to me, John, you know, who's coming on the show, what's it about? And I think the interesting thing about this next guest is that he not only has experience in the world, but he also has, I'm going to call it, an immersive experience. So, what does that mean? It means that he not only has the book knowledge about what's going on, but he's very well-tuned into how it works because he's part of this, like every day in his life.
John C Morley (05:05):
And I think that's interesting when we can have a guest that can come on our show, you know, that can do stuff like that. So, he's going to be talking to us about FinTech, and if you want a little knowledge, a little more about Tristen, so he is a person who deals with management consulting businesses. He does some executive coaching, but the thing that is interesting to me about Just in this is what he's done with FinTech and is experienced in that in an industry as well as with leadership and how different other authorities have, you know, sought him for advice and very interesting to learn because FinTech is a very new world. So, without any further ado, I would like to welcome Tristen Pelloux to the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW tonight here. So welcome, Tristen.
John C Morley (06:17):
Wow, Marcus. That was interesting. I got to tell you about the experience of listening to him and all the things he had to say. I know that people will appreciate FinTech a little more than they did before. And I know what you're saying, you know, FinTech is just for the banks, but it's not. It's for our corporate America every single day of our life. And if you don't embrace that, you'll miss some very big boats. All right. In other news, you know Lyft drivers all across the country, with Uber and Lyft having issues with what they're claiming is this group of drivers. Uber and Lyft are accusing the companies of unfairly controlling how much passengers are charged for rides in this new antitrust lawsuit and California. This lawsuit seeks a class action status in the San Francisco superior court and the alleged violations of California's antitrust law and state prohibiting unfair business practices.
John C Morley (07:22):
The drivers claim that if they can offer lower prices to the consumers, they'll provide drivers with the most competitive compensation. So, this is going to be something interesting. And then recently, a Lyft driver stood up against passengers with a racist comment. So I have to say that there's no tolerance in you guys, those of you that know me. I have a very strong case regarding discrimination against race, color, creed, sexual orientation, color, or anything else. The political denomination is about learning to get along in this wonderful world. Well, I don't know where our time's gone. We spent quite a bit with Tristen today, and hopefully, you guys enjoyed that. We have another great show coming up. Don't worry about July 8th.
John C Morley (08:23):
So, in the meantime, check all our great Joes if you miss the JMOR TECH TALK Birthday party. Well, it is online for you to go ahead and see. And unfortunately, we can't send you any cake, but it was great. We had cake, and we had different types of mini pastries. We had water and some promo items for people to take home that we made right here at orbital media. So, thank you so much for supporting the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW, JMOR Unboxing, and JMOR Reviews. And unfortunately, I got to say goodbye for today, but don't worry. I'll be back next Friday at 5:30 PM. Remember, we're looking for local guests to be on our show right here in our Oakland studio, where we've been broadcasting and hope to be broadcasting even more right in the bottom of the Oakland public library. I'll see you guys next week. Take care.
John C Morley (10:01):
Well, it is John C Morley, a serial entrepreneur, here with the JMOR TECH TALK SHOW. And I am very pleased, once again, to welcome to our stage Tristen Pelloux who comes to us with a very interesting background as you guys had learned just before when I made the introduction Tristen welcome. It's great to have you here today.
Tristen (10:21):
Thanks for having me, John.
John C Morley (10:23):
So, I have to ask a question when we say FinTech. Let's kind of do what I call a do for dummies. Let's dumb that down for the people. What does that mean for the people out there that may have no clue what that is? Sounds like a great word.
Tristen (10:41):
Yeah, no, there's a lot of confusion regarding FinTech, but it is simply a contraction of the word finance and technology. So, it's when you use technology to deliver financial services. Now it's been associated a lot with innovative startups, but it all comes down to using technology to simplify finance or deliver finance. So, it's not particularly new. It's been around for a very long time, for as long as we've used technology to deliver finance. Yeah. Fintech has been around.
John C Morley (11:22):
I notice that it's been around for a while, Tristen, but it's just starting to become popular. Like it's been around for a while, but it's like getting new birth. Isn't it? Like, it's just kind of taking a new, I guess, a new presence or a new position, I guess, in the global marketplace, because it wasn't so popular many years ago.
Tristen (11:42):
Yeah, no, it's true. It truly exploded after the financial crisis because what happened is that banks were quite low. And then it created a space for lots of companies to come in and where we saw it being very visible is all the retail-focused FinTech. So, it's when the neo banks, the digital brokers, started coming in. Actually, many people saw what FinTech was about. And this is where, you know, it became, as you say, much more visible and much more in front of us.
John C Morley (12:25):
Yeah. Right in front of your face. It's like, it's here. Right. We've always paid with our phones, but now it's no longer a luxury for many. It's becoming a necessity. We all heard a Nomo Fobo like we can't go anywhere without our phone or connect with our phone, but now it's like, we can't pay, we can't do other things without our mobile devices because it's linked to our finances. And I know just recently our company made a big change. May 1st, we've always been automated being a technology company, and owning a few companies is that people waste a lot of time in life doing financial things like billing. We were wasting over 40 hours a week of billing. We automated our billing and went to an enterprise accounting online system. And now, from the moment an innovative invoice is generated to payment. It's like, there's this tracking. And some people like it, some people don't, but I have to tell you one thing, it's saving us time. It's saving us money, obviously, and it's bringing revenue faster. What do you think about that?
Tristen (13:29):
Yeah, no. I mean, I think a lot of innovation has come like through automation, as you say for accounting and reconciliation, lots of stuff that were, you know, painful. And you can automate so many things as things to technology. And there is still a lot to do. You know, especially when there is a lot of invoicing, there is useless. A lot of reconciliation trying to figure out what you need to pay.
John C Morley (14:06):
Exactly. And we always had systems that could do scheduling, and we could write checks. We don't write checks anymore. You were like, what do you mean? You don't write checks. We sent an invite out to our portal. They fill out their bank account information, and we pay them via ACH. They look at me like, what do you mean? Well, you put your BA. I don't know if I want, well, that's how we pay now. Like, we don't pay you by check. We don't mail checks. If we mail a check to you, it'll go through a third party, and you'll probably get it in a week or two, like from when it's due. So that's having, but you know, when we think about this, one of the biggest challenges is, I don't know about you, but when you go to reconcile a bank account and now reconciling one is not a big deal.
John C Morley (14:45):
We have to reconcile five or six of them becomes a little more challenging, and you know how you have to get all the zeros. The pennies. Right. And I've always been a person where I don't put extra entries in there to make a balance. I want to know where that nickel is, where that penny is. I don't want to put that in. Still, Tristen, they've made it so easy with our system that a bank aggregation happens daily. It connects to our banks, pulls down all the deposits and transactions, and can be categorized. So that once the rule's in there, it saves so much time. Doesn't it?
Tristen (15:23):
Yeah, no. I mean, the same for me. Everything is automated. And you don't have to think about what this payment is like; it's already in my accounting system. And as you categorize stuff, then the next ones have categorized automatically. You know, it's, saving a lot of time. And because as you said, at the end of the day, what you care about is not the financial operation, what you care about is selling something, buying something, you know, you care about buying a house, you don't care about getting a mortgage. So, the financial product underpins what you want to do as an individual or a business. So, it's great that it's being automated, and it's going, you know, it's becoming invisible.
John C Morley (16:16):
Security is very important. So, we can't neglect that. And the thing is there are becoming that trust factor, but I think in a year or two years, we're not going to be writing checks anymore. I think checks are going to be gone. I mean, some people are still going to have a checkbook, but I think that's going away. And I think as more people understand that we start with a process as even the quoting system has started online. The prospecting system has started online and just goes through that whole funnel. But I have to ask you, Tristen. So, what got you interested in the FinTech industry, and how did you become involved?
Tristen (16:53):
So, I was working in London in corporate strategy for a bank. So, I was monitoring what was going on in the industry. What are, you know, the innovations coming out, what are new competitors doing or old ones as well? So, I started working in corporate trade in 2015. So, as we said earlier, he started to have all these new shiny FinTech's are retail focused. And I got super interested in innovation and what companies were doing to solve people's or businesses' problems. And this is how it all started. And a few years later, I'm still very interested in what's happening and how new and old companies are trying to solve problems through technology.
John C Morley (17:53):
What do you think is the greatest innovation in the FinTech industry today?
Tristen (18:00):
I like the democratization of finance in the sense of the ability to invest in a range of previously unavailable assets. So, before, you could buy, you know, equity, but now you can buy anything and everything through ETFs and other types of products. So, because I've studied finance and economics, I quite like that. Now, as an individual, you don't need a lot of money to build a very diversified portfolio and well balanced. And this is what innovation has brought to you. And it's super cheap now to do like a balanced portfolio is some equity, some real estate, some bonds, whatever, some gold, some crypto, you can, you can put whatever you want into your portfolio. And this was not possible before you look, you know, 20, 30 years back, only wealthy people could do that.
John C Morley (19:02):
We don't get into talking too much about crypto for certain reasons. But what I want to tell you is that it's changed. I don't do anything with crypto, but it changed because of the perception of what they told people and what it is different. And you got people that are, how can I say back trailing because you got some people losing their shirt, you got some people doing well, but a lot of people are putting their life savings on the line. And they don't understand. I don't like to relate it to a used car salesman, but I have to in this case because they're really of them are getting conned by these people that want them to come on board, and they make money because other people in pyramid schemes and things like that. And I think our government's starting to get very concerned, not just in the perspective that they're not making any money, so they're down. But I think they're also getting pretty concerned about the fraud issues, right?
Tristen (19:59):
No, definitely. I think that many people are attracted by crypto because they see the gains, the potential gains, and you have all these great stories of how I put a thousand dollars, and now I have like $300,000 or this kind of stuff. But so, it's attractive in an environment where your bank is giving, you know, 1% on your money a year. So, like you, this gets rich quickly, but it's not very regulated now we're coming to it. As you say, the SEC is doubling down on their fraud task force targeting crypto. So, we're going to get to a more regulated environment, and there's still some nice, like innovation coming out of it, but there is a lot of shady stuff happening. And this comes from the fact that it's not a level playing field where traditional finance is traditional finance; there is a lot of compliance that you don't have in the crypto industry at the moment.
John C Morley (21:11):
So, I want to be clear to everyone here watching. So, we're very careful. You know, we have many advertisers and many people syndicating our channel all over the United States and over the world. So, we don't get into crypto. We're not advising you to do something or not do something. We're telling you right now that if you decide to go that way, just do your research, do your homework, and ensure you're doing things properly because sometimes that shiny coin is right. Justin is not really as it appears from the other side of the fence. But a question I think it's still coming to, I'm sorry. Yes. Right. They don't understand.
Tristen (21:52):
Who's going to say yes?
John C Morley (21:54):
Yeah. It's a problem, but you know, a big issue. People are still saying to me, John, I get what you're saying about FinTech, but I don't get what you're saying. Well, let me summarize it for you. Fintech is a very fancy, posh, sexy word that is meant to encompass everything having to do with software, mobile applications and other types of IoT technologies to create, improve, automate, manage, and track, pay, and credit finances. That's really what FinTech is. It's a way of using your technology. So, what I want to ask you, Tristen, is when you've been working on this, what do you think your greatest strength in the FinTech world is? Cause obviously, you've been in it for a while. What's your greatest strength in this, in this world?
Tristen (22:48):
So, what I like to do, and I've been doing this for quite a while, is trying to connect the dots. So, trying to connect seemingly unrelated events. So, a company is doing something, and others are doing something else, trying to connect this to identify trends. And it was part of my job. So, I still do it now. And I like doing this because sometimes you miss stuff. After all, something is happening, and then you get so much information coming at you all the time that sometimes it's naturally hard to connect the dots. But I think I'm quite good at figuring out what's happening. And the underlying trends in the industry.
John C Morley (23:45):
I have to say, you know, when we talk about finances, FinTech, or whatever it is. Anytime you do business with someone, there always has to be a level of trust, right? But when you deal with finances, there has to be an added level of trust; my question is because this can be daunting for many people. What should a person or a business look for when they're going to employ or change to something very high-tech in the FinTech world? What should they be looking for, some benchmarks to make sure that they're going to make a good decision? Is there some advice you can give us on that end?
Tristen (24:30):
Yeah, no. As you say, you know, when it comes to money, there needs to be much more trust in the relationship. That's why you usually have so many intermediaries in finance. So, I would say looking at any relevant regulation because it's boring, but compliance tells you if a company is following the rules. So, if it's a part of finance where you need to be regulated, just check that they're regulated, check how long they've been around. Like what, what clients do they have, how big they are, you know, actually like a big FinTech is more trustworthy than a smaller one that just started and is not regulated. So, I usually look at these aspects before choosing a service from a provider. So, it's kind of the credentials, more or less.
John C Morley (25:34):
So, looking at their background history, kind of their track record a little bit because sometimes you get these FinTech companies, and they just popped up out of nowhere, which is okay. Still, you and I necessarily don't want to be the Guinea pig, which is why we weren't doing bank aggregation. We didn't trust bank aggregation when it was out a few years ago. We didn't know if it was going to work. Wall Street was using it, but it wasn't perfect enough. It almost reminds me of Tristen; like the military, there are light years ahead of us in things they share with us. I think it's about ten years difference from what they share. And the FinTech world is different as well. Do you think there's a difference between FinTech for the stock market and the trading market as there is for FinTech and people's businesses?
Tristen (26:24):
Yeah, I think you know, you're right, is that you always have the early adopters, and then it becomes mainstream at some point, but there is always quite a lag between the two. Yeah, as you say, so kind of infrastructure, FinTech meant for businesses rather than customers, has been around for longer. So, you have more, let's say, advanced technology in that field. But, but we're not so much, you know, behind it, in terms of the level of technology is about the same. It's how you apply it to, like, whatever you want to do. And it's naturally more complex capital markets and trading than retail banking,
John C Morley (27:20):
But they also can have somebody's rear of something's wrong, and something aggregates wrong. They will have somebody's head when it happens in a piece of personal software, and it doesn't aggregate property. It's just a bug. If it happens on wall street, oh my gosh, somebody's going to lose their job. Or there might be legal implications. It's funny how that happens. But there are two main things I think people should look at. One is HIPAA. Many of you may or may not know this. It was the health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996. And it's a federal law that requires the creation of national standards to protect HPHI personal health information, such as you can't transmit this information over an email, but it's more than that. When you go to a doctor's office, they're not even supposed to put your name down on the sign-in sheet, you're supposed to be digital, or they're supposed to peel off the name; as soon as you sign it, nobody could see that you sign.
John C Morley (28:21):
Like it's just kind of kept confidential. The other big one, as we all know, and you probably know, is Sarbanes Oxley for the financial industry. So, the Sarbanes Oxley act was of 2002. And it was a law. The United States Congress passed on July 20th, 2002 and of the year to help protect investors from fraudulent financial reporting. This goes into but is not limited to people doing Ponzi schemes, people buying when they knew about inside information, which we call insider trading. What do you feel about that, Tristen?
Tristen (29:03):
Yeah. I mean, you know, if you ever worked for a listed company, like, as I do and you work on very sensitive topics, insider trading is always like, not a concern, but there you're restricted in those things that you can do. For instance, I couldn't buy or sell shares from the bank. I was working at or buying or selling shares from competitors and stuff like that to avoid any insider trading. So, it's tight usually at listed companies for that reason, for the risk that there are with the prosecution, because, you know, as you have seen in wall street, the movie in the eighties, it was a bit freer. And you would call your buddy, yeah. Like, why don't you buy the share of this company? I've heard that it will sell because I work at this company. So, it's normal that it's quite regulated. And it's for the right reasons, right?
John C Morley (30:11):
In the past, I think it was an innocent mistake. Now it's become more of something we know is wrong, and we still do it initially. It's like, this is kind of cool. I could jump on it, but now it's like, you know, what you're doing is a fraud. It's a prosecutable offense because you're taking away from stockholders' dollars that are investing in your frauding the value of the stock. So, that's a problem. What do you think besides security at Tristen is the hardest thing for you and for companies in the FinTech industry to wrap their hands around?
Tristen (30:53):
I think I see a lot of companies' great ideas, but they're not so clear on how they will monetize them. And this comes from the fact that many entrepreneurs are coming to financial services and FinTech from other industries. And they're saying they can replicate some of the models they've seen elsewhere. So, it works partly. And I think it's a great impulse from other industries, but monetizing a product in financial services is harder because of all the additional rules you might have. So, the biggest challenge I see is sustainable business models. And many companies don't have one to just have venture capital money that they're spending, and they acquire customers, which is not economically sustainable. So, they're never going to break profit, or they're never going to make a decent amount of profit.
John C Morley (31:52):
So, with sustainability, we mean that the company hasn't researched to ensure that its assets are protected. They're kind of just flying on a wing or a whim. And I think some FinTech companies do that, hopefully not too many. However, some of the big challenges are still coming around; as we mentioned, data security compliance with government regulations is a huge personalized service to manage the industry but still stay personalized. And how do you retain users when your brother, your mother, and other people's services keep competing for nickel-less blockchain integration and AI? But how is this affecting the world when we talk about AI and FinTech? What light can you shed on where AI is going in the FinTech industry?
Tristen (32:52):
So, I think you know various companies in FinTech are using AI. The issue you have is that, for instance, it could be great for credit scoring or assessing risk. When you do, instead of having people doing it, the issue is always the same for AI if you have a black box that makes a decision you can't explain. So that's where you find the limitation of AI, for instance, in financial services, where it could be really useful. However, the problem is that you would still need to break it down and still understand how you came to that decision, usually for regulatory reasons. So, there it's still super useful for personalization. Still, it's not, you know, super developed AI to, know-how, like, you know, categorization, for instance, it's not AI, it's just a rule-based algorithm. So, there are a lot of talks about AI in many sectors. But when you look down, and you look deep into it's usually not AI as we mean; it's some more smart algorithms. But you still have lots of things that you can do, you know, through automation and smart algorithms.
John C Morley (34:22):
We talk about being smart and algorithms, and again, not being anywhere near the complexity of where AI can go with cameras and all kinds of other technology that can learn and stuff like that. We can learn from certain predictions, but not in the same way. What I like about FinTech is that you can get a bird's eye view or a complete snapshot of your finances. In real-time. You don't have to go run reports or compile anything. It's just there, usually in colors, and dashboards are very easy to read. And so, I find FinTech to be very user-friendly. It is not just how it presents information; everything seems very intuitive in FinTech. What do you think?
Tristen (35:11):
Yeah, no. I think this is one thing that many new entrants realize banks were bad at user experience and customer experience. They were like, okay, you know, how do we make this much better for our users? So, this is where they came in, and it also forced banks and established companies to rethink a bit and be more like, you know, user-centric. And it's also part of a wave of new startups that are, you know, thinking about the users before about the product. So, taking the, like, a very different approach to, I'm building a product, here you go, you must love it. Okay. What do you need? And I'm going to build what you need. So yeah, it's quite refreshing.
John C Morley (36:09):
So, in the past, I think FinTech companies today are still having this wrestling problem because they build what they want to build, but they're not building the way the client needs it. What I see as the challenge with FinTech, and you may agree or disagree with me, is that I see that everything in a lot of FinTech, not every FinTech company, but a lot of FinTech companies, they treat it all like a banking situation. They don't treat it as retail, as a point of sale as an accounting system; they treat it strictly as banking. And I think that's a problem.
Tristen (36:47):
Yeah. I think it's a problem if you think about, you know, what I was saying is that if you think in terms of product, instead of seeing about the customer journey and if you're seeing in terms of customer journeys. You're saying about how the product should look, so if you see car loans, you think about the process of buying a car. You think about, okay, how does product, how should it look like, and same for a mortgage. And so, you think much more about what a person is trying to do, why are they getting some finance product? And then you look at how you should build it or say what you're saying, okay. A person goes into an app. They want to know their situation. And they want it to be cleared. They want like, you know, this kind of breakdown. And you only know that by talking to customers and users and being like, okay, actually, what do you need? What do you want? And then, you develop something, validate, iterate, and do this process over and over again until you get some product that is good enough for most of your users.
John C Morley (38:04):
I think the biggest challenge when we talk about how it's developed, and I think it comes from the birth that the fact of FinTech came from everything being banking. And when we market it to have to do with banking, we're not handling the issue that the client may have. How do they pay the local store for a bagel when they use this app? Which a lot of times is written by the bank. A third party writes it. It's very clumsy. And once you get past other security and you get in there, oh, sorry, you timed out. Now you got to go back in again, or your face ID or something nonsense. So, I think these, even these big banks, which I'm not going to mention names, they don't develop their applications, but where I see we're going to be going is more applications are going to revolve around, let's call it the life cycle of transactions in a personal, as well as a business world.
John C Morley (39:07):
That could be a car lease. So many other things; you don't have stuff like that right now. They don't show you what your car payments are. They just show you that you could pay the bill, but it doesn't revolve around people's lives or how they do transactions. And I see it being a problem because many of these FinTech companies market the way they've been told, which is to market like the bank has been showing them, which is how all financial industries have been working. They don't understand that; I guess that new market niche that I think I'm going to say more than 50 or 60% of the FinTech industry doesn't understand either.
Tristen (39:51):
Yeah, no, it's quite hard to change how you talk about finance. And I mean, I've looked a lot into it, especially when I was in corporate trade, that, how do you know, talk about finance without talking about the products. So, without talking about like a loan, a credit card, or a mortgage, how do you talk about it? So how do you describe it to customers? And they understand it's super hard. But I agree with you that we are going to a world of more embedded finance, and it's quiet, you know, it's a strong trend, embedded finance, and embedded banking. That means just finance is embedded much more in the customer journey and the customer experience. So, it becomes invisible. It becomes kind of seamless in how you go about and make a customer journey requiring finance. Then it's embedded into it. It's not separated that you need to go and grab your loan and grab your mortgage.
John C Morley (41:03):
Yeah. And I think you said a mouthful. There's an acronym I use, and it's called an AED might have heard of it before acquire, engage, and delight. So, we have to acquire our clients. Right. And then we have to engage them, and then we have to delight them regularly. And I think the problem with that is that a lot of people don't understand, you know, that typical model, but as you said, you know the buyer's journey, right? That is, I think that's where we're going. And people have to understand the new, the new stages of the buyer's journey. Now that it's, now that it's becoming digital. And knowing that we start with, as I said, we start with an acquisition. Then we are at the awareness phase, basically; then we go to consideration.
John C Morley (41:53):
Then we go to a decision. So, this is even happening in software. When we're talking about, you know, inquire, engaging, delighting, that's what we need to do with what we have. But the journey starts with how we, as a company or as an individual, are part of this set of three viable stages for any sales. In this awareness stage, the prospect is experiencing the withdrawal syndrome I got a problem with. I don't know how to solve it. I'm not sure, but I know I got this problem. Like I got to manage my employees. My payroll is a disaster. I can't link my HR system. What do I do? Well, now I consider, so now I'm going to start looking at other solutions and groups out there, and then I will make a decision. So, a big thing I saw a lot, Tristen, in the last year or two is that payroll systems have now become more integrated into HRIS systems where they're not only taking the user who is applying for a job, posting for the job, tracking their applicant tracking system, going back from Alan tracking, after applicant tracking, they then get into you know, they are hiring into their HR system, which is HRS, HR information systems management, and then to handle their payroll.
John C Morley (43:19):
So that's a FinTech case. Isn't it too?
Tristen (43:24):
Yeah. So, I think you know, as you say, everybody's fighting to be that piece of software that is in the mail, and then others are developing kind of niche, parts of it. So, you have this battle of everybody trying to get in the center because if you're in the center, you're the one who's getting more of the value. And then you have all this integration of various things to have this kind of seamless journey. HR ERPs, a lot of stuff are like, try to all block together.
John C Morley (43:59):
And they morph into each other. They're all trying to become part of everything, which is part of it. But I don't think companies can become this overnight. Do you know? I mean, it's a great world where it's all interconnected, but there's a lot of pieces to this, and you got to have the right thing set up. Even for something as simple as an automated invoice, you have to have the right templates set up and understand your terms. You have to set up a pricing list. There are so many things you have to do. I think the big challenge I see with FinTech is that they rush to the design phase, the development phase, and the delivery phase that they have something that doesn't look great. And then it becomes an issue of, well, our systems not built out enough, but you know, we're just starting.
John C Morley (44:46):
Why do you even bother to release something that doesn't have onboarding functionality? Why do you release something that isn't going to be user concentric? Why? Well, we're just getting started. Why do you have a time clock that doesn't allow people to clock in and out? You just have to manually keen hours. I mean, why do we even build something half a like this? I mean, it boggles my mind. I think the user interface, of course, functionality, and security is paramount. But I think assuming that the FinTech companies got security, which has got to be a given, and then you know, they got the process, right? They got to have a great user interface. Otherwise, I'm going to another company.
Tristen (45:24):
No. Yeah. I think it's all part of this trend that, you know, you try to go to MVP as fast as possible and something, and then you'll figure it out. And you do that because you usually try to raise money. So, you're like, okay, I need to have something to show to my investors. I need some traction. So, I need, I'm going to release something, gets a bunch of users, even if they're not happy, and they're not sticky and whatever. Like most of the time, I'll throw some money at it. I'll give you like 50; I'll give you 100. You just join. So, then I can turn around and tell potential investors, look, I have all these users. And you don't say that they're not sticky or that everybody's saying that your previous is just part of this kind of trying.
John C Morley (46:14):
But I think you're better off taking it as a silo. So, if I'm writing an HRIS system, okay. I tell me, look, we're starting as an HRIS system. We're developing a tracking system, and then we're going to develop a payroll system. It's coming. I don't want to give you half a system. So, here's our HR, our HR system, or our applicant tracking system. Let me know your feedback; then, we'll start developing. I think that's a better way of moving forward. What do you think rather than just trying to throw me the whole darn kitchen sink and hoping that I might like a piece or two in it?
Tristen (46:51):
Yeah. I think a lot of companies, what they do is start with solving a very specific problem. And then, from there, you might build something else, but just focus on solving something well. And it can be super tiny. I don't know. It can be like calendars, or I don't like a super niche. For instance, lots of payment companies kind of started as payment companies, and then they evolved, and they're becoming bigger, but they were like, okay, there is this issue. We're going to be the best at solving this issue. And then you try to build around it. But rather, as you say.
John C Morley (47:34):
You've got the right now, Tristen, you've got to figure out what problem you're solving, what paying you're solving for, and market that go say, well, I want a payroll system. I know you want us to work on that, but it's not yet ready to be shown. I think that's a better way to go because at least I know you put the time into something that works. And now I know it will be good when you come out of the payroll system. That's always been my philosophy and all the development we've done. We may want to put 500 features in there, but I may only allow a hundred to release because I'm only happy with the way those got coded or the way those are being disseminated in the user interface or the flow. I think a lot of people, as you said, just try to stick things together, like band-aids and cheap glue and pop sticks, Popsicle sticks, and hope that it might just hold together. And then they got to deal with all these people where they get an attrition rate of 50%, but they don't care because they make their cancellation process complicated or they make a claim that, you know, they're not a full-service FinTech platform. We're a self-service platform, and we don't do full service.
Tristen (48:51):
Yeah, no, you're right. I think that a lot of companies out there are trying to solve too many problems at the same time. And, you know, it's a bit like the problem, if you're not focusing is that you're doing every, you're trying to do everything, but you're doing everything wrong rather than, you know, doing one thing. Right. And that tends to be a big problem here.
John C Morley (05:19):
I think people need to be not in a rush to choose their FinTech solution. I think they need to research. They need to demo a couple of them, see how it works, and run through a trial phase. And suppose a company doesn't give you a trial phase. In that case, I don't think that company is worth me even potentially investing my money in for their service or their product, because if they don't care enough about me and my business flow, or I can't reach their tech support, why would I even want to give them a dime? Because they have a fancy website. And a lot of times they have these fancy websites Tristen, but then when you get to the software, the software looks like it was written in the 19 hundreds. That's just our website. But the app was designed like your app was designed in a different millennium, a different century.
John C Morley (50:10):
Yeah. It's slightly older. Slightly It doesn't even have 256 colors in it. We're working on it. Well, when you think it'll work in an upgrade, we're hoping in the year, and then you get all these issues. So that's a problem. A big red flag from interest is when I go to a website and I can't click on a link to that FinTech company's contact form or be able to call their phone number or reach a page. And it says, it's not valid that says to me if they can't get a website, right? With the pages that are up there, I don't care if the website's not big; just put the pages upright. The first time, make sure it's spell checked properly; put more, less rather than more, right?
Tristen (50:55):
Yeah. No, I think you're right. That there is a lot of, I'm going to have this design kind of screenshots of an app you will never use. And you're like yeah, but why are you showing me something I will never see? It's a bit like a video game when you have the trailer of a video game, and it's looking great. And then you play the video game, and it's like, what the hell? It has nothing to do with the trailer. So, you're just lying here.
John C Morley (51:29):
Right there, you're using a version that was five versions ago. Or that manuals for five versions ago where the screen you're looking at that's not our greatest release that one's not, that's in our beta. That's not released yet. Well, that's what you market. No, it's coming. It's just not; it's got some bugs. Well, don't show it to me on the site you're selling. What's kind of like that? No, it isn't. It's not even close. Well, just I got to tell you, this has been very interesting and hopefully eye-opening for many of our viewers here today. Both on JMOR TECH TALK as well as a public educational government TV and for all of our syndicators around the United States and the world that follow our tech program, Tristen, I have to ask you before we have to say goodbye because, unfortunately, we do have to say goodbye. Is there anything you'd like to leave our viewers with on how they can reach out to you or any parting words you'd like to share with them?
Tristen (52:23):
Yeah, no. I mean, I'm always happy to talk to people so they can reach out to me on LinkedIn, or I encourage them to go to Fintechreview.net and read the articles and interviews and guest posts that are released quite regularly and subscribe to the newsletter where I ramble about what's going on in FinTech every week. So, I do recommend they do that.
John C Morley (52:47):
I think it's important to keep your finger on the pulse. And ladies and gentlemen, if you're watching us live, we will put this in the archive. Usually, within a few weeks, it'll be on our main site www.jmor.com under shows. You'll not only be able to replay this because there are a lot of nuggets in here. I, nobody's not going to remember all this. Even the highest financial experts, I have to say that we're also going to transcribe the show, which we do with all of them, but I want to lead this message for many people. I know a lot of people in the millennial phase, a lot of people in this, I know more than you phase, and they're the financial risk analysis. Many of these people are coming out to school, and many believe they know FinTech, but they don't. They think that just because they used an app or a banking application, they don't understand even 10% of what FinTech is. Would you agree, Tristen?
Tristen (53:44):
Yeah. I mean, you need to understand how the financial service works because it is an important thing that, you know, when you sing Fintech, there is technology, but there is finance. So, you must understand that one without the other is just technology. But you need to understand the finance part and how it works.
John C Morley (54:07):
You got to understand basically how debits and credits work. You got to understand how payments work, so I like to say, build the life cycle of the sales and the success of any company or your finances. So, you understand what goes in and comes out and have a flow with how it works. And if you don't understand that flow, even what has to be paid to the government, if you don't understand that you can't possibly be in FinTech, there's just no. Well, you're going to have a lot of dissatisfied clients, Tristen. It was a privilege, a pleasure, and an honor to have you on our talk show today. I want to thank you for your time and educating us with all the great nuggets you shared with us and for sharing your website, which FinTech reviews. Check that out, everyone, to learn about just some things happening in the industry; where are things going? So, you know, keep your, I like to say, you know, keep your finger on the pulse because FinTech is something that if you ever take your finger off, you may not be able to get back on for a long time and it might cost you a lot of money. Tristen, again thank you very much for your time. And we wish you all the best, and maybe we will talk to you again when we have some other FinTech breakthroughs in the industry.
Tristen (55:32):
Thanks for having me, John.
John C Morley (55:34):
That was great. My pleasure.
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