TOP CEO: Fuse Finance - 'The Capital Shift' (with Andres Klaric)

Ben Kaplan  00:00

Hey, this is TOP CEO. The show about CEOs making tough decisions featuring CEOs from startups, scale ups and fortune 500 enterprises. TOP CEO is a business school case study, telling the story behind the story, and what you can learn from it from those who have faced the fire and come out the other side. Welcome to the TOP CEO podcast. As

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Andrés Klaric  00:29

founders, you ask yourselves, are you in their natural habitat? That's a question you should answer each one on that team. It just a matter of like fit, right and you're not going to be able to help us get there. And you're going to feel uncomfortable in this new journey. And because this is not your natural habitat.

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The Detective  00:46

Imagine you're the CEO of Fuse Finance, a pioneering FinTech company, setting the gold standard for loan origination systems ello s, your business model is as groundbreaking as it is straightforward. licensing your game-changing software to financial institutions, with every completed loan application adding fuel to your growth.

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Andrés Klaric  01:12

The biggest obstacle is time, let's put a very compressed timeline to fill conviction because that brings discipline so that we wake up every day knowing that we're in a race against time. However,

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The Detective  01:22

you find yourself standing on a precipice looking out over a sea of challenges, pivoting from a b2c to b2b model, scaling a rapidly growing team, maintaining a harmonious relationship with your co founder and disrupting an industry ripe for innovation. These are your trials, your tribulations, your stepping stones to glory. This is the story of Andrés Klaric, CEO of Fuse Finance. And this is The Capital Shift.

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Ben Kaplan  02:07

Andrés take me through the thinking of two years ago, you're starting the company, you're a b2c company, you yourself paid for college by selling something like $3 million worth of cars to get through school, and you're focused on that. Take us through that first year and what you were doing, because soon, you might want to redo the whole thing, even though things are promising. So take us through those kind of early beginnings at Fuse.

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Andrés Klaric  02:37

I mean, we were super excited, right? Like, as you mentioned, I've been in the car industry through family and myself my entire life, right. So starting as something in the auto space was a no brainer at the get go in terms of like how we understood the industry, and how we actually troubleshoot and save time in terms of understanding and building relationships. Where we didn't know though as we kind of dig deeper into the space was that it was not. We thought originally there was a combination of technology, and product messaging that will help us disrupt the market that we were trying to disrupt and that the market that we were trying to disrupt, to be precise, was the auto lending market with a particular angle refinancing. We thought messaging marketing, things like that would actually increase adoption in that space. But we started realizing that was was really missing was technology. Every time we were trying to onboard a lender, they would ask us, can you connect to our platform, and those platforms have the name of mon origination systems. This is a piece of software that is the fundamental part in the technology stack of a lender. And little by little we realize that this was perhaps if we continue doing what we're doing today, you

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Ben Kaplan  03:51

start this two years ago, how long in it where you start to be more seriously contemplating you view yourself as a b2c company. Obviously, you're a marketplace. So you have business relationships, but you're a b2c oriented company. If you start focusing on the software itself, that would kind of supply this need for lenders. It's a big shift, you become a b2b company focused on that. How long after founding, do you start getting that Inkling in a more serious way? Not you did the conversations, you're like, hey, we need to think about this. I would say

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Andrés Klaric  04:22

we also do the year, a year mark, right? Because before you go live, you need to kind of build the product a little bit like I'm talking about the original product, the b2c product, but once we were three to four months into the live face of the product, we have the b2c product, we realize we actually have built a piece of technology that that that is far more valuable than the b2c strategy that we're pursuing. We do have a phenomenal engineering team that has put this in place. We just need to productize some of the internal tools that we have, and we need to find some In contracts with the customers we were selling loans to, and start selling them actual actual technology.

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Ben Kaplan  05:06

Okay, so you're about a year in, it's not so easy. I mean, you're still small at this point, but it's not so easy to just say, Okay, we're going to become a software company. So to provide these loan origination stack, because of a couple factors. One, you have investors, so investors bought on, you're not that far into the process yet, probably, I'm guessing Andrés, if you sold $3 million worth of cars as a college student to pay for college, you're probably a pretty good salesperson, which means you probably sold them on a vision. And they put down you know, their hard earned capital and evaluated you among many others and said, like, I believe in the vision, it's not like you had enough time to basically be like, Yeah, we definitely need to pivot. So why don't you sold them on that. So that's an issue the investors, too, you have a second issue about the team itself. So there's a team, but they also bought into a vision, but maybe they see the opportunity, but they're not having all the conversations with you. And three, you have a third challenge, because in your structure, one, you have a co founder, but you're actually co CEOs, as well, even if you have complementary skills, both have to be on board, there's that but also, you guys are working together for a reason with a certain vision. I've heard you described as this fall in love with your co founder all over again, because now you're going to do something different? And are we both on board in the same way? Do our skills still match and everything else? So those three problems and not problems, but just things you got to overcome? How did you deal with that the investors, the team, and your co founder to make a pretty major pivot pretty early on in your life.

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Andrés Klaric  06:35

So we that the first part that we'll use is how do you communicate with all stakeholders, right? In this case, we're isolating investors we're isolating like the employees were actually in the founding team for investors is fundamental to keep them updated from day one. And that applies across the other two categories, or investors, you need to tell them, hey, we found this opportunity. This is like the key areas of convictions we want to double click on. These are the areas that we're spending the most amount of time over the next couple of weeks to make a decision. And if there if there are a subset of investors that may be helpful for you to to get to the truth faster, you involve them, and you make them part of the process, you also communicate a timeline and you say, we do have this amount of money we raised we think that we want to use next couple of months or weeks, however timeline you want to use to find a plan. And you say like, by this time, we will communicate it this year to the board. And the investors that are usually like the bigger investors, you keep them updated on a weekly, on a weekly basis, you're done. This is clearly a process. These are the frameworks that we're utilizing. And this is kind of how we're comparing the ideas that we have, versus what the plan that we had before.

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Ben Kaplan  07:46

Is there pressure on runway at this part? How far are you from like needing more capital? Because this slows you down a little bit? Are you fine now where

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Andrés Klaric  07:53

we have multiple years of runway, if anything, once you switch from B to C to beat the knee, that divid usually freeze a lot of capital because you don't have marketing spend anymore, right? So you don't have to acquire customers, it's really founder LED. So kind of what what served us on one market, it's very different on the b2b market. You spend much more on halftime because you you start hiring very expensive engineers. But I think that from a burn perspective, the resource allocation on a b2b basis was worth far more efficient. What was harder this I do you actually contract revenue on the new idea is you don't even have the product, right? or later the product still on a nascent phase. So for us was going to, can we actually build a pipeline on a product that it's been developed in real time?

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Ben Kaplan  08:50

I mean, you talked about for the investors, you involve them in the process, you lay out the timeline that sounds like to kind of validate your assumptions. And note we're doing your biggest investors, you're updating weekly, you mentioned that, what else do you need to do to make sure they're bought in and even that you're bought in? And that it's crystal clear? For everyone that yes, we're going to make this pivot,

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Andrés Klaric  09:10

the most important group of people to be bought in are the founders. And now if I will have to put it in order, the founders, investors and employees good, the founders, the founders are the ones that are making the unique decision with their time, right? And they're changing, they need to convince all this other constituents in and they need to also convince themselves as founders, right? Like, they had a good idea to raise millions of dollars of capital, get to the next idea be better, how much better does it have to be? How much faster does it have to be better? And do we have the talent and the superpower so to speak, to build this news? Within this new new strategy? You look at each other the mirror, it's kind of like you'd look at your pockets and you start putting everything on the table. You say? Do I have what it takes as a team found or to build this new product? And if the answer is yes, and it's not just a quick yes, it's like, do I believe in the market? Do I believe in the go to market strategy? Do I believe that I can build a product and within a timeframe that is like recent a wall? And do I have a unique and differentiated strategy to actually attack my competition? And if the answer is yes to all of this, and it's quantifiable, qualitative and quantitative, we are in a good spot. With investors, you still need to convince them because you need to kind of use everything that I've said, You need to put it pretty much in a presentation mode, hard numbers, right? Like this is how much is gonna cost us. This is the contracts that we have signed, this is the type of tech stack that we're going to have to develop this. These are the key partnerships that we built in order to do that. And this is where the vision of the product goes, this is how we get there. And then you show them a clear roadmap to win. And of course, you need to show your conviction, you believe in this idea, wait more than what you did under Part One? And then you hope that they tell you Yes. Right? Because there's an opportunity for them, perhaps say No, right. And if you're not convinced, trust me, you're not going to convince anyone. It's very important to evangelize people, that you actually believe in what you're saying you have conviction, and to your employees is the same way. First and foremost, not everyone can go in and the next or next face, right, because

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Ben Kaplan  11:17

certain people that are important as a b2c company is not important as a b2b company, unfortunately, exactly.

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Andrés Klaric  11:23

And there's nothing personal, they're just a matter of like fit, right? You're not going to be able to help us get there. And you're going to feel uncomfortable that this new journey, because it just is not just this not your this is not your natural habitat. So that same way that as founders, you ask yourselves, are you in their natural habitat? That's a question you should answer for each one on that team. And then sometimes you will have to answer the questions for them. And sometimes they will have glanced through themselves, we made a mis assessment on them being kind of the right folks, for that team. If

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Ben Kaplan  11:57

you enjoy this show, you'll love TOP CMO with me, Ben Kaplan, it's never been a better opportunity to do that. I

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12:07

would definitely encourage marketers to be engaged in the product development process, because you're banking, your

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Customer 1  12:12

brands, great moments, but it's the great brands that create movements. And that's the spirit of justice. Of course,

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Ben Kaplan  12:19

this is the podcast where we go around the globe to interview marketing leaders from the world's biggest brands, fastest growing companies, and most disruptive startups available wherever you get your podcasts. Out of all of that, what was the most difficult part of this sort of strategic planning phase? If I'm going to call that you like strategically, planning and vetting this idea to do the pivot? What was the biggest obstacle?

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Andrés Klaric  12:47

The biggest obstacle is time. But I do think that like, once you actually set the time, it's an artificial barrier, right? Because honestly, you could actually just say, instead of how that asks, for one to three months, say I need a year, but for us, mark an item that's in a microphone there, I think the two of us thought, let's put a very compressed timeline to build conviction, because that that brings discipline to the equation, like we're not going to rush it, but at the same time, it needs to be tight enough. I'm a former private equity investor. He's a former consultant by trade, so we know how to operate in tight timelines. So that's, that's what that that timeline is communicate to our investors and stick to it. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. We're returning capital. That's the end of the day, right. But we felt that it was important to kind of deliver within that timeframe, and create that discipline so that we wake up every day knowing that we're getting are in a race against

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Ben Kaplan  13:43

time, take us through those final investor presentations. I mean, you've brought them along. So it's not a surprise. It's not like they're, oh, what are we gonna talk about today? Like, well, you want to change to be a b2b company. And they've seen this all along. Take us those final sort of meetings. Was it at that point? obvious to everyone that, hey, we need to do this, or was there some debate? Was there some questioning? What were those kind of final meetings? Like when he basically said like, Are you in or not?

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Andrés Klaric  14:06

Are you supportive? I think they did. Most of them have been marinating. We they do, right. So it's you give them up to date in such a way that there's no from left field type of effect. So we were very careful to let them know along the way, they still were thinking, this is what we discovered this week, or this month, depending on what what type of constituency within the investor group they aware. So by the time we arrive to the decision time, they know, these were the facts. This is the data that we gather, these are the questions that we were trying to answer them. These are the answers that we gotten. And this is why we believe it is what you put at the end. It's a much more organized perspective on like, Bridget told them a bunch of discoveries. The final presentation is essentially a bitch, right? You need to assume that you need to get funded again. So that's kind of the framework that we utilize, right we went and let's assume that we had an raised a penny from venture capitalists, and that we need to earn their their belief again. So that's kind of how we the advantage that we had been navigating them for a long time. But with the pressure that we were at, I hate to say no, how many

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Ben Kaplan  15:14

give you a thumbs up, everyone? Everyone's everyone's on board. Now, was there any of your metrics or numbers that you felt were challenging to hit just to validate? Like, I don't know, if you had a certain number of leads interested? Or if you actually had people signed up at that point? Was there anything that were You were hustling to show a number to validate it to?

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Andrés Klaric  15:30

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you need to signed revenue, or you need signed contracts. So that that is for me, like that was? At first, of course, you like this will be nice. We beat completely expectations. Within weeks, we raise more contractor revenue than we ever had as a b2c business. So sometimes, like you just know, it just momentum was on our side. And it just feels it's amazing as a founder,

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Ben Kaplan  15:54

because you feel like the winds at your back. And suddenly it's a change. And it's like, it's not quite a, you know, you're maybe like I don't use the sailing analogy. But before you're like, you know, you're going this way and going that way and moving around and you're struggling. And then suddenly, you catch this tailwind, and you're like, oh, that's better.

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Andrés Klaric  16:10

It's amazing because it's there's this venture fund called NF Beck's they have an article and it's both basketball, the water and just kind of the analogy goes that chased a fast moving water, it doesn't matter how good the team is, what matters is the the the urine fast will be water. And I think the minute we got into the loan origination system market, it was fast flowing water, it was instant there was it was day and night, where we felt in terms of the level of conviction that will we were doing before

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Ben Kaplan  16:38

everyone gives a thumbs up. You're doing it, you're doing the pivot. How long ago was that? And those 22 and 2022. So everyone's on board, it's great. And you're not like starting to run now in a new direction from like being flat footed, because you've already been signing contracts, you've already been doing things rather than validates. That feels good. But now Oh, crap. Now we've got to do it right. Now we've got to execute. And I assume at this point, you've been selling contracts for something in development, but you don't actually have it yet? Or do you have an actual product that you can like onboard someone to at this point,

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Andrés Klaric  17:09

you have a product, but it's a product that that it's like being improved, like, on the goal, right? So that's kind of the beauty about it that like you proven that you built it, because we have a unique perspective and empathy with our customers, because of the first customer off our products were ourselves, right? But we had to pre defy and make good product dice in such a way they are user

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Ben Kaplan  17:29

friendly for someone else. It's not you that you can't go over to the engineer and say, Hey, this doesn't work for me. Exactly. Fix this for me. Yes. You can't do that anymore.

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Andrés Klaric  17:36

Exactly. Exactly. So then it comes to like, Okay, let's start deploying, right. So those first several customers, that you started deploying towards the end of 20 to early 23, and started using the product. That was an amazing moment, right? Because it's kind of like when the bird starts flying for the first time and you see it, it's wobbly, but like, are you think it's going to be wildly? But no, it flies by Skype? Well, it glides, it does all the tricks beyond and you start getting those thank you notes from your, from the CTOs the CEOs, or the CEOs, whoever, like champion you within this organizations, and and start telling you like, hey, like this is, this is everything that we want it or whenever, like you mark a difference, not only on customer service, but also making their lives easier, right? Like we've been able to grow IX rate, we've been able to simplify this process, we save hundreds of 1000s of dollars in development costs, all of those things that flywheel gets moving, you start realizing and like you understand the magnitude, but like you don't actually feel it until like product is live and having the product live.

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Ben Kaplan  18:44

Basically, it's this feeling of and I've experienced this for to have like, it exists in your head and kind of your mind, and it should work this way. And then you put out in the world, it's like, well, it actually does work how I thought it would work. And in some ways it was better than I thought it would work. And that's kind of like amazing, because it just like lived in your head

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Andrés Klaric  19:01

for Exactly, exactly. And then of course it's always nice. I still wonder finance, seeing that like people are being used for something that like you had built in they see find value in it.

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The Detective  19:12

Fuse finds itself locked in a daunting test of adaptability and resilience. The challenge, a pivot from a b2c to a b2b model, a change that could redefine the company's fate in their infant years Fuse cut their teeth into the auto lending market. But beneath the surface, they discover a seismic gap in the industry, the technology for efficient loan origination, the dawning realization, their unique fast processing technology could be a game changer. The catch convincing stakeholders of the new direction, an uphill battle against uncertainty and resistance. Confronted with a ticking clock they grapple with investor apprehensions would they buy into this audacious new direction, the team committed to their b2c mission was on the edge. The undercurrents of change, stirring unease, would they bought this new ship or abandon it?

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The Detective  20:20

With a rising tide of challenges, the deck seems to be stacked against them, they are pitted against time, against doubt, against the inertia of the status quo. So, in the shadow of these looming obstacles, what was the solution?

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Ben Kaplan  20:39

What become the challenges now, or take us through that kind of like, six months after that, because one, you get some good feedbacks, you have validation, a few problems, challenges can happen. One you have a lot of people come on board, and then they're early adopters. And they start suggesting things like, oh, it would be great. If we had this, there will be great if you have that, and you want to please them, and you want to do those things. And so maybe you do a lot of those things. But you can also get a lot of requests. And it can also steer you in a different direction that maybe that's the best for the business, right? Because you're all early adopters, you have great relationships they believed in you and no one else did. And you want to do everything they say to make them happy. But you're also building, you're not building a software agency that makes custom software for a person. So there's that challenge. Other challenges is there can be challenges in being successful and scale. Other people want to come on board, you want to do this. But what works with I don't know how many clients you had at that point, but five or 10, or however many clients you had, everything may not work with 100. And so you could also be a victim of your own success. So what were the challenges that came aboard? Were either of those applicable or No, to

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Andrés Klaric  21:40

answer your first question, or customizations. That's the opportunity, we saw all the other incumbents in this space, lack self serving capabilities, right? And why is that because they assume that the organization's that they're selling to are either they do not have the engineering resources, they are going to pay them to do those, those changes. Whereas for us, we were like, Hey, we need to make a product, that someone that is not technical can actually change it, democratize it, make it very intuitive for them to make the changes. Today, they're paying top dollar to a consultant to do so that self service capability enables us to empower the customer versus the customer having to be dependent on us. We're not a consulting business, we're a tech business, if you see the competition 1/3 to even half of the margin comes from consulting for us and we're not going to consulting shop. So they that empowering that customer really crave that flexibility in that flywheel of delighting them, I would say the hardest thing and you touched touched a little bit on it was growing our team, right? Because with an in technical teams is it especially if you have a hybrid approach of remote that no remote teams, that part is the hardest. And really like being able to delegate coordinate, all of those elements are without a doubt, I would say the most important thing to like strive to succeed at

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Ben Kaplan  23:09

and how did you approach that? I mean, is this like, you know, you're using networks of people to get to other people? Are you actually using recruiters or outside recruits? Do you need an in house recruiting team? Are you using different platforms that sort of make technical talent more available? And you're using those platforms? How did you tackle it's all

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Andrés Klaric  23:26

of the above. But I think we found referrals from the people that succeed to us to be some of the most powerful tool for bringing good talent, right? Because it's kind of along the lines, if Ben has been good, and Ben has friends that he has worked with in the past that he has high respect for and he thinks those folks will be interested in working for Fuse, let's ask Ben if he has any friends, that he would like to introduce us

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Ben Kaplan  23:53

birds of a feather flock together. And if you've got one good bird here, then he probably enjoys working with other good birds. And he knows or she knows what a good bird would be. And

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Andrés Klaric  24:03

I'm sure we will run into trouble at some point. And like as we scale, we won't even have to think about how we deal with all the other permutations and combinations of that. But for now, I think that at our stage in size, we're very happy with that approach. How was

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Ben Kaplan  24:20

your relationship with your not only co founder but co CEO and your structure? Mark during this time? I said understand your old Harvard business school classmates. So there's some history there than just you know someone working on this in the CO CEO format though, and you're making different decisions. Were there any fractures, disagreements, maybe easy things overcome just ways where you were not aligned during this process

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Andrés Klaric  24:46

all the time. There will be disagreements, there will be fractures but as as long as they are respectful and open. They're healthy for the relationship. The worst case you can happen that could happen within the confines of Rene Ship is when you start bottling those emotions, or when you're done, I'm not thoughtful around how you convey disagreement. I think that if there's anything, one of the things that that I'm the most proud of, is kind of like the level of honesty that the we have a one for each other. I even told Mark Right, I don't see myself building a company all we do, right at least that's kind of the 2023 version of me considers to think that's the case, because I have an enormous trust and respect for its capabilities. I do think that like, what served us quite well to was the fact that we were classmates, but we're not best friends. I respect a lot of folks, they decide to build something with their, with their partners, or or friends. But I do think that having a little bit of that distance really helps you kind of not ever lose, or to always put things in perspective, in such a way that in for us in such a way that like the company goes first. And I when Mark and I we talk, we do our best, and we're very respectful to each other. And I think there's like, a lot of respect for the other. But we do know that the company's interest is what comes first for the two of us. And we're going to do the best thing to advance the interests of the organization and the people that were responsible for.

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Ben Kaplan  26:21

It's almost like, this is your baby, right? You're gonna raise it a certain way you may have and lots of people do this. And I'm talking about like actual relationships, right? Whatever differences they have, we come together even for the good of the baby for the good child. And if you keep that focus, that kind of moves you forward and any individual differences might be my pale in comparison, because we've got to grow this baby. We both are committed to doing that. And that's what comes first. Yeah,

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Andrés Klaric  26:46

absolutely. I think the baby views is our North Star. And what comes first, always,

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The Detective  26:53

we have delved deeper into the trials and triumphs views have encountered in their daring pivot to a b2b model. First, the dragon of customizations rears its head, rejecting the well trodden path of consultancy based solutions Fuse dares to venture off the beaten track, they chose to arm their customers with an intuitive, customizable product, democratizing technology in an era dominated by technocrats. But customizations are not the only adversary in this battle. The specter of scaling the team looms large, with the fortress of Fuse, expanding its borders, bringing in new talent, especially remote ones, poses a fresh challenge. As if these tribulations weren't enough, the labyrinth of co founder relationships, awaits. Disagreements shadow every decision differences threaten unity. Yet, Andrés and his co founder, wield the shields of respect and open communication, forging a bond that holds fast against the Tempest, the secret weapon, a professional relationship that transcends personal ties, keeping the company's interests at the heart of every battle. But what does the future holds? For Fuse?

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Ben Kaplan  28:21

Lets project to wrap up into the future for Fuse. If you keep going with the baby analogy, if you don't mind, I mean, you had the infant years you got through that now you early toddler years, and now you're like the toddler that's walking around and stuff like that you can do some things, you can do some stuff. But you know, you're still a toddler, we've got to kind of mature what does the next one year or three years look like for Fuse? What are the biggest things you need to accomplish and overcome to realize your potential and grow up your kid? Of course,

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Andrés Klaric  28:53

I continue like growing up making more friends. Do you use that in those friends? We talk about clients that we serve that getting to know more of them. And of course competing more, right, like right now, we found a very unique and nice niche. But we I do think that like something that it's going to be the we need to bow test as battle test is sparking a bunch of industries, right? Like, today, we are good. Maybe you're gonna have music and now we need to be good at sports. We need to be good at math, we need to be good at a bunch of phone call.

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Ben Kaplan  29:24

Are you still solely focused on the automotive industry? Or no, no,

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Andrés Klaric  29:28

we do a bunch of other categories. But there's a vertical software strategy within this right? Like there's a bunch of other markets within the lending space that like have their own bubbles and like goes north of $200 billion. So we're gonna focus on our getting our kid very good at that $40 billion dollar market, going through the other strategies. And the reality is the way that I see it, we need to be the operating system, financial institutions. That's kind of the big picture right like today, a lot of the technology and software and lending is siloed by category who's the best thing that XYZ and whereas we think there needs to be an operating system that allows all these applications to communicate with each other in a way that is intuitive. So create an ecosystem in which the market operates and becomes kind of like the base for everyone else to grow and make the best technology. So that's kind of our ambition. And I do think that this is gonna take me my last time, and I'm very, I'm very much looking forward to that. Finally,

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Ben Kaplan  30:29

what do you think, you know, given this entire experience in the pivot? What do you learn from that and bring with that, aside from just going to experience itself to future challenges, and for your growth as a CEO? What do you still need to learn? What are the things that are still for you to realize your full vision, you're going to have to learn and learn how to do better

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Andrés Klaric  30:50

scaling teams is going to be fundamental. I think I mentioned that the founder led growth is going to keep us pretty busy for a while, but bringing a teams that can actually do that. But I think that we're still far.

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Ben Kaplan  31:04

I mean, like more formal sales teams right now. You're probably the Chief Sales chief salesperson. We are

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Andrés Klaric  31:08

where the ambassadors is the company, right? So that comes with team making sure that we disrupt ourselves, right, like so the innovators dilemma, kind of doesn't really trap us ourselves. We want to keep that in mind all those frameworks as we go and not be complacent, right? Like, we are disrupting folks that were consider innovators themselves 1015 20 years ago. So let's keep that remain very humble that at some point, we could actually get slow and disruptive by others. So keep a close eye on everyone else, compete with elegance, do like not not be a bad player in the space and develop the talent, the talent that comes in to really pay to forward, let them grow and listen to them, our customers and our employees.

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The Detective  31:57

From facing the formidable challenges of technological integration, wrestling with the pivot from b2c to b2b, to surmounting the obstacle of scaling a rapidly growing team. The narrative was as gripping as it was enlightening. This case brought several lessons we should all take note of embrace change. Whether it's pivoting your business model or redefining your product. being adaptable can help you capitalize on unexpected opportunities. customer centric innovation, rather than offering bespoke solutions for each customer, strive to build a versatile tool that can be tailored by the users themselves. transparent communication, whether it's between co founders or with employees and investors. clear and open communication is essential when making pivotal decisions. Hire smartly and scale mindfully. Leveraging internal referrals can be an effective way to recruit high performing individuals respected and balance in partnership, maintain a professional balance and respect in co founder relationships, ensuring personal dynamics don't overshadow the company's interests. Every company's journey is unique, but these general principles can serve as useful guideposts along the path to success. And with that, it's Case Closed. 

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