Hi Sam, welcome to our Fintech interview Series. Please tell us about your fintech journey so far.
Hi, my name is Sam! I am a co-founder and COO of botcommerce a social commerce platform for SMEs. Our platform enables SMEs to launch new or additional sales channels on social media websites and messengers and create an omnichannel experience for their customers. Before starting my startup, I worked mostly as a product manager at fintech companies. Personally, fintech is something I am passionate about and I believe this is one the reasons why I started my blog on LinkedIn where I have a more than 20K audience and newsletter “Fintech Wrap Up”. My journey in the fintech industry start at CLICK one of the biggest fintech companies in Uzbekistan and at the moment they have more than 11 million registered users. However, the most exciting part of my journey started at StormPay UK-based fintech startup with the goal of implementing lifestyle finance in the market. I joined the company as a first employee and alongside co-founders participated in building the company from the ground up. At that time I was just learning more about financial services in the international markets and joining the StormPay team boosted that process and I became very deeply involved in learning and building products at the same time.
Please tell us about botcommerce.io, what is its USP?
The growth of e-commerce significantly accelerated during the pandemic. We were all in lockdown and had to make any type of purchases online and get them delivered to our doorstep. Our company botcommerce was also born during the pandemic when we notice a huge demand from SMEs to start sales on messengers especially Telegram which is very popular in Uzbekistan. One of the reasons why businesses wanted to start their sales bots was the cheap cost of implementation and the speed to go to market. Botcommerce started as a startup that allows the company to launch their sales bots on Telegram in 5 minutes and start accepting orders and payments. However, since our launch, we made significant progress and switched our focus from just being a tool or constructor for creating bots to becoming a platform that helps merchants to launch online sales and most importantly increase their sales. Unlike other companies in the market, we put a huge emphasis on features that actually help our customers increase sales. For example, after merchants set up their online stores they can use some the marketing tools such as a newsletter to send updates and news to their customers and messenger bots come in very handy in such cases. In addition to the inbox, our merchants can send a newsletter on Telegram and Whatsapp where we as customers spend most of our time. Answering your question about our USP I would say the marketing tools we offer our customers as part of the platform that help them increase their sales.
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Sam, you an author of “Fintech Wrap Up”, can you quote any perspective on fintech and startups?
This years has started very tough for startups especially for fintechs. We can fintech cutting their valuations and lau offs are happing all across the board. I think after period of growth it is time for fintechs to focus on efficiency and prove that they can generate profit. Even though current market conditions are very tough I believe financial technology sector is open to a lot of innovation. A few trends I am closely watching are embedded finance and open finance and the with launch of ChatGPT also showed the potential of the AI in finance. These technologies will help us to make finance more integrated into our everyday services and with the help of AI we can predict and prevent fraudelent activities.
In DeFi, cross-border payments have the potential to slash the costs by more than 50% by cutting down intermediaries, what are your comments on this?
Indeed DeFi has huge potential to make cross border payment affordable. However, this will happen when DeFi becomes main stream which is when critical number of banks and financial institutions adopt it. At the moment before starting using any crypto related services we as customers need to have access to banking services because most of the financial transactions start with fiat currencies and exchanging to crypto currency. Unfortunately, most people in emerging markets where most of the cross-border transfers happen do not have access to basic banking services this in turn makes it challenging for them to use any DeFi or crypto services too. Another potential use case for DeFi in cross border payments is e-commerce purchases and we can see major card schemes such as Visa and Masterdcard working on blockdchain technologies to make more efficient and affordable for customers to use crypto currencies in e-commerce purchases. I hope we will see more innovation in this sector in upcoming years as crypto industry matures.
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Why Embedded Finance is a trend?
Embedded finance is a trend because it makes financial services more seamless, affordable and opens a lot of opportunities for innovation through technology. In the last several years we saw an incredible shift towards embedded finance and some great example of these technology is Banking as a Service, Card as a Service or how payments are literally becoming part of almost all application. I believe embedded finance will enable to most companies to create an ecosystem of product for example any major company significant customer base can integrate payments, cards, accounts, lending or any other financial services and expand its ecosystem of services. One great example of companies taking advantage of the embedded finance is Apple. Apple actively integrating financial services to its ecosystem and it started with Apple Wallet and then the company launched Apple Card, Buy Now Pay Later services and very recently high yield saving accounts. At the core of these product there is embedded finance technology that enable partner banks or financial institutions to with Apple and vice versa. I expect this type of innovation to happen in more industries and embedded finance to lead the innovation.
One advice you would like to give to a Blockchain Project on better strategies needed for a sustainable business.
2022 was one of the toughest years for crypto industry. Collapse of Terra Labs, FTX and others significantly affected the reputation of the industry and shattered the trust of the users. At the moment crypto industry in state where regulators are putting a lot of pressure to put regulations in place. My advice would be to focus on transparency especially if you are centralised exchange company. When you are transparent and can clearly show that people can trust you I believe you will be able to build a sustainable business.
How exactly does Neo-banking contributes towards the Fintech domain? Could you site few examples?
Neobanking was one best things happened to the fintech industry. I believe neobanks started significantly improve the customer experience, move most of the banking services to digital landscape by launching on mobile applications and by this significantly cutting costs for the customers. This in turn was warning sign for incumbents and they also focused on improving the customer experience. A great example of such impact of neobanking in fintech and banks could be seen in the UK. Neobanks such as Monzo, Revolut and Starling Bank set new standards in banking in the UK. When Monzo launched in the market in showed how customer could get services on mobile application and their debit cards were very popular in the market. Revolut wants to become everything app or super app by diversifying its product offering from exchange services to crypto trading. Neobanks became a standard for traditional banks to catch up with and that improve overall customer experience.
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What are some of the biggest challenges you face when marketing your new idea and trying to better the overall customer experience for them?
Customer experience should be part of the overall value you create for the customer when you are marketing a new idea to the customer. Unless you solve a pain for the customer no matter how customer experience is good your customers will not but your services or products. There is no one right or wrong approach when marketing a new idea. The strategy I would use is to test and find the approach that works best to show the value you create for your customers. Of course no matter what approach you initially you will always take individual approach to each customers, work with them and at the same time learn from them. That way you will identify what is working for them and use that approach to attract other customers.
Thank you, Sam! That was fun and we hope to see you back on globalfintechseries.com soon.
[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]
Fintech fan and product leader who loves working at the intersection of customer experience, business, and technology. What he really loves about product management is finding simple solutions to complex problems. He gets most excited when the product creates incredible experiences and lasting value for customers. He learns and builds to create meaningful real-life interactions through technology.
Botcommerce is a social commerce startup that helps retailers to increase conversion, sales and customer satisfaction by creating additional or new sales channels on social media and messaging apps.
