Julian: Hey everyone. Thankyou so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Duy Vofounder and CEO of Productfy. Productfy is an embedded finance platform toenable any organization to launch a financial product in a safe, compliant and efficientmanner. Youi, I'm so excited to chat with you in, in, not only discuss yourbackground, your expertise in, in your field, but also.

Products fine. And it's reallyinteresting increase in companies, offering financial products and, andcompanies like yours who are making it that much easier and efficient. I'mexcited to not only discuss, the product as well, but how it really changes theinteraction between companies and the consumers and, and the behavior of allthat.

But before we get into all that, whatwere you doing before you started the company?

Duy: Yeah. First of all,thank you Julian. Grateful for the opportunity to share our story and talkabout why, why we really wanted to do this. Yeah. And, and the impact it couldhave on, on people. So, before I started Productfy I basically ran productengineering and operations teams.

Yeah. And so my, my background is verymuch as a, as a builder. As an operator. As a developer, yeah. Coming throughthe ranks, running engineering product operations.

Julian: Yeah. Well in thatexperience, I, I, I feel like you come from a really particular lens cuz youknow, there's, there's technical founders and non-technical founders, duringthe building process.

What kind of, when you look at product,how do you look at it that's different from other founders, I guess in yourexperience with that you've, interacted with being that you have such anengineering and technical background.  

Duy: Yes, sir. That, that'sa great question for us. We started basically focusing on, on a corecompetency, what we could do at the time with the resources that we had.

Yeah. And over time, learning how to addvalue. So, when started out it was like very much an engineering build, but itwas very much like, Hey, we're gonna build a technical product. Yeah. With APIsthat solves a technical problem. Yeah. For companies that want to launchfinances and embedded finance products.

Yeah. And then over time we raised alittle more money. We then hire a compliance person. Mm-hmm. and, and thatperson. Then we added a compliance layer on top of our technical product bill.Yeah. Then we hired a financial operations person. We, we then added aservicing component to our business. Yeah. So it, it, it really starts out withwhat is your core competency?

What can you deliver to the. That isvaluable. And as you raise more money, what can you add on by hiring additionalpeople that, that, that brings in their expertise.  

Julian: Yeah. And what was theinitial inspiration behind the, the product or behind Productfy?  

Duy: So, I, I, I'm a firstgeneration immigrant. Yeah. And like you hear coming to America, at least forme, you hear a lot about America being the greatest country in the world. Yeah.Like, that's kind of what we believe in. But you know, when, when we came heremy mom was working two full-time jobs. Like, it wasn't like two, it was liketwo full-time job, like 16, literally 16 hours a day with, time in between totravel and all those things.

Yeah. She was literally working. 17th to18 hours a day, five days a week. Wow. And we were homeless. Yeah. And there'ssomething very wrong with coming to a country hearing that you're in thegreatest country in the world seeing your mother work two full-time jobs. And Iwas actually working too. Yeah. And, and, and I was a minor who was working, mymom was working two full-time jobs and yet we still didn't have a secure placeto live.

S there was something wrong with thatpicture. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I was very, very interested in, in, in solvingthat problem. My first full-time job outta college was in financial services.Yeah. And over time, I, I grew up in the ranks, primarily working. A lot of itis in financial services.

Yeah. And I really thought, hey, therehas to. A better financials ecosystem out there that works for everybody. Yeah.And not just a few who are lucky enough to, to, to thrive in it.  

Julian: Yeah. And what wereyou seeing? I guess in, in, in whether societal or structurally or, or. interms of the, the fundamental issues.

I come from a family of immigrants aswell. My family came from Mexico, and they had a similar challenge of, of justgetting the resources and access to the resources they need. Is that, is itjust the information's not out there? Is it hard to find access to it? Or isit, as my family saw, just a lot of barriers to getting what you need?

Duy: Yeah, I think, I thinkit goes back to like really, really one of our core values of the company,which is empathy. Yeah. Like, Empathy allows you to figure out solutions toproblems. Mm-hmm. . And so when, when we started this, we really asked thequestion of, well, why did your family have access issues? Why did my mom haveaccess issues?

Yeah. And at the end of the day, mostfinancial products and services is an arbitrage gain. Yeah. I take money fromyou, I lend it to your neighbor. I arbitrage that delta, right? Yeah. I, I, I,and so, and. If a lot of financial services is an arbitrage game, even, evenlike credit cards, even like the cards you spend mm-hmm.

you're arbitraging the relationship withthe merchant paying a fee to the card network. Yeah. The merchant then payingyou the, I mean the card network, then paying the bank, the bank then gives youlike 1% cash back, 2% cash back, whatever it is, right? Yeah. It'sfundamentally an arbitrage game, but financial services didn't always, wasn'talways like, Yeah.

You, you think to where there was a timein our society where employers actually showed empathy for their employees.Mm-hmm. and a lot of employers actually took it upon themselves to financiallyprovide financial wellness for employees. And we as a nation for a long timeforgot that responsibility that employees had to employees.

Yeah. And so, and so, one of the thingsthat, that, that became very evident. Was that there, there's now a, a comingback to that realization like Lyft offers a debit card to its drivers. Yeah.Lyft isn't trying to make money by offering a debit card products drivers.Right. And they're doing it because that's a value add and they wanna take careof their drivers.

Yeah, we will. Silicon Valley does thesame thing. They offer a financial product to their employees so that, so thatthese people don't have to go get a check cashing and all. We, we see,religious organizations. A lot of credit unions in the United States areactually started by religious organizations.

Wow. The oldest credit union in theUnited States is actually St. Mary's Credit Union. So we see universities, wesee religious organizations really empathizing with, my, my students, myfaculty, my congregation are all. Because they're not being served well bypredatory financial services. Yeah.

Companies. How can I step in and, and,and how can I make it a better environment for them? Because my mom struggledto access financial services just as your family did. Yeah. But what she didhave is a deep relationship with her church, and if her employer. also beenthere to help her navigate it, we probably would've found a way to access asecure living situation much sooner.

Yeah. And so, and so, it really goesdown to the fact that financial services are there to make money. They're notthere to really demonstrate any meaningful amount of empathy for the peoplethat they serve. Mm-hmm. . And the only way we're gonna change financialproducts and services. to make it a better financial ecosystem.

Yeah, for the va, vast majority ofpeople is if we allow organizations that have deep empathy for their users thathave deep, meaningful relationships. to be able to offer financial products andservices.  

Julian: Yeah. What do you, Ifeel like, perspective wise, there's a, there's a big trust, I guess, to have,say, a large bank because they're, they're accessible in, in multiplelocations.

They have some type of reputation,whether, whether good or bad, they have something out there. How do you kind ofshift the mentality to say, trust the, the localized or the, I guess, moreintimate relationship with either employers or say like, like you said, creditunions ran by an organization that you're from.

Obviously there's some inherent trust,but. There's a little bit of distrust, say, with the lack of pedigree in thatparticular industry. How do you overcome that and, and build the trust withyour, with those who, who are going to be benefiting from these services tomake sure that they feel secure with with, with the resources that  

Duy: they're being given.

Right. I, I do wanna challenge thatfirst assumption. Yeah. Banks do have a reputation, but they don't have areputation. That's good. Like , if you look at what happened in Wells Fargo.Yeah. Wells Fargo. Got slap what I think like a 3 billion fine for all the waysthat they were abusing and preying on the consumer, right?

Yeah. You, I mean, you, you look at,like, Goldman Sachs is not a place that people look at and say, oh, wow. Like,I trust those people. Yeah. They are good people that I wanna, that I wannawork with. Right? Yeah. So, so I, I very much, very much want to. This ideathat people have a view of, of, Wells Fargo, that it's like, oh, I trust these.

No, I use Wells Fargo because I have to.Right. Because they're, because they're around and, and so, and so they, theydo have a, they do have a, a reputation, but I really want to challenge if it'sone that you really want in market now. Yeah. It's, to me, it's not apotential. This may or may not work. Like you trust your employers Yeah.

To operate a, a, to offer a 401Kprogram. Right. Right. That is a huge financial investment. Universities offercard programs and like, we, we, we see universities and finan and, andeducational institutions offering financial products. Shopify, if you look atShopify, Shopify actually offers financial products to their merchant.

Because they feel like they can do amuch better job. Yeah. Like during the merchants than having these SMBs go outthere and get preyed on by like Wells Fargo and some of these other Yeah. Banksout there, so, so the reputations of the banks are not anywhere near where youwould really trust them. Yeah.

And we've already seen great companies,like you think about it, American Airlines. Yeah. They offer a credit cardpeople. Flock to American Airlines card, right? Yeah. You, you, you see, yousee, Costco has a card. I have a Costco credit card. In fact, one, one of thethings that I, what I, that I tell is that my, my family shops at Costco, we doit quite a bit.

Yeah. And the reason why there's a lotof brand loyalty, at least for me personally Yeah. To Costco. And my mom has tomac. . It's because when we had very little Costco gave my family a card andholding that card made us feel like we were Americans. Yeah. And that kind ofbrand loyalty, same thing with Macy's, right?

Macy's at some point gave my mom a cardand it made my mom feel like, Hey, I can actually have a little bit of theAmerican dream, like I can go and get a nice thing. Yeah. And that kind ofbrand loyalty. is massive. Massive, yeah. Far more than most fintechs and a lotof the banks can ever hope to achieve.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Before Iget into the I obviously want to, to kind of, discuss that the influence andthe impact of having a product like this and, and enabling more brands, butdescribe the mechanics of what Productfy does and, and what the offerings youare, you, you work with the company and what are they able to access and offertheir employees and, and those who are able to benefit from the services.

Describe the mechanics of, of Productfyand what you guys are doing.  

Duy: Yep. So, so, at thefoundational layer we offer an api. Now that API we, we only give to you if youreally know what you're doing. If you're like, Hey, we're, we're a well-fundedcompany, we, we have compliance, we have a legal team.

We really know what we're doing. We wantto access your APIs, we give you an api. But for the majority of of clients,right, for instance we have a client that serves black and brown religiousorganizations. Right. They're very good at taking care of people in theircongregation. Mm-hmm.

they're not a group of engineers. Yeah.For someone like them, we would be offering a, a uh, a, a white, a full whitelabel solution. You We have another company that, that, you know, that, thatdoes disbursements. Mm-hmm. for insurance. , right? They're an insurancecompany. They have their own priority.

We give them a white label solution. We,we target companies like a company that, that works with people with mentaldisability. Mm-hmm. , they take care of their social security needs and theirmedical needs, and they just need a financial product. And so for the most partvalue proposition is that we have an entire.

Right? Yeah. That, that, that companies,employers, organizations, whatever it is that wants to offer a specificfinancial product. Once the bank has been a, once the bank has approved them asas a client, we can get them live. We have gotten alive in under three businessdays. Wow. . And so no engineering team, right?

No compliance team, no servicing team.We operate all of that program for you. And so what we do, At the top, we offera full white label solution underneath that. For those who are very qualified,we offer a, an api. And then, and then really we have an entire team ofcompliance, financial operations, servicing people that basically operate theprogram.

Julian: Yeah. How, how much ofthat, I guess the, the companies that you're working with, how much of theirthose who are there, they're providing you talk about the, the company thathelps black and brown individuals get access. How much of this is justuntapped? How many individuals are, are without access to these resources, whocan gain it through Productfy?

Duy: Yeah, I think, I thinkit's not just. The, the underbanked, I mean, I, I mean the, the underbanked ismassive. And, and when you talk about underbanked, it's not like a binarything, right? Right. There are some people who might have access to a debitcard but don't have access to credit cards. Right. Do you consider those peopleunbanked or underbanked?

There are people who. who might haveaccess to credit, but a ridiculously high rate. Yeah. You consider those peoplewell served. So I, I think, I think it's not like a binary underbanked,unbanked flip that's on or off. It's that our value proposition is how do weensure that the financial ecosystem that we all live in is a kinder, moreempathetic and more socially just financial ecosystem.

Yeah. That is sustainable. That that iswhat we, that is what we endeavor to build. And so it starts with like, how dowe build a better financial product for everyone? .  

Julian: Yeah. And describe,obviously I can see the incentive from the consumer point of view, obviouslyhaving this access and ability and flexibility to not be so burdened by,borrowing or using from, from, larger banks.

But what are the incentives for thecompanies? Obviously loyalty is a huge one, but what are some incentives and benefitsthat they receive from, being able to give those who are, they're trying toserve access to this type of financial I, I guess these financial tools. .  

Duy: Yeah. So loyalty is abig deal. Yeah. Like you said. And, and it could be, it could be a a, a homehealthcare company that is struggling to, to be able to retain the, the nursesbecause a lot of these home healthcare professionals, like the competition forthem is ridiculous, right? Yeah. So the loyalty of like being able to pay youthe day after you work, so you work a day and you get paid the same.

and being able to do it so that it'slike instantly spendable that those are kind of loyalty programs that that youmentioned. Right? The same thing with like Macy's rewards and like Costco andthese kind of programs. Yeah. There's another set of value that is aroundoperational efficiency, right? If I'm an insurance company and I have todisperse,

Mm-hmm. , getting like a company to to,to say, Hey, look I have all these claims that come in. I have to write 'em acheck, which could get lost, which could get stolen. Or I could have 'em link abank account, give me their routing number, give me their, their, their bankaccount number that I can transfer money in, which would take time.

maybe, they don't trust me, if they wantto call me and talk to me about, it's just a bunch of. But if I could just,hey, send in an email, disperse a virtual card that then they could have accessto, that they can spend. Not only do they make it faster and easier, cost meless money.

but also every time they spend, I actuallymake money back that I can then offer additional benefits to them. Yeah, right?Yeah. Yeah. So, so there are disbursement use cases above and beyond theloyalty use cases. And, and then they're just the good old fashioned, like, wewant to take care of our people.

Right? It's not for any other benefitother than, Hey, we want to take care of our congregation. We want to take careof our. We want to take care of the community that we're in. Mm-hmm. . So I, Iwould probably bucket into loyalty into just wanting to take care of people andinto like operational efficiency.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And howdoes that change the landscape for people getting all this access and not beingso burden Obviously, I was a second gener, fir, second generation, first generationcollege student and, and having to go through the whole financial process. AndI was fortunate enough to, not be able to accrue loans.

But, for those who are. Unable to havethe access to resources or benefits, say federally, how does that change thelandscape for the ability to, to be able to, I guess purchase what you want tobut not be so burdened by, say, interest or, or what you have to pay back andhaving that flexibility, how does that change the macro environment?

Duy: Yeah, I think it startswith like, imagine if. , your school, on freshman orientation right? There'slike freshman row and you see all these predatory companies that's trying tolike, sink their teeth into like freshman class. Yeah. With like a credit cardoffering. Yeah.

Right. Imagine if the universities andwe have seen educational institutions starting to do this, offer financialproducts instead of ruining your credit by offering you. Really bad financialproducts. What if the university said, Hey we're gonna offer you a securecredit card that's fully collateralized.

You're not gonna get in trouble andwe'll help you build your credit. Mm-hmm. so that when you graduate fromschool, you actually have credit that you can go and rent a car, rent anapartment. Yeah. You actually have credit history rather than like a destroyedfinancial status, which is yeah, what a lot of people are gonna be burden.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I am sointerested in, in how kind of embedded finance and, and even especially, we seea lot of, blockchain and crypto companies going into finance as well. How doesthat disrupt the market in, in regards to its effect on, on larger playerslike, larger banks or larger institutions who are, say, have, have years ofreputation or, or have all this brand loyalty, how does this disrupt them and,and what is the competition now that they.

That you see all these, smallerorganizations being able to I guess, not affect them, but I, I guess, offersome kind of competition.  

Duy: Yeah, that's a reallygood question. So, when you say blockchain, I, I assume you're talking aboutlike, like cryptocurrency, like that's kind of where you want to pick that,that question, right?

Like how cryptocurrency or, yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. I guess notnecessarily, not necessarily crypto and like tokens or coins or anything likethat, the really sophisticated infrastructural layer that, that allows tradingand lending and, and, and borrowing and all these functions of, of traditionalfinance, but in a way that's extremely transparent. And, and, you Inherentlydoesn't have that predatory nature if done, if done well.  

Duy: Right, right. So, Imean, this is kind of why our core thesis is different, right. Our core thesisis let's go to organizations that have deep, meaningful relationships. Mm-hmm.and empower them to offer a financial product because the, the things thatcreate misalignment right now in the banking, the, the is.

You have a CAC problem, a customeracquisition cost problem, right? Because if you're a bank and you're trying toacquire customers, you have nothing to offer them other than, Hey, my, myinterest rate is X, my rewards point is y and, and I'm gonna compete on that.Right? So really, what are you doing above and beyond competing on just reallyjust like interest rates, and rewards and Yeah, and maybe like a few fringebenefits here and there, right.

That's why, that's why DEAC forfinancial products is so ridiculously high. Mm-hmm. , that's why a lot offintechs honestly are, are struggling to, to get to any sense of, of viablegtm. Yeah. Right. A lot of neo banks are struggling. Even the ones that youknow about, they're caps are uc, a multiple of their LTVs.

Yeah. Which then it's like, well if allyou're doing is competing on interest rates and like, benefits of like therewards program. Then your LTV is gonna be cut short because as soon as I findthe next, if you give me one and a half percent cash back and I find anotherbank that gives me 1.8% cash back, I'm going to the other bank.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't care. Likeyou guys are fungible. Yeah. Right. So my cap is high, my LTV is low. Yeah. Andso for most companies it, for most fintechs, for most bank, that is, that isthe con. Yeah. The reason why we target organizations with meaningfulrelationships is that, if an employer, and like I said, employers used to be aplace of financial wellness.

Employers used to care about theiremployees. Yeah. So if an employer offers you a financial product, they're nottrying to make money from you. Yeah, right? The same way that a bank is,because if the bank is letting you money, if the bank is offering a card intheir mind, I'm like, how am I monetizing this?

Right? How am I monetizing the. , right.But if the employer's offering you a financial product, if your university'soffering you a financial product, it's like, Hey, we wanna make sure you dowell. Yeah. Yeah. And so the alignments, the incentive alignments aredifferent. They're, they're, they're much better than a traditional financial institution.

And so if you solve that problem, if yousolve the problem of like aligning incentive, yeah. Then, then you get intomuch better unit economics, lower cap, higher lt. and then just the plumbing,the infrastructure that becomes relatively trivial. Like yeah, those are justlike, that is not a hard, like banking infrastructure is not a hard technologyproblem. Yeah. Yeah, it's a hard everything else problem.  

Julian: Yeah. I'm sointerested. I'm thinking about your business and the model and obviously theincentives and the benefits line up and, and I love what you think, the way itis thought about in regards to, they're, they're I guess motivations aredifferent, right?

A core company has a whole differentproduct and benefits. It's almost like it could be a healthcare package in, in,in, in similarity. Yep. Yeah. But my, my, if I'm thinking about it, the biggestrisk is, how do I say, if you have somebody who's not able to pay some, someportion of the money back that they borrowed or lended or, or there's some say,risk involved there as a company, how does Productfy, mitigate, and, or, orhelp respond to any risk or any, any that things don't go the way that they'resupposed to.

Right. How do you solve that problem, orhow do you think about solving that as a company and, and how much of that is., are you involved with in regards to building and, and then that whole, Iguess cus customer success? I, I think I would call it that. Yeah. Yeah. How doyou tackle that?

Duy: Yeah. I mean, that's avery, very interesting question, right. And it's very, very astute questionbecause it goes to like, if I am incentivized to have to grow at a certain rateYeah. If I have to go ahead and, and acquire user at all. , then I'm gonna do alot of things that, that, that are, that are like very questionable in myunderwriting.

Sure. , because I'm just like, this islike, what happens when money is cheap? This is like what happened in thefinancial crisis. Yeah. You just have a bunch of cheap money, so you go and youjust like make all of these bad underwriting decisions. Right? Yeah. Likereally bad underwriting position because you are quite incentivized to do so.

Yeah. Like you, like Chase, chase Bankrecently acquired this company called Frank. Mm-hmm. , which is basically like,like a huge, huge, huge problem for them. And it was because they're like, allthese companies are incentivized, Hey, I just need to show top line growth so Ican flip the company.

Yeah. And like make a quick buck. Andbad underwriting is a symptom of that. Yeah. Because you're just trying togrow, you're just trying to do whatever you can before you get caught. I. Sothat you can like flip and, and make a quick buck. When we do our underwriting,it is with the eye towards how do you build a generational, transformativecompany that will change the financial industry.

Yeah. And for that, there are times whenwe honestly say, you're not ready for this. Yeah. Like a part of underwriting.Is to say no. Yeah. Right. And so to answer your question, the only magic thatwe have is that we sometimes say, I'm sorry. No. Yeah. It's not gonna work.Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's a stupid simple approach, but it's one that's kept usoutside of a lot of problems that people get.

Julian: Yeah, I can see thevalue in, in just being, doing the due diligence to a degree and also settingup companies. And it sounds like a lot of education's involved. A a lot of Iguess advice and advising is involved in that process, which is amazing to seethat you're taking that care and attention because, like I said, the one of thebiggest risks, I'm thinking as a founder of men, how do I make sure, how do Iensure that?

Companies that are offering theseproducts offer them not only as they're supposed to, but that they run well,and it's awesome to hear that that's kind of in consideration when you're goingthrough the underwriting process. Tell us a little bit about the traction.Where, where is the company at now?

How many people are using service? Howmany companies are using services? How many individuals are benefiting? Andwhat's exciting about this next year's a stage of  

Duy: Yeah. So we generallydon't disclose company financials with with with parties that you know, unlesslike investors or something like that.

Yeah, sure. So, I I I'm happy to talkbroad level, right? Yeah. Like we, we have clients launch, we have multiplebank partners, and, and we're, we're right now, next year we're focusing onlike. doing more to Empower mm-hmm. more and more different types oforganizations to launch financial products.

And what does that mean? It means, likeup until now we've had a certain set of products that we can offer. What wewant to do next year is to do more to help the SMB market, the, the small,medium size businesses. And that requires a certain set of financial productsthat are different than consumer products.

We wanna also try to solve the, thehealthcare problem. Yeah. Through the financial. And that's something thatwe're gonna be looking to do, towards the end of this year, into early nextyear. Because cuz you think about it, a lot of healthcare is financialservices. Yeah. You just don't necessarily see it that way.

Yeah. And so, so doing more forinsurance, doing more for healthcare, using financial products, , that's whatwe do. So up until now there's been a lot of success with consumer. Mm-hmm. ,we, we started doing some commercial. Right. Commercial being like your smallmom and pop, like if I'm a, if.

If I'm a, self-starter who has a food truck,or if I'm an Etsy seller, or if I'm, if I'm someone selling on Etsy or if I'm acompany, a, a small mom and pop, retail pizza shop, like sure, how do I betteraccess financial services? We want to grow beyond consumer.

We, we've done that into somecommercial. We want to do more Yeah. To support commercial businesses. And theneventually, tackle, like they said, the end of this year next. Healthcareinsurance is kind of where, where we wanna be tackling.  

Julian: Yeah. It's sointeresting the approach you took. I, I feel like it, it's a little bit moredifficult in, in terms of the sophistication of, of tackling, more consumerfaced or, or, or smaller companies because there's, there's more involvementand maybe even less foundational. Maybe not even financial literacy orcompetency, but, but ability with, I'm assuming the infrastructure that they.

It's so exciting to, to see how you kindof approach the build there. What are some of the biggest challenges that youface today?  

Duy: Well, actually I, I, Iwanna, I wanna talk to that point cuz you made a really again, a very astutecon point that I think maybe your listener might have missed.

You are 100% right? Yeah. In that theconsumer's more complicated commercial. Yeah. 100% correct about that. And soto your question about why it's interesting that we did that again, that's areally, really good observation . And if I was launching a FinTech, I wouldstruggle to answer your question because I'm like, oh, I have to go out and,and, and figure out how to win users on CAC and all these things.

That seems like a really hard thing.Yeah. But that's not what we're doing. We don't target consumers. We targetorganizations that have existing relationships with these consumers. Yeah.Right. Like, like I'm. I don't have a background to go to church. Yeah. Andlike, talk to people, but one of our client does.

Yeah. Right. They, they have bishops ontheir, on their, on their board. I don't have the wherewithal to go into acommunity that serves people who are differently abled. Yeah. But one of ourclients do. Right. So, again, you ask a really smart question that I, and I, Iwould've, and I would agree with you, 100.

And that's why we don't go after them.That's why we go after the companies. Yeah. That's why, again, it goes back tohow do we enable organizations Yeah. With these meaningful existing deeprelationships to do it, because we never can't. Yeah. And most companies aretrying to, will fail. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that's, that's so I, I, again, thankyou for that, that really, really sure.

Profound question. Sure. With respect tothe challenges that we. Part of the challenge of being a venture back companyis that there are these pressures on you that if you don't control properly,will destroy your company. So venture based companies are notorious for growthat all. Cost.

Yeah. Move fast and break things. is, isis one of the things that you hear about. Yeah. And that might work well inother sectors, but if you just spent five minutes Googling FinTech 2022. Yeah.You will see what a complete cluster that was. Yeah. , banks getting shut down,programs getting shut down. Companies that raised, hundreds of millions ofdollars halted or frozen or shut down crypto crashing.

Yeah. Financial institu. Getting consentorders it just, it was just a complete cluster, right? 2022 was the inevitablereckoning of move fast and break things and grow at all costs apply tofinancial services now, and now. We felt very similar pressures at the be atthe end of 2021 and into 2022, and it was really difficult to have to come backand.

We do not believe this is the rightthing to do. We believe if you go down this path, you're gonna get destroyed.Yeah. . And you're gonna, you're gonna destroy a lot of like, of the financialecosystem and, and being right, believing that we were right then was stillvery difficult because until it happened, everyone's like, you're kind of theweird one out there that's not doing what everyone else is doing right now.

We didn't get caught up in that. , butnow there's a couple, there's two major challenges that we're facing. Numberone is so many banks have been burned by this bad behavior that like,literally, I was talking to one of my bank partners and she apologized. She'slike, Hey, look, we're telling you to do a lot of things even though we knowyou're different, because everything that that we've done with you over the,the last quarters, several quarters have told us that you're different, butwe've been burned so bad.

That we have to now do these things.Yeah. Right. And, and so the number of banks that are willing to take a risk isnow lower and lower. It's like, it's like, it's like after the financialcrisis, 2007, if you were a good borrower who, who who was responsible, youstill might not have gotten alone. Yeah.

Because, because everyone else did allof these really dumb and still and, and horrible. , well, a lot of venturebacked companies and unsophisticated banks did a lot of things and got burned,and now it just, the, the risk mentality is so low, it's so slow to get thingsdone now. Sure. That's the first problem.

The second is, a lot of investors whowere unsophisticated and got burned, they, they are now coming back to us and., we, we just don't want to deal with FinTech anymore. Yeah. And that reducesthe, the amount of investors that we could work with because they got stuckmaking massive investments in companies that are gonna get shut down.

Right. And so now their appetite for,for working with a financial infrastructure company, it's. Okay. Kind of gotburned. This is, I, I'm just gonna kind of look somewhere else right now. Yeah.Those are probably the two biggest challenges we face.  

Julian: Yeah. When you weregoing through the, the fundraising process, what was the, I guess, the mostcompelling, I guess.

Reason or factor for companies toinvest. And part of my mind goes too, you're not necessarily doing what othercompanies doing, which is offering a product that's slightly different. Maybethere's some slight benefit to it. Yeah. You're tackling a whole different, andI, I see as, as an untapped untapped market of, of consumers and businessesthat genuinely want to offer more services, not purchase, more service for, forthe.

To then trickle down. It's this directrelationship, and I, I just, I haven't seen many companies do it that areoffering a solution like yours, but what was the most compelling kind of reasonthat companies, ended up or, or I guess partners and VCs and investors endedup, wanting to work with you and wanting to be a partner while you're goingthrough this journey?

Knowing that, it, it is probably aslower, a slower growth, but you know, it's tackling a market that, that's, Ithink, fairly substantial.

Duy: Well, I mean, that isexactly the problem, right? Yeah. It's, it's that most VCs are not that forwardlooking. Yeah. Right. They might say they are all, all VCs say that, but mostof 'em are not.

Yeah. But most of 'em are like patternmatchers. Right. And so it is exactly that. Hey, like we believe that growth atall costs in this space, move fast and break things into space is gonna blow upin your face. Yeah. and the irony. That when we were saying it and there was noproof, everyone's you're wrong.

We don't want to invest in you. Sure.And then when we're right, they're like, well, we've been burned. Yeah. And soit's one of those things, it's like, okay, well you were burned cuz you didn'tlisten to us. Right. . And now because you were burned, you're afraid to doanything else. Right. That is our biggest challenge.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Ifeverything goes well, what's the long term vision for Productfy?  

Duy: When people talk. , 20years ago if I meet, if people said, Hey, every company's gonna be online,you'd be like, well, that's stupid. I have a boba shop, a taco truck. Why?

Why the hell do I need to be online for?This is stupid. Yeah, yeah. Right. But there was enough people who built enoughinfrastructure so that , if you're a stay at home person who wants to practiceyour arts and craft, you can now create an online store. And sell your arts andcraft. Yeah. Online.

Right. And, and now it's taken forgranted that if you have a business, you can have an online presence. Yeah.Well, I think the long term vision is to build a truly globally decentralizedfinancial infrastructure. And the, the thing with crypto was that it alwayspromised that you can have a decentralized financial infrastructure.

Mm-hmm. . But we always had a differentworldview of finance, of decentralized financial infras. . What if you are awomen's collaborative in Vietnam, which is where I came from, and you can haveaccess to a globally distributed financial ecosystem that can do lending, thatyou can issue a card you can manage payroll on.

Yeah. Right. And be able to instantlysell and transfer funds around the world. . What if you are, a company, anavigation center that works with former inmates. Yeah. And when they come out,you're like, Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna build a basic way for you to earncredit. This is your deposit account.

When you get a job, this is where themoney goes. Mm-hmm. . And then we'll help you build credit so that you canactually, rent a car and like Yeah. An apartment. Yeah. Banking. The reason whywe believe embedded banking is the way of the future, it's the only way to makefinancial services work is because it relies on this profound value of empathyand understanding who it is that you're working with.

Mm-hmm. And by build, there's nothingmore decentralized than having your church, your prison navigation center, yourlocal pta. , your favorite gym, your favorite brand, all offering you financialproducts and services. Yeah. It becomes basically embedded me like the wholevalue of empathy is how do you meet people where they are.

Yeah. Embedded finance allows companiesto meet people where they are.  

Julian: Yeah. That'sincredible. I, I love the ability, and, and even the, the two examples you, yousaid there, it's decentralized not in, in the technology, not what peoplenecessarily think, not in, in terms of the blockchain technology, but it'sdecentralized in a way that people can get access outside of the normal or Iguess traditional means, which, enables them to, to be a little bit more freeor a little bit more independent or, or not have such pressures of, of payingback these service.

These services are more in line withsupporting them and growing with them, which I think, I agree that there's beena big reckoning of companies who, have to be, I guess, more community or more,more consumer focused with exactly their clients for customers. Because, we'veseen the long term success of, of companies prior to that being successful,which is I think where a lot of companies are going.

I always like to ask some, some founderfaq, so I'm gonna give you some rapid fire questions real quick. Sure. What'sthe hardest part about your job today?  

Duy: Being afraid that I'mletting amazing people down. I, I work with some of the most exceptional peoplein the world.

Yeah. And I'm, every day I'm just afraidthat I'm doing something wrong and letting them down.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. If youwere to wave a magic wand right now, what would be the one wish for what yourbusiness could, could kind of inject into, whether it's growth, whether it'soffering another service or ability?

What would you kind of wish for if, ifyou were to, if you were to have one wish?

Duy: I would wish forinvestors who didn't pump so much money into FinTech in 2022 that they are nowburned and in the process, burned down the financial ecosystem last year sothat we'd be in a much more sane fundraising environment today.

Julian: Yeah, yeah. Being,being that you are a former head of engineer, obviously I'm, I'm sure you're,you're running a lot of engineering function. How do you, as as if you'rethinking about talent, because talent is so valuable, especially in in theearly stages of a company, investing in long term employees, how do you, orwhat advice would you give to other founders vetting technical talent, beingthat, without having worked with them before, it's kind of hard to understandnot only their culture fit, but their ability to actually build what, what youneed them to.

What advice would you give to founderslooking to kind of vet talent and hire talented people?  

Duy: Yeah, so I mean I havesome small advantage when I was hiring individual contributors like ics, likeof course, like I can do a technical review with them. I have some, some smallbenefit from that. But ultimately as the team scale, I'm not runningengineering anymore.

I have a VP of engineering. Yeah. And mylike, I don't interview people for technical. Strength anymore. Like that teamdoes it. So I, I, I, believe it or not, have struggled before I hired thisreally amazing VP of engineering I struggled to hire an engineering leader thesame way that a non-technical founder would.

Yeah. A non-technical founder mightthink, oh, I, I, I brand engineering teams, therefore, I know, I know how tohire individual contributors, but, When you hire and, and, and there's adifference between hiring a director and a manager. Yeah. And, but when youhire someone that you're gonna hand all of the engineering function to, whichI've never done before.

Right. Yeah. I've had, I've hireddirectors of engineering. Right. But I've never hired someone who's, I'mhanding all of the engineering too. I don't really have that much of anadvantage over a non-technical founder. Yeah. Because at that point I'm notsitting there saying, I, I need you to talk me through, some technical.

It's like, do we align on values? What,what are your thoughts around, hiring, how do you think about scaling? And youdon't need to have a technical background to, to work through a lot of thosethings. So I would say if you're a non-technical founder, if you have to do IChires or lower level hires, you don't get a friend that you trust that has somebackground in engineering that can vet.

but at the point when you're hiring anengineering leader, you're probably just as capable as I am.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it,it's such an intimate relationship, especially handing the keys over and, andreally trusting Yeah. That they can not only roadmap, but also build and scalea team that's gonna be in line and, and motivated for the right goal andvision, which is, know, so challenging, but done right.

It, it really is almost a it's like a 10x boost on, whatever your, your business. . Yes sir. Whether it was early inyour career or now, what books or people have influenced you the most?  

Duy: What books are people thathave influenced me the most? Yeah. So I mean, a lot of it is, is notnecessarily in tech.

Mm-hmm. like, I, I, one of, one of theearlier books, two, two books that I read Freakonomics and, and Blink. Yeah.And Freakonomics is really around, like data-driven insights and Blink isaround intuition. And, and like, for me, the reconciling those two things are,are really valuable.

There, there, there was this book one ofmy wife favorite books is it's, it's like the five people you Meet in Heaven.Yeah. . And it talks about the influence that, that people can have on your.and, and, and, and, and what it is that, that, that impacts you and impactsthat you may have.

And that, that to me is always reallypowerful and, and I'm a huge, huge, huge geek when it comes to like, likeAbraham Lincoln. Yeah. The Civil War because, because there are just so manyintricacies there around. Just, just some, the extraordinary people FrederickDouglass, Abraham Lincoln, ki kind of, just, just, just the work that they weredoing.

Mm-hmm. and how they managed toinfluence Yeah. Honestly, a country that just wasn't really prepared to endslavery. Yeah. Like even John Brown as like, flawed as he was in his approach.Like, it's just all of these things. How did they. To move a country that wasso dependent on slavery to one that by the end of the Civil War, had made alot, not enough, but a lot of steps in the right direction.

Yeah. So really studying how do youbecome this force for good. to, to get rid of a huge, yeah. Evil in thiscountry. Yeah. And how do you influence people and move people along thatjourney? Yeah. And all the, all the people, all the effort, all the bloodshed,all it took. To get there.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. It'spowerful to, to learn about other journeys because you could take a lot abouttheir approach or the mentality or even even the strategies they use, becausepeople at the end of the day are people and, and products and services. Theymight interchangeable, but, we, we've, we humans are very habitual animals and,and we, we follow in line, in line to a lot of the similar thought process.

It's always inspiring to hear otherfounders and what they what they kind of read and ingest. I know we're at theend of the episode here, but I would love to get your plugs and, and learnabout not only where we can, be a part of product, buy and support, the visionand mission of the country a company and, and yourself included, but where canwe get involved?

If I'm a potential customer, a clientwho, who wants to enable and enable services, where can I find you? What areyour websites? Your LinkedIn, your Twitters, give us all your, your websites,.  

Duy: Yeah, so our websiteis Productfy.io, product fy.io. And and you, you are welcome to connect with meon LinkedIn.

I'm, I'm always happy to talk to, toespecially founders. But yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn, check out our, ourwebsite. There's, there's multiple ways to get in touch with us. And if you'reever unsure, you just wanna do it quickly. Just send an email to supportProductfy io and, and it will go like, it'll get routed through the rightchannels and someone will be in touch.

Julian: Amazing. Duy was soexcited to not only learn about your journey as a founder, but also you know,the inspiration behind the product and, and what you're offering the servicesand, and, and how the grand vision of, what you're doing is, is gonna influenceand impact, I think extremely positively.

The ability not only for people who aremaybe, not able to access those resources, but companies who want to supportindividuals that they're hiring. I hope you enjoyed yourself on the show and,and thank you so much for joining us on Behind Company  

Duy: Thank you, Julian. I'mincredibly grateful for this opportunity.

Julian: Of course.

‍