Small Business Obsessed - a Podcast by Autobooks

In this episode, Derik is joined by Tom Shen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/shentom/].  Tom has a storied fintech career that includes founding, leading and serving on the board for some of the industry’s most impactful organizations.  Tom’s latest company,  Malauzai, was acquired by Finastra [https://www.finastra.com/] in 2018.  Since then, Tom has joined the boards of RoamHR [https://www.roamhr.com/], Zsuite Technologies [https://www.zsuitetech.com/] and Sensibill [https://getsensibill.com/]. Derik and Tom discuss a variety of topics, starting with the similarities between Tom’s first venture, SDI, that helped financial institutions better serve customers in branch and his last venture, Malauzai, that helped financial institutions better serve customers online. Conversations with Tom are always insightful and you always walk away with two thoughts. ·       I am better for having just heard from Tom ·       I can’t wait for the next time I get to hear from Tom again

On today’s podcast, Derik is joined by Ted Brown [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-brown-3398295/] - Co-Founder of Digital Onboarding. [https://www.digitalonboarding.com/] Derik and Ted talk about the founding of Digital Onboarding, which like many startups, was a result of a pivot from the original idea.  Ted shares how the Digital Onboarding platform can help financial institutions drive product adoption and revenue without requiring implementation of a complex marketing automation system. They also discuss Ted’s experience in fintech, starting in college for a company named Andera (now owned by Bottomline [https://www.bottomline.com/us]), one of the first digital account opening solutions.  With digital account opening being such a hot topic these days, it’s interesting to hear how much different the conversations were with financial institutions 15 years ago compared to now. Ted provides a lot of great insights as to how early stage fintech companies should spend more time and effort on educating financial institutions, rather than selling them on features and benefits. About Digital Onboarding The Digital Onboarding Our platform makes it easy for people & businesses to adopt products & services that make life better.  Our team has a deep history in the digital account origination space. We know that account holders don't always turn into deep and profitable relationships. After a conversation with one of the nation’s largest credit unions, DCU, we decided to address this critical gap. The Digital Onboarding platform was born in the fall of 2017.

On today’s podcast, Derik is joined by Nikhil Lakhanpal [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nlakhanpal/] - Co-Founder of Narmi. [https://www.narmi.com/] Derik and Nikhil talk about the unique founding story of Narmi and how that background provides their company a unique lens on the market.  They also discuss Narmi’s recent release of digital account opening [https://www.narmi.com/products/digital-account-opening] – which features the ability for a consumer to open an account in 2.5 minutes and a new refer a friend feature [https://radiusbank.com/personal/refer-a-friend/]. The conversation then transitions into an upcoming release from Narmi, their new small business product suite.  Derik and Nikhil discuss the needs of today’s small business owner and how customer interviews led the Narmi team to several simple, yet impactful product enhancements. Abount Narmi Narmi is a NYC based financial technology firm that builds enterprise solutions in digital banking. Through Narmi’s digital account opening, mobile banking, online banking and banking APIs, banks can become digital-first companies. About Nikhil Nikhil drives Narmi’s vision to provide a highly adaptable and open framework that empowers banks to reimagine what’s possible with digital banking. Nikhil has long had a passion for technology and financial services as the former CEO of a financial institution and an investment banker at Citigroup. About Narmi’s new small business project Built with the business owner in mind, Narmi’s business banking platform brings user experience, security/control, and depth of functionality front and center. Narmi’s integrated banking offering and simple design empower businesses to focus less on banking and more on what matters most - running a successful business. With Narmi, financial institutions will be able to streamline operations, drive business deposits, and get ahead of Fintech competitors stealing away market share.

In this episode, Derik asked Kyle Bazzy – Head of Enterprise Growth at Autobooks to join him for a conversation about 2021 budgeting.  Kyle meets with small business champions within financial institutions every day, and offers up great insight on how many of them are navigating the 2021 budget season. During the conversation, three themes emerged: * Budgeting for small businesses is changing from we have to do it, to we need to better monetize this market segment. * Small business banking is becoming cross-departmental * There is new, emerging competition is making digital enablement for small businesses table stakes If you are in budgeting season and would like more information about small business banking, we have developed resources to help you Build Your Small Business Case. You can find them here. [https://www.autobooks.co/businesscase]

In this episode, Derik has a conversation with Greg Varnell [https://www.linkedin.com/in/gvarnell/], VP Engineering at Q2 [https://www.q2.com/].  Greg has been with Q2 for over 10 years and is leading a team on the rollout of the new Q2 Marketplace [https://www.q2.com/product/marketplace], a product that can be traced back to the original foundation of the company. The Q2 Marketplace brings together financial institutions, fintechs, and end consumers in a way that has yet to be done in the industry.  Leveraging the Q2 Caliper SDK, fintechs can connect their apps to the Q2 platform and make their apps available to over 450 financial institutions serving over 13 million end users. During this conversation, Greg and Derik mention that at the time of the recording it was Finovate [https://finovate.com/] week.  Later in the week Q2 was announced as a Best of Show Winner [https://finovate.com/category/best-of-show/] for their announcement of the Marketplace, in which Autobooks was featured