Hi y’all, Cokie here.
Today is a somber day for New Yorkers. Our hearts and minds are still heavy with the memory of our fallen brothers and sisters. Take some time for reflection. Register to vote.
Hello youths! I know a lot of you are looking for a job right now—a lot of my younger friends have been asking me for job searching advice. I’d like to impart some ill-gotten wisdom on those of you who have just graduated or are starting your senior year and are somewhat distressed.
Be kind to yourself. You are graduating in *uNpReCeNtEd tImEs* -- likely one of the toughest job markets we’ve ever faced. You’re not alone and many of us are suffering. Reach out to your friends, do your skincare, stay hydrated. You can do this.
Learn the art of the cold email. My mentees have all at some point asked me to review their cold emails. They are mostly terrible. Keep it simple. “My name is X, I am interested in Y, I found you *insert wherever*, I am available at these times, I am grateful for any guidance you may be able to give.” The worst cold emails I get are the lists and lists of achievements of the author. Mostly because I’m like “u actually seem good, bro.” Make sure your ask is clear and your availability is RIGHT THERE.
Once the person has accepted an intro call, make sure they work for you! My friend Paige Doherty wrote an excellent guide on intro calls that you should make sure to read. My rule of thumb is to make sure there is a call to action following the conversation. Even if it’s sending a funny video. (This video secured me one of my clients this summer.)
When I had just graduated, I remember being flooded with questions about “what I wanted to do.” Honestly, it wasn’t until recently that I had a genuine answer to that question. Stop thinking about it. Think about the values that you want to embody, the kind of space you want to work in, the types of people you want to know. Who do you want to be?
If fintech is your bag, GET OFF LINKEDIN! You heard me. Get on Twitter. The best job advice I ever received was “make friends. Make lots of friends.” The second I took that to heart, life got easier. There was always a friendly face to explain a concept or forward a role. Adding onto this advice, I recommend you look into your “Personal Board of Directors,” or a group of people to offer advice, mentorship, perspective, and act as a sounding board for the business of YOU.
Finally, the first job doesn’t have to be the perfect job. More than likely, your first job will suck a bit. That’s okay. My first job was absolutely terrible. And yet, here I am.
FTT+ Sneak Peak: Q3 Experts Survey
By the way, if you don't already subscribe to our premium newsletter, here's a taste of what you're missing out on each week. Two weeks ago, Julie asked some of the most well known minds in fintech what had surprised them so far this year and which hot theme is the most overrated. It’s part of a new series here, where we conduct a quarterly expert survey and share the results with premium subscribers.
Here are a few that I found worthwhile:
Biggest surprise?
Brendan Dickinson, General Partner @ Cannan: “How quickly fintech VC went from the sky is falling in March and no new deals to pre-empting everything in June.”
Anonymous: “How some investors that I truly respect have seemingly lost all sense of valuation discipline when chasing early b2b / infrastructure rounds where the company still has very minimal, if any real traction with customers.”
Will the election impact fintech?
Jonathan Tsu @ Tribe Capital: The election adds risk in a few areas. It remains unclear how big tech will fare in the election. If the large companies are strongly adversely affected it will affect their ability to partner with and potentially acquire early stage companies which will have downward ripple effects. In the case of fintech this might not necessarily be a negative. Large non-fintech companies have been spying fintech as an avenue for growth (this extends from Facebook/Libra all the way to improvements in the iPhone leasing programs). As tech giants are more hamstrung by regulators it likely delays the day when fintech startups have to face them as direct competitors.
Another angle is around capital markets. Most startups only have exposure to the capital markets indirectly through their investors. However, many fintechs directly interface with capital markets via lending or somehow interacting with investors in some sort of transaction driven relationship and so they face compounded uncertainty from non-fintech startups. Given that there is significant pressure on the fed to stay accommodative from both sides of the aisle, we are optimistic that this broad strokes of this aspect will not vary too much with a variable election outcome.
Eric Sager, Plaid COO: It’s hard to say with the range of possible outcomes at the state and federal level, but policymakers from across the political spectrum support consumers having more and better choices in financial services and recognize that fintech is critical in delivering those outcomes. And important policy initiatives like the CFPB’s rulemaking to strengthen consumer financial data access should continue regardless of the election.
You can subscribe to her newsletter here for $25/month:
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This issue is presented by LendIt Fintech US, an annual conference focused on lending and the broader fintech industry. We’re excited to offer FTT subscribers a discount for their digital conference on Sept 29 to Oct 1—use FTODAY15% for a discounted rate. FYI—we get a fee if you use our link, but we figured since most of us end up going to conferences like these, offering discounted rates would be worth it for some of our readers.
The event is virtual and lineup this year is pretty great—Stephanie Cohen – Chief Strategy Officer at Goldman Sachs, Sofi CEO Anthony Noto, Plaid CEO Zach Perrett, A16Z’s Angela Strange & FTPartners’ Steve McLaughlin.
The News
Citi CEO Michael Corbat announced his plan to retire in February 2021 and will be succeeded by Jane Fraser, CEO of Global Consumer Banking. She is the first female CEO in Wall Street history. Ms. Fraser was born in St Andrews, Scotland, where I went to university, so obviously I stan. If you want to learn more about Ms. Fraser, this is an excellent article detailing her rise to the top.
You guys know how much I like to talk about personal finance, so I wanted to dig into this one a bit. Yotta Savings has gamified savings, using a raffle model to encourage savers. Customers get a ticket for every $25 they save, with a chance to win 10 cents to $10M weekly. Founder Adam Moelis (yes, that Moelis) has approximately 6,500 accounts, worth almost $40M in deposits. Their current savings rate is 0.2%, with an implied rate of return at about 2% when potential winnings are taken into account.
Okay, so it’s a wonderful thing to incentivize savings. But… I struggle with the narrative here. Consumer finance should not feel like gambling (something Robinhood should really understand). Though much of investment banking and capital markets is literally betting, those bets are informed by Bloomberg terminals and years of experience. While I appreciate that this is probably a more palatable way to save for many, I worry if it teaches the right incentives around saving. With an APY of 0.2%, I just don’t think this is worth it. Go to HM Bradley instead—3% APY, no gimmicks. Thank me later.
Google Finance has been redesigned for both desktop and mobile, helping customers to easily find trading data and ingest market trends. Google has included some educational material in this relaunch, one will find explanations and descriptions of key terms and stats to help users learn on the go! Users will be able to create Watchlists, so we’ll be able to play around with model portfolios. I’m personally hella excited about this and will definitely be signing up as I continue to learn basic investing strategies. Stay tuned!
Mercury launched a new platform called Raise, which shares your startup with early-stage investors and makes intros where appropriate. I love this initiative because, unfortunately, most banks targeting SMBs barely have the functionality to make business banking understandable. Mercury goes a step further -- not just helping businesses bank, but actively helping them raise capital. This is especially important for those Mercury customers who might not have traditional access to insular VC communities.
Fundraising news
Deel raises another $30M in Series B funding to continue helping remote employers provide payroll and compliance tools. The round was led by Spark Capital, coming hot off the heels of their Series A led by Andreesen a few months ago, tripling their undisclosed valuation in a matter of 5 months. We talked about this trend of quick succession rounds in fintech during the course of the pandemic a few weeks ago in FTT+ (make sure to subscribe!). Julie posits two questions: 1) how long does this last? And 2) what longer term impact might this have? It’s not surprising that many are wondering if the whole market is being fueled by FOMO and hope.
