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A
I did the biggest mistake, I think of launching this whole business, which was I spent all my own money and then I tried to raise the first round. But yeah, so that was lesson number one. Three months in and that was about £200,000 of spend wasted on development and consultants and financial services and like, where all money goes. Lawyers.
B
Welcome back to another episode of Builders. As always, this show is brought to you by Frontlines IO, Silicon Valley's leading B2B podcast production studio. If you're bringing technology to market and want to learn from your peers, we have a library of more than 1200 interviews with Venture backed founders and marketers. Where they talk, all things go to market. Of course, if you want to launch your own podcast, we offer podcasts as a service to more than 80 tech startups. The idea there is very simple. You show up and host and we do everything else. Now with all that said, let's jump into today's episode. Our guest today is Jacob Kassin, CEO and founder of Monet. Jacob, thanks for being here.
A
Yeah, really great. So thanks so much and excuse that it's nighttime currently in Amsterdam and yeah, couldn't resist chatting at 11pm at night. So lucky me.
B
Sure you're feeling nice and fresh. Let's talk about Coldplay. So I understand that part of what you guys did or one of the many things that you've done is you financed part of Coldplay. Tell us that whole story there, give us all the context.
A
Yeah, it's funny. So very quickly we financed the entertainment. The media economy, it's had various different forms. I would talk about our business and my approach to it is a bit like I've tried to attack a castle and I've tried every gate and every nook and cranny and only really in the last 18 months started to really see it work. And it's actually really fascinating. I would say that the customer of ours is more interesting than our business. But how the Coldplay thing came around is Coldplay's record label has realized that people don't discover music anymore on the radio, they discover music online on social media. So connecting the dots of influencer marketing and sound bites on reels, they decided, is there a way to figure if they can track people's interest in music via social media? So they found an agent that specializes in that very thing. And that agency happens to have been a customer of ours. And that agency basically provided them with the ability to connect with thousands and thousands of user generated content creators and also large content creators in various places, Brazil Colombia, South America territory to European territories. And they're like a modern day version of a music promotion agency. So Coldplay released a new song and they needed to test out how well that would go in these various regions, which then helps dictate the rest of their marketing spend and gig spend and what they push on Spotify and who they try and partner with. And all of that data then needs reported back to the record label. So when we were very small, we were two person team. We were previously larger, but, you know, due to some stresses, I had to kind of cut down a lot and sort of rebuild. And we found ourselves financing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds at a time, layered on top of each other invoices related to the cash flow of Coldplay's marketing spend, which is just. I sat there thinking, I'm struggling to raise a penny of cash and I'm accidentally financing one of the biggest artists in the world indirectly, but I'm involved in their payment flows and I'm paying all of the talent associated with this across the world. I'm accidentally in the most bizarre, you know, financial flow. And we're tiny. We've done all sorts of other stuff. We've done Netflix TV shows and so on. And it's funny how you find yourself going. We've been involved with the UK's biggest content creators and, you know, I'm not even sure if we're going to make payday in three weeks. So it's been an interesting journey for us. Very much not glamorous, but it's sort of getting there.
B
So, yeah, the journeys are never glamorous or if they are, they're fake, they're
A
not real doing it wrong. It's an inside job. Yeah, if it's glamorous. But I can tell you a little bit about, I'd say the least glamorous thing I did when I was starting this business was I had the bright idea that I would basically be my own angel round. I don't think I was ever talked about that before and I'd never raised external money before, but I had a business that was like a cash cow for me and I've just redone it. As I mentioned before, we're just chatting, but I thought, oh, okay, this getting a prototype out of the first version of Monet, which was more for content creators and being that back office was the main version. And the whole idea was no one wants to change bank account, but if we can get involved with some sort of credit product which is weighted against their, their Obligors their debtors, which are like the biggest brands in the world. Like, can we figure a way to really master that risk? There's been a few versions of the US that have done similar. There's been carrots, there was this other 1 by 16z. I can't remember the name of it. Now there's a few of them that did it in the US and they've all, I think, come to similar challenges as what we did at the time. But I thought, okay, well I'm going to sign up a bunch of content creators for this. And I figured out a way of using Facebook groups which was very popular to sign up about seven and a half thousand content creators. I thought, holy shit, there's a real business here. I thought, you know, I think it's a real business here. I've just signed up all these people. It's been kind of amazing how I did it. My background's been largely in marketing and growth and so on. And I thought, okay, well I think there's something here and I'm going to go and build it myself and then I'll do the round when people, you know, once it's going everyone will want to join. But I did the biggest mistake, I think of launching this whole business which was I spent all my own money and then I tried to raise the first round. But yeah, so that was lesson number one. Three months in and that was about £200,000 of spend wasted on development and consultants and financial services and like where all money goes. Lawyers.
B
Did that help with investors at all when you went and started actually raising like to see that you were very much all in?
A
Not really. I really thought it would. I thought I'd been working at a fintech with some amazing people. Just before that I had my own business. I felt in many ways quite successful, but I wasn't from the inside track of VC and even the FinTech I worked for, it was guys who led supply chain finance at Morgan Stanley and one of them was the brother of the Apple CEO between Steve Jobs, Arthur Scully. His brother's John Scully, the guy that
B
took over the villain.
A
Yeah, they're also themselves kind of outsiders, right. So when I launched my own thing, I just didn't have the network and so I thought, well I'm not going to wait, I'll do it myself. But then we found our first investor which was the cognizant CEO and founder, ex CEO James Zizilet, who finally got it after helping me figure some things out. And then he just Introduced me to a bunch of other angels like nodes, and we ended up getting angels after angels as opposed to vc. It took a long, long, long time to get the first VC investor on board. Especially when we start talking about lending money. That was the real hook.
B
When did customer growth start to happen? How long did that take?
A
Oh, I mean, we went through various stages, right. So the first version, I actually had a custom problem the other way around, I signed up about once we got the product live and it was like a banking product for content creators. You know, I signed up nearly a thousand people in a couple of days and then we realized that we had a banking partner behind us and it wasn't quite in the right structure as a European bank and we were dealing in GBP and it was just a bit of a mess how we were trying to structure that. So then came like our first customer in our current version was actually a customer that does just short of £50 million of revenue a year. And they were looking to get a cash facility offers and a payments tool offers. And I had signed these guys up, I had taken, you know, onboarding fees and so on and we were in the middle of closing a debt facility that we'd use to lend them cash. So I had onboarded this huge customer and I didn't have the money to actually finance them in time yet. And it was sort of just ridiculous. It was like pulling herd and cats, if you know that expression. I was just trying to race everything together. So we got a huge customer immediately and then we had to change the strategy and although it changed our risk profile, had to start going after a bunch of small customers and really sort of start of 2024, we started getting real interesting agencies doing really interesting things that are actually meaningful. And then over the really the last 18 months, it's about being proving that model and sort of slowly accessing more and more capital to be able to offer tools to them and diversifying our revenues away from just lending. I appreciate, I haven't really got into how our business works, but in short, we need cash for our working capital. But then we also raise capital from debt providers and facility providers and we lend their money at a premium and we make money from SAS fees and payment fees and all these other things on top of that. So when we first started, we were very much just attached to the lending piece. So that meant if we didn't have the cash to lend, no money to make, which was the big challenge. But there was always something there. It was just so hard to get everything Structured correctly, you know.
B
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A
podcast.
B
Now back to today's episode. And I know you recently or a couple weeks ago, you made a big announcement. Talk to us about that announcement, the change and what led to making that change.
A
Yeah, so I appreciate, I haven't really talked about what we do, but in short, we are tackling the entertainment and media industry where that covers everything from agencies like talent management agencies to production houses and so on. And that has actually led us into more film and high end TV production like episodic TV as well. And what we've really noticed is agencies don't fall into SMB SME capital allocations very well. They actually have huge invoices and receivables. They're billing on behalf of individual individuals and contractors that work below them. So if you take on influencer agencies, for example, they might be billing Samsung a million pounds a month, but 800 grand of that or $800,000 of that is owed out to influencers. So their real revenue is just 200 grand and they're running their business off that. So when it comes to underwriting that business, it looks like they're turning over on just that one contract, a million a month. But they're only really say profiting 40 to 50k if that. So a traditional lender looks at that and goes, ooh. And then they look at the lumpiness of it and it's project based. And it's kind of tricky to really get an understanding of because they don't really have any assets. So you need to look at it from a very different perspective. And we approached it from the perspective of, okay, if we can figure out how to de risk these agencies, we can really, actually provide a really solid sticky product here which spreads like wildfire across other types of agencies. But where it really started for is that we were actually trying to solve financing and payment problems for the influencers and talent underneath that. But it took a while for us to realize actually if we stabilize the agencies who are sort of the operators of the whole industry, big brand Nike, Samsung doesn't want to pay all these freelancers, they pay an agency and the agency can figure it out. That's kind of the hassle with these agencies are, you know, our biggest customer turns over 17 million a year right now. And they're just two guys and they both used to be cameramen. They haven't got JP Morgan on speed dial. They're very good at creative output and they're very good at commercialization and winning deals and everything else is just is what it is when it happens. Clients want a lot from them. They have slow cash flow and they need tools like us. And traditional lenders sort of penalize them for their type of business. But, you know, I'm based in the UK mostly and you know, the media industry is not only the biggest user of independent contractors, but also one of Britain's best exporters. You know, who doesn't want a London agency. So that's where we thought it was really interesting to tackle. It was very archaic, very old school. And the same happened to film and media if you look at payroll and so on. So we've been figuring out how to do that over the last two years and it's been really challenging. And as I said before, it's been like attacking a castle from every angle. We've tried to figure this thing out and it's only really started to slot together really nicely. And a couple of weeks ago we launched the main product into this really interesting back office, which is enabled of AI that also does. Its primary offering is for agencies like a revolving facility that's super flexible, that works with them, involves campaign management, it underwrites them at every stage. It's like handholds them through running a business from a financial perspective and provides capital when they need it, but then also runs all their payments and payroll. So when it comes to paying talent and everything else, one of the issues agencies often have is, hey, Brett, I would really like to get you paid, but I haven't been paid off client yet. And that's, you know, just classic. So we've built technology that allows Brett to get paid early and the agency at their own choice can pass on Brett's fees. But that means that we don't fall under any regulation for paying Brett. We have no credit against Brett. He's just getting paid early for a fee, but all managed through his contracted work and so on. So we've built all these flows so that agencies can just focus on the things they're good at. It's quite hard to explain about being in that space, but it's just Like a full financial back office and lender. And you know, we're definitely not a bank, but you can see how in the future if we got big enough, you deline us with that kind of model. And for sort of our other announcement has really been we've entered the debt space in film and television and that's largely been tax credits, pre sales and broadcasting license fees. And that's because we've just naturally found ourselves in the middle of quite high end film production conversations just through network alone of running what we've been doing for agencies and production houses. So super excited. We're not in the US yet but the moment we are, I will probably pass by you in San Francisco.
B
So and talk to us about what you had to give up for those two announcements that you just made, those two big decisions that you just made. What were some of the things that you had to change and stop doing in order to free up the time and resources to pursue these.
A
Yeah, so really actually it was quite hard to go through the conversation with the board and the main investors actually because I spent so much time explaining how what we already do is perfect. And I won't go into all the boring elements of underwriting and so on, but there's two very big differences when it comes to asset like companies about underwriting their projects, their specific projects and doing forms of sort of invoice, factoring with twists and having really dedicated securities and over those individual projects to sort of moving to like a general revolving financial tool, term loan provider and a bunch of other SaaS tools. It's very different. And our board is made up of sort of the Monzo and Starling found some of the sort of owner of Britain's first unicorn, Railser, some people that are much smarter than I and having to convince them that what actually we're seeing is the better alternative and the additional tools we need and the investment that we need to put into sort of that tech stack to build I don't want to say autonomous underwriting engine, but as close as we can get in a very much sort of science first art second approach that's been like a big challenge. But apart from that I wouldn't really say there's been that much loss really. You know, as I said, we have to raise equity and we have to raise debt when it comes to just in December I went around and spoke to a bunch of banks which were in conversation with now about becoming a sort of facility provider for us about what they really want. And none of them want small invoice factoring facilities, they want basically it's selfishly the people allocating that cash, they want to give you a bunch of money and they want to trust that you're going to look after it for a two or three year term and not really think about it much and kind of get the commission check associated with that. So kind of understanding the needs of that bank as well, it just made the whole thing much easier. Easier to sort of shift the product and customers prefer it becomes a lot more autonomous. It allows a lot more compounding as well from our end. So there's not as much sort of manual oversight in everything we do. But I'm trying not to go into much of the details but in short, I don't think it's cost us that much in this moment actually.
B
And what does the rest of the year look like for you?
A
Yeah, so really we've got to test out this new version. Just make sure it's everything we thought it would be and could be. And we're going to be focused really on the UK most of this year. That's the market we know really well. That's the market I know really well. And towards the end of the year we're going to be looking at how we can sort of integrate more into the U.S. as I said, you know, media entertainment by nature is just archaic and relationship led. You can't solve it with tech alone. It is all about network and we have a relatively good network in the UK across media industry and increasingly film and television, we don't have that in the US at the moment. So it's going to take a decent chunk of capital to think through that, you know, on the film side alone, this very incubated business called Entertainment Partners, which I don't know if you've looked them up, but they own every type of spreadsheet based cloud tool from 2008 out there and they're generating anywhere between 400 and $700 million a year. I'm not sure. There's another company called Rapbook which is based on film and television payroll, which is just trying to take on a tiny segment of Entertainment Partners business and is building a really interesting business in that tiny segment of their space. So we're really excited about the US and people keep telling me to go there and we get agencies coming our way from there, but it's sort of a little bit like if I go there now I get butchered. So I have to sort of bide my time a little bit and make sure we have the Right. Infrastructure around us and yeah, we're not getting ahead of ourselves. I've run this business off a cliff before and narrowly saved it, so I don't really want to do that again.
B
I appreciate the honesty. I think a lot of founders want here and they're just full of shit. I feel like no one. I don't know if I've had anyone be as like honest and open as you.
A
So I say what it is. I really have. I've run this business off the cliff a couple of times and I've been very lucky to figure it out. I would pride myself on saying that my best skill is fighting my way out of a corner and I've had some great people help me with that. And it's been unfortunate where some of the challenges we've had at early stages, but it's sort of never been a situation where you say, oh, you know what, this doesn't work, we shouldn't do it anymore and we should wrap it up. It's never been that. It's been, you know, a last minute sort of pull of a term sheet that we relied on and set up around or sort of a debt structure had been different to. I won't go to the details of it, but a weird attempted sort of takeover event which was really tricky and I had to sort of get the best shareholders on board and we had to figure out how to capitalize the business in the right way that it kept me in control and the most helpful and sort of biggest pockets sort of came on my side of the table more to help build this business properly. And it's where we've been the last year and it sort of allowed us to be really focused and build a better business from it. But yeah, I can go into the details of it. But in short, we had to sort of figure out a recapitalization plan quite early so that we could make sure there was no bad investors on the cap table. This show is brought to you by the global talent company, a marketing leader's best friend. In these times of budget cuts and efficient growth, we help marketing leaders find, hire, vet and manage amazing marketing talent for 50 to 70% less than their US and European counterparts. To book a free consultation, visit globaltalent.co.
B
what are you telling yourself when you're going through those just, you know, hard moments, moments of hell. What's your mindset? It's just like war, war, war. Like what's going on inside your head.
A
Yeah, it's funny. What I've actually realized is I am the underdog in every sense. So if I'm dealing with parties who are much bigger than me, I can't puff out my chest and pretend I'm even bigger than them, because I'm not. So the only real thing you can do is allow people to believe that they're in control of the situation whilst you work on your plan and buy yourself time and you make sure you have the right people who are bigger than you, aligned with you, like, that's what you do as an underdog. And it's been a real education for me to figure that out. And one of the biggest things is what I realized is I was in a position where, when we did run ourselves off a cliff, I had to go to all my shareholders after, you know, one email to them said, hey, we've got a funding round sorted. This is a 20, 20, 23, we've got a funding round sorted. And, you know, everyone, have a great summer. The next email was, the funding round is out the window, but. And the house is on fire. But fear not, these people are willing to put the fire out, but they're going to keep the house and all your stuff's inside. So that was kind of the next message. And I kind of realized, you know, a lot of people, it's the summer of 2023, like, there'd been the Ukraine war. People were just done in. They just like, oh, well, if it doesn't work, I've got 25 other investments, protect my biggest things. And it was quite challenging. And, you know, it was July, August time, and I realized, actually, what I need to do here is everyone needs a common enemy. So if I can sort of explain it in a way which is like, you're not just losing your investment, but these people are trying to take from you, too. And there is a way that we can figure this out together. Let's do that. That's kind of what I focus on. I just focus on problem solving. And, yeah, try not to get emotionally engaged unless I'm, you know, speaking to someone who knows me really well.
B
This is an audio podcast that I'll tell the listeners that you're smiling this entire time, even when you talk through the painful moments. You've had a smile on your face the entire time.
A
Yeah, well, I. I mentioned before as well, you know, I loaned my own money into the business. And it's funny, you know, I was thinking, once my business was in a really difficult spot, I was thinking, there's a lot of people invest in my business that can afford to lose that money if worse comes to the worst, but I can't afford to lose mine. Like, you know, that puts you into a completely different state of mind of, you know, I'm going to figure this out. And, you know, if you don't go through those hard moments, you don't know what it's going to be like to, you know, your worst day has only ever been your worst day. So, you know, I think if you do go through challenges early as a founder and you have to think on your feet quickly and you don't have a big board behind you and endless capital, like, I really do think it makes you a better founder a lot more careful. And, you know, I think a lot of founders think, oh, wow, I'm going to raise money and it's going to be great and there's great VCs behind me and we're going to do this and we're going to do that and it's all super exciting and customers love us. But, you know, I think when you have your worst day, when you're actually a really big company, I think the shell shock of it is 10 times worse. So I'm actually quite glad that we've had a lot of challenges up front and I've had the flexibility and I hadn't had big boards and, you know, I was able to, to be nimble and figure things out. And now we're like, you know, a lot more professionalized and I've got great people around me and we're sort of just working on sort of the industrialization of our business now with, you know, knowing what we're doing. I think a lot of businesses, especially in the us get so big if they truly have the maturity in the business sorted, you know, do you find
B
it hard to motivate yourself when things are going well? I was talking with the founder friend the other day and he was telling me kind of similar to you. He's like, he was saying he's comfortable in chaos and he's comfortable when his back's against the wall, but when he's not, he finds it very hard to obviously still doing stuff, the company's still growing. But like, he basically said he prefers when his back is against the wall than when things are going well because he knows what to do when his back is against the wall, when things are going well. He said, like his brain just, it's like such unknown territory because it's not that common that, like, he doesn't know what to do and doesn't feel like he's Making decisions and driving things forward.
A
No, actually I totally align with that. I'd be interested in meeting that person. Yes, I do hate it, but love it when I have a point to prove by proving that, you know, only I can get us out of this sort of situation. So yeah, it's horrible to have things go wrong but there is something kind of exciting in the chaos of it and it's new and shiny when things are going well. Actually only in the summer just gone. I was with a friend having a beer and been working with me. He's like a very experienced COO and we'd been working together and he said, you know, I think the business is going to fail. I was like, holy, what are you talking about? We've just solved all the problems we're doing. Amazing man, like what do you want about? And I then realized I was having a beer with him at sort of you know, 3:45 on a nice Thursday afternoon. It was sunny and he was like, it's going to fail because you're not focused because everything's going well. And that was like a real wake up call actually because I was like, yeah, you know, it's a really nice day, we had a great week, we just got some money and we got a new customer. Let's go and relax. But I probably had to sort of start sleepwalking if that makes sense. So yeah, totally agree with that.
B
Yeah, Final question for you. I'm seeing that we're over on time and I know it's very, very late your time. Let's talk big picture vision news. What's the big picture vision here? Let's end with a fun one. You paint a picture for us three years, five years, ten years from now. What does this look like?
A
Yeah, so it's already expanded beyond what I thought it would. In many ways I thought it was going to become UK based business. The opportunity for us in the US I hadn't even really thought about. As I said, I've never even been to San Francisco which seems completely insane considering I'm building a tech company. So really for me I think we have an opportunity to become one of, if not the biggest financial businesses in media, film, entertainment, debt focused specialist back office built for businesses who are really working in creative industries. The support we've been getting from places like the British Business bank who are really keen on supporting creative industries in the uk, but then even sort of backing British businesses as they go abroad. It's kind of overwhelming even to think of the, you know, from an early stage I've had the founders and sort of CEOs of some of Britain's biggest fintechs and financial institutions involved in this business. I'm already sort of a bit ahead of myself, but I'm sort of almost mad that we're not enormous yet. So that's kind of the next three years of my life are really just dedicated to compounding a loan book, compounding our customer size. You know, I love exploring new spaces. As I said, we didn't even mean to get involved in film. One of the world's biggest directors happens to be a friend of mine, and he had said, look, look, can you not just do these things for us? And I've said, for two years, no. But now we've had some experience in film and media and debt structures. And I'm like, yeah, we can do that. And I can do it a lot better. I've looked at those tools. I'm amazed. They're the big tools, the big tools, because the relationships that are there. There's so much space in entertainment and media, if you understand it, which again, is the rare point. They're so different worlds, finance and entertainment and media and creative industries. There's a very narrow corridor of people that have true experience in both. And then if you need to add tech on top of it as well, and building from the ground up, it becomes a very, very small number of people who actually can build in that space. And then you have to think about, okay, well, there's raising debt and there's raising equity. And if anyone on this podcast has ever done both, they'll know what I mean when I say they are completely different things. And if you go into a debt raise, like an equity raise, you'll be laughed out. And if you go into an equity race talking about how you're going to return that capital plus 12%, you'll be left out. So, yeah, it's a very narrow corridor, and I think we're in a really great position to build a truly enormous business. I just don't really know what that looks like yet, because I don't even know what the future of content creation and media and film looks like yet. But I think that we're going to be flexible enough to be at the front of it.
B
Amazing. I feel like that's what the answer has to be for practically everyone. Like, almost any industry, Right? Like, who knows what it's going to look like five years, ten years from now.
A
But also, it's funny, I always get asked the question, how big's the space. And every time I try and do some research on it, it's a different answer that gets spit out. I feel like I'm lying every time I use a real number. But there's all sorts of weird niches we look at in the film space. We've not long started doing tax credits in the uk. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but I'll just do a very quick explainer and I'll use a huge number just to keep it simple. This is not necessarily what we're always doing. But say you've got 100 million pound UK film, the UK government says, HMRC, sorry, says 80% of that qualifies for tax credits. And off the back of that it's called the avec avec. And of that it's about 35% which is due for rebate, but it's paid in cash, effectively. But because it's paid out in cash, it's sort of taxable, so they take another 25% of it. So if you have a 100 million pound film, you get roughly. If, assuming it's all UK, you get roughly about 25 million pounds back in taxable rebates paid as cash, but not for sort of six to 14 months, depending on when your annual return is. So you get huge productions who are backed by huge studios needing that cash for all their marketing and spend and everything. And that's just say, for the sake of an average film, that's two or three films in tandem needing that sort of capital. And then you start to look at, as I mentioned before, broadcasting fees. You look at sort of events and touring, you look at sort of standard PR agencies to content production studios that we're working with right now. We've been doing some really interesting stuff with these large brands who have decided that that rather than sponsoring television shows, they should just start their own and bring their own audience in and own the whole entire user journey, click by click and start selling secondary ad positions on YouTube to complimentary brands. And we work with the agencies and production houses behind it. So I had no idea any of this stuff existed four years ago. So I really don't know where it ends up, but I just think we're in a good position to ride the wave.
B
I love it. All right. For people listening who want to follow along with this, where should we send them? Where should they go?
A
Well, if they want to chat to me, they can go to Monet Money and I'm sure you can figure out my email from that. You can find me on LinkedIn. And generally, if you're ever in London or Amsterdam and you want to hang out, I'm your man.
B
Amazing. I love it. Thanks so much, man. Been a lot of fun.
A
Cheers, Brett.
B
Well, that's all for today's episode of Builders, brought to you by the Frontlines. If you want more amazing content like this, visit Frontlines IO, where you'll find the library of more than 1500 interviews with founders, marketers, and other GTM leaders, where we unpack the tactical lessons from their journey. And of course, as always, if you do want to launch your own podcast, we'd love to have a conversation with you. Visit Frontlines IO Podcast as a service. Mention that you listen, mention you love the show, and we'll give you a 10% discount. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode.
Host: Front Lines Media
Guest: Jacob Kassin, CEO & Founder of Monet
Episode Date: March 12, 2026
This episode dives into the unconventional journey of Jacob Kassin, founder and CEO of Monet—a fintech platform transforming payments, financing, and operational support for agencies and content creators within the media and entertainment industry. Jacob shares raw and candid insights into his early missteps, the reality of startup fundraising, tactical growth hacks (including leveraging Facebook groups to sign up thousands of creators pre-product), and evolving Monet’s business model to serve high-revenue clients and solve systemic industry cash flow challenges.
Quote:
“I did the biggest mistake, I think, of launching this whole business, which was I spent all my own money and then I tried to raise the first round... Three months in and that was about £200,000 of spend wasted.”
– Jacob ([00:00])
Quote:
“I figured out a way of using Facebook groups... to sign up about seven and a half thousand content creators. I thought, holy shit, there's a real business here.”
– Jacob ([03:57])
Quote:
“We launched the main product into this really interesting back office, which is enabled of AI... for agencies like a revolving facility that's super flexible, that works with them, involves campaign management, it underwrites them at every stage.”
– Jacob ([11:32])
Quote:
“If I'm dealing with parties who are much bigger than me, I can't puff out my chest... The only real thing you can do is allow people to believe that they're in control of the situation whilst you work on your plan and buy yourself time.”
– Jacob ([18:20])
Quote:
“There's so much space in entertainment and media, if you understand it... Finance and entertainment and media and creative industries [are] very different worlds. There's a very narrow corridor of people that have true experience in both.”
– Jacob ([24:26])
“I sat there thinking, I'm struggling to raise a penny of cash and I'm accidentally financing one of the biggest artists in the world indirectly... we've done all sorts of other stuff. We've done Netflix TV shows and so on.”
– Jacob ([01:20])
“The journeys are never glamorous. Or, if they are, they're not real. It's an inside job.”
– Jacob ([03:40])
“If you don't go through those hard moments, your worst day has only ever been your worst day.”
– Jacob ([20:06])
“I've run this business off the cliff a couple of times and I've been very lucky to figure it out… My best skill is fighting my way out of a corner.”
– Jacob ([16:42])
“We're definitely not a bank, but you can see how in the future, if we got big enough, you deline us with that kind of model.”
– Jacob ([11:37])
| Timestamp | Topic | |----------------|------------------------------------------------------------| | [00:00–01:20] | Early funding mistake, self-financing, Coldplay story | | [03:36–05:24] | Facebook group growth hack, signing up 7,500 creators | | [05:24–06:27] | Investor reaction, challenges raising from VCs | | [06:30–08:24] | Early customers, banking infrastructure challenges | | [08:53–12:55] | Product evolution, agency + film solutions, big new launch | | [13:08–15:05] | Strategic sacrifices, convincing the board | | [15:07–16:36] | UK/EU focus, US market ambitions | | [16:36–19:57] | Navigating “hell moments”, crisis management | | [19:57–20:06] | Personal money at stake, psychological impact | | [21:20–22:53] | Founder psychology, motivation during chaos vs calm | | [23:06–27:25] | Big vision, niche opportunities, industry evolution | | [27:29–27:42] | How to follow Jacob and Monet |
This episode is a must-listen for founders or operators in fintech, media, or creative industries, and for anyone seeking actionable lessons in resilient, customer-first growth and the reality behind the "overnight success" myth.