1018. Insights: What it's actually like to build a fintech in the Middle East

Summary

Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS

Episode 1018: What it’s actually like to build a fintech in the Middle East
Date: November 27, 2025
Host: David Brear (A)
Guests: Abdullah Karim, Co-founder & CTO, Edhikar (B) | Naman Ali, Founder & CEO, Orbi (C) | Rowan Badoor, Co-founder, Zest (D)

---

Episode Overview

This episode of Fintech Insider Insights dives deep into the realities of building a fintech startup in the Middle East. Following his experience judging the Money20/20 Middle East "money surge" competition in Riyadh, host David Brear gathers three winning founders—Orbi, Edika, and Zest—for a candid exploration of startup life, regional dynamics, customer relationships, funding, regulation, and ambitions for the future. The conversation offers an honest, engaging, and often humorous look at the founder experience, with practical wisdom and inspiration for listeners interested in the region’s fintech surge.

---

Meet the Founders & Startups

[02:12] Abdullah Karim – Edhikar

• Saudi fintech transforming employee savings.
• Integrates with payroll, allowing employees to automatically save and invest part of their salaries via regulated partners.
• Tackles the low savings rate in the region by automating and simplifying the savings process.

[03:31] Naman Ali – Orbi

• Credit intelligence layer for modern lending.
• Automates and enhances data ingestion, enrichment, credit decisioning, and disbursement/collection for lenders.
• Partners with neobanks, B2B fintechs, and platforms wanting to offer embedded SME lending.

[05:04] Rowan Badoor – Zest

• Digital infrastructure to streamline private market transactions.
• Provides end-to-end workflow for private investments—onboarding, documentation, deal execution.
• Aims to be the “pipes, rails, and infrastructure” for private capital markets, akin to what Stripe did for payments.

---

Startup Origins: Personal Stories & Motivations

Zest’s Beginnings [06:45]

• Originated from Rowan and his co-founder’s shared frustrations: lack of access, poor transparency, fragmented deal processes in private markets.
• “We were sitting in my parents' living room ... he was talking about liquidity in private markets ... I came from a different angle: access and transparency. The way people execute is so disaggregated.” — Rowan (D), [07:30]
• Rowan’s investment banking and compliance background pushed him to prioritize good governance and sustainable growth.

Edhikar’s Family Roots [10:37]

• Built with his father, who previously ran a successful employee savings fund in Saudi Arabia.
• “My co-founder is actually my father ... he said, why not work together and build this as a fully automated platform. You can’t say no to your father.” — Abdullah Karim (B), [11:22]

Orbi’s Cross-Continental Journey [12:24]

• Naman’s trajectory from London, Microsoft AI engineer, Bank of England technologist, to regional founder.
• Frustration with static, backwards-looking credit models and wasted product potential drove him to the Middle East to tackle SME lending head-on.
• “No one drives a car just looking in the rearview mirror ... if you’re trying to predict the future, you need the right data sets.” — David Brear (A), [15:28]

---

The Reality of Entrepreneurship

Startup Life: The “Baby” Analogy

• “It’s like having a baby ... you really cannot switch off ... any second you’re not thinking proactively, there’s a massive opportunity cost. You’re forced to mature as a leader, as an executioner ... it’s very difficult at times, but I don’t think I’ve learned as much in my life as I have in the last four years.” — Rowan (D), [16:18]

Tech Founder Challenges

• “Coming from a technical background, you tend to want to build the most elegant solution, and you have to keep pulling yourself back to focus on the actual customer problem.” — Naman (C), [18:27]
• “You’re trying to predict what could fail every single day, while also maintaining optimism and vision ... that balance of being grounded in facts vs. optimism is key—easier said than done.” — Naman (C), [19:28, 20:45]

Entrepreneurship is Accelerated Learning

• “It’s a very painful experience, but also very rewarding ... the ups and downs are an accumulation of beautiful things ... but sped up across five years instead of waiting your whole career.” — Abdullah (B), [22:19]

---

Product-Market Fit & Building with Customers

Iteration & Listening

Zest’s Evolution [23:47]

• Initial product focused on liquidity and secondary share transfers. Customer feedback pushed them to shift toward private market infrastructure.
• “Our first weeks, we didn’t want to hear the feedback. But the clients said: I love the idea, but can you just help me do it in private? So, we pivoted and built the infrastructure for deal execution in private.” — Rowan (D), [25:01]

Orbi’s Customer Engagement [26:40]

• Direct, on-the-ground learning by tracking down lenders during lunch breaks in DIFC and ADGM to get honest feedback.
• “We would literally hound them at lunchtime just to get two minutes of their time ... ask what kept them up at night ... managed to get our first five early adopters.” — Naman (C), [27:17–28:17]

Edhikar’s Enterprise Solution

• Identified a missing benefit in Saudi: daily savings vehicles for employees, not just pensions.
• Employer demand for competitive benefits aligned with Edhikar’s frictionless payroll integration approach.

---

Fundraising in the Middle East

Pitching as a Skill

• Compressing the story and using simple language is key for investor clarity.
• “The biggest challenge was consolidating everything into three minutes ... making it concise, relatable ... using terminology people understand.” — Rowan (D), [32:25]
• “Be bold, be brief, be gone. The three Bs ... outcomes over potential.” — Naman (C), [34:32]

What Investors Want

• “Demonstrating traction. It’s super important here—not only for investors, but for your own sanity ... The VC’s in the Middle East need that clarity. Our conversations have evolved from ‘is the market big enough’ to ‘are you building for the region or the world?’” — Naman (C), [38:41, 44:04]
• Relationships, network, and reputation matter.
• “In Saudi, interpersonal skills and your last name are important. It’s all about reputation and connections.” — Abdullah (B), [40:10]

Regulation & Momentum

• Regulatory shifts and government support are creating windows of opportunity.
• “When you have governments and regulation enabling, it creates massive opportunity ... it’s riding a wave.” — Abdullah (B), [48:24]

---

Regional Opportunities & Challenges

• “I always call it a mosaic. Each piece is unique. The GCC states know they need regulatory flexibility for these grand visions. They’re listening and creating sandbox environments.” — Naman (C), [46:32]
• “You can pick the jurisdiction that works for what you're building ... The tools and resources to think big are here.” — Rowan (D), [44:04–46:11]

---

Future Ambitions

Orbi:
“To make credit access universal and intelligent ... access to credit should literally be a press of a button—a reflex. That’s our mission for businesses across the region and beyond.” — Naman (C), [49:34]

Edhikar:
“To become the default savings infrastructure for employers—every employee should have automatic savings as a benefit, just like healthcare or vacation. Goal is regional GCC and MENA expansion.” — Abdullah (B), [50:15]

Zest:
“Simplify, safeguard, scale. We want to be the B2B provider for transactional infrastructure—step into the zest ecosystem, pick the tools you need, press play, and your whole deal execution is streamlined.” — Rowan (D), [50:43]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Startup life is like having a baby ... you never switch off.” — Rowan (D), [16:18]
• “No one drives a car just looking in the rearview mirror ... to predict the future you need to look ahead.” — David Brear (A), [15:28]
• “You have to earn the right to do more things for customers. Do something really simple, solve a problem, then earn the right.” — David Brear referencing Patrick Collison (Stripe), [25:52]
• “Be bold, be brief, be gone.” — Naman (C), [34:32]
• “In the Middle East, relationships matter—a lot. Reputation is key.” — Abdullah Karim (B), [40:10]
• “It’s a mosaic ... but regulators are listening, and the region is open for innovation.” — Naman (C), [46:32]

---

Key Timestamps

• [00:14] Intro and context: Money 2020 Middle East, excitement about the region
• [02:12–05:49] Meet the founders: What Edhikar, Orbi, and Zest do
• [06:45–15:28] Startup origin stories: Motivation and personal journeys
• [16:18–23:08] The entrepreneurship rollercoaster: Emotional realities, learning, growth
• [23:47–31:05] Finding product-market fit: Customer feedback, pivoting, early adoption
• [32:25–37:47] Pitching and communicating: Telling your story to investors, learning clarity
• [38:41–43:15] Fundraising culture in the Middle East: What matters, how it works
• [44:04–48:21] Regional context: Regulation, opportunity, cross-border scaling
• [49:34–51:30] Long-term vision and goals for each company

---

How to Connect

• Orbi: [e-mail] | LinkedIn | “I do respond; it’s not a bot, I promise.” — Naman (C), [52:14]
• Edhikar: [e-mail] | LinkedIn (Abdullah Karim) [52:47]
• Zest: zestequity.com | LinkedIn (Rowan Badoor) [53:00]

---

Final Takeaway:
Entrepreneurship in the Middle East’s fintech scene is buzzing with opportunity, but comes with local nuances, the need for resilience, tight founder-customer feedback loops, networking skills, and a willingness to learn at triple speed in a rapidly evolving environment. As each founder notes, the region’s regulatory excitement, openness to innovation, and ambitious vision make it a launchpad not only for regional domination but for global expansion.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome to another episode of FinTech Insider Insights. My name is David Brear and today we have got a very special episode for you. Last month I made my way to Riyadh for the very first money 2020 Middle East. And like any big fintech conference, there was a lot of noise, there was a lot of celebration and yes, lots and lots and lots of free swag and also, I'll be honest with you, a slight mild Arabic coffee addiction that I'm still trying to recover from as well. But beyond all of that, I left with something much more meaningful. A quiet, buzzing excitement about the fintech startup scene in the region. While I was there, I had the privilege of judging the money surge competition. If you picture this, 15 founders, three minutes each, one shot to convince convince a panel of judges that their startup was worthy of some serious funding injection. And wow, to say that I was inspired is a bit of an underestimation there. Our four winners were not just innovative, they were resilient, they were smart and they were ready to thrive in an industry that is crowded and competitive. In fact, I'll be honest with you, I kind of told everybody about it so much in the office that we wanted you to hear from them directly. So in this very special episode of FinTech Insider, we I'm joined by three of the Windows. So we've got Orbi, Edika and Zest. We're going to dive into what it really takes to succeed in the fintech startup ecosystem over in the Middle East. And my hope, well, you come away with a little bit of a funny fuzzy feeling as I did. Inspired to hear what's happening in the region. Right, enough about me. Let's meet our startup winners. First up we've got Abdullah Karim, who is the co founder and CTO over at Edhikar. How are you doing?

[B]

I'm doing well, thank you David. It's a pleasure being here.

[A]

No worries. Lovely to have you on. Lovely to see you again under slightly less stressful situation than last time, but we'll come to that a little bit later on. But for anybody who doesn't know your business, tell us a little bit more about what you guys do.

[B]

Yeah, of course. As you stated, my name is Dikim Khairi, the co founder CTO of Dikhar. We're basically a Saudi fintech transforming employee savings in the Middle East. In simple terms, we integrate with companies payroll systems. We allow employees to automatically save a portion of their salaries each month. This money is invested into regulated investment partners and employees are able to build wealth over time without even needing to think about it. And so savings actually in the region is extremely low, not because people don't want to save, but because it's very hard. It's manual and it requires financial discipline and that's where we come in.

[A]

Very good. And yeah, taking it and giving people a process and a structure around it, that's a fantastic thing to do. We'll come to, to talk about that in a little bit more detail, but great to have you on the show. Next up we have Naman Ali, who is the founder and CEO over at Orbi. How's it going?

[C]

It's good to see you again, David. Doing really well, thanks, very good.

[A]

I feel like, I think I said to you this at the time and we're talking about it just before the show. I think you've got probably like, you know, breakout star of best voice in Fintech. So like, you know, I think, I think we're going to get layers on, on you for this one. But lovely to have you on the show and lovely to see you again. Tell us a little bit more about your business.

[C]

Yeah, so my name is na'. Man, I'm one of the co founders and CEO at Orbi. So Orbi is a credit intelligence layer for modern lending. Effectively what we do is we augment various processes of the lending journey all the way from data ingestion to enrichment to credit decisioning to autonomous disbursement and collection services for lenders across the region. Typically we would work with neobanks, B2B, fintech lenders and even non lenders who want to enable embedded lending within their platforms and offer that service to the SMEs that are plugged into that.

[A]

Very, very cool. Lots of sort of entrepreneurial innovation happening in that space and a lot of startup starting. So a lot of people needing those types of services, right?

[C]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think right time, right place, it's a bit of an understatement to be honest. So it was a problem that was glaringly obvious a couple of years back and yeah, I guess we played it right in some sort.

[A]

Be good, be lucky, be both, hopefully. But. Well, great to have you on the show. We'll talk to you a little bit more. So last up we have Rowan Badoor who is the co founder of Zest. How's it going?

[D]

Great, thank you for having me today. It's good to see you again.

[A]

Yeah, lovely to see you again again under slightly less stressful circumstances than last time. But tell us a little Bit more about Zest. What do you guys do?

[D]

Of course. So we're building a digital first platform to power private market transactions. So what does that mean? Think about Stripe and what it did for payments in terms of infrastructure. What we're trying to do is build the Rails to streamline and digitize the way private market deals are being executed. So all the way from investing from a deal lead, or let's say a fund having a dashboard to invite their network of LPs to come and participate, to investor onboarding, to documentation, all the way up to kind of the full lifecycle of the deal during setup and post. So digitizing, streamlining, and bringing everything together under a single workflow, that's what we're doing. We call ourselves the pipes, the Rails, the infrastructure layer to modernize the way transactions are executed.

[A]

Very cool. I remember your pitch like it was yesterday. I have to say. It was. Trying to access private markets into the, the mainstream is a no small feat, but actually giving people the level of understanding of those markets is, is huge, you know, in a massively complex space. But, but yeah, you've got some really good ideas to how to do that, so. So well done. All right, well that makes up our panel. Lots of great startups and lots of great ideas from a, from the region perspective. But, but any good startup starts with a good origin story. It's always my favorite superhero movie, quite frankly. But you guys have all founded your businesses. Man, that stuff's scary, isn't it? Like, tell us a little bit about how you made that happen then, Rowan, maybe starting with you. I mean, what, what was it? Was it. Were you so frustrated that people didn't have access to this market or were you just bored doing whatever it was you were doing else and thought, you know what, this startup thing seems like a laugh. Like what, what was the, what was the origin story?

[D]

It's funny. I think it's different things and it's similar to what Norman was saying. Right place, right time in a sense. So Zohair and I, my co founder, we've been friends since we were kids, probably the fourth grade, and we never really overlapped professionally, but there was this one very random encounter where he's like, I need to speak to you. We sat down, I remember we were back home in Jordan. We sat down in my parents living room and he was like, I have an idea. And from his perspective, he was talking about liquidity in private markets. He was saying, I mean, we all know this, right? The exit cycles being very long, being a small Investor very hard to access liquidity. On my side, I came from a whole other kind of, let's say angle and I was, I remember very clearly saying, listen, for me the funniest thing I see is sometimes I have a conversation with somebody, we agree I love the concept of the startup. And then they're like, okay, I'll send you the details tomorrow. And then the next day I get a WhatsApp with the last page of the safe note with the signature page on it and I'm like, for me it's number one access, getting access to good deals. It just feels like they're siloed within groups. Two is the fact that there's no transparency when it comes to information, when it comes to kind of what you're signing transaction terms. And the way people execute is still very disaggregated from WhatsApp to emails here, emails there, people not really knowing who's investing in them as well. So the fact that kind of AML checks, screenings are never done on a startup level, I think initially those were kind of the first things that came up. So it was kind of two sided liquidity, governance processes. And then from my side it was more about okay, the transparency, access to information and then streamlining workflows. And at the time I was running a regulated boutique investment bank out of the difc and I mean again I was doing a lot of the compliance reg work, cross border kind of management of, I mean typical investment banking. And I think it took me a couple of years but I grew an appreciation for let's say good governance and compliance. Not in the sense, not maybe not in the traditional sense, but I was thinking about, okay, look at, look at our markets. We're still nascent, at least at the time. Four years ago we were nascent, growing very fast without the right fundamentals. Whether it's compliance, whether it's governance, whether it's kind of the way things are happening, how will this be sustainable? And it just made a lot of sense. I remember it was a very quick decision. We went to our lawyers at the time and I'm like guys, are we crazy? Are we too crazy or are we just a little bit crazy? Shall we go for this? And they're like, here's the contract, let's do this, we'll support you guys. And so and just basically jumped ship and then, and started the business about three and a half years ago now.

[A]

Nice finding that nice level of craziness to kick off a business. It's an interesting dilemma though, isn't It I remember starting 11Fs back in 2016. I rang my mum up to be like, I think I'm gonna quit my job. Like this is weird but I think I'm gonna go quit my job to go do this thing. But. And who did you talk to? Was it, was it just. Well, you were doing it in your parents lounge, but did you go and talk to them about it as well?

[D]

At the time I went through many different things, right. I had a very comfortable job, I was doing well. I loved kind of the bank I was working with, but I've always enjoyed building and kind of restructuring workflows. I mean since the early days. I was in banking for about 10 years but most of my career was in kind of restructuring processes, launching subsid in different countries. So I knew I really wanted to build again and it just made a lot of sense. So anybody I talk to are like, go for it. Like it was a very natural progression into actually finding something like Zest.

[A]

Well, we'll talk a little bit more about how it's been since that moment in a second. But Abdul Karim, how about you? What was the, what's your origin story?

[B]

I think it's a very interesting story. So I don't know if many people can relate but my, my startup and my co founders were actually blood related. So my co founder is actually my father and he started his first business many years ago and he actually founded the first employee savings fund in the kingdom many years ago and it was a big success. They grew an employee savings fund from like around 200,000 Riyadh to around 36 million and they were getting year to year growth of up to 10% and it was a big success. Even at that time banks were willing to lend this fund to even have more, more investments for employees. So fast forward many years later I graduated from college and the Kingdom has all of this ecosystem they're building. There's 20 to 30 vision, there's all the regulation for FinTech and I'm a computer engineering graduate. And so he said okay, why not? We work together and we build this as a fully automated platform. And that was kind of beginning. And you can't say no to your father.

[A]

I mean, yeah, I was going to say on that one it might make for some really awkward Sunday lunches potentially. Does he ever pull weight on like I'm your co founder but I'm also your dad, like so that's kind of a bit of a trump card in the boardroom potentially.

[B]

Now in business it stays business, but you always have to meet, keep, keep that level of respect there.

[A]

Yeah, very good, very good. Naman, how about you? What was the, what's your origin story of getting the business going or what was the itch that you wanted to scratch with it?

[C]

Yeah, so I think when I, my entrepreneurial journey started really early, growing up in London on the weekends, I was always inclined to take a problem and try and fix it, whether it was, you know, solving code problems for, for my friends, etc. And then, and basically hustling my way through school. But, but academically I, I graduated in, in computer science and started life as a deep tech AI engineer at Microsoft and did that for a number of years and then realized actually there was a world beyond Microsoft and then ended up at the bank of England for my sins, where I was working on the RTGS platform, which is real time gross settlement system, and then was involved in building the intelligence layer on top of that. Once I got done there at the bank, I thought, oh, this is cool. What actually started off as a freelance gig, then evolved into a sort of an AI engineering company as you would, and started using my network of tech folks to start taking on larger and larger projects. Did that for a number of years. And the frustrating part of that was building products, palming them off to our customers and then never seeing them to fruition or to their full potential was a little bit frustrating. So I came out to the Middle east exploring another big problem to sort of get my teeth into and I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew and coming out here. And I guess compounded by my own frustration over the years watching good businesses get turned away from credit simply because the current legacy model doesn't fit the.

[A]

Way in which.

[C]

In terms of identifying the eligibility of them. And I've spent a long time in AI and financial services and one of the patterns that became painfully clear was, you know, there's lots of data, but really the intelligence isn't there. So I got on the phone to my co founder Guillaume, who I met back at Microsoft and Nisara, who had met in London on various different projects and basically said, look guys, I think I'm onto something. And credit to them, they were on the next plane out to the UAE and next thing you know, we were brainstorming on a whiteboard trying to solve this particular problem within, within, within the region where, you know, because of the lack of data and because of certain businesses that don't really have formal credit history and to try and identify their eligibility through Understanding financial behavior. And that comes from, you know, how they manage inventory, pay suppliers, or handle cash flow. And we felt that that tells a way more comp of how healthy your business is and their eligibility as opposed to the static, backwards looking way in.

[B]

Which.

[C]

Credit history works and still works in many ways today.

[A]

Yeah, I've said, I think I said to you guys, actually to you at the time, it's like nobody drives a car just looking in a rearview mirror, right? Actually, if you're trying to predict the future, you've got to kind of have good data sets to look ahead of the track in that way. But I mean, it all sounds like you've sold. You know, you're trying to solve a big industry problem. You know, like you've seen an issue, you've seen a customer problem. How has it actually been running a business, though? And I'm gonna like, you know, I'm gonna let you kind of, I'm gonna tell you, like, 10 years of running a business, it sucks sometimes. Like, it's. Everybody thinks being an entrepreneur is like, you know, you're suddenly gonna get issued with your turtleneck and Steve Jobs pose. But. But it's hard, isn't it? Like, this stuff is difficult and actually, you know, there are real peaks or real troughs in that as well. Like, how has it been, you know, Rohan, how's it been being a. Being an entrepreneur, running your own company?

[D]

It's funny, before I started this, I thought I was already a person who took on a lot of responsibility and I thought that I didn't really switch off. I thought I was working 24 hours. I mean, that thinking was completely just. Yeah, not there. I realized, I think, I really think it's like having a baby in a sense. Like, it's like you really cannot switch off. You really cannot switch off. You're always thinking about a million things at the same time. And any second you are not thinking proactively about the future. There's a massive opportunity cost. And I think, I mean, you start feeling it from the beginning, but as the company grows and as you start having employees and real business and real clients, it just becomes a lot more just real and there all the time. And it's honestly, it's been an amazing journey because you're forced to be creative. You're forced to kind of manage your emotions through everything. You're forced to mature as a leader, as an executioner, future as kind of different things and we're different Personas in different circumstances. So for me, although it's been Very difficult at times. I don't think I've learned as much throughout my entire life as I have the last four years. It's just been again, good, bad altogether. It's just been. Yeah, you learn a lot and you're forced to level up all the time.

[A]

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, that kid analogy, I think is the right one because you can almost feel guilty if you're not thinking about it as well.

[C]

Right.

[A]

So there's a weird, weird cycle on it as well. I mean, you, you've obviously all, all of you kind of worked at bigger organizations as well, but actually it takes a certain type of person who can work at a startup company and a gigantic organization as well. Do you know, I mean, like the 11Fs's first offices when we did it was roughly the same size as where we kept shoes when I worked at Gartner. You know, like, so, like the, the ability to, to work at both of those levels. Do you know what I mean? Like, who's putting the, who's putting the paper in the printer? You're putting the paper in the printer. In fact, you're setting up the printer as well. So it's like dealing with all of these different things is a, is an interesting balance in it now, man. How about you? What's the, what's the feeling like running your own company?

[C]

So for me, particularly coming from a tech background and you know, it was particularly challenging, I'd say, because being technical comes with its advantages, but also disadvantages. And so, you know, you know, you tend to explore. You think you can solve the problem by building the most elegant solution on the planet, and then you tend to sort of, you tend to go too far down the path of solution building. And then you've got to hold yourself back and go back to the customer and speak to the customer and understand and stay focused on the actual problem itself that you. That. So that part was quite challenging for me, which was, no, no, we got to stop, stop, stop getting lost in the code. We've got to step back and we've got to focus on what we're, what we're trying to solve for the customer. And then wearing multiple hats and stepping away from the technical side of things and then selling the solution and talking to customers, that feedback to customers.

[A]

All.

[C]

Of the things that you have to go through running a startup. And it's almost like you're trying to predict the next thing that could potentially fail every single day, multiple times in the day, while still trying to maintain the right level of optimism and focus on the vision that you're trying to solve and the problem that you're trying to solve. So it's sort of the right level of, of being grounded in the reality and facts of things versus having the right balance of optimism. I think that's something that you've, you, you come to try and find as you navigate the startup.

[A]

I used to have that quote on my cv. I had the. Literally it was the, am I a pessimistic optimist or an optimistic pessimist? And I'm trying to figure out which one basically was like my, my strap. It's like. It's true though, right? And actually the, the consequences of both of those things are so much more severe, aren't they? Actually, you know, if you're, when you were sort of knee deep in RTCs in the bank of England, then actually, you know, documenting the risks is important, but actually avoiding the risks are really important when you're, you know, running your own thing. Because actually it's, you know, it could be fatal if you don't navigate those waters. Right. So it's a, it's a very different challenge, isn't it? It.

[C]

Yeah, absolutely, I think so. You know, coming back to that point, I think it's. If you get too grounded into the facts and you know, that can sometimes lead you down the path of negativity and you feel, you know, it can push you away from the optimism and the vision. And if you get too focused on being an optimist and focused on the vision, then sometimes it can pull you away from the reality of things and you tend to have your head in the clouds. And so I think, think finding that balance and it's easier said than done, honestly. I believe I'm still navigating that today and I probably will for many years to come.

[D]

Yeah. One thing that you said that resonates a lot. My company, am I building for me? Am I in a silo or am I building for the world or for my customer? I think that's a trap a lot of people fall into. It's very easy to sit down with your code, with your product, fall in love with it and forget to listen to the market, to the client and step out of that. So it's one thing. Yeah, that's, that resonates a lot, I think with a lot of people.

[A]

Probably 100%. Yeah. There's a product market fit is a real thing, isn't it? I know you sort of see textbooks written about it and it sounds all academic, but do people re. We always say this at the end of projects. Somebody's got to give a damn about what you're doing. Right. And actually, you know, if it's not changing the way people interact with the world, particularly when you're starting a new business, it's really difficult to change behavior, isn't it? So, Abdul Karim, what about you? What's the, what's the world of entrepreneurship like in reality? I don't want to. I feel like we're going to put everybody off starting businesses. We're not trying to put you off. We're just trying to give you the reality of.

[B]

It's quite hard, I think, to add on to Rohan, like the, the baby analogies is excellent because it's a very painful experience, but it's also very rewarding, you know, and it's very humbling. I would say the amount of business and like, like the amount of experience you need to go through is unlike any other. I think career being entrepreneur and it's very exciting and I would say by far it's one of the best decisions I've done in my life, regardless if I do a big success or fail. But the amount of people you meet, the conversations you go through, the experiences, the up and downs is accumulation of very beautiful things that you go through in life. But it's kind of like sped up up in the cross five years instead of waiting your whole career to really experience it. So very humbling.

[A]

Yeah, it's a definite, like you say, it's a definite accelerate for learning, you know, because it's, it's like, it's like total Darwinism. It's like, you know, sort of adapt or die type structure, isn't it? And that really focuses you. But I guess now and to the point you were talking about with customers, though, I mean, all three of you have had to go out. You know, what you thought you, you knew when you start talking to customers turns out to be quite dramatically different. You know, I mean, Rowan, I guess when you went to customers and went, we're going to give you access to private markets, they're like, what's the private market like? So how, how was your first contact with customers?

[D]

So we actually not pivoted, but we evolved our model very quickly after launch. So when we first went to market, the idea of liquidity and kind of streamlining, let's say secondary transfers of other shares ESOPs, that was kind of the thesis and we were so passionate about it. We have to help people in the right way. This is a solution for the companies themselves, we were so passionate, spoke to stakeholders across the ecosystem. We started out in venture. I mean, now we work with private equity, real estate, other asset classes, but we started out in venture. And I think the first couple of weeks, I don't think we wanted to hear the feedback. And the feedback at the time, it was late 2021, valuations were extremely high. It didn't make sense. I mean, buying at those levels also didn't make any sen. There are a lot of things changing in the region, but I think a couple of weeks in just a switch suddenly came on. We're like, okay, let's stop and listen. We stepped away for. I remember a week we went down kind of a new path and said, listen. So clients are saying, we love the. I mean, we understand the problem. Yes, there are issues, whether it's governance, transparency, the flows. I mean, we see a lot of the elements that you guys are talking about. We see them, but I have my transaction, I have my investors. I know exactly what I want to do.

[B]

Do.

[D]

Can you just help me do it in private? And we're like a scrappy MVP at the time, I remember we hacked and we put like a little button on the side of the page that turned something from public to private. And within a couple of weeks, we completely evolved the model from what we thought would be liquidity solutions platform to private market infrastructure to allow you and empower you as a deal lead or deal, I mean, investment manager, to actually just execute your own transaction in private with the LPs that you bring along. And more and more listening to different types of client types. Let's say we realized that that infrastructure gap was way larger than we had ever imagined. And slowly, slowly started just peeling up that. At that, at that peel and slowly, slowly adding more and more tools to solve as much as we can from that.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Like you say, the. Almost the scale of some of these issues. And I remember, you know, your pitch, the workflow side of things stood out really well because actually having that standardized approach to making these things happen is really, really important. You know, we actually had Patrick Collinson on this podcast who referenced, actually from Stripe, and his whole thing was do something really simple, solve a problem for a customer and earn the right to do more things. Right? And, you know, if you can do that, then that's a. That's a wonderful place to be, isn't it? How about you guys? What's. What's the. Was there any sort of turns out the customer doesn't want the thing we thought they did or you know, now and maybe on the technology side of things like you say kind of going away from just creating technology because you know it's good but, but actually finding that product market fit part.

[C]

Yeah it was. I mean I've so I come from a background where I have worked on, I've been lucky enough to be in a position where I've worked on some very global, you know, very large global platforms whether it was through Microsoft or whether it was at the bank of England or, or when I was running my own company. So I'd all I had, I had that level of exposure and sort of removing myself from that and getting you know, trying to sort of unit de technical find myself. Is that a phrase? But I guess it is now but it was, it literally was.

[A]

We'll go with it.

[C]

Let's go with that. We were, we were camping in DIFC and ADGM outside of offices of really big lending companies and we had sort of created a list of people that worked there at various different sort of levels of the organization and we would literally hound them at lunchtime as they were going out to buy lunch etc just to get two minutes of their time and literally spoke to them about what were the challenges they were having, what kept them up at night. If they could have a wish list, what would, what would be on that wish list? What you know, those sort of questions and we got some really interesting pieces of information and data just by having these very, very short brief conversations we, we, we, we earned their trust and then they were willing to open up and have longer conversations with us and that's literally how we started off and managed to get our first five early adopters that were willing to test out what we, what we were building.

[A]

That's very cool. We always say the build it with people, not for them. Right. And that is exactly. Sounds like what you're doing is if you can get five people who will sort of come with you on the journey then you've got, you know, a bunch of people who will talk to other people about what you're doing as well but you know they're going to be your loyalist customers all the way through. Right?

[C]

Yeah, absolutely. And we were quite surprised how nice people were and I guess it's that sort of human connection, you know, I think it's sort of of when you talk about what keeps you up at night or you know, what, what's your wish list. It's quite an emotional thing to try and when you connect through, through those type of questions with people, you can, you know, and, and some, most of the time we just want to be heard, really. We all got a bit of a whinge or a moan that we want to get out and, and, and channeling that in the right, in the right way and I, I guess it worked for us.

[A]

Yeah. Started a podcast just to get it all off my chest, quite frankly. But here we are now. It's, it is funny that one customer side of things wanting to be heard. I think it's bizarrely, it's a gap in the market, isn't it? It's what fintechs, whether it's you guys or Revolut and Monzo or Stripe or whatever, like actually whether your customers, developers or end consumers, if you can mobilize those guys to give you great feedback, but also to like we say, come on that journey with you, then it, it is a major differentiator, isn't it? So how about you, Abdul Karim, from the customer side of things? How was the first few engagements?

[B]

Yeah, what we found is that regulation here in Saudi is actually not present when it comes to saving solutions and kind of like similar to what's in the UK and the US like 401k, what we do have is pension plans. And this is only touched at the end of kind of someone's career and their retirement. But day to day there wasn't anything available. And so the incentive to really have a company have a savings solution wasn't there until recently when there was, you know, just a surge of many companies opening in Saudi, in Riyadh. And there's a lot of competitiveness and so there's a lot of competitiveness in terms of, you know, getting more employees and trying to attract them and retain them. What we found is that having additional benefits that companies could have was something that they were very interested in. But there wasn't really a way to facilitate all that. You know, there isn't financial solutions today that are integrating with payroll solutions and with the banks. And it's like Nomad said, it's a big enterprise solution that you really need to understand all the pieces and know how to connect them and then have a seamless solution for companies. So when they integrate with you, it's frictionless. It's truly a fintech platform. And that's Alhamdulillah, what we were able to do.

[A]

Very good, very good. All right, we're going to take a little bit of a break here just because we've sort of covered Quite a lot of ground in terms of the weird and wonderful world of starting your own startup and everything that comes in, taking that first leap. After the break, what we're going to do is dive a little bit deeper into funding experiences, scaling strategies, team dynamics. Team dynamics is a weird one. We'll come to that as well. You guys are going to have some stories. If not, I got like 10 years of them. We'll go long. And what the long term vision is for all of your businesses as well within the region. Don't go anywhere, folks. We'll be back with you really soon. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to FinTech Insider Insights. We've heard the stories, we felt the energy, and now it's time to go a little bit deeper in this part. We're going to be diving into the funding journey, scaling strategies, building out the right team and the long term vision for fintech startups in the Middle East. Buckle up, everybody. Right, well, maybe sort of going back to the point where we met. That was a bit weird, standing up in front of all those people, pitching your ideas and sort of getting to a. So did you find it weird or is it just you've been talking about your business for so many times that actually it was probably the most natural thing, Rowan, like, do you like, do you like standing up in front of, what was it like 400 people and pitching for cash? It felt a bit weird.

[D]

But yeah, listen, I think I learned how to be okay on stage. I think the biggest challenge with that pitch was consolidating everything into three minutes. I mean, honestly, the time was again, we're pitching all the time and we love, I mean, we love our, we love what we're building. So we're used to kind of, of just talking as much as we can and using as many words as we can. So consolidating and also using terminology, that's I think something you learn over time as well. But I think Rahman touched on this. We used to use technical terms that nobody understood in our heads. We thought we were so clear all the time. So I think, yeah, just making sure you deliver something concise and relatable and terminology that people can understand. I think that was a challenging part, but honestly, it was super energizing for us. A lot of our clients are stakeholders and investors that have come through the platform, were there at Money20 20. So it just felt like the natural place to be. And honestly, we loved it. I mean, I, I love being up there.

[A]

Slightly different setting from your usual sort of investor pitch meeting where it's nice and casual and you know, you've got hundreds of people milling around and you know, a countdown clock in front of you just to amp up the, the pressure a little bit. But, but you did, you did awesome. How about you guys? Was it, was it weird like, or was that just like. Yeah, like I, I talk about my business all the time. This makes sense, sense I have to.

[B]

Say, like from my side. FinTech 2020 or Money 2020, sorry, FinTech24 was last year and this year's Money 2020 has been by far one of the best events I was attended. Honestly, the amount of people I met and the fintech solutions I saw was amazing. And in addition the audience that were there attending it was very niche in my opinion because the people that I met were all very interested and all had strategic relations in the fintech world. So even after I pitched I had people approach and they were very much interested. So for me it was a great pleasure to come out and pitch. And honestly after an accelerator two or three, you get really used to pitching many times. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. How about you?

[C]

Yeah. So as Abdul Karim said, I think as founders you find yourself pitching all the time. And for me I remember something that I did a short gig when I was in Abu Dhabi and I remember somebody that I, that I really admired in the way he would, you know, speak, said, said, always remember, be bold, be brief and be gone. The three Bs. And that really stayed with me and being a data company for, for me it was, it, I guess it was quite easy to sort of of talk about our, you know, the business in orby in terms of numbers. So you know, it's, it's, it's all about projecting those numbers and show a pitch that's focused on outcomes rather than the potential. I mean potential is great. We love a great potential story. But I think what, what was really important for us is to demonstrate what, what we're achieving, what the outcomes have been to date and what we believe could be possible if we launched ourselves and propelled ourselves even further other perhaps with some funding, what could be achieved. And that was that, that was the sort of narrative that we, that we followed. And I think when you speak about your own company, I think it should or it should come natural because there's just, you know, we're all passionate about our startups and let that passion come through. I always, you know, I always tell myself that nobody knows or be better than I do because it's, it's, it's my startup, it's Our startup, it's. This is what we created. And so if I'm not be able to tell that story, nobody else will. And I always remind myself of that.

[A]

Joe. I feel like that's the case with any interview really. Like, it's like usually somebody's talking to you about your life and it's like, you know that quite well, don't you? And if like say if you've been living and breathing your startup for whatever period of time, then you're going to be better equipped to talk about it than anybody. That challenge, as you say, Rowan is actually in an industry. Financial services loves to make itself sound important by using acronyms that nobody else understands, don't they? You know, like. So if you can break it down into a way that actually normal people can get the. Why you know, particularly when you're talking to investors, actually this is critical because you know, you don't often get purely monolithic investors because actually if they wanted just companies like your company, they then actually what's going to be the market, they're going to just invest seven businesses doing the same thing. So actually how you can break it down to normal people is really, really important. You know, I always kind of use. It's like the mother. Mother in law barometer. From, from my perspective, if, if I can't explain the idea to my mother in law, it's just not going to go anywhere, you know, so. But took me two years.

[D]

It took me two years did it to get the, with the mother in law to, to, to really like 100% get. Get to that stage. No, but it's interesting the most, I think interesting realization it down to simpler terms. Even our own understanding of what we were trying to solve and what we were trying to build evolved very quickly and we kind of sold things in a clearer way. So I didn't, I didn't expect that really. But it's like it's good for everybody. It's good for you.

[A]

Weirdly. It's a cultural thing then actually as well because. And I mean cultural in the sense of the way in which your business operates. Because actually, you know, back to my point around, I've worked at many large organizations that love to confuse you by the acronyms that they use to do stuff. And it's like, like. But actually if everybody, if people just talk like people, then you kind of find that actually you find much more of a common understanding around the problems that you're trying to solve for which is, which is good. You know, that's ultimately that's what you're there to do, isn't it? Solve problems. But I guess pick, pick, you know, picking up on that investor sort of train of where we were going. Like you guys obviously got comedy size checks neatly folded away into your luggage, I'm sure to fly to wherever you were going next. But, but you've raised capital as well. So what's it like raising money in the Middle East? Is it a difficult thing to do? Is it an easier thing to do? Like how, how have you all found that?

[C]

So I think for us goes back to, you know, solving a compelling problem. It always starts with a problem, but, but really demonstrating traction. I think people often underestimate how important traction is not just to investors. Put let's park investors to a side for a second. Your own sanity. Are you, are you solving a problem that wants to be solved? And if you're not seeing the numbers that, that, that, that, that rep. You know, that can, can reflect that you're solving the problem. You know, you, you need to move on to the next thing. And so I think the Middle east is people, you know, I think the VC's in the middle east, they need that clarity. They need to understand because you have to understand in the Middle east we're not, you know, where in south, sorry, San Francisco or in the U.S. these large problems have been solved 20 years ago or perhaps even 30 years ago. And we're now solving these big problems. And so to solve these problems it's going to take some effort. And so I think really engaging with the investors, speaking with the investors to help them understand the journey itself. The story, the traction is just super, super. And I'm sure people have heard this before, but it really is if it's ever, if it's ever true, in any case, it's really, it's very true in the Middle East.

[A]

Yeah. How about you guys?

[B]

I'd add on to that and say like investing, like investors in the Middle east are, I would say a bit different. Especially in my experience in Saudi, interpersonal skills are very important and having a good network and connections is also extremely important. And also your last name is very important. They care about, you know, know little things where, where you came from, how your story kind of adds up. Having a personal connection is, is I think core here. From my experience, even early on we didn't raise yet we've, we've raised only from friends and family. But just now even approaching investors has all been through our network and hey, you know this guy, this guy knows this guy and it's all like, okay, how does. Is what's the reputation of this person? And so having that reputation in addition to having the good traction, having a good idea really is important.

[A]

Yeah, I've definitely found that working out there in the region, the big banks, the investors are very similar. Actually everybody seems to know everybody. I mean bizarrely, financial services is a gigantic organ, gigantic industry, but a very small group. So you know, actually that one works both good and bad depending on which which side of that you can fall to a certain degree in terms of momentum or reputation. But. But yeah, it does does seem to be networking and the relationships there is. Is important. And actually I'd say actually from a ecosystem perspective, this is what's really exciting about the Middle east. If I'm honest that I said earlier on around the, you know, the feeling of it being, you know, London in 2014 or whatever. But. But actually that that melting pot of different opportunities and big organizations and investors looking for the change, but probably, you know, regulatory change as well being a. A major thing. Just the, you know, our experience as 11Fs building, you know, a startup out in there in the region. Actually the regulator, you know, SAMO has changed so dramatically over the last 10 years, which is amazing. And with that I guess breeds opportunities for organizations like all of yourselves as well. So I mean often when you're trying to build the track while. Or you know, drive the train while the track's being built is. It's a. It's complicated but. But in that sense it breeds opportunity as well.

[B]

No, absolutely. Actually just last thing to mention about that, like the first person to get licensed by SAMA was actually it was Lendo very. I think they do. What they do is crowdfunding, lending, lending basically to companies and SMEs. And the main founder, when he was wanting to get regulated, there wasn't regulation at that time. So his investor was actually great friends with the governor who was in charge of sama. So it's like these connections that you can't really just make. It just happens. It's kind of. You get lucky and you kind of go with it. You maximize that opportunity.

[A]

Yeah, I mean that does help. I'll be honest with you, Namon, when you were at the bank of England, it was probably Mark Carney didn't return my calls that often. I'll be honest with you. Like he did did come on the podcast. Lovely chap, but no, he wouldn't return my calls quite as frequently. Mr. Bailey. Now on the other hand he does, which is great, but So, I mean, we're talking about the region more broadly then actually what really excites you? Because, I mean, you guys are. Rowan, you say you're from Jordan. You know, we're not just talking about Riyadh here, obviously that was where money 2020 was. And, and actually Saudi is definitely seemingly becoming more of a hub for the, you know, for the entire region. But, but the entirety of the region is a bloody big place. And we're talking about very different ecosystems and very different regulators. And you know, what, what excites you in the, in the region right now?

[D]

Listen, I think, and maybe that ties into the previous question as well, but I remember four years ago, our first pre seed pitch, a lot of the questions were market size, is Saudi big enough? Is the UAE big enough? Who are you targeting? These questions were, I mean, and the questions were always focused about the market that you were sitting in today. Our conversations are never about is the market size in Saudi big enough. The questions have evolved to are you building for the region or are you building for the world? Or like, where are you going? And I feel like the reason why it's become so exciting to build out of here is because we now are attracting good talent, attracting a lot of capital both internally and kind of from a global perspective. And you're able to sit here, be really innovative and build for the world or for markets outside of the two, three that surround you directly. And yes, I think you mentioned something about kind of, let's say, regulations in the sense of it is fragmented. The problem with, I guess, the Middle east is each country has its own legal frameworks, own regulatory frameworks, own compliance frameworks, and in some countries have two or three regulatory regulators kind of governing the way fintechs operate. But I think if you look a little bit closer, dig a little bit deeper, you'll realize that each of them is kind of uniquely positioned and you can go pick and choose the jurisdiction that works for what you're building. And I think if you kind of really, really go and put the effort in learning what each offers, you're able to make good decisions and build something solid that could serve, I mean, markets far, far away as well. And so this is exciting. All of our later kind of investor conversations have been about, okay, great, we've proven concept here. Where else is this there is this a problem? And now we're talking about South Asia and we're talking about parts of Europe and we're talking about. And it's really, it's really, for us, it's really exciting to see that. Okay, you've started in a, in a, in a place and now you go outwards from here. And I think the region does give you the tools and the resources to be able to think that in that big.

[A]

Very cool. Yeah, exactly as you say. The investors orders want to see that, you know, that graph go all the way to total world domination, don't they? So actually, you know, being able to show the region being a jump off point for organizations to scale internationally is a, you know, really good one. How about you guys? What are you, what are you sort of excited about from a regional perspective?

[C]

I think for me one of the most beautiful things about the Middle east is I always call it a bit of a mosaic mosaic. Each, each piece is very unique and beautiful, like Rowan said, and it comes with its own highly contextualized nuances, but these nuances are also very unique to that particular, particular country. And so, but, but, but that said, I think a lot, a lot of the, the countries are, you know, they understand that to get to these grand visions that most of the GCC states are talking about, there's going to be a need for regulatory flexibility, there's going to be a need for these sort of sandbox environments to allow innovation to naturally occur. And so I'm extremely grateful for that from working with jurisdictions like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to provide those facilities. And they are listening. And that's the great thing about it is they're listening, they are understanding. And as Abdulkadeem mentioned, Lende was one of the first startups that managed to pave the way for other fintechs to follow suit and wrangle with regulation and get some of those policies changed, which is amazing. And we see that all the time. And so for me that's super exciting is to be building in a place which understands the challenge is great, but is also doing a lot of things to support startups to navigate that. And I have to say that from my perspective, we didn't really have a challenge in getting to speak to the people that we wanted to speak with. I have to say that my experience was quite the opposite. We had people wanting to listen, wanting to talk to us and I'm very humbled and very grateful for that.

[A]

Very good. Abdul Karim, how about you?

[B]

Yeah, I would say to add to Neman is when you have governments and regulations enabling, it's creating massive opportunities. And like NE came to the Middle east to start his company, many others are doing the same because there's massive opportunity here. So it's really about riding this wave. You know, you either make it or you don't. You know, you miss it. So I think it's a great opportunity to now ride that wave and try to see what you can capture because otherwise once it's sailed, it'll be very, very hard.

[A]

Very good. Yeah, it's jump in while there's opportunities is always a good thing to find, isn't there? So I think we're going to have to wrap up though. I think we could go for another three hours, I think on all three of your companies and what we're sort of looking forward to seeing in the region. But maybe before we close out, where do you guys want to get to? Like what's the. I know this was part of all three of your presentations. There was at least three slides on it in terms of that thing that goes to world domination for all three of you. But what's the big aspiration? Duration in terms of where you want to get to in five years. And I promise you we'll get you back way before five years to come and tell you about the progress. But Namman, how about you? Where do you guys want to get to?

[C]

So I think, you know, our impact is simple but very ambitious. And one of the core values that we, that we have at Orbi is change the world or go home. And for us it's to simply to make credit access universal and intelligent. And rather than get stuck in processes, access to credit should literally be just a press of a button. It should be a reflex. And we're out there and that's our mission and we're out there to make that reality for businesses all across the region and beyond.

[A]

Very good, very good. Looking forward to seeing that come to fruition. Abdul Karim, how about you? Where, where, where are you going to be in five years?

[B]

So I would say becoming kind of the default savings infrastructure for, for employers having every employee in this region to have automatic savings as a basic employee benefit. Just like they have healthcare or vacation days, they should have savings and they should be growing it over time. So the goal is to expand here in the region. GCC and Mena. Insha'. Allah.

[A]

Very, very good. Rohan, how about you? Five years from now?

[D]

The tag we've been using recently is simplify, safeguard in scale. What we want to do is really just build. We want you to as a deal lead whoever you are, an entrepreneur, a family office, a PE fund manager. We want you to step into the zest ecosystem, pick and choose the tools that you need to execute this specific deal and just press play. And once you press play, we have that whole execution flow streamlined for you. We started with SPVs. That was our kind of first core product and that's been working really well. But we're launching regulated products now to also help kind of create the pikes for funding Rails. Anything that you're doing, we can become your funding Rails. On a distribution side, we can kind of just, we want to be the B2B provider serving investment managers, basically transactional infrastructure through and through that. That's the goal.

[A]

Very, very good. That's a, that's a big, big target for all three of you. Big targets. But you know, if anything to go on from today and from the pitch previously, then you guys have got the skill sets and the, the attitudes to kind of go and make these things happen. So massive amount of congratulation, the wins at Money 2020 and yeah, look forward to seeing your businesses scale over the years as well. That does have to wrap up the discussion today though, I'm afraid. Big thank you to all of the panelists and thank you for your time and expertise to come and break down this super interesting topic for everybody who's listening as well. For everybody who wants to get in touch with you, to throw money at you, to scale your businesses or to just get involved and connect with you. Where can people learn a little bit more about you and your business?

[C]

Now answer, start with you so you can get through to us@hellobie AI where we're fairly active on LinkedIn. You can drop me a message on LinkedIn. I do respond. It's not a bot, I promise. I'm very accessible. I love talking to people, especially my customers. So yeah, you can reach us on any of the social media channels or online.

[A]

Awesome comments on his business. Congratulations on his voice. Whatever you want to send to him, do it. It's all good. Abdul Karim, how about you? How can people get in touch and learn a little bit more about your company?

[B]

Yeah, they can reach [e-mail] or they can also reach out LinkedIn personally to me and I'll be happy to talk with them.

[A]

Very, very good. Rohan Zest. Where can people learn more?

[D]

Yeah, same. I'm accessible on LinkedIn love talking to people and zestequity.com that's kind of our main handle and you can get access to all of our contacts there as well.

[A]

Very good. As for me, yeah, lurking on LinkedIn mostly these days. So feel free to connect and happy to talk to anybody there. Thank you for listening everybod. If you like what you heard, follow our podcast and don't forget to leave us a review. Super helps us make the show better and helps other people find it as well. As always, if you want to join the conversation or give us any comments on anything that you've heard today, find us on social media. Just search for 11 FS or FinTech Insider. We're pretty much everywhere, but if you really want to, you can email us on podcastlevenfs.com Hope you enjoyed the show everybody. Goodbye.