Vivek Krishnamurthy is a venture capital investor at Commerce Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based VC capital firm focusing on investments in the e-commerce, FinTech and Insurance sectors. Vivek is particularly interested in entrepreneurs with extensive market knowledge and practical vision for what’s going to happen in the future.
Vivek Krishnamurthy is a venture capital investor at Commerce Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based VC capital firm focusing on investments in the e-commerce, FinTech and Insurance sectors. Vivek is particularly interested in entrepreneurs with extensive market knowledge and practical vision for what’s going to happen in the future.
Non-profit: Moneythink
Vivek Krishnamurthy: [00:00:00] It's so hard, right? There's folks who are incredibly charming in person or charismatic zoom isn't as friendly and vice versa. I also have really conscious that we talked to folks who have kids running around in the background, and there's other folks who were privileged enough to have the nannies at home that take care of everyone.
So I kept my judgment in check.
Gopi Rangan: You are listening to the Sure shot entrepreneur, a podcast for founders with ambitious ideas, venture capital investors and other early believers tell you relatable, insightful, and authentic stories to help you realize your vision. Welcome to the show shot entrepreneur. In this episode, my guest is Vivek Krishnamurthy. He's a venture capital investor at commerce ventures.
Previously was an investment banking analyst at financial technology partners [00:01:00] that he was involved in M and a and private placement transactions. He's based in the Silicon Valley and he focuses on FinTech startups. Vivek, welcome to the show shot entrepreneur.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Thanks for having me.
Gopi Rangan: In this episode, Vivek and I talk about his investments in FinTech.
What are certain themes that he is excited about? What he thinks are , great opportunities coming up in the financial services sector. He gives specific examples of startups that he has worked with and describes what he looks for in these entrepreneurs. He gives two or three pointers to entrepreneurs to prepare ahead of time before they meet venture capital investors.
Vivek tell us about yourself, starting with where you grew up and where you went to college and how you shaped your career before you came into venture capital.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: I'm Bay area born and raised, grew up in Cupertino. And the Apple has not fallen apart from the tree, but grew up in a family of scientists.
If you will. , my dad was a [00:02:00] theoretical physicists. My sister has a degree in biology as it has is my mom. And so always fun. Couldn't be the dumbest person at a dinner table, but grew up wanting to rebel and not pursue the sciences, went to. College in LA to pursue business where I led a number of horrific failures of small businesses that they started with myself.
Realized that I wanted to learn what I was doing wrong. We'll take a series of internships and jobs in college that try to teach me connect, how businesses work and the right way to do them. Eventually landed up where most college students who don't know what they're trying to do lend up, which is a business degree in it.
And staring down the barrel of a gun that says, , go work for an investment bank. So I had a unique opportunity where I started that role at epi partners. With you mentioned. In 2015, but didn't start till she was July of 2015. I graduated in December of 2014. So actually you can be six months between the two.
I worked, full-time at a [00:03:00] homeless shelter called Chrysalis, they're an amazing organization and it actually ended up being very fortuitous. So that was, , about is the early beginnings of my journey into.
FinTech and personal finance, but Chrysalis was a mission oriented job placement service for folks who were homeless and on skid row. We talked about personal finance classes. We help with resumes and cover letters. And actually shortly afterwards, when I joined investment banking, despite that being a world away, it was 2015.
So the early peak, if you will, of FinTech. So my first clients were green sky and prosper, a bunch of off lenders, , help payments companies in, , across 10 us and in Europe. So it was an interesting transition from personal finance for the underserved with, so in 13 and 14 didn't exist as a category.
And now you look at chime and a few others is a huge category of innovation. So interesting link that I probably didn't recognize so years later in my career, but yeah, , joined Ft partners in 2015 did two years there enjoyed. Seeing the explosion of companies that, that cropped into the space.[00:04:00]
Towards the end of my time, there connected with, , commerce centers, many of whose portfolio companies were clients of ours at FTE and have been working with Dan and Matt and the rest of the team here for, for four years. And along the way I met you.
So it's a small, small world and then full circle.
Gopi Rangan: That's great to meet someone who actually grew up in the Silicon Valley, in the San Francisco Bay area. There are very few people. Most people I meet are from elsewhere and they moved into the area.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: It definitely feels like around Thanksgiving. I can hear my voice echo.
Gopi Rangan: Yeah, that's right. The restaurants are free and the streets empty out because. Everybody leaves to go back to their families. How did you get into venture capital? What convinced you to enter the sector and what do you really like about this?
Vivek Krishnamurthy: I probably was a little bit more intention than, than some, but certainly as lucky as the other folks who've gone down this path, , at Ft partners and I really credit Steve McLaughlin, who's the founder there.
They have a really, really creative approach to being an investment bank in an emerging category. His [00:05:00] perspective was if you only banked the folks that were worth a billion dollars or more, you'd be done with your deals in two months in a year, there just wasn't that many large companies back in 2015.
The way that they would stop you is you'd work on one larger deal. That was several hundred million dollar capital raise or large sale. On the side, you'd work on a pseudo pro bono basis with two or three early-stage companies. And these were seed companies. Any companies used to be companies that were looking for money, or maybe even just giving them advice on how to structure our contracts.
No real true advisory work. And after the first year or so, working on green sky, which is an alternative lender that went public just after I left, I started working with a bunch of earlier stage companies. I noticed this stark difference in the work I was doing later stage company.
They need an investment banker because they need a body that can type and structure a deal. The company that built, they done phenomenal work over eight to 10 years. There's not as much mystery as there is selling and covering up the holes in the business. But the questions I was getting from [00:06:00] early stage founders were just amazed by there's so much more there's that beauty of the beginner's mindset.
How do you build a great business? What is a Trisha and what does it mean to sell yourself in this way? What types of customers should we be adding? I just felt more valuable. I felt like folks actually. Needed my advice. I was able to move the needle in a more material way, as opposed to just presenting something that existed in the light that was even better than I was.
And so after a year of working with primarily early stage companies and requesting to be put on the deal, those types of deals, . I started to realize that I was working only on clients that didn't earn our bank any money. So I actually had a conversation with Steve and I said, , look, I mean, I love working with early stage companies.
I love being in FinTech, , What's the next step. And and he was actually the one that pointed me towards venture investing as a way to be a helpful advisor early in life of companies and actually pointed me towards congressmen.
Gopi Rangan: Oh, this is great. So you started your exposure to the startup life at the end of that journey of the startup when they are getting [00:07:00] ready for an M and a transaction, or whether they're looking for a liquidity event.
That's a good way to see how startups end up when they are nearing the end of their cycle, but good to see that you moved from there during the other end of the spectrum. And you're investing in early stage companies.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Yeah, it's fascinating. Right. And as a banker, particularly pre IPO, or even maybe a series of D or G or whatever, large Larry want to go at, , there's no way some slide on a page.
That shows. Monthly quarterly or yearly revenues. And remember looking at these pages and somewhere, it's not actually near the beginnings three, four, maybe five years in, you see this spike, . Something clicked and something work. And I was always frustrated that I showed up four or five years after that's something more.
There's a magic to being early in a magic to being the heart of the reason. Even as, as a VC, on your best day, your 5% of the reason an entrepreneur figures out what they want to do, but there is a novelty to being part of that journey and being an integral, hopefully part of the way a company discovers [00:08:00] who they're going to be, and you can see the numbers.
Being late to the party, eventually you get frustrated and you want it on the fly. So. Yeah.
Gopi Rangan: I have a similar type of experience. I've spent many years in M and a where I saw some great potential that didn't really make it. Now they're the knocking at the door of an exit.
I would hear stories from founders that the amount of sacrifice that they made and the team made and how the founders feel responsible that they need to. Get a good home for the technology and the business, having spent all the years to build that. So it was really heartwarming to hear those stories.
These are. Real human conversations, not a sales pitch when I now look at early stage companies, I can project and see where they might end up and the mistakes that they could potentially avoid. And that way they can unleash maximum potential.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Yeah. I, it's actually interesting that you mentioned that you mentioned this human conversation. There is a. Particularly maybe well deserve negative reputation that investment bankers have, but certainly [00:09:00] the M and a process has a lot of shading that's associated with it. But what I'll say to your point group, I was wowed at the number of times, I saw a founder turned down a substantial offer because they were unwilling to sell the business and lose their of employee jobs.
It happens so much more than I thought, and even, even add investors. Who who are pushing the acquirers to pay enough money. So it's not just the preferred shareholders get money, but common as well. It happens so often. And I do think that , there's a lot of, , cross rating moments in venture capital and startup, but it's good to know that, , very often, and it's not unusual to see good people making a solid, ethical and moral decisions.
So. Yeah.
Gopi Rangan: You get to see the real personalities. What companies do you invest in? What stage do you like to invest? When do you want to meet these companies?
Vivek Krishnamurthy: I personally love meeting companies at any stage .
We invest pre-seed to series B. But I don't really believe there's any step that's too early for me to talk [00:10:00] to about her. That is always a really fun intimate experience. , whether or not we ended up investing. There's an obligation to be a part of folks serving.
So no, no stage is too early. Where I'd like to think I can move the needle for this part of that obviously is with the capital we manage. But also with the networking, curated is probably around that slightly mature precinct. So slightly more than just a pitch deck and an idea, but certainly you don't need to have product market fit yet.
I would say the categories where we most often invest are right around when product market fit happens. And that's different in different categories specifically in enterprise insurance and financial services. But I'd say true FinTech for things like payments and banking and lending.
We're familiar enough or I'm familiar enough with those categories that you could probably sniff out product market fit, maybe at the scene or certain other categories. That in my opinion are a little sturdier to invest that early. So folks that are selling software to carriers, for instance, I normally try and wait to that.
So it's a little bit of a difference on when we invest, but I'd say I love all [00:11:00] things, infrastructure across financial services and insurance. So if you're building core technology or your main thrust or main differentiator is technology and you're in those categories, I'd love to talk to you.
Gopi Rangan: Can you give an example of a company and share, how did you meet the founders?
What was the context and what did you ask them? What impressed you sure.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: I'll give an example of a company called mercantile. Mercantile is a we'll call it a pre-seed company. I got interviewed by a good friend will over at abstract ventures.
There were huge fans of the founder. And I got introduced to Sam in December of this past year. We spent time over the holidays and eventually got to know him. We just recently invested in, I guess, early February. Now the fascinating thing is.
They're they're building a co-branded credit card for vertical SAS providers. So imagine open table being able to turn on an open table car and distribute that to their end merchants. And this is, is it vision that is not necessarily brand new folks like synchrony and Alliance data and doing [00:12:00] it credit cards are not easy.
Absolutely not. You just need to be a precinct pattern. What really impressed me about Sam and his co-founder Luke. Was honestly the humility, right? There's a delicate balance between willing to do a ton of research to conclude that there's an opportunity and idea, but then being open and honest about the help that, and in some ways the reason that we got so excited was their willingness to engage and their thoughtfulness about the types of investors they brought in specifically to fill those holes.
And beyond that, I would say that that was a step one that piqued your curiosity just around personalities and the way they were structuring the concept. The second was a thoughtfulness by which they had decided what verticals to approach first. And it wasn't really ever a question about market size because this is a, , 20, $30 billion market.
But that there's a lot of people and a lot of gravestones in this category. You could tell that they had done their homework and had very thoughtful answers around why they chose to enter one space versus not. It's a mixture of personal interest in that category. For [00:13:00] example, one of the spaces they're thinking about is entering dentistry.
Sam's father is a dentist and he would tell that meant something to him and that was meaningful. But the other parts are, , hundreds of customer conversations. And one of the advice piece of advice I always give to early, early stage founders is don't wait for venture. Did he give you conviction on your space?
Go out. There's a lot and things you can do before you raise your first dollar. And certainly you need to do them responsibly, but Sam and Luke, they try to talk to basically one U SMB founder a day. To understand what that founder needs and what they can do from a credit card perspective to serve them.
That level of commitment is really, really exciting.
Gopi Rangan: How long does it take for you from the first meeting to the point where you form the conviction and say, yeah, this is an investment I want to make.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: So again, it depends on stage. For us, it's normally to be honest, it's normally as much time as we can get, but in the, in the modern fast paced, particularly FinTech and InsureTech, it's normally a function of weeks.
If [00:14:00] we were in a high conviction position, normally do to somewhere between two and four weeks from meeting to, to finalizing the documents. One of the things that we really liked doing, and by the way, for founders that are listening, that are in enterprise, I really encourage you to ask you to release, even if you're meeting them for a meeting.
But ask them feel free to ask them to put in some work and, and help you out. But one of the things that we try to do is leverage the network of corporates that we know whether they're banks or processors or insurance companies, and introduce the companies we're speaking to, to them and get almost like a voice of the customer response.
So where we can fit that in, we try to do that. So those are normally the three, four week processes harder to do that in a one or two week process.
Gopi Rangan: From an entrepreneur's point of view, they want to get to the answer as quickly as possible, what are some things that entrepreneurs can do to make it easy for you?
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Yeah, having a goal understanding of your market is a critical thing to just kick it off your own company to begin with.
But it's actually pretty easy to see [00:15:00] as a venture capitalist, once someone really knows their market and has the language to describe it to someone who is less familiar.
A really great example of this is a, is another company, Zach, who's your age on Bradley?
They are building a new bank. They're really fascinating. And this is one example, tiered credit card rewards, such that it can be savings rates, such that the more you save, the more you earn and your credit card rewards like dynamic.
So whatever your first category spend is, you get money back and so on and so forth. Zach is a bank nut during our first conversation, it was so apparent that he knew this category better than us. And, , my partner, Dan has spent 15 years investing in this space and I've spent every single year since I was a junior in college, focusing on FinTech and having someone who's that passionate about a space and knows where the graveyards are, is really, really helpful.
It's more important to be able to articulate that in a simple way, by finding ways to explain. You're passionate enthusiasm for a space and your knowledge about it, and the clear and concise ways that way. That's not braggadocious is really clear, [00:16:00] really important. That's probably one.
The second thing that folks can do to make things easier to show that you guys have thought about the future. Particularly in the earlier stage companies, not to say building a financial model or anything like that, but having concrete work product, whether it is a simple whole month projection that says, Hey, I don't know what my gross margins or my profit might be, but this is how I'm thinking about hiring folks.
This is how about a sales person bringing on new customers, just having a simple thought out monthly view of the next six or 12 months actually shows a lot. It gives us a sense of the type of founder you might be in the risky room.
Gopi Rangan: So it's the knowledge of the market and how nuanced you are in that.
Combined with the practical vision for what's really going to happen in the near future. Are there any trends in FinTech that you really like? Are there themes that you think will truly transform banking and financial services? What are you excited about?
Vivek Krishnamurthy: So I couldn't be more excited about the category because I do think technology [00:17:00] has caught up to enable a bunch of stuff that people have wanted for a really long time.
The thing that gets me excited is this concept of personal finance autopilot. . 10, 15 years ago, people wanted financial data, you went into to mint.com and they told you, this is your categories of spend what I use in college and just said, Hey, you wasted all your money, not early enough.
And you're spending too much. And there's been a generational shift from, Hey, give me data and let me understand what's happening. I just want you to do it before. So whether it's overdraft protection, whether it's automatic money movement, whether it's. Splitting your direct deposit across a couple accounts, whether there's auto saving like the digits of the world.
That is really, really interesting. Americans deserve to have their financial services optimized when the technologies exist to do that. It's across categories, right? You think of stuff like your HSA, which is the most tax advantage product that an American can have. There are millions of Americans who don't take advantage of it, when it should be taking advantage, small things like [00:18:00] auto saving and prepping for bills.
These are, these are tools and technologies that are slowly coming to be, and will make a material difference for a huge number of Americans. So that's, I'd say one category that I'm really excited about , plaid for insurance data.
Basically the ability for an individual to take their information, valuable information, not just their policy data, but their personal information from their insurance carrier portal and port that in a digital fashion, either to a brokerage, to a third-party site, like a credit karma may not even want to use it for insurance, but they want to use it for onboarding.
Or to another carrier because it was signing up. That the portability of data and the lowering barriers to switching have made huge differences in wealth management, via Quovo or investment or banking via platinum max. So I'm excited to see what happens in insurance.
Gopi Rangan: So you see huge opportunity to simplify personal finance and how we manage it.
And you see an opportunity to build a modern infrastructure for the future of financial services, dealing with money is a daunting [00:19:00] problem. For many people, we often . Postpone those conversations. We don't sit down with a financial planner. We don't really look at the numbers and it's very intimidating to analyze.
And we ended up paying fees on fees, and sometimes we are willing to do root canals and sometimes even more people go through divorces and nasty things in life, but we still will not sit down and discuss money. And that's really daunting. Sometimes people wake up at the age of 55 or 60 and they realize that.
No, there's not much time to really build a nest egg for the future the fundamental issue behind all of this is that fear of having to deal with numbers and discussing that in an open forum and that doesn't exist easily. So if there is a way to simplify that and make it easy for people.
So some of these things that you mentioned like HSA, those kinds of products are well adopted. It will definitely have an impact on the infrastructure side. I'm also variable. There's that there's a huge need for revamping the legacy infrastructure and bringing it to the new age [00:20:00] of technology. I've actually invested in a platform insurance type of startup trustless.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Oh yeah. I know that they're doing well. I hadn't bet that if I remember correctly though, the COI space, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a, it's one of the most obvious use cases. And it's crazy. That happens the way that it does today. So that's super exciting.
You're really, probably one of the things that you said that really resonates is this notion of people's adverse willingness. To sit down and think about personal finances. Maybe two years ago, I spent a year thinking about collections and debt collection. And how do you think about making that a more apathetic and humane part of the financial system?
I had a conversation with a gentleman who at the time was the president of Ontario systems. They one of the largest collections infrastructure, whether it's telephone or call routing. Technology is in the United States. And he said something that really stuck with me and he says, , certainly in the United States, personal finances are personal.
There's a reason that that cutters call you in to hear another [00:21:00] human on the phone. It's too intimidating. It's to make you feel bad, which of course is terrible. But it points to something broader, which is any personal finance along with religion and politics, sit in this untouchable category.
And you're totally right. Historically probably could get away with that. Whether it's because you worked with a company that provided a pension or there wasn't material, , wage deflation, But it's just not happening anymore. We were seeing all the stats about, , liquid poverty rates of 40% when it comes to a $600 fee and things like that.
And I suspect if you look at this past year, we call it 2020, the X thousand dollars stimulus. Has quit individual's deposit balances higher than ever. It's a, it's a confusing time. We live in we're during a pandemic. People are carrying deposit balances higher than they did pre pandemic. And so we have unknowable, untouchable issue around personal finance, a willingness to address it.
And then the unwillingness to address it limits the number of tools that folks can use [00:22:00] to make their lives easier. And the more we demystify it, the easier life becomes for everyone.
Gopi Rangan: No over the past year or so, a lot of things have changed because of the pandemic and work from home has become.
More prevalent. How has your work changed and what are some things that you would advise entrepreneurs to do as a result of all these changes?
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Is instead of the way my work has changed is probably the same way I advise folks to operate. Because I can't meet founders in person, I'm much more willing to engage well in advance.
I find that my comfort with folks having talked to them for. Where maybe historical guy talked to someone for a month or two before they raised, unless you really enjoyed getting to know folks six months, seven months before they raised that way, when it comes to the burden of, Oh, I haven't met you before, , this is a, how can I commit after two or three zooms that really isn't there.
And getting to know founders as people and seeing that journey. I haven't seen their momentum progress over a series of zoom calls instead of two or three has been as a really exciting. The flip side is it is [00:23:00] maybe narrowed down the number of companies. Right, despite the fact that I can probably do more zoom calls in a day than I could meetings.
Because I'm spending more time getting to know founders, because it's important to do that. It's harder to do that over zoom. I actually ended up narrowing down the pipeline, if you will, on a smaller number of opportunities I'm really excited about. I suspect that that's often true with a number of other folks.
So I really encourage people to, in the context of venture capital fundraising. Reach out to folks in advance of around, get to know them, keep them updated and do it in, in addition to just that quarterly email pick the time to get to know them and have them get to know you that way, when you do need capital.
It isn't nearly as transactional.
Gopi Rangan: So much has changed for me as well. And everything's on zoom. what do you look for on zoom and how does it help you form the relationship and the conviction about the company so hard?
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Right. There's a there's folks who are incredibly charming in person or charismatic that zoom isn't as friendly and vice versa.
I also have had, , [00:24:00] really conscious that. Yeah. We've talked to folks who have kids running around the back room background, and there's other folks who were privileged enough to have, and the nannies at home that take care of everyone. So it's my judgment in check in a way that is good.
So that there's a, there's a lot of pressure to come off a certain way. That what we've seen and what seemed to work. Over zoom is weird and tactical. There there's some founders that the second they turn on their, their, their webcam, they pop open the deck and they screen-share.
And now their face is a tiny little thing in the top right corner of my screen. And even though it sounds so silly, I really enjoy being able to have a several minute conversation before it turns in. Right to a presentation, right? Where you get to know this other person again, even if it's two or three minutes, I'm not, and I'm not even suggesting small talk.
. Just having the conversation and introducing yourself before you immediately pop up the slides, which is something that wouldn't would be a non-factor in person. How did it slides up? It's out that conversation, but now you almost really obvious who you [00:25:00] are. And that doing that can be a little bit of a detriment.
Gopi Rangan: My theory is that shorter people have an advantage.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Now,finally, I've been waiting 27 years.
Gopi Rangan: No kidding aside. The, the natural charisma of people that usually dominates in our meeting room that is no longer a strength. Substance matters more. So people who have the substance and are able to get to the point and tell a story.
Convincingly is very powerful versus just the aura of the person and the charisma of the person leading the conversation that is no longer valuable on zoom. So I'm actually enjoying some of the positive things as a result of this, but I certainly do miss meeting people. In-person
Are there pet peeves, some things that you don't like.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: I have a wide number of venture pet peeves that I'd probably keep in check for myself, but certainly I would say there's, there's so much, right.
One, there's a fine [00:26:00] line as a venture capitalist, between. Can I name, name dropping other funds and your LPs and friends that you may have that are relevant to the conversation in order to show that the value you can add. And there was a point where it tips into arrogance. And that that is something that's always bothered me about the way you folks in our profession operate.
And there is a level of. Intentional or unnecessary, intentional unintentional intimidation that comes off as a fact of that. And particularly founders specifically from, from different backgrounds that aren't in a position where they have all those resources I've heard firsthand how that makes them feel and is something that I try to avoid and try to be mindful of.
I would say from a counters perspective, And, and I'd say this is true with venture capital as well. There's nothing more obvious and more unappealing than areas. It's important when you go to a venture capital fund and you're pitching, it's important to be proud of what you've accomplished and certainly proud of your past careers is important [00:27:00] for you to explain why you're the right person to do it.
But pretending what the task ahead of you is easy is not going to get you anywhere. Mostly, , certainly as a VC, , we have the purview over so many portfolio companies. We know what the success rates are. We know that certain industries are not using. We know that there's no such thing as not having competition.
The humility that you can display around that can go a really long way. Certainly goes a long way in Congress.
Gopi Rangan: You've been in venture for a few years now. And we've talked about how you look for opportunities. What, how entrepreneurs appeal to you and some pet peeves and things that you don't like, how has your experience been and what is different for you compared to when you started few years ago?
Vivek Krishnamurthy: When you, when you start in venture, it's embarrassing, how little, , so hopefully that has changed somewhat over time. But so there's, there's a couple of things that I've noticed. One, I actually think the caliber of entrepreneurs has gone up. Not that they weren't great when I started, but FinTech as a category has gone from people who left incumbent financial services to try this [00:28:00] FinTech thing, to, , PMs at chime and borrow and affirm and all these other places leaving to start a great next generation tech.
So on one hand I find that the caliber of folks that I'm speaking to. Dwarf my intellect by so much, it's, it's fun going to work every day in a way that I really do feel like I learned from almost every pitch.
Gopi Rangan: I hear these days, that's honestly really, really exciting in the FinTech sector.
Especially some amazing entrepreneurs are coming into the space. In the early days. There were people who are dabbling, trying a little bit, but some of the best entrepreneurs didn't really touch FinTech that much. But now. More than 50% of the transactions that I see announcements of funding more than 50% are FinTech related companies.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Yeah. It's again the people who are, who are dabbling or just so intelligent now. Right. And I it when I say intelligent, I don't mean IQ points. I mean intelligent, different tech, right there, there are people who spend their entire careers now in neobanks, which is a crazy thing to say.
Whereas five years ago, , the [00:29:00] world mocked it. So that's, that's super exciting. That's definitely
Gopi Rangan: changed. So I wanted to switch to the last segment of this discussion and ask you about community involvement. Is there a nonprofit organization you are passionate about? Yeah,
Vivek Krishnamurthy: I've been involved with, since now 2012 or 13, an organization called money.
Think it's focused on providing financial education, personal financial education to. Folks in largely disadvantaged school districts. And I started doing this in South central LA LA when I went to USC and have had the fortune of in the past year or two, getting back involved with the San Francisco chapter.
And, , there's the in class curriculum, which is a fully flushed out curriculum where. , college students and postgraduates, , go into classrooms and talk to everything from how to think about APR rates and payday lending and other basic personal financial tools and now in the organization.
And certainly a sign of the times because of COVID, we're actually putting in effort to build almost a, , the national guidance app for [00:30:00] navigating the college application process. So multi-pronged approach across a couple of different things, but touches on one of the areas that I'm probably most passionate about personal.
Gopi Rangan: I hope you meet some entrepreneurs super, super early in their career when they're still in high school.
Vivek Krishnamurthy: It happens. I continue to be amazed at what both younger generations and you are entrepreneurs. That we're living in a certainly crazy time with valuations, but some type of, , golden arrow, certainly in FinTech.
So it would not surprise me if the next amazing after I met with at T.
Gopi Rangan: Yeah, but this is great to see that you're bringing that FinTech flavor and having an impact on people's lives by educating them about money very early in their life. So it's going to have a huge impact on them and the people around them.
Thank you very much for doing that and being a part of that. Community on an inactive way. Well, this has been great. I've really enjoyed the conversation. We've touched on many interesting topics. I look forward to sharing your nuggets of wisdom with the world.
[00:31:00]
Vivek Krishnamurthy: Thanks Gopi. Great meeting .
Gopi Rangan: Thank you for listening to the Sure shot entrepreneur. I hope you enjoyed listening to real life stories about early believers, supporting ambitious entrepreneurs. Please subscribe to the podcast and post a review. Your comments will help other entrepreneurs find this podcast.
I look forward to catching you at the next episode.