Building A Platform To Bridge Banks with Fintechs

Karan Jain: 0:00

At some point you know you have the reflections like actually what you're doing is you're doing financial inclusion, but at a B2B scale. But actually it's about in the supply chain. How quickly can you get the product out to that consumer? If you take nine months to buy one piece of tech, you are dead in the water. Our vision is to be the place where enterprise goes to buy technology.

‍Amardeep Parmar: 0:27

Today we have Karan Jain, the CEO and founder of Naya One, which provides banks with access to hundreds of fintechs and datasets from a single access point. Karan's got a long journey before getting to where he is today, having started off in tax, moving around different countries, getting into banking, getting very senior, before looking at what are are problems that he keeps seeing. They want to get changed, and many of you might understand, working at large corporates, how hard it is for new companies to get through all the bureaucracy and all the red tape to get in to the contest. And this is the problem that he kept seeing over and over again that he wanted to tackle. And now there's hundreds of fintechs on his platform that banks can get access to, and this is expanding to the future into all different types of companies so that startups and innovative companies can get into corporates much easier.

Amardeep Parmar: 1:17

I really hope you enjoy today's episode. So great to have you on today and you've done so many incredible things now and now you're growing so well, but, if we rewind, right. So where did this all start from? What did you actually want to be when you were a kid?

Karan Jain: 1:29

Thank you for having me, Amar. Great to be here. What did I want to be as a kid? I think, like any Indian kid, you're probably going down the doctor, lawyer, engineer kind of route. You know my parents, one was in the bank and the other one's a psychologist. I'm like, okay, look, that's kind of where I started. You know, I've got a cousin who's a pilot, so okay, pilot sounds cool. So I don't actually recall where I landed, but those seem to be the memory.

Amardeep Parmar: 1:55

And did you feel like you were pressured to go down those kind of routes, or was it more like you just weren't sure at that point?

Karan Jain: 2:01

No, I wasn't. I don't think I was pressured. You naturally get attracted to maths and physics just because how you're growing up. And when I was at uni, when I was finishing school, I was looking at what to do, I ended up picking engineering and accounting. And the reason I picked engineering and accounting as a double degree because I wasn't sure about either of them good way, yeah. So I was like you know, the kind of thinking at that point was okay, if the world is growing, they all need engineers. If the world is consolidating, they all need accountants. I really don't know what I want to do, so why don't I do both? So that's how I ended up with that.

Amardeep Parmar: 2:38

And studying both of those. What did you find you enjoyed more when you're at university?

Karan Jain: 2:41

You know what uh for different reasons, and they for different reasons.

Karan Jain: 2:46

I enjoyed the business and the accounting degree because it was at night time, which means I could enjoy during the day and and I started working really early on during the university so someone I could work, I could earn and then I could go, so I enjoyed that. The engineering side I enjoyed because how it challenged my brain to think differently and I remember going through the degree I was like there is no way I'm ever using this in real life, like on a weekly basis, like this makes no sense. I've never used it in real life. But anyway, let's just get through it. Only towards the end and after your degree, you realize it actually wasn't about what they were teaching you, the content, like I'm gonna, you know circuits at work, but it's how it trains your brain. Um, that's so. So I enjoyed both of them, um, but for different reasons.

Amardeep Parmar: 3:32

I remember I was frustrated because after I studied economics and at Bath and what they actually wanted from Bath was all the engineers, uh, in consulting, it's like. But I studied this topic but you know, you said it's that thought process which is so important and you mentioned, you started working quite early as well at university. What were you doing there?

Karan Jain: 3:49

Dude, so I was just catching up with somebody you know, um, another Asian friend, and it's like uh, you know, I'm going working in, I'm going, I'm going as an intern at investment banking. Oh, that sounds horrible. I don't want to do that. Like you know, there's a part of me that wants to prioritize life and not just grind it. But I couldn't help it. So I was like, how do you find that? And this is back in Sydney, right? So that's where I grew up. And he said, oh, just go to the job website, don't type in intern, type in the bank or wherever you want to work, type of thing. I can't remember what it was, but there was some little hack, did it? And some cadet job popped up for you know, like $19,000 a year type of thing. I was like, huh, all right, so I just applied for it. I actually worked as a cadet accountant at a mid-tier accounting firm, which I really enjoyed, like best grounding from a business, like what drives a business, and those points.

Amardeep Parmar: 4:42

So I guess because you enjoyed that is that where you carried on off university down that path?

Karan Jain: 4:48

So that's what I was doing. So I did that for a couple of years while I was finishing uni. And then you know another conversation hanging out with friends, I was like, oh, you know, there's uh graduate programs opening up in, you know kpmg, e-buy that. I'm like, oh, interesting, went back to that site, typed it in.

Karan Jain: 5:01

So, uh, so I actually didn't find a graduate position, found like a lateral high position, but because I already had two years working experience I was and I hadn't finished my degree I applied for it, got the interview, interviewed because I had professional experience compared to the grads that were getting interviewed and got hired, uh, not as a grad, but as a, you know, as as a consultant, while I was younger and hadn't finished my degree to the grads that were getting hired.

Karan Jain: 5:28

But at the same time, you know like the experience pays right, like that's one thing that early on made sense, that work experience, genuine work experience, pays. And we actually apply that now at Naya one just as a sidebar is like if we get interns in or anybody in, it's like sure they're gonna you know they're gonna do some dirty work, but make sure they'll learn something by the end of the time they'll leave us, because it's been invaluable for me, um in the early days.

Amardeep Parmar: 5:56

It's interesting because I think a lot of people listening won't have thought by that kind of a path right of going to university but also having a day job in some ways at the same time.

Karan Jain: 6:05

Yeah, it kind of ended up so. You know, we were immigrants from India to Australia, like my parents were, and I'm like you know, okay, less than 10 years old, okay, cool, let's go. And then, as you're growing up, and it's a very, very similar culture to England. It's very multicultural, a very, very similar culture. Like everyone's got a school, like a kind of a side job at school, like whether it's maccas or kmart or you know m&s type thing, and I picked one of those up. So when I finished school, um, I'm like, oh, so I could do evening classes for my business degree and actually spend full days working at kmart. And that's what I did for a couple of weeks, maybe two months, and I was like this is a bit dumb, like I could actually be doing a proper job, and that's where that. That's kind of how it fell into. I mean, you know, 17 or getting a 19 round at that time, like it was pretty good.

Amardeep Parmar: 6:53

Yeah, and then going down that path, right. So obviously you continued in that kind of accounting area, kpmg and those kinds of places. What made you decide to keep going down that path? Or when was the next fork in the road?

Karan Jain: 7:05

Yeah, so in KPMG I was actually in a business unit called R&D Tax, which is like any organization that's doing research and development they can put those dollars against for a tax claim. And that's where I got exposed to a lot of mining tech, a lot of banking tech, a lot of tech, a lot of e-commerce tech, and I said that was really nice exposure because I was actually able to speak to the owners of these companies and leaders to kind of understand how they were thinking about product, how they were applying engineering. Hey, not to forget, my other degree that I had not yet finished was engineering, so I was able to apply that and that's what gave me the taste for one engineering from a mind of pure engineering and secondly, banking tech. That's where it's kind of got my first thing. And from there, once I left KPMG, I went into and you won't even see it anywhere in my resume because I lasted about three weeks. Went to work as an engineer at a smeltering plant. Lasted about three weeks. Dude, that's hard work.

Karan Jain: 8:06

That's just a whole different dynamic of you know, at this point I've been in an office for about four or five years. Um, yeah, office, uh factory floors are very different. So I ended up at, weirdly enough, in a tech team at at that time, vodafone or three mobile um. So now I learned sequel for the first time and I was horrible at it. It's horrible. I was like, okay, better off as a consultant, he kind of had code anyway, so did that. And then I was like, okay, I'm kind of done here, and then I ended up in insurance kind of thing. So, yeah, that's, that's that's how I and then I've been. You know, then that's almost a separate chapter, but that's how it's like the start of financial services for me, financial services, tech for me.

Karan Jain: 8:43

Financial services tech for me.

Amardeep Parmar: 8:44

I felt that's how I ended up being from, like from smeltering, to being a founder.

Karan Jain: 8:49

Yeah, yeah.

Amardeep Parmar: 8:51

It's an interesting journey there.

Amardeep Parmar: 8:52

Yeah, like FinTech founder from smeltering

Karan Jain: 8:54

From from the smeltering factory floor. Yeah, yeah. So once I got into insurance, I got to learn a lot more about the insurance industry how tech is applied, how the insurance industry. Like when I was there, I was like, whenever I am done with the corporate life, the thing I want to do is an insurance company, because there's so much margin.

Amardeep Parmar: 9:17

I think it's because they're so fun.

Karan Jain: 9:20

They're not fun at all, but they're getting fun. But it was more about like, okay, this is a great business, I should get into this. But also, within that, I got the opportunity to learn agile or scrum you know the ways of working. I think I didn't realize this but I had the entrepreneurial mindset from very early on. So, you know, one of the organizations around town were paying, like you know, $1,800 or $2,000 a day for an agile consultant. And I'm like, oh, I've got to meet this guy. Like, what's he doing? What wisdom is coming out to him? So I catch up with these guys and a guy and like, just talking common sense man, like you're just straight, talking common sense. It's like, yeah, get paid for it. I'm like, all right. So I literally quit. Yeah, oh, no, I had, I had another job between that. And like, around that point I was like, all right, this is getting crazy. Now I'm seeing more and more of these people pop up and I was like, right, I quit.

Karan Jain: 10:20

Um, basically I set up like an agile consultancy shop. You, you know, hired a bunch of people. I scaled that up to like 50 people and this is before, like, I'd heard the word VC or any capital. So it was like pure bootstrapped and it was a people business, it was a consultancy business. So like, again, I had not clocked the margin difference between a consultancy business versus a software business. Yeah, so that was my first entrepreneurial thing, again not knowing how to exit a business. So I was like, oh, I'm getting a bit burnt out, because I was traveling around different cities and, mind you, I was like 26 at that point. So I'm like I'm getting burnt out, like I want a break A typical child is when I want a break. So I'm like I sold the, sold the business, go back, get a job. So I so I did that.

Karan Jain: 11:10

But then at that point I kept one of one of my clients um, that I was working with them and did a bunch of work with them.

Amardeep Parmar: 11:12

So at that point, at 26, right? So scaling companies that kind of size and then like obviously deciding you're burnt, now you're gonna sell it, how is that, from like a mental perspective, right of thinking I've done this at such a younger age obviously it must have been doing pretty well to then be like, okay, I'm gonna now go back and work for somebody else. Was that an easy transition or is it quite just? Uh, I'm done.

Karan Jain: 11:29

I don't think you understand that at 26 you're like I just want to do that now.

Karan Jain: 11:35

Okay, cool, you're gonna do that. And it's like because at that, at that point, you're like, what is there something you can't do? Um, but what do you want to do next? It's like, okay, well, you know what, I haven't done that, so I'm going to go do that.

Karan Jain: 11:46

So I guess my mindset's always been about learning, so it's not about, I think a lot of people get caught up on two things and I've been there myself so it's the titles and money. Right, titles and money both are important. But once you accept that titles don't mean anything, it actually comes down to the level of influence you can execute or have. Titles. Like, once you operate at that level, your title's zero and then you actually have a much better influence for the right reasons, you're able to operate as a human much better. And once you accept that money is just a currency and it's okay, you'll make it and don't get me wrong, I chased it, yeah. And after a while, like, okay, I can make it. It's like then I kind of have that mindset okay, it's not about the money, because you'll ever there's, there's 100 ways to make money. You can do that o On putting AI videos on on YouTube these days, right, like it's not about that, but it's like so. It's like what then drives you is okay. Well, what impact can you have? What do you want to learn? How do you? You know, how do you spend your day and I was getting a bit philosophical here indeed, but the reality is to your point, how do you go from you know, how do you change that mindset at 26? It's like, well, it wasn't even a question like you don't mature enough to think about those things. But equally, I guess I've always just prioritized learning. The rest will just come a bit like product people like oh, how many. But just just solve the right problem. Yeah, for the right reasons.

Karan Jain: 13:15

n rest will just fall in place.

Amardeep Parmar: 13:18

We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC Innovation Banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got the deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true. So, if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbanking.com.

Amardeep Parmar: 13:55

Now, I think it's really interesting because it's obviously it's a common thing of when, somewhere, it's like some ways, like people at the beginning when they're chasing their money, but then, once you got to a level where you have that security of knowing you can make money, I think it changes everything, right.

Amardeep Parmar: 14:06

So, like right now, it's like I'm not a multi-millionaire, I'm not a billionaire, but I know that if I had to make money, I could do it, yeah, which means I'm able to do things like I'm doing now, where I'm not as money focused because I have that security. And I think it's one of those interesting things of, in some ways you've got to chase the money to be able to get the security to know that you can make the money and then you can kind of and it's one of the things I've tried to work out is how do you obviously people listening right now who are in that point right now they're trying to chase somebody, trying to make the money try to make ends meet and it's like, how do they get that skip like fast forward, for that mindset right to get to the stage of actually it's not just about the money long term.

Karan Jain: 14:40

That's an excellent point and like I wouldn't change that part of my journey, like if I had not crossed that bridge.

Karan Jain: 14:45

It'll be hard, I'll be, you know that doubt will be there. So I think I you know anyone listening like chase the money.

Amardeep Parmar: 14:52

Yeah it's almost the things.

Amardeep Parmar: 14:53

Yeah, if you tell people not to chase, it is like you've got to do it yourself in some ways. Yeah, and it's very hard to convince somebody like, oh, money's not important, because they're like oh, I was fine for you, you're rich, right yeah.

Karan Jain: 15:02

Fine for you and Bentley to say that, but yeah, it's not true.

Karan Jain: 15:05

But I think I think you're right. Like we're young people, like, oh, it's not about the money. And I was like, but what they didn't say and I think we should say is it's not about the money. At some stage you should absolutely prove out the skill that you as an individual are able to look after yourself but prioritize learning equally with it, because you also see a lot of people just going to the ranks and you know, not knowing left from right, and, and I think I think, end of the day, it's about your foundations and what you've learned.

Amardeep Parmar: 15:36

Yeah, it's like when you said about job titles.

Amardeep Parmar: 15:38

For example, is from somebody's. Now outside the corporate space, it's really confusing to work out who actually makes decisions sometimes because people have different job titles, like is this senior, is this junior, like I don't really know, like.

Karan Jain: 15:49

We talk about it every day, like, yeah, we sell into banks and it's like you know, from one bank to another, like titles mean complete, I mean they're similar titles but that could just mean totally different things, yeah.

Amardeep Parmar: 16:00

At some places, obviously, a vice president means literally just below C-suite.

Amardeep Parmar: 16:04

At other places, that's the entry level. So it's like it's the same job title, but it means a very different thing. So it's. I think it's one of the challenges that I think people are in a bubble. They're very much focused on the job title within their own company, but they don't realize everybody else in the world, they don't really care, they don't really understand what a job title even means. So it's a status symbol that actually has less important.

Karan Jain: 16:25

It's important, especially as you're growing up like our is important and and I know from our community point of view like that is important, like you know, because it depends you know how beautiful your bride's going to be at some point.

Karan Jain: 16:37

But at the same time like I think I just keep going back to like, the content of that job and what you can influence and where that gets you is probably to be prioritized more, because if you can do the job, you've got the content. You can pivot into a much bigger title in a year's time. So it's a stepping stone as well.

Amardeep Parmar: 16:55

Whereabouts are we in the jet? So obviously just before starting Naya One, you were at a company for quite a significant time and made quite a big impact there. Can you tell us a bit about that last role just before Naya One?

Karan Jain: 17:05

I was in Sydney, right, and I was at Westpac. So I was like, okay. I said to my boss, like okay, well, you know, thank you for the opportunities, but I'm leaving. And I was like, oh, why are you leaving? And then I was like, oh, well I'm going to go check London out. Everyone talks about it and if I don't do it now, it'll get too late in the life and I won't be able to do it. And was like oh you know I've got a role open, why don't you interview for it? And that's kind of how I went through about seven, eight interviews and got through to the process and arrived on the day of Brexit Happy days.

Amardeep Parmar: 17:32

But you felt welcome?

Karan Jain: 17:33

Yeah, well, you know your salary just dropped 30% because the pound had dropped at that point for Brexit. It was a great role. I got so much to learn and I just keep saying it's all about context and exposure, right? So here's an interesting one. My title in Sydney was lower than my title in London.

Karan Jain: 17:56

The content of my job was an impact. Well, content of my job was much greater to when I first landed in London and to your earlier point. It just comes down to like what's within the company, what it means. But you know, I'd always been on the side of building product and getting it to our customers and that's something I know I enjoy. Now, having reflected what I enjoy doing, I actually enjoy building product that drive value for for people.

Karan Jain: 18:27

Um, and then when I, when I, when I got to London, you know I was looking after, it was very administrative also. It was a, you know, regional CIO had a technology role and it's something I hadn't done before. So it was actually really interesting and I know you've been tech, so it's like really interesting to see the other side of tech, not just shipping product, throwing it over the fence and like good luck. It's like now you're on the other side catching everything that's coming through. Plus, also, like you know, being in those kind of roles in UK are super good.

Karan Jain: 18:59

Like I can't tell you how great those roles are because you have to interact with regulators. You know, barring that have to go, your customers, internal customers, your customers, your staff, the usual stuff but the difference is you actually have to interact with the regulators. You have to interact with the industry and it's like you're almost running like a mini business to an extent, to kind of go. Well, I need to make sure, like you know, we're servicing the right things and so forth. So that was really really, really important. Great learning, um, you know you automate your job and that's the part of you grow your people that do all those good things. But the learning of being on the other side of the fence was, was, was super important. I'd say you know, to what I'm able to do today, like it's really important because I learned quite a lot from that experience.

Karan Jain: 19:48

It's it's incremental experiences.

Amardeep Parmar: 19:50

So then, while you're there, obviously the idea for Naya One came about. How did that come about, and what is not? What was the original version of Naya One, if it's changed since then?

Karan Jain: 19:58

It was. It was around um 2018 and we're like, okay, you know, the market was going through a bit of a shift and it was like, okay, well, we should start working with FinTechs because, like, take, building your stuff out takes a lot of time, so to speak. So let's build something. But trying to work with FinTechs was super hard as an organization and I thought maybe it was me, because I've not been in innovation roles before or don't know how to do this, but I know how to build a product and have a team. So I spoke to a couple of peers in the industry. It just turns out that that was an issue across industry that trying to partner with FinTechs to collaborate, build products and get it to your customers is a genuine problem. Because, as a regulated entity, you have to protect the bank, its users, its stakeholders, to make sure that no villainy company walks in, build a product and you put everyone at risk. So there's good third-party risk management at play. But my problem with that was I totally get that and we should, because I just finished that role in cybersecurity and operational resilience but I don't even know if that company is real. I don't even know if they have a product, I don't even know if it's going to be good for us. So why do I have to go through six months, nine months of onboarding the little company on, which is going to be an absolute killer for them and a mind-boggling thing for me and my team and the bank, when I just want to test that whether they actually have a good product or not? So you know, I was like that sounds a bit illogical and I was like maybe I don't know how to do this. I spoke to peers and I just found out like the industry just didn't operate that way and that's where the idea came from, and originally it was called FinTech Sandpit. It was because we were doing a sandbox for a FinTech. This is all outside the bank and everything. But at the same time, what we saw was it wasn't just for FinTechs, there's InsurTechs, there's RegTechs, and it wasn't just about the sandbox. The customers needed synthetic data, they needed a lot more. And that's why I was like okay, we go with Naya One and and and you know Naya, Naya is a Indian word for new and it's about transformation. So you know one of the reasons behind like because you don't leave a nice bank tech job to go right, I'm gonna go set up a platform business um, during during the pandemic, because it sounds like fun. You know it's it's, it's. It's hard. Um, it's the way I think about it.

Karan Jain: 22:24

The world's constantly changing. You have different customer expectations, a lot of regulation, a lot of economic events, a lot of black swan events that we don't even know coming down, but you know there's some great ones we can see. For organizations to adapt, they will need to change, like change is the only constant we keep hearing right, and most organizations are tech organizations. That's the backbone. So they need tech to adapt. Technology adoption is a real thing. Procurement and buying the technology is a step before that. So if you take nine months to buy one piece of tech, you are dead in the water. You can't respond to your customers, to your regulators, to your own staff, and that's like okay, so everyone will need a new piece of technology. Okay, now right, and if you go into one place to get it, that's where the work comes. So it's like a single platform where you go and get your you know fintech and short tech, enterprise tech type needs.

Amardeep Parmar: 23:18

And obviously setting this up, like you said, because traditionally people think like the banks and places like that are some of the hardest places to get into, as you said, for the nine months and how long could the people and places can take. But obviously you're now starting a new business, even though you've got experience in the industry. How do you get those first people to kind of say like this is a great idea, we want to be a trial customer for you and to get those beta users on board?

Karan Jain: 23:34

I think we got extremely lucky. We have some of the biggest brands in UK that are our customers and we're not that old and I can assure you I didn't call any of my industry friends to make that happen, because really, again to you know some of the things we've been discussing. If I did that, I wouldn't actually know if the product had any value. So it's like if you're going to call your friends and make a sale, sure it's important to do that, it's part of the business, but I wouldn't have known because then I pulled the favor, I still haven't had need to do that. So we literally went through the front door and it was hard because we're learning how to pitch. But that's what makes you and towards the end, I think not doing that shortcut is like the only way to accelerate is to do more of that faster, rather than having any hacks to how do you get into banks quickly? I mean no silver bullet there.

Amardeep Parmar: 24:34

And obviously you've now scaled this quite a bit in just a few years. How did it work for you in terms of building the MVP? Was it something where you needed a bit of capital get there going at the beginning, or did that kind of come later on? Or what was the kind of funding journey like for you?

Karan Jain: 24:47

I bootstrapped it, uh, from the beginning. So we had a few people got to go and get the MVP start talking to the um and then we took a pre-seating like 2021. Um, at it was an interesting one. I was like um, because this is my you know, um, my first proper VC conversation. Um, it's like, okay, what valuation do you want? And obviously at the peak at that time, right, and I'm like, how do you? I was asking dumb questions all around the city. I'm like how do you come up with valuations, like whatever you feel like, and I'm like that's not making much business sense to me. So you know the markets here. Like you know the brackets here, I'm like, all right, we're going to go somewhere that feels about right and like that's kind of. And only last year or earlier this year, how you want to look at it, we did a seed round.

Karan Jain: 25:35

For our scale, for the number of people that we are, we actually haven't needed to take that much money on, and because it's a new concept, a newish concept in the market, I didn't want to take a lot of money, and maybe that's right, maybe that's wrong, but it served us well. Because it took a lot of money. It just paints a target on your back to be why aren't you doing this, why aren't you doing that? And I was like, well, actually now I need to get the product right, like we can scale this. But just like the first, you know you get the product. You can. Actually, you know, in the first, after the first year, we could actually see our customers driving some real value and it's like okay, now we should get some money and now we can scale it, kind of thing. But even then, like revenue was largely revenue-fueled. I was like, okay, so we just hired a bunch of people in states because we're getting a lot of interest out of there, and so it just raised some money late last year to support that.

Amardeep Parmar: 26:25

So you mentioned there about the customers getting the value from the product. What do you think some of your biggest wins have been so far?

Amardeep Parmar: 26:34

Like, what are you most proud about on the journey so far?

Karan Jain: 26:36

The the biggest. Some of the things that I get most proud of um is that's and I asked the product question, but it's actually.

Amardeep Parmar: 26:41

It's not just about the product.

Karan Jain: 26:42

Y eah. How our team has each other's back without even asking is like that cultural element, like that makes me most proud.

Karan Jain: 26:50

Um, uh, you know, we had, we had a big event, um, earlier this week and on it's only Wednesday um, I didn't have to ask anything, no one had to ask anything, just like 15 people got around each other and helped each other and just just pushed it forward for an excellent outcome for, for, for the clients, um, so that's probably the thing that I'm most most proud of from like, you know, like, because because it's not about that right now you know what that is in two years' time. So my job is to protect that culture and grow that culture so that we can get that to. You know, 100, 150 people. From a product and a customer, what we set out to do, we sit between enterprises and tech, so, from an enterprise that they're able to make a decision to get a product in, to accelerate their implementation, so they can get a product. That makes me proud and happy, like we've seen that. We see that day in, day out, because that means the product is the customer, the end customer. You and me are getting better financial services products and it's not caught up in some three-year cycle to get implemented. So, as a you know, as a thing, why we should do this, like so, seeing that happen is is is very, very sobering and like okay, we're on the right track here, getting improving the quality of conversations between the enterprise and Fintechs. That also gives us a lot of a lot of pride in terms of like you're not wasting a lot of time door knocking. You said how did you get your first couple of customers? Well, now, if our customers can go to the Naya One marketplace and if the right tech providers are on there, it's a bit like Google your customer is looking for you rather than you looking for them. So that makes us happy and we see the uptick on that data.

Karan Jain: 28:37

The other thing that makes us quite proud as a team is actually accelerating the journey for the founders, other founders, other tech companies who've got good products, who've got solving the right problems, because they don't have to wait 12 months for a decision. They can actually get a decision in six to eight weeks. That, I think, overall, accelerates the whole ecosystem and that's why it would have been easier, much easier, for when we started this, to set up a credit card company or an SMB business but that would have been outdated in three years' time there would have been. But setting a platform is often a harder business, but it's worth it.

Karan Jain: 29:14

The traction's there for us and we're seeing the value on all fronts. We're seeing the value from our enterprise customers. We're seeing the value from our marketplace side founders and their teams that they're actually able to accelerate their transaction and these guys are able to accelerate their transformation to help the end consumer. So it's like it's funny. Um, at some point, you know you have the reflections like actually what you're doing is you're doing financial inclusion, but at a b2b scale. Because when we talk about financial inclusion we're like, okay, well, financial inclusion products are there, but actually it's about how, in the supply chain, how quickly can you get the product out to that consumer? It's kind of sometimes I reflect on that.

Amardeep Parmar: 29:58

And where's it all going?

Amardeep Parmar: 29:59

So, what's the hope and the ambition where now, when you mentioned about, in two years time, 150 people? But beyond that, what you're thinking, what's what you're going for?

Karan Jain: 30:07

Our vision is to be the place where enterprise goes to buy technology and we genuinely want to fix every part of that process, of that value chain that accelerates that. We started in financial services because that's who we are, where we came from, but we're talking to airlines, we're talking to media companies. Everybody needs tech and the way the world currently buys technology is very, very 80s and I think you know, by the time you have an idea as an enterprise and you get it to your customer's hand, that's two to three years your customers probably had four iPhone upgrades or two you know two new phones in that time and it's like, well, that's the kind of expectation level you're dealing with here. So it's almost, I see, from an enterprise point of view, is also like in financial services especially. It's a race to survival, not necessarily UK, but just around the world, to stay relevant, to stay in front of your customer Definitely, because otherwise FinTech eats lunch.

Amardeep Parmar: 31:10

So thanks so much for your story today. We're going to have to move on to quick fire questions. So first one is who are three British Asians you think are doing incredible work and you to shout to them out today?

Karan Jain: 31:23

I've always been a big fan of OakN orth, um, so um, Rishi Khosla, like just just how quickly and and uh, impact wise, they've been able to scale, and so um. The other one that I quite like, and you'll probably be embarrassed, is the founder and CEO of WealthOS. It's a growing company, it's an emerging company, Anton Padmasiri, and he's you know just again. He's got the right mindset to build the right product with the right people and the hustles there. He's a really good guy.

Karan Jain: 31:53

So I want to shout out to those guys.

Amardeep Parmar: 31:55

And if you want to find out more about you and what you're up to, where should they go to?

Karan Jain: 31:59

Naya one. Naya1.com and my LinkedIn. I'm trying to be more and more active there.

Amardeep Parmar: 32:04

And is there anything that you need help with right now?

Amardeep Parmar: 32:11

Or Naya One needs help with?

Karan Jain: 32:12

I mean in terms of an enterprise that's, you know, looking to solve a problem, looking to have a cool tech provider that you want to work with, we'd love to help you. And, equally, if you're a fintech founder who's looking to get into enterprises, please do get in touch. We want to make sure we've got the best quality fintech marketplace out there.

Amardeep Parmar: 32:30

Awesome, so thank you so much for coming on today. Have you got any final words?

Karan Jain: 32:34

Thank you for having me. This has been a great conversation and your line of question just made me think, and I think, if there's anything, one thing I'd leave behind is context and exposure as part of your journey. I think they're probably the most important things to prioritize on. The rest just falls in its place.

Amardeep Parmar: 32:53

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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