YouSaid · the spoken record

Mutaz Qubbaj

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28
first
2015-07-24
most recent
2015-07-24
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1
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  1. “Thank you for the opportunity, Harry. And it has been a great 20 minutes, and it's definitely lived up to my expectations”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I'm just going global with Squirrel. I want to, as in, with the type of attention we've gotten across the globe, whether it's from across the Atlantic and the US, across Asia, also through some investors we have out there in the Middle East, as well as emerging markets, we're looking to make people better with their money. There is a need for what we're building. And we're seeing people embrace that need. So in terms of where we want to be with Squirrel, we have a vision where we want to help as many people across the globe be better with their money. We want to help as many people become or attain what we've termed financial freedom. And in terms of myself, I want to spearhead seeing that vision through to success. It's opportunities like these that I'm thankful for, Harry, to get the word out there.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I typically read tech crunch all the time. It's just a good way to keep up with recent developments in the market, recent funds and recent fundings within the market, recent trends. So it's just my way of keeping tapped into the pulse of what's going on and I guess what I should keep my eye for.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Most definitely. And the other one is if your past job goes from becoming a job to a series of tasks and you can't align your brand of happiness with the happiness that is tied to major success within your current role, just start taking a look at the entrepreneurial side, embed yourself within that entrepreneurial community and just sink your teeth into it. The payoff for doing something that you're passionate about on a daily basis and just waking up at one or two o'clock in the morning and saying Yes, I'd rather sit down and write a one to two page email to everybody I work with because I just got excited about how I can make my value proposition better. It's an amazing experience. And I tell everybody get involved, but it's you've got to find the right thing to be passionate about.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Honestly, yes. For me, it's being able to wake up every single morning and say, I'm as excited today, if not more, about what I'm trying to do for the people that I'm trying to solve this problem for every single day.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Having to fully embrace uncertainty and just say that this is my new life and I no longer need that paycheck because I'm doing something amazingly fulfilling that we'll see its own returns whether it's in terms of fulfillment as well as monetary as well as monetary.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “It'd have to be exponential organizations by Salim Ismail and Mark Balone. It's got a number of great focal points about how to build your business, how to scale it and just dismissing the status quo and making sure that everybody on your team is aligned to hit that hockey stick moment.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I'll never stop says that mantra of always be raising. It's always easier when you have people excited about what you're doing because we're effectively trying to build something amazing at Squirrel. So to date we've actually raised upwards of 1.1 million pounds through combination of... Angels funds as well as more recently receding and innovate UK smart fund grant. So for us it's been a very process in terms of getting in front of the right potential stakeholders, whether it's the Innovate UK team, whether it's a number of the angels that we started building relationships with through the TechSars program, as well as certain funds at the seed level who've expressed interest in wanting to play a part in the squirrel journey.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Yes, yes, we have. And it's been, I guess you could say the accelerator program, as well as those wins and more recently the fintech making onto the fintech 50 list, which Prohalus is one of the 50 hottest financial tech companies in Europe, as well as a recent trip with Boris Johnson out to the US has added more exposure to squirrels. So for us, that's definitely helped with getting us on the radar screen of a number of angel investors as well as a number of funds. The process has been I guess it's a full-time job within your full-time job. Absolutely”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Sometimes I'm getting the most out of it. It's making that beeline to the resources that you've already profiled at the beginning, etc. It comes back to doing your homework before saying yes to an accelerate proposition. It's saying, what do I need out of the accelerator and being very clear with the organizers of the accelerator, the people running the accelerator about setting specific milestones? And that's going to be key for any founder looking at Accelerator. It's making a beeline to those resources, making sure that you tap into those resources in the most effective way possible, but more so setting key performance indicators that you can monitor with people who run the accelerator to ensure that you're getting the value that you want out of the program.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “By the way, just to go back on the equity side, the cool thing about Say an accelerator, the right accelerator getting involved at the founder's equity level is that the amount of alignment you get through the people that run the accelerator, through the acceleration services as effectively a co-founder to your business, rather than just you being a portfolio company where they've put the investment in there and they're just letting you do what you can letting you do what you want without their support is that you actually have a very aligned and supportive entity that's going to help boost your probability of success and that is key that is key for any startup looking to evaluate and accelerate it how is this co-founder that's coming onto my cap table going to help me increase the probability of my success and increase the probability of me seeing through my vision”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “As well as talent acquisitions, another important one that I forgot to mention, just you want to make sure that startups that have come out on accelerator have had access to each of those four elements. And in terms of red flags, it's just any startup coming out of those accelerators saying that they didn't get the right amount of attention or they felt that certain things fell short or that the accelerator was more of a co-working space which you can get out of an incubator, which is just, hey, effectively I've given up equity for rent, which isn't exactly the best situation to be in as a startup.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Most definitely. In terms of looking at accelerators, it's making sure that you get the right attention or you get the right, the best term for it is acceleration services out of the program. You don't want to go into a program where you're giving up some very valuable founders equity without ensuring that you're going to get the right support or you're going to get the right structure from a program. So the red flags are, I guess the best way to look for the red flags is talk to somebody who's come out of an accelerator program or the accelerator program that you're looking to tap into. Ask them about their experience. Ask them about what type of support they got in terms of developing their product, in terms of access to investors, in terms of pushing traction, having the right people come through to potentially be clients for you. So you're at a crucial stage in your startup where each of those elements”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Almost definitely. It's one of those key parts, key benefits of being tapped into that community. So we have many mentors from the TechS community, many mentors from Bartle's as a corporate that are always there to provide additional insight, are always there to have that extra cup of coffee just to make sure that we're still on track with metrics that we continue to set with on an ongoing basis. So the meetings are less frequent, yes. But at the end of the day, they're part of our network and they'll continue to be part of our network for the foreseeable future.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Is it the access to funding? Is it the access to internal resources? And it's making a beeline towards the right people that you need to, that can give you the answers to what those resources are and more so getting them to commit as you're going through that acceptance process, getting them to commit to be able to work with you through the different milestones across each of those business needs.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So with regards to the decision of choosing the right accelerator, founders have to have a clear, a very clear idea of what they're looking to get from these programs, whether it's pushing traction, whether it's just improving the shape and the structure of their product, whether it's tapping into resources that they wouldn't have access to otherwise. The whole idea of going to an accelerator is you want to give your startup, you want to give your company an unfair advantage, you want to give your company that extra boost that accelerates it into effectively the hyper speed while everybody else is, you know, just everybody else is working at a slower pace. So what you're doing with the accelerator is trying to evaluate what resources can I have access to? What resources are going to be crucial to my business at this particular stage is the network.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Whether it's in terms of providing insights, providing connections, or potentially even providing funds. So for us, there was a month worth of just going through the messaging, going through the value proposition, breaking it down to its core elements to ensure that we had the right hooks for each of those stakeholders.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “The mentorship is definitely a key part of the value of the accelerator program. The access to resources within both the TechSars ecosystem as well as the Barclays ecosystems as a corporate for a fintech startup that's still trying to get its, I guess it's hands dirty with their value proposition, it's also just trying to find the right hooks to make sure their idea sticks in a very relevant market. That combination was phenomenal. The other parts that also that squirrel gained from significantly were the parts tied to just making sure that we found the right message to bring different stakeholders on board. And for us it was tied to making sure that we found the right hooks or the right incentives or the right motivations that could bring people onto just across the table from Squirrel and just say we need to help you. How can we get in?”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Now, after being asked that question about 10, 15, 20 times, you have to drill into the core value of your proposition, the core benefit that you're trying to bring to the target market that you're trying to address. And with that question being repeated over and over, within a period of one month, you have an amazing feedback loop that starts helping you shape your value proposition. By the end of it”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “So, what the Barkley's tech stars accelerator provided are the type of structure provided was pivotal in the fact that we saw it as a transformational experience that took us from a product, that product phase of Squirrel to more of that vision phase of squirrel, giving us a structure around which to build the squirrel value proposition from the ground up. just to kick off the program itself kicks off with what's known as mentor madness you're thrown into one month of 100 mentors asking you the same question over and over and over again it's the question is why do you exist”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yes, so we were one of 10 companies that were chosen out of close to 400 companies that applied during 2014. So we were part of that inaugural cohort and we went through an amazingly fast-paced mentor focused program for three months. And it was a pivotal moment for Squirrel. Definitely a pivotal moment for Squirrel.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “London's been an amazing haven of just entrepreneurial meetups, events, just different venues and forms that you can throw yourself into whether they've been organized by the accelerators such as TechSars, WIRA, or where they've been organized as meetups, as well as certain educational forums such as General Assembly as well as three beards that you can tap into to find the next set of people that you want to be part of your new community.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I'd say immerse yourself in the entrepreneurial community. Just get into the mindset of talking about your idea. One of the scariest, I guess hurdles I had to overcome very early on was just being very, very secretive about my ideas because I thought everybody's going to want to take my idea and just implement it themselves. And once you hit that realization as a potential entrepreneur that your idea is nothing while it's still a thought or while it's still on paper and that you're going to actually be able to test your idea, test whether it has any merit, test whether there are better ideas out there or test whether there are other ideas that can be combined with your idea to make it even that much more effective or sticky or sustainable as a potential business that's that transformational point. You've got to embed yourself in the entrepreneurial community for that to happen. So from my standpoint”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I'd be lying to you if I said it wasn't. It's one of those things where after 13 years of looking at a steady paycheck and basically sitting there and saying there's a structured and scripted route to success, just taking that leap into the entrepreneurial life and saying, well, I have to embrace uncertainty. I have to embrace a potential for failure. I have to embrace the fact that every area is a gray area and all I'm trying to do is find elements of structure and coordinate some of that chaos and make it actually work for me. It's a different mindset altogether. And yeah, it was definitely, you could say, uncomfortable to the begin with, but I guess it's been an amazing learning experience so far. And I'm excited about what the future holds for both myself and more so for a squirrel.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Couple that with payday loans being sold to people at close to 6,000% APR using puppets, there was something to be done and that's where squirrel steps in.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “It's a financial well-being platform. What that means is that we're trying to get people to become better with their money. We're trying to give people a platform that empowers them to take control of their financial lives. And we do that by partnering with employers to give their employees ways to save, budget, and manage their bills directly from their payroll. And it's in direct response to what we'd seen happening in the payday loan as well as the overdraft markets where people who are financially vulnerable feel like they don't have enough choices to hand that they can tap into and they end up resorting to what you see is predatory extortionate credit in those markets. And that credit tends to make matters worse. And you see the payday loan markets going to close to 4 billion pounds in total. The overdraft markets going to 8 billion pounds. Once you see the Church of England coming out saying they want to compete the largest payday lender out of business and”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Absolutely great. So just let's dive into my background. I'm an MIT grad. I got to go through their electrical engineering and computer science program. So at my core, I'm a tech geek. But I managed to dive right into investment banking right after graduating in 2000 was a trader salesperson, builder of businesses lecture. It was published as a strategist that credit suites, Morgan Stanley and Pimco, until I realized I wanted to do something that much more fulfilling with my life, not to discredit any of those past experiences, but I think Squirrel is it. And just to dive into Squirrel itself. So Squirrel at its core, or in a nutshell, which we tend to use a lot over here.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Thank you very much for having me on the show, Harry. Thank you for the opportunity to get the word about Squirrel out there and just very much looking forward to the next 20 minutes.”

    2015-07-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · Founding WIRED 2014's Winner, with Mutaz Qubbaj, Founder @ Squirrel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source