Understanding the Market and Setting Your Product for Success

Well, it's a, it's a bit of both because like nothing builds overnight, it takes time to scale and build these things. But you know, you got something when Um, when you've got customers and you're not sure where they came from, because that's like one thing that was super interesting in the early days, we would've got customers and nobody really sure like who got them in. This is tales from the pros where business leaders and influencers share their stories of inspiration, struggles, and successes. And I'm your host, Michael Giorgio.Hey everyone, welcome to Tales from the Pros, and this is Michael Giorgio, your host and co founder of Imagine Ovation. My amazing guest with me here today is the CEO of Veeam, the global B2B payment network with over 300, 300, 000 small and mid sized businesses around the globe. Veeam provides simple, secure, and trackable payments to over 100 countries.Since the company's founding in 2014, Veeam is backed by Goldman Sachs, Google Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and many, many others. He is an innovator, visionary, And enjoys launching new products and domestic us and international markets and building companies through disruptive tech and global strategies.And he is the author of small business in a big world, a comprehensive guide to doing international business. Please welcome the awesome Marwan Forsley. Marwan. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Yeah. The honor is all mine. Um, you know, so Marwan, as I told you before, you know, this is a, a business storytelling podcast and it's, uh, I, I think it's very important for, for you as a, not only the CEO, but for you even just as a, as a human being, right.To just talk to the audience and kind of tell them like, you know, Really, you know where you came from and you know how you got to where you are today at such an amazing company as Veeam. Thank you. So I started being in 2014. I used to run e commerce for Western Union, got into Western Union through an acquisition of a company called eBillMe, which was a payment option at the checkout that connected Shopping carts, only banking systems.And prior to that, I was in another startup and Nokia and the worst of our IP space. So I pretty much my entire career has been focused on, you know, building startups and essentially they end up with larger companies. So that's been the bulk of my career. We started being on a very basic idea that um, You gotta simplify payments for SMBs, uh, both domestic and cross border, both payables and receivables.It's almost like whatever you need to do to do your payments as a business, we'll do it for you. All centered around the same principle. It's gotta be really simple, easy to work with, highly supported, transparent pricing, and a delight, just a delight to deal with. That's the entire premise of why we started, uh, this company.I love it, you know, and, uh, just from doing some research on you before, uh, so you're in California, now, you're in the Silicon Valley area. Okay. And so you're from Canada, is that right? You're uh, I'm Canadian, yes. I'm in Ottawa, yes. Awesome. Yeah, so I'm Canadian that ended up, uh, going to the us uh, as part of my, uh, previous company.Uh, so we, uh, transitioned the company to New York and, and then on the acquisition by Western Union, I actually ended up. Also, uh, moving to the San Francisco office. Love it. Love it. Yeah, I actually lived in Brampton, Ontario for seven years. I'm half, I'm a Canadian citizen, and I'm a US citizen, but I'm 100 percent Greek Cypriot. I'm actually from Cyprus, my mom and dad, everyone's there, they're, you know, and, uh, but I've kind of lived, lived everywhere. And I was born in London as well. So Been around like the United Nations. You have a whole bunch of countries in one person. Yeah, and that's cool. Uh, you know, and so more one with when it comes to when you started Veeam and it was, you said 2014, right?Right. I started. Yeah. So When you came up with the idea, and I know that you talked about simplicity and you know, you were solving probably a lot of different problems. How do you really, how did you really establish a market fit? For that product, you know, cause I know you mentioned simplicity, but how did you know, like, you know, this is the product that I really want to pursue.This is the product that is going to make a lot of money. It's going to make a lot, it's going to provide a lot of impact to many small, medium sized businesses. How did you know that it would get adopted so well? And just, you know, and which allows you to thrive and scale and operate it. You know, there's 125 trillion in dollars that circulate around the world all on bank wire. And, um, if you look at the structure of that market, the bulk of the money moved through banks on bank wire. So when we first started the company, We're like, you know, it's, uh, it's a different era. Now we've got to be able to simplify cross border payments. We started from the angle that, you know, when you're doing a payment to Mexico or Brazil or India or Philippines or wherever you're sending money to, it's really should be as simple as a domestic payment, as simple as paying for coffee.You shouldn't be able to distinguish the difference actually between them, whether I'm paying for coffee or I'm paying. For my supplier in Mexico, it's the same thing. And as simple as it sounds, it's actually a bunch of headaches because to do that, you've got to have the ability to operate in multiple countries, multiple currencies.Um, you gotta be able to have compliance infrastructure and regulation and the regulation know how in multiple markets, domestic USD, Canada, Australia, Europe. You know, you're learning about all these markets. The other thing that's, uh, important is understanding how to build products that are global in nature, that a customer in Germany or a customer in Pakistan would be able to figure out how to use the product.It's not heavy to use. It's simple to use. So these are all components that you have to assemble together, put together to run a service that's simply enough for users to use it. So it's a lot of practice. It's a lot of iterations. It's a lot of refinement on the initial ideas that you start with. It's a lot of conviction that if you solve the problem, people will like it.And when they like it, they bring other customers to the table, which is what we've seen today. Once, when customers like something, and they find it simple to use, they go get other customers they work with, who then come and join Veeam. And that's a good chunk of the growth we've seen in the company. And in the way beginning, when you started Veeam, was, uh, the adoption rate for user acquisition, was it really high, really quickly when you launched it?Let's just say, uh, when you launched it in beta? What was it just a very, just boom, boom, boom. Was it just very quick adoption or was it kind of like, did it, did you scale it? Did you kind of see it grow over time as you increased your, you know, your, your marketing, uh, your budget, your marketing strategies and tactics, then it started to drive and more users, or was it kind of just, it just kind of took off sometimes with these products, they take off with like their virality or their referral.You mentioned like, you know, they'll refer one customer to the other. How did it kind of happen for you guys? Well, well, it's a, it's a bit of both because like nothing builds overnight. It takes time to scale and build these things, but you know, you've got something when, um, when you've got customers and you're not sure where they came from, because that's like one thing that was super interesting in the early days, we would got customers and we, nobody really ensured like who got them because, you know, at the time it's like. You know, what do you know about this customer? Why nobody's spoken to them? But how did they start using the product? It turns out that somebody else got them in, told them about Veeam and they started using Veeam. And so it's a little bit of both. It's like, you need to have that, that delight. So people like the product and they go tell their customers that, Hey, use this product, it's good for you.But at the same time, you've got to be patient with it because. This stuff, not, it's not like, first of all, it's not a walk in the park. This stuff is complex because you're dealing with regulated services. And then two, it just takes time to build up the customer base, to build up the experience, to build up the know how, the reliability, the security, because you're dealing with people's money.You want to make sure that everything is up to snuff before you actually start moving their money. So it's a combination of the two together that you need to have at the same time. I can't imagine the amount of iterations. That you had and just the amount of testing, right. That you had to go through for the product.Cause if you think about it, right, you're dealing with someone's money. You know, we don't think about that on the other side, right. On the customer side, you don't think like, Oh, what is Veeam going through to get us this product? Right. This is really working. This is making it easy for me to pay, to pay my developers overseas.Right. It's easy to do that. Um, but you don't realize on the, uh, the customers sometimes don't realize much work it takes for you as the company. To provide this product, the service it's, it's crazy, you know? So it's good to, it's good for you to give them that perspective, you know? Yeah. Let's say you, you know, um, let's say Michael, you have a developer, you're working with, um, pick a country, um, Brazil, and you want to pay that developer.So for you as a user, it should be really simple. I picked my developer in Brazil. Here's the amount of us dollar I'm sending SIM. That's it. That's all you want the experience to be. But on the backend, I got to have infrastructure to pull money from your bank account, got to have infrastructure to convert it to real from USD, got to make sure I understand what is required in the U.S. side, what's required in Brazil, got to figure out how to communicate to your counterparty in Brazil, make sure that they're supported, make sure that they got their money on time. So when you actually start passing through the amount of infrastructure needed to move that money, as simple as this payment to your developer in Brazil.There's significant amount of infrastructure behind the scenes to get it to happen. Just like when you order Uber, for example, and you know, you see the car coming to pick you up, but there's quite a bit of infrastructure built up to do just that behind the scenes. So the final output is you see the car coming to pick you up, but behind the scenes, there's like people and people, you know, engineering, operating, supporting, servicing, same thing here, but for money. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, when I guess I don't know the exact years that, um, that Veeam, um, got funding. I know you guys got funding from a lot of different, uh, investors, right? The different seed rounds and all that. But was it immediate, uh, for Veeam? So when you, when you built, did you have to, you know, Build the product first and then have investors look at it because they can, they can play with something that's tangible, right.They can play with an actual system and then they, you know, kind of write that check or is it just way down the road when you're already operating, you know, you already have revenue coming in, you know, cause I think I, I, I asked that question because I think sometimes startups have the wrong idea when they, They are seeking funding.Uh, it just in in many different aspects, right? Um, I've dealt with hundreds of startups where sometimes they just have an idea they have, and some of them are really, really good ideas. Uh, but they don't have any platform that they've built yet. They haven't actually built any sort of tangible product for investors to look at and play with.So for you at Veeam, did you already have the product kind of built and then investors, investors just kind of came along and then, and then, which allowed you to obviously, you know, you had budgets and funding for different reasons. Of course. Right. Yeah. I mean, I, I'd say like, like different, there's different styles and different processes, different situations and different types of investors.So, you know, when I first started the company, um, we built up the first version of the product on our own. And then once we had customers and revenue, we started getting institutional investors, um, other entrepreneurs do it differently. If you can get institutional investment early, sometimes it's good.Sometimes it's not the best. It just depends on what you're trying to build, but you want to be in a position where once you get institutional money, you have revenue, you have customers. You want to have the customer stand up and say, I believe in this. I like it. So the more you can build on your own to value the verify that. There is going to be demand and there is a fit between what you're building and the customer. Once you have customers are willing to say, Hey, I, this is a good service. I'm going to use it. I'm going to recommend it. You got something. Then that's a good basis to go get money. To get institutional money. Now, um, it's easier said than done because sometimes to get to that muscle, you need money to get there. So you kind of have to either figure out a way to get, you know, what they call angel money or friends and family to help you get there, or you simply bootstrap and try to do as much as you can on your own to get it to a stage where it's built up.And then you, you go from there. And what are your thoughts on bootstrapping, uh, a business? Do you think it's just, uh, you think it's a lot harder to grow? The company. Well, it's a it's a longer people say yes or no. So that's why I asked that. It's a longer process. It takes a longer time. But you know, before venture capital existed, you know, the entire all businesses were bootstrapped.You know, you had to find a way to generate revenue early on and keep it going on your own for a long period of time. Before you got to a stage where either the bank, you know, lent you money or you got investors to put money in, depending on the type of business you have, um, it's, it's easier, uh, to raise money.It feels this way. That's easier to raise money and build up something and go with it. You gotta remember that depending on where you're trying to build, some products are suitable for venture money. Some are not. So it's a combination of what is it that you're trying to sell and build, and how much are you able to do on your own?Can you get to a stage where you have customers, you have revenue, and then raise capital? I would say that's probably the better formula. Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've heard that from numerous people. It's, it's always easier when you have money coming in. Right. Because the investors are going to, uh, when they're audited, when they're vetting you and they're auditing you, right.And, and they're, um, they're doing their due diligence, they are looking at how, you know, how can they get a return on their investment quickly. Right quicker, sooner rather than later. You know? Yeah. And also you're taking venture capital money to accelerate. If you're not in a position to accelerate, it ends up not helpful because you're sitting on this money.You're not sure what to do with. So you want to make sure that once you get institutional capital, like venture capital money, you're in a position to go because you've got to, you've got to, you've got to run with it. That's another dynamic. Like sometimes if you do it. too early or prematurely, um, it, it may end up backfiring on you. Yeah, no, that, I think that's, that's really, really great advice. It's important for people to understand that they have to have a plan and strategy in place and not even just planning strategy. They have to be Able to execute, which means they have to have the resources, right? They have to have the, the people, the, the, the power of the people behind to be able to execute, um, that acceleration. Well, you, you kind of have to be ready for it. Yeah. It's like if you take money prematurely, you, um, you on the risk of, of not sure how to execute on that money, which becomes problematic if you wait too long. Though, on the other hand, it's also not that good, especially if the market is hot and, and the, and you know, there is appetite for what you're building in the market.So then. Bootstrapping is not that healthy because you're constraining it, money opens it up. So it just depends on the market you're in, on the product you're selling, on the overall macro conditions of the market. That's all plays into it. And this is, uh, it's a perfect segue into what I wanted to discuss next with you.Marwan is, is, um, just like you're in your experience, you know, all the years of, of your experience and in, you know, just in business and entrepreneurship, um, What do you see as like the, the key factors, uh, that set a business up for success. So from start from a startup phase to operating and scaling company phase, what are some pieces of advice or just, just things that you feel that are really important and powerful to go from the year to here? Yeah, I think it's a combination of things. One is. You want to make sure what you understand what's differentiated about what you're building. What's really unique. Um, and what's unique and not quickly accessible by the customers you're trying to service. Is it difficult for them to access capabilities that you're producing, because if you can make what you're producing available to them to the masses. Uh, then it, then it, it connects and you're, you're, you're off, you, you, you have a good start. Um, the other thing that's important is persistence. There are some stories where people hit it off in a couple of years, you know, it's like a big business, but the bulk of the businesses are, um, ideas that take time to develop, take quite a bit of persistence, quite a bit of know how, and the ability to weather storms along the way.Not everything's going to work out. And so the ability to recover from setbacks is something that is important for the entrepreneur to make sure it not only just the founder or the CEO or the entrepreneur, it's just the team, the entire team, there's going to be setbacks along the way. And so you've got to be able to be resilient to that.That's a key part of the success as well. It's a combination of resiliency, persistence, being the right team at the right time, having the right product. Let's say the right product differentiated solutions that the customer feels that this is different from what I've done in the past. Yeah, I have a saying, uh, and I always say this, if it was that easy, then everybody would be doing it.Sure. Yeah. It's I know it sounds ironic and like kind of cliche and everything, but it really is true. Right? I mean, if it was that easy, right? Because it's hard. It's really tough. I mean, yeah. You know, I, I think in the outside world, um, when I mean outside in terms of, uh, you know, uh, from, um, people who are, who don't own a business or who, or don't have, um, they don't have all the responsibilities that you as a CEO may have, um, you know, they see it very differently and sometimes they see, uh, companies like yourself, like, oh, getting all the seed money and all this, you know, revenue and all this stuff, but they don't realize the, the The grind and the fire and the tenacity and the, the hard work, the perseverance, like you talked about, just.Everything, all these different elements that, uh, really, uh, take a, take a toll on you and, and the company and just, it's hard work and it's, it's a lot of work, you know? Yeah. Like there's a, like the saying goes, there's no, never a dull moment. Startups or newer, newer companies, you kind of have to, um, uh, make sure that you have a healthy degree of, uh, persistence, resiliency, and, uh, the ability to just keep going.Um, some days are good. Some days are not the best, but you know, you just. You just, uh, you just keep going. That's a good chunk of what makes startups successful. Roll, roll with the punches. It's got to keep rolling with the punches. Yeah. Love it. Love it. And you know, Marwan, you mentioned before, even, uh, just like challenges and obstacles, uh, you know, and I'll talk about that just for a few minutes when it comes to you building and growing this company, um, or even just Your past in entrepreneurship and, and just, uh, you know, growing businesses, uh, what are some of the obstacles that some of the toughest obstacles or challenges that you've faced, you've experienced that were a really a test.Like, Oh, just a really big test. And how did you overcome them? Cause we all know that, I mean, we just talked about it, right. It's, it's really, really tough. So, you know, kind of what did you, what are a few things that you went through that were just really, really difficult? Um, I think understanding, um, what you can do in a short period of time, it's always been the most challenging thing for, um, growth startups because you're, um, you have a limited amount of runway. And you're trying to pack as much as you can during that time. So if you go to the next phase of the, of the development, and so one of the harder thing to do is figure out, okay, how much is, how many months do I have in front of me and what kind of, what do I need to do to get where, and it's really challenging because in the, especially in the early days, because you have so many ideas on what you can, what you want to do or what you can do.And customers tell you, I want this and I want that. And that will lead to narrow down things to. Concrete steps that you execute on so that you have enough built up from the phrase you're into the next one so that you Raise money again to carry you to the next phase. These are all important decisions that define the type of success you're going to have, um, and that balancing act between, um, runway, what you're going to be able to do and how, how much you have to do to get to the next milestone.These are like tough decisions that you have to go through. As you built up and scale and you know that the faster you go, the bigger the, um, the bigger the decisions and the more impactful decisions become because you're dealing with. It's like, it's like, um, it's like you're driving a fast car, you know, um, If you, uh, if you're doing a turn and you take the wrong turn, that's hard to recover from when you're, when you're flying with, with the car.So, um, it's, um, it's definitely a challenge and a lot of, I know a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that because you're trying to figure out how to balance the various things at the same time, um, And that's very specific to, you know, venture capital funded businesses. Um, more traditional businesses are have different dynamics to them and that you're you don't have the same time pressures that you typically do when you're when you're dealing with a venture capital funded business. Yeah, I can imagine the amount of pressure you got to, you got to make sure that kind of, you're ready to go for the next, for the next phase. You know, it's, uh, I can't imagine the amount of planning and just, uh, the, the, the type of execution you guys have to go through, but I guess it kind of, it comes with the territory, right? It does, you know, planning, thinking, simulating different things, talking to different team members. I mean, it's an ongoing process that you keep iterating on. You know, and Marwan with what you're seeing now with just, um, you know, your area of like, you know, um, payment systems and, and even just, in a general sense, technology, where do you see it going?Because, you know, things are, you know, Evolving like crazy and just the world is nuts, right? It's just so many. It's going in so many different directions. There's a lot of money circulation, but there's also just a lot of, um, yeah, I'll say craziness for now. It's just a lot going on in the world. Um, and a lot of good as well.A lot of good as well. Well, the way I see it is basically if you, if you think of, um, in the world of tech, uh, which, which is a fast moving world, FinTech is an area that's going to see significant. Growth and changes for the foreseeable future, because that's an area that have not seen Innovation for a very long period of time, and it's been bubbling for a while instead of been heating up.And now it's like, you know, erupting. I mean, it's like, it's a hot market to be in and within the world of fintech is fintech is multiple things. I mean, you got payments, you got lending, you got mortgages, got, uh, security and fraud, and, you know, there's all kinds of sub segments within that world, um, payments in particular is also probably one of the one of the hottest segments in, in already a hot segment, which is FinTech.And it has to do again with Um, all the changes are going on to the systems to make it so that, um, the experience is up to date. It's, uh, you know, the, um, it's a modern experience compared to what you're, what you're used to in the past. The other thing that's important because as we increasingly live in an online world, uh, with COVID, um, and with, uh, payments becoming part of everything you do, payments is getting embedded.Into shopping, into trade, finance, trade in general, it's, it's an, it's an application that gets plugged into all kinds of other applications. And so it makes it, that's why it's, there's a sizzle to it because it's something that's utility, but that utility is strategic because everybody counts on it functioning to be able to conduct basic commerce.So it's a super important concept to get right. And that's why it's a hot area right now. So it's an area that's going to stay like this for a while. It's going to see innovation for a long period of time before we see other areas emerge that are that are more significant. But it's it's an exciting time to be to be in fintechs in general.It's an exciting time to be in payments in particular. Just so much is going on and so much is happening. It's, it's incredible. Yeah. And it seems like with a lot of, uh, a lot of these, uh, different SAS systems, I think, um, from what I'm noticing is personalization is very important. Uh, you've touched on simplicity.Keeping very, very simple. I think people are, are tired of dealing with, um, you know, cluttered systems, clunky systems, you know, on, uh, we just don't have time for it, people are just tired of it. They want something very simple. They can use, uh, and as I mentioned, personalization and also security, you know, making sure that things are secure.And I know you guys have taken care of that, um, you know, security aspect of it. So all those things are, are obviously very, very important, but yeah, absolutely. No, that's, that's great. Uh, you know, and, and, and just your, just real quick, Marwan and, and your, uh, experience with being a business leader, uh, and, you know, a leader in general for, uh, for this company and even, and, you know, your previous companies, what are your thoughts on, What it really takes to be a strong business leader.You know? 'cause I think leadership, the word leadership's thrown around a lot, so. Mm-Hmm. , it's always good to ask people who are living it and doing it and breathing it, you know? Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot of stuff that's written on this topic. Uh, you know, books and books. Um, I'd say like, one thing that I noticed that, that is maybe helpful here, that. You won't find this early in books, but it's, it's a good experience to, to go through, um, like companies are like, I call companies, they're like kids. They're like, they're like human beings. They evolve and, um, just the way that human life goes from, you know, being an infant to toddler to teenage years to adulthood to, um, later in life. different, different phases have different needs. And so companies are like that, you know, the early days when you start a company are different than when you have 10 employees, which is different than when you have hundreds, which is different when you have a thousand. So with every phase, it has its own challenges and Part of the key thing is to understand what are the key things to figure out in each stage of the life cycle of the business.Um, it's just like, uh, having kids, you know, if you have a kid that's two years old, You got to essentially deal with the kid. Uh, if they want to eat with their hand and they're two years old. I mean, that's acceptable. It's actually really cute. Um, if you have a teenager doing the same thing, you'd be like, okay, well, what are you doing?You have a plate and you have knife and fork and that's what you should be doing. And so it's the same thing in business. Like, you know, different, different stages of life have different needs. Uh, and being able to recognize that and adapt the processes and tools to the stages you're in is something that.Is important skill set to learn along the way. Love it. And if Marwan just, you know, look at your story, you know, on a career or even just life perspective. Um, how would you define your story in one word real quick? I'd say, uh, basically persistence. Really? It's just, um, you have an idea. You, you understand the vision of what needs to be done. But nothing happens on its own. You gotta be really persistent to get it to the stage where people understand what you're delivering. Um, they experience it, they find it different than what they have access to.They appreciate it. They tell other people about it, but all that requires a high degree of persistence in order to get there. Amazing. Marwan, thank you so much. And I know everyone can find your company. It's www. veem. com. Is that correct? That's correct. Yes. Awesome. Marwan, thank you so much. It was a pleasure.I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it. Absolutely. It's my pleasure. Thank you, everyone. Michael Giorgio on Tales from the Prose. And until next time. Thanks, guys. Please subscribe to our YouTube page and also follow our social media. Uh, there are links somewhere around here, but, uh, we really appreciate it guys. Thanks for all the support and I'm going to be giving you awesome content continuously and we look forward to seeing you soon.