The AFT podcast: At the Forefront of Transactions | Previously known as Fundraising Radio.

Sonia Nigam - Founder and CEO at Change in this episode talks about the money movement behind the scenes of charities. Especially the ones organized and led by corporations.If you have ever wondered what happens when the grocery store asks you to round up your purchase for charity - you'll find answers in this interview!P.S. Apologies for the sound on my side, my computer connected to the wrong microphone.Find our articles covering payment rails in-depth on our Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/

Rehman Baig, CPO at FlexFactor in this episode talks about combating transaction declines and disputes. How the process of underwriting looks like, how are funds reclaimed, what the end-user sees and how it all operates under the hood.Follow us on Substack here for more in-depth coverage of interesting topics like OCT, Pre-Debiting, ACH disputes and much more: https://aftfinance.substack.com/Rehman's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rehmanb/

In this episode we cover exactly what the title suggests: pay-ins. Specifically focusing on the use-cases like repayment of outstanding debts such as tolls due, phone bills overdue etc.Covering a wide array of pay-in options and explaining how they operate, how the funds get attributed to each user and how the backend of the operations looks like.Michael Kaplan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkaplan2/PayNearMe: https://home.paynearme.com/AFT Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/And of course, our official website: https://www.aft.finance/

Jiakai Guo - Vice President at Sound Point Capital Management in this episode goes in-depth on how Buy Now Pay Later system operates. How does the capital flow look like, how is this form of debt being treated, what are the delinquency rates and of course, can this serve as an indicator of the country's economic health.P.S. Apologies for the quality of sound on my side, the system defaulted to the wrong microphone and I've missed it.Find us on Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/Our official website: https://www.aft.finance/

Casey Hingtgen - COO of Whale in this episode talks about the process of building a system of pulling and pushing without inter-mingling the funds.Goal of the system in question:- making sure that money is guaranteed to the landlords. Ability to lock the funds in the FDIC-insured funds.- for the renter (user): easy to fund the account. As frictionless as possible.Find us on Substack and join 7k+ people who read about payments' intricacies every month! https://aftfinance.substack.com/

It's exactly how it sounds like - read the title:)Here are some of the specific questions we've covered during the interview:- Travel cards, let's start with the definition here - what is it and how is it different from a regular credit card?- How do the reward points work? Who offers them and why?- What actually happens when you click "redeem points" to, say, book a rental car for your trip? How do these funds settle on the backend?- If the cash equivalent is sent to the provider (car rental in this case), why is it more efficient for the consumer to redeem points through a provider rather than receiving cash-back?- Let's talk about people who are worried about getting new credit cards or overuse their existing cards. What are the key "unknown" factors that might affect the credit score of an individual?- expand on the topic if time permits.

Spencer Hurst, Founder of MercuryVote in this episode explains how stock voting rights operate, how they can be bought and sold (rented) and how the funds flow when a stock or a share of a mutual fund is purchased.Brace yourselves for a deep dive into the confusing space of STONKS.Spencer's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerhhurst/MercuryVote website: https://www.mercuryvote.com/AFT's website: https://www.aft.finance/AFT's substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/

Wesley Walton - CEO of Glendale Area Schools Credit Union [GASCU] in this episode takes a deep dive into the structure and operations of credit unions.GASCU's website: https://gascu.org/Our substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/Our website: https://www.aft.finance/How do credit unions make decisions, what are the key differences between commercial banks and credit unions, who should consider joining a CU and much more.Key notes that I took during the interview:Glendale Area Schools Credit Union was founded by 2 school teachers and has over 11,000 members now.514F - service based nonprofit.SEG - select employee groupinsured by NCUACredit unions decrease their numbers by 3-6% but as an industry in asset size and member numbers are growing every year.1400ish credit unions are on FedNowstanford credit union was the first to be an online banking website7 members are board memebers5 members of supervisory comities - watchdogs of the institutionCUSOs - aggregations of credit unions who want to adopt a new technology for themselves and want to share resourcesInterest rates on credit cards issued by credit unions are between 18%-21%9.9% interest on a credit cards is offered by GASCU. 9.9 people - freaking 9.9IF YOU HAVE CREDIT CARD DEBT - SWITCH TO A CREDIT UNION

Marshall Greenwald, the Founder of Ionia in this episode digs deep into the souls (backend) of card processing. Marshall's LinkedIn for those who don't know how to use hyperlinks: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshall-greenwald-9480351/Ionia's website: https://www.ioniapay.com/AFT's Substack: https://aftfinance.substack.com/AFT's website: https://www.aft.finance/Here are the questions we've covered during the interview:- tell us the rough outline of how the current credit/debit card processing look like?- how many parties are involved in this process? What does inter-party communication look like and who is in charge of facilitating this communication?- how are the flows for debit and credit card processing different? Why?- why is it so expensive to accept credit or debit card payments?- do the higher time limits for chargebacks affect it or is it mostly related to the complexity of communications mentioned in the second question? Or does it have anything to do with the potential NSF issues?- key solutions that you see for all the problems we've discussed?

Terry Husayn (Talha), VP of Technical engagement and a member of the founding team at Orum. In this part Terry spoke about the process of building an early stage sales team - from the ground up. Specifically we focused on hiring, training and creating compensation plans for BDRs and SDRs. Some mentions from the episode: Winning an SDR interview, Terry's blog Betts recruiting - recruiting AlwaysHired - SDR school Shift Group - shiftgroup.io - recruiting Terry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhahusayn/ Link to Orum: https://www.orum.com/ And of course, keep an eye out on our articles through SubStack that you can check out here.

Terry Husayn (Talha), VP of Technical engagement and a member of the founding team at Orum in this episode talks about the following: - intro to cold-calling, who needs to do it and why - testing of the outreach strategy - specifics of outreach Databases of emails/phone numbers: Zoominfo Apollo LeadIQ Lusha Intent based signals tracking can be done here: Sixth Sense Tool to capture your website visitors: Warmly Terry's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talhahusayn/ Link to Orum: https://www.orum.com/ And of course, keep an eye out on our articles through SubStack that you can check out here.

Amjed Aboukhadijeh - head of sales at Socket. In this part he takes a deeper dive into the specific strategies included in the territory planning, more specifically - creating drip campaigns and running a POC (Proof Of Concept) that has a much greater success rate. Here is the link to a spreadsheet template that you can use to run your Proof Of Concept: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16RFCe-VnSILzZerdbdPsajKSsfNQHzbKxcVIG48ngYk/edit?usp=sharing This is the second episode of two that we've had with Amjed, you can listen to part 1 here.

Amjed Aboukhadijeh - head of sales at Socket, talks about the importance of territory planning in the sales process. He explains what steps does territory planning consist of and how you should work on each step. This is the first episode of two that we'll have with Amjed - part 2 will be focused on very specific strategies that were mentioned in Pt 1 (this episode) so stay tuned!

Lucas Price, Founder and CEO at Yardstick in this episode talks about asking the right questions, using structured interviews and scorecards to identify sales talent. Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street https://a.co/d/fBJf66l A VP of Sales Hiring Scorecard For Startups…Get it Right the First Time https://avenuetalentpartners.com/2021/06/27/vp-sales-hiring-scorecard-startups/ What to Know Before You Interview Your Next Sales Candidate https://www.yardstick.team/post/what-to-know-before-you-interview-your-next-sales-candidate

For our long-standing followers asking if we haven't released any new episodes in the past 8 months because we died - no we haven't, still kicking it! This new season of Fundraising Radio will be still catered to our old listeners but this time the focus will be on sales for early stage startups that have nothing to their name. Why? Because with the ongoing recession and great fears for the future of the US economy, more and more investors become conservative and want to see sales before they invest in you. Let us know how you like the slightly updated format and most importantly - the subject! Links that I've promised to include in the episode description: Lisa Falzone - Co-Founder and President Athena Security. Athena Secruity's website Book recommended by Lisa: The Four Steps to the Epiphany Chat GPT for google sheets Fundraising Radio's Substack: we cover A TON of very-very specific strategies there

Jonny Price, VP of Fundraising at Community Round Fundraising (WeFunder) in this episode talks about equity crowdfunding, process that founders need to undergo to have a successful crowd-funded round and more. We've also talked about the major pitfalls in said process and how to prepare for those. Jonny's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonnyprice/ Community Round Fundraising's site: https://wefunder.com/ SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) explained by the CEO of Assure: https://www.fundraisingradio.com/Jeremy-Neilson/ Extra resources that Jonny shared with me: Blog on how to raise $1M on Wefunder: https://twitter.com/JonnyCPrice/status/1503515916285493255 Podcast episode on fundraising strategy: https://www.spreaker.com/user/wefunder/justin-renfro Community Round website: communityround.com Wefunder Raise page: wefunder.com/raise Wefunder PBC charter: wefunder.com/charter Twitter: @jonnycprice; @wefunder

Hall Martin, Founder and CEO at TEN Capital Network that raised over $900 million for its clients, in this episode talks about hiring fundraising advisors who can connect you to the right capital. We spoke about different regulations around fundraising and of course, about hiring experts for your fundraising round and whether it's worth it or not.  Hall's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/halltmartin/ TEN Capital Network - connecting investors with startups: https://tencapital.group/

Alyona Mysko, CEO & Founder at Fuelfinance in this episode talks about the story of her company and the effects that the war has on it and its future plans. Hint: no giving up in sight and Fuelfinance is preparing to raise soon while expanding! Fuelfinance website - https://fuelfinance.me Support Ukrainian Busines - here Here - how to open in Delaware a company, but it is in Ukrainian. If you want to read another way of opening a company (with Firstbase of course), you can check out our website: https://www.firstbase.io/ Here is the video Spend with Ukraine.

Sharmin Ali, Founder and CEO of Instoried tells her story of helping others write good stories. In this episode we go in-depth into the reasons why Instoried build all their tech in-house from scratch and how they use it as their competitive advantage to secure funding for the expansion. Sharmin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharmin-ali-5b6b4237/ Instoried website: https://www.linkedin.com/company/instoried/ I forgot what else I wanted to include in the description so here is the link to our course about fundraising for early stage startups: https://fundraising-courses.com/

Russ Wilcox, Partner at PillarVC talks about his experience running startups himself. Throughout his career he raised 10 times and 3 times these were down-rounds. In this episode Russ explains what down-rounds are bad, how they happened to him and how he managed to survive and thrive! Russ' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russ-wilcox-2005/ Pillar VC's website: https://www.pillar.vc/ For people who want to understand how to get in touch with the right investor, a course developed by Fundraising Radio's team and myself: https://fundraising-courses.com/ Some topics we have covered in this episode: - your fund invests in three fields, which one of those do you specialize in? - you've raised 10 rounds of funding and 3 of those were down-rounds with an eventual happy ending, can you tell us a bit more about that experience? - the unique trait of your fund is that most of your managers have experience building their own companies, how transferrable is that experience? - you're an investor who likes patents, why is that and when o you think it makes sense to patent an idea/technology? - you've recently closed your own raise for your 3rd fund - how did that go? How does that experience compare to fundraising for your own company? - are there any deep tech investments that you've recently made that excite you the most?