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eddie: Welcome to episode
27 of the web joy podcast.

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I'm your host Eddie in this podcast,
we interview guests about their origin

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story and what makes them excited and
joyful to be part of the tech community.

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I hope you enjoy today's episode.

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You need to date ideas
straight away with Anto.

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Welcome back to another
episode of Web Joy Today.

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I'm excited to have Anto with us today.

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Say hi to the community and you know,
if you don't mind introducing yourself.

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anh-tho: Hi, web Joy community.

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Um, Sam, I'm Anto.

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I'm, uh, the co-founder
and c e o of Flaggo.

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So Lago is, uh, we company, we
do an open source alternative

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to strip bidding, and I've been
involved in FinTech for more than.

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10 years now B2B SaaS.

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And before that, I, uh, worked
in a corporate stuff like

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McKinsey and that kind of stuff.

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And, um, that was great to
learn how to make slides, but I

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actually didn't really like it.

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So yeah, that's who I.

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eddie: That's great.

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So you mentioned you've
been in FinTech for a while.

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What does that kind of journey look like?

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Right?

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Like where did you first get involved?

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How did you decide you wanted to be in
FinTech and I guess what were some of

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the highlights along the way to, until
you obviously started your own company?

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Very different, I'm
sure, than when you got.

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anh-tho: Yeah, for sure.

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Actually, my, my first job in
FinTech, it wasn't called FinTech

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at the time, it was in Africa.

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I worked on mobile money project,
so it was about like using feature

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phones, so not smartphone, so very
cheap phones for the underbanked

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population, like, More than the
majority of people in in Africa so that

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they can do mobile money transfers.

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Like someone who earns less than one USD
per day would need to transfer money to

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the village so that their family could
like buy food or, or stuff like this.

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and as they didn't have a bank account,
they needed to either to use like informal

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means, like asking the bus driver to
like, uh, transfer the mo the money,

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which is like expensive and not very safe.

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Or they could use like feature
phones to do this and transfer

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money via s m s, like text messages.

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So it was like a whole
different, like FinTech area.

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It was in the stripe area.

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But I really loved it because
I think it was the intersection

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of technology and social impact
and also a sustainable business.

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And I think like to have a lot
of impact, you need to be a

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sustainable business as well.

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So I started to work like in
this continent, in this area.

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It wasn't fancy, it wasn't called FinTech.

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And I really loved it.

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So it was like mainly in thei,
in Congo, in Kin Chasa, and I

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was very young when I went there.

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I was the only like female expert
working on this new project.

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Nobody really understood it.

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I had like some crazy meetings
at the like Central Bank of

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Congo and that kind of things.

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So, yeah, I, I really like enjoyed it.

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And then at some point I wanted
to get back to Yuba because

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my personal life was there.

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And honestly, it's really tough to be
there on your own when you're so young.

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And there are like, as I said,
not so many female people there.

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And, um, like exact position.

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So, uh, I went back to Paris.

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Everything wasn't exciting
to me, like in terms of jobs.

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And I ended up like doing
management consulting.

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Honestly, I didn't know
what to do with my life.

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Like mobile money was super exciting in
Africa and then in Europe, like working

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for a mobile network of per like, you
know, working on like triple play and that

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kind of things didn't seem like exciting.

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So I, I really looked.

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For job for a few months.

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And at some point I, I was like
really not doing much and I got an

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offer from McKinsey to join them
and do like management consulting.

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So I thought I'd better do this because
at some point I need to pay the rent.

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So that's how I ended, I ended up there.

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It was a great like place I met
a lot interesting people and some

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I'm like, really close friends
are are from McKenzie and it was.

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I think the, the greatest things was to
me like this ambitious and uh, really

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smart people and everything was you.

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You had so much like support
functions to help you.

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There's one consultant for one
support function, so they really

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like help you focus on your job.

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So that was interesting.

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Uh, but at some point I missed like
building things and I feel like

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where can I find the intersection
between like strategy and building.

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And I thought that was startup while
staying in, uh, Europe or at least

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like, um, living wherever I wanted.

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And I felt like startups were,
were really interesting and, um,

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especially B2B SaaS, uh, because I
felt it was like very data driven.

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So I talked to a friends,
so one of my friends, he's.

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Now the CEO of Hugging Face, it's um, the
GitHub from machine, machine learning.

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I dunno if you heard of
it, but Create Company.

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At that time he was working
for a B2B size in Paris and he

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introduced me to other founders.

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And I, uh, finally joined
another B2B size called je.

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At the time it was
acquired by me afterwards.

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So, yeah, that's how I
ended up in like b2b.

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And then like my latest position
before like, um, I found my own

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company, like Lego was at Kto.

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So Kto, I think it isn't very known in
the us Uh, actually it's like Brexit, but

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for Europe, I was the first Mian VP Grove.

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Uh, I grew like Emma r from
like zero to tens of minions.

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And now it's like, uh, for
the latest round it was like,

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uh, valued at 5 billion.

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That's, see how it goes now , but with
all the market like turned down, I

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don't know, but it was quite successful.

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And then with like former, like
Kto, uh, employees, we wanted

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to like build something early
and build something together.

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And my co-founder of Lago is from Kto two.

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So I met my cofounder there and we
just wanted to build something early.

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So we decided we wanted to
build something together.

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So we applied to YC straight away.

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Uh, first idea we got was to build
a no-code data tool for growth

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teams, because that's what we've
done at con, like doing like

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growth and using a lot of data.

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Yeah, that's how, uh, Lego was born.

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So as I said, like Lego is
a different business now.

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This is because we pivoted like a
few minutes ago, so I can talk more

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about that also if you're interested.

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eddie: I love that.

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Right.

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You had.

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One idea.

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And so often I think a lot of people
who aren't involved in startups think

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that someone just starts a business
and that's what the business is,

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and it grows and it does its thing.

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But like so often startups
exist because of their pivots.

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So yeah, I, I'd love to hear, so, yeah.

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How did that kind of pivot come
to be, and how did you all end

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up doing what you're doing?

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anh-tho: Yeah, I was,
um, talking about it.

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He, um,  so  is, uh, like tech
French foot for Europe and I was

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like showing the story about like
how the attitude is different in the

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US versus Europe about pivots and I
think like the US are much more ahead.

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Like, I dunno, I'd Lovet have your
opinion as well, but at least around

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yc, like people are really positive
about pivots and investors as well.

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Like, they're like, at
least you learn something.

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And the worst thing is seeing like
a founder claim to be original idea

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because they're afraid to change.

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So if you feel you've tried and now you
want to change, like just change it.

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Whereas in Europe, like it's a
bit like what you first described.

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What does the idea change over time?

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And I'm like, like it's
the natural like path.

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But yeah, for the story of Flaggo,
so I think the first idea we had

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was, so we wanted to build the
internal tool we had at Kto and

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we're very data driven growth team.

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And I think the specificity of our
setup there was that in my teams, we

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were like 15 people when I left and
I had three engineers and we were.

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Indefinite from, uh, the tech team and we
had this really good relationship with the

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tech team and they let us do like whatever
we wanted, like with boundaries for sure.

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But, uh, we're very independent, so we
built the tool we wanted, uh, at the time.

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And like shifted during like YC started
to sell it to people and what we ended

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up like discovering was that there were
very few teams, like we were at con,

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meaning when a company grows, usually this
data, like modeling data segmenting is.

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Like goes through the data team
and the data engineering team

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and none of the growth team.

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So it's not really useful to have Noca
tool for like marketers if it's the

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data engineering team that does the job.

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So that's what we ended
up like discovering.

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So of course it seems obvious
when I stated this way, but.

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Wasn't that obvious at the time.

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Another way to say it was maybe
we're like a bit ahead of the time,

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like maybe growth teams in three
years would be more data driven.

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And also one hypothesis that I made
that was not right was that the US

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market and the US teams, uh, growth
teams would be more data driven.

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And we met a of them.

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And actually it wasn't really the case.

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Oh, uh, either.

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So they all said they wanted to, but
at the end of the day a lot of data

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engineers said, I don't want the growth
team to touch data cuz they'll mess

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up all the modeling and segmenting.

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So I dunno if it's something you've seen,
but so we feel like yeah, we are building

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for a very small niche of people like us.

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So either we decide to, uh, become
a dev tool and to be a tool that

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data engineers would use, or we
can also do something different.

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So we chose like option B,
um, and we went through.

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Honestly a rollercoaster of
feelings during six weeks.

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Like, I think pivoting, it's hard
because you, so I describe it as um,

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it's like as if you're married and then
you have a very hard breakup, a divorce,

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and usually you do, I don't know, it
depends on people, but you don't date

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someone like, Seriously afterwards.

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And when you pivot, like investors
are like, okay, that's great,

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but now what do you do ? And you
need to come up with answers.

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Of course, not like the day
after, but a few weeks after

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you need to have an answer.

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So you need to like date ideas
like straight away afterwards.

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So we had a lot of ideas.

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We even thought about green
b2c, that the team, we.

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People on the team at the time, but we
ended up like looking at all the pain

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points we had as a team at Contour.

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And one of the things that really emerged
was like the pain points we had around bi.

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So at Contour we had built,
um, our own billing system.

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Uh, we had looked at strip billing
charge all the existing like solutions.

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And, um, it, it didn't
really like, uh, match our.

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So we ended up like building it.

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Like we thought it would take like
one backend engineer for three months,

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but actually at the end there were
like five or six backend engineers

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like working on it full-time.

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And we saw a lot of different
companies like doing this as well.

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So that time we thought we need to make
sure like that wast a need That was.

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Specific to our team.

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And we also felt that there
was an inflection in the market

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because the pricing models are
like more usage based today.

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So there was other things around with
the subscription economy like 10 years

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ago now, I think it's more like usage
based economy are mixed, like hybrid

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pricing between subscription and usage.

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So we thought there was like
this inflection in the market.

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And the second thing was, now
we always talk about product led

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growth, but product led growth.

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Usually they're selfer.

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So it's the same like
pricing plans for everyone.

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But there's also then like sales led.

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So once someone from a big company,
like an individual contributor starts

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using a dev tool on the side, usually
what's great to do is the sales team

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like starts like pinging the, the
this team from the big company so that

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they can like sell a bigger plan to.

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So there's also also this mix in product
led growth around like self-serve

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and sales led, uh, plants that we
needed to address around billing.

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So for this reasons, we, we feel
like the existing solutions, like

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of 10 years ago around like the
subscription economy don't really work.

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Uh, that's why the lot of
companies like we are building

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the beginning as we've done.

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So we decided to switch and that was like,
uh, at the beginning, beginning of this.

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eddie: I think we'll, we'll
definitely dig into, you know, Lago

225
00:12:52,442 --> 00:12:54,752
a little bit later in the podcast.

226
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That's been a really interesting
journey, right, from like, I love how

227
00:12:59,432 --> 00:13:03,182
you mentioned in your start it was
the, when you're working in Africa,

228
00:13:03,182 --> 00:13:09,332
it was the intersection of Right,
like working with people and finance.

229
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Right.

230
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It like, it was really funny
cuz you started talking to him.

231
00:13:12,062 --> 00:13:14,972
I was like, this doesn't sound like
FinTech at all, but of course it is.

232
00:13:14,972 --> 00:13:21,172
But like, Especially being in the
US where I'm at, like everything

233
00:13:21,172 --> 00:13:25,342
about FinTech is all about big
corporations and money and like yeah,

234
00:13:25,342 --> 00:13:27,322
a little bit more icky of a FinTech.

235
00:13:27,352 --> 00:13:30,982
And so that was so inspiring to hear like,
wow, that's a great way to start out.

236
00:13:30,987 --> 00:13:35,962
Like helping people send money
using the technology that they have.

237
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That was really kind of a nice
inspirational start and you know,

238
00:13:40,372 --> 00:13:42,472
and then very practical, so many of.

239
00:13:43,342 --> 00:13:47,242
People think that we choose perfect
career paths, but like oftentimes it's

240
00:13:47,242 --> 00:13:49,342
like, Hey, I need to pay the bills.

241
00:13:49,372 --> 00:13:51,232
Like what can I do to pay the bills?

242
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And that gets you into a

243
00:13:52,792 --> 00:13:53,452
anh-tho: company.

244
00:13:53,457 --> 00:13:54,772
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

245
00:13:55,222 --> 00:13:56,632
But about like FinTech.

246
00:13:56,632 --> 00:13:59,062
And today it's a bit more fancy, but.

247
00:13:59,722 --> 00:14:03,043
That's still like a lot of
businesses addressing the, you know,

248
00:14:03,048 --> 00:14:05,632
international remittance like issue.

249
00:14:05,982 --> 00:14:07,492
You know, like people, I don't know.

250
00:14:07,492 --> 00:14:10,642
Someone in the US with family in
Nigeria for instance, would have a

251
00:14:10,642 --> 00:14:15,742
hard time like transferring money
for a low cost, and I've seen some.

252
00:14:16,522 --> 00:14:20,522
Interesting applications of stable
coins to do this for cheaper cash,

253
00:14:20,522 --> 00:14:22,142
for instance, in the US is doing this.

254
00:14:22,202 --> 00:14:24,482
And I found it really interesting
and inspiring as well.

255
00:14:24,872 --> 00:14:27,842
So yeah, there are a lot of
inspiring things to do in FinTech

256
00:14:27,902 --> 00:14:31,592
and what I love about financial
services is everyone needs them.

257
00:14:31,772 --> 00:14:34,682
Everyone needs financial services
and health and food, I think.

258
00:14:34,862 --> 00:14:34,982
Yeah.

259
00:14:35,282 --> 00:14:38,342
So yeah, at least it,
it helps having impact

260
00:14:38,342 --> 00:14:38,612
eddie: on people.

261
00:14:39,242 --> 00:14:43,352
So, you know, one thing we, we always
like to talk about on this podcast is

262
00:14:43,592 --> 00:14:46,112
what's something that brings you joy?

263
00:14:46,592 --> 00:14:50,492
So yeah, you had kind of like a, a
way that you approach your life that

264
00:14:50,492 --> 00:14:53,222
you had kind of shared with me, um,
when we were preparing for this.

265
00:14:53,222 --> 00:14:55,022
And so I was just kind of curious.

266
00:14:55,292 --> 00:14:55,472
Yeah.

267
00:14:55,472 --> 00:14:59,912
Like kind of how you make choices
and kind of how that that leads you

268
00:14:59,912 --> 00:15:01,952
to, to kind of live your best life.

269
00:15:02,392 --> 00:15:06,302
anh-tho: So first I'd like to share like
a little bit of things about my family.

270
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So they.

271
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From Vietnam and where that country,
because of war, some of my family

272
00:15:11,897 --> 00:15:15,947
lives in California and some of my
family is in France, in Canada, they

273
00:15:15,947 --> 00:15:17,777
went where, wherever they could.

274
00:15:18,287 --> 00:15:24,467
So my parents wanted me to go to the best
school and to get a's of the time and to

275
00:15:24,467 --> 00:15:26,447
get a great job in the corporate company.

276
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So I think.

277
00:15:29,032 --> 00:15:32,152
They were like the most proud of
me when I was doing management

278
00:15:32,152 --> 00:15:34,262
consulting at McKinsey and I hated it.

279
00:15:34,912 --> 00:15:39,172
So it was a hard time for me because
I really liked that they liked what I

280
00:15:39,172 --> 00:15:44,842
did , but I really didn't like what I
did and I, I finally like decided I.

281
00:15:45,212 --> 00:15:48,272
It's basically they're proud of me
for sure, but sometimes, you know,

282
00:15:48,272 --> 00:15:52,262
parents I've talked about about it
with a lot of other founders and

283
00:15:52,262 --> 00:15:56,942
some of them also have immigrant
parents and like why they successful,

284
00:15:56,942 --> 00:15:59,402
like unique cons and all of this.

285
00:15:59,402 --> 00:16:02,372
And I felt like my, my
parents don't acknowledge me.

286
00:16:02,657 --> 00:16:04,067
, they don't even understand what I do.

287
00:16:04,067 --> 00:16:06,677
I send a tech French article,
they don't get it, and I'm

288
00:16:06,677 --> 00:16:08,207
like, oh my God, I'm not alone.

289
00:16:08,747 --> 00:16:13,277
So , yeah, a framework
I have now is mobile.

290
00:16:13,277 --> 00:16:16,367
Like minimizing regrets I think.

291
00:16:16,667 --> 00:16:20,807
And I think I wouldn't like
regret if I set up making this for

292
00:16:20,807 --> 00:16:24,977
instance, I would have, uh, always
wondered, can I do something else?

293
00:16:25,342 --> 00:16:26,332
Is it worth it?

294
00:16:26,542 --> 00:16:30,502
Um, that my family's happy, but I
really unhappy in my job every day.

295
00:16:31,012 --> 00:16:32,452
I'm not really proud of what I do.

296
00:16:32,452 --> 00:16:33,742
I don't know if I want to do it.

297
00:16:33,742 --> 00:16:38,032
I don't want to make partner and I
work like 15 hours a day to do this.

298
00:16:38,182 --> 00:16:42,367
So I had the same like framework
when I decided to be a founder,

299
00:16:43,432 --> 00:16:45,352
cuz uh, being a founder is scary.

300
00:16:45,732 --> 00:16:50,232
So I was a, a very successful company,
could have stayed like everyone wanted to.

301
00:16:50,232 --> 00:16:51,162
Taught me.

302
00:16:51,612 --> 00:16:55,932
I came to a point where I had a team
so I could like, maybe not like rest.

303
00:16:55,932 --> 00:16:59,532
I mean, there's no rest in the
startup, but it's a bit after

304
00:16:59,537 --> 00:17:00,762
like service visa receipt.

305
00:17:00,762 --> 00:17:02,982
It's a bit more chill
than from zero to one.

306
00:17:03,042 --> 00:17:05,802
And being a founder from zero to
one is a lot of like pressure.

307
00:17:06,247 --> 00:17:12,547
But I thought, I would always wonder like
what I would have been, what I would have

308
00:17:12,547 --> 00:17:17,467
experienced as a founder and I would be
regret not trying to, to be a founder.

309
00:17:18,187 --> 00:17:23,212
So I think what brings me joy like
every day is, Just knowing that I

310
00:17:23,212 --> 00:17:24,772
wouldn't do it differently if I could.

311
00:17:24,922 --> 00:17:28,702
So maybe it's hard and of course
it's hard to be a founder and there's

312
00:17:28,962 --> 00:17:33,262
a lot of like changes, but I know
I want to do it and I want to live

313
00:17:33,262 --> 00:17:35,062
this experience like to be fullest.

314
00:17:35,512 --> 00:17:37,522
And I love my team so well.

315
00:17:37,527 --> 00:17:40,342
Like a lot of things that
I wouldn't do differently.

316
00:17:40,702 --> 00:17:43,972
And I think that's what I apply
to my framework every day.

317
00:17:43,972 --> 00:17:45,292
But it's, it's hard to.

318
00:17:46,012 --> 00:17:48,772
To find the balance as well, because
you have to mitigate like long term,

319
00:17:48,777 --> 00:17:50,932
short term and uh, midterm stuff.

320
00:17:51,862 --> 00:17:54,982
I think a lot of people are always
wondering, so I get a lot of messages

321
00:17:54,982 --> 00:17:58,972
from friends who are working like in a
like scales or like corporates and are

322
00:17:58,972 --> 00:18:01,762
asking, should I like create my company?

323
00:18:01,822 --> 00:18:03,022
Am I ready?

324
00:18:03,352 --> 00:18:04,432
Isn't it too hard?

325
00:18:04,432 --> 00:18:06,312
And I'm like, Listen, I have no idea.

326
00:18:06,312 --> 00:18:08,112
So it's pretty useless to talk to me.

327
00:18:08,112 --> 00:18:10,962
But if, if you're going to regret it
in five years, like maybe you should

328
00:18:10,962 --> 00:18:15,102
try and worst case scenario, like you
can go back to your corporate job.

329
00:18:15,222 --> 00:18:18,612
I mean, I can probably join
another FinTech as an employee

330
00:18:18,612 --> 00:18:23,502
if I want, like, um, in a year or
two if I wanted to or join a vc.

331
00:18:23,862 --> 00:18:25,662
I mean, the opportunities
that we're here for.

332
00:18:26,437 --> 00:18:30,037
Before I started Lego, I think
would be here for me after Lego,

333
00:18:30,037 --> 00:18:32,287
so, and even maybe better ones.

334
00:18:32,287 --> 00:18:34,447
So that's how I think about it.

335
00:18:34,657 --> 00:18:35,077
Yeah.

336
00:18:35,077 --> 00:18:38,827
So yeah, I think like the feeling
of being in the right place and if

337
00:18:38,827 --> 00:18:42,397
I could like not doing the things
differently is, uh, pretty powerful.

338
00:18:42,877 --> 00:18:47,897
eddie: I think that people are more
likely to regret not doing something.

339
00:18:48,547 --> 00:18:52,957
Then they would regret trying
something and it not working out.

340
00:18:53,197 --> 00:18:53,707
Yeah.

341
00:18:54,067 --> 00:19:00,217
anh-tho: I think a lot of people are
afraid of things not working out and

342
00:19:00,697 --> 00:19:05,557
one of my friends, he like created
like two free companies and one

343
00:19:05,557 --> 00:19:09,247
ended up like being a huge success,
but he was like, you know what?

344
00:19:09,247 --> 00:19:12,157
All my photos before, like
everybody forgot about them.

345
00:19:12,217 --> 00:19:13,867
Like, because like nobody cared.

346
00:19:14,047 --> 00:19:14,397
So.

347
00:19:14,847 --> 00:19:19,227
It's okay, and I survived, and
that's how he managed to do

348
00:19:19,227 --> 00:19:20,997
something great afterwards.

349
00:19:21,417 --> 00:19:25,587
The good thing is if you fail, like
there's a high probability that no one

350
00:19:25,587 --> 00:19:30,832
will notice, so, And also they're like
highly publicized, fades, like, I don't

351
00:19:30,832 --> 00:19:34,882
know, WeWork for instance, and the guys
have survived and they're still raising

352
00:19:34,882 --> 00:19:39,772
phones anyway, so at the end of the day,
like people survive to this, it's fine.

353
00:19:40,102 --> 00:19:40,612
Yeah,

354
00:19:40,612 --> 00:19:42,862
eddie: no, that's a,
that's a very good point.

355
00:19:43,132 --> 00:19:43,732
It's interesting.

356
00:19:43,737 --> 00:19:45,772
I also feel like sometimes
people get stuck.

357
00:19:46,202 --> 00:19:47,822
In what they're doing, right?

358
00:19:47,822 --> 00:19:51,062
Like kind of a sunk cost fallacy, right?

359
00:19:51,062 --> 00:19:57,242
I've invested so much time at this company
or so much time on this career track.

360
00:19:57,422 --> 00:20:02,402
If I were to go and do this startup or
go and do this job change, like I'm kind

361
00:20:02,402 --> 00:20:04,292
of having to start back at the beginning.

362
00:20:04,892 --> 00:20:08,372
And I feel like sometimes that
can also hold people back.

363
00:20:08,372 --> 00:20:13,352
That fear of, well, I've invested
so much in this pathway, can I

364
00:20:13,352 --> 00:20:15,152
really start another pathway?

365
00:20:15,952 --> 00:20:20,362
anh-tho: Yeah, I think it takes a lot of
courage and humility too, because you,

366
00:20:20,362 --> 00:20:24,592
you're going to do like crap stuff and
you're going to be junior, even if you're

367
00:20:24,592 --> 00:20:26,512
senior in another like, career path.

368
00:20:26,512 --> 00:20:28,252
So yeah, for sure.

369
00:20:28,312 --> 00:20:32,932
I, I think one thing greater like
entrepreneurs or startups is that

370
00:20:33,232 --> 00:20:34,612
you're always learning something new.

371
00:20:34,702 --> 00:20:39,352
You're always junior to your new job and
you're always doing like quite ay stuff.

372
00:20:39,472 --> 00:20:41,242
So yeah, there's no

373
00:20:41,242 --> 00:20:41,572
eddie: ego.

374
00:20:42,517 --> 00:20:46,657
And I think another thing about doing
a startup is people have to oftentimes

375
00:20:46,657 --> 00:20:48,517
wear so many more hats, right?

376
00:20:48,517 --> 00:20:52,867
So in most situations, to your point,
most companies are gonna be happy to

377
00:20:52,867 --> 00:20:56,137
hire someone back if they went and
tried to startup and it didn't work

378
00:20:56,197 --> 00:21:01,477
because you've had to do so many
things during that, that like you've

379
00:21:01,477 --> 00:21:03,957
gained more skills, not less, you know,

380
00:21:04,567 --> 00:21:05,047
. 
anh-tho: Yeah.

381
00:21:05,047 --> 00:21:07,747
And I think one of my personality.

382
00:21:09,052 --> 00:21:13,132
Characteristic is I get bored
like very easily, so I can't

383
00:21:13,132 --> 00:21:14,932
stand still in a corporate job.

384
00:21:15,442 --> 00:21:17,962
So the only thing that
can still is startups.

385
00:21:18,322 --> 00:21:22,312
So yeah, I think also if you
have, for people who have that

386
00:21:22,312 --> 00:21:24,762
kind of personalities, like
startups is the best because.

387
00:21:25,277 --> 00:21:29,957
I prefer like to learn new things all
the time and even like fail and try again

388
00:21:30,167 --> 00:21:32,117
than being bored in a corporate job.

389
00:21:32,117 --> 00:21:35,387
So yeah, that's something you,
you must have witnessed, I guess.

390
00:21:36,947 --> 00:21:37,607
. 
eddie: Well, cool.

391
00:21:37,877 --> 00:21:42,587
Well, you know, as we wrap up each
episode, you know, we always kind of give

392
00:21:42,592 --> 00:21:47,177
a chance for the guests to kind of share
something that they're involved with.

393
00:21:47,357 --> 00:21:51,697
Um, obviously no surprise to anyone
listening to this, you probably

394
00:21:51,702 --> 00:21:53,357
want to share a bit more about your.

395
00:21:54,122 --> 00:21:54,782
anh-tho: Yeah, of course.

396
00:21:54,782 --> 00:21:59,642
So we have like B2B and product
LEDs to set up a billing

397
00:21:59,642 --> 00:22:01,862
system and invoicing system.

398
00:22:02,342 --> 00:22:04,082
So we're, we're not a payment company.

399
00:22:04,082 --> 00:22:10,382
So what we do is we will, uh, help you
set like plan subscriptions, usage based,

400
00:22:10,952 --> 00:22:16,112
and calculate how much each customer
owes, like every month, a week, or year.

401
00:22:16,682 --> 00:22:19,652
And we will connect to your
favorite like payment gateway.

402
00:22:20,297 --> 00:22:25,187
And we will also like, um, find the
invoices for you and we open source.

403
00:22:25,187 --> 00:22:29,597
So that means that you can connect,
uh, Lego, our API to any like

404
00:22:29,602 --> 00:22:31,157
other tool that you want to use.

405
00:22:31,577 --> 00:22:35,087
And you can even like focus your code
and build on top of it if you want.

406
00:22:35,327 --> 00:22:39,107
Because one other thing we discovered
we've billing is there are a lot

407
00:22:39,107 --> 00:22:41,027
of educators, depending on your.

408
00:22:41,447 --> 00:22:45,707
Like geographies, business situations,
business models, and we want like

409
00:22:45,707 --> 00:22:51,227
every like , like be able to build
on what we've been at our Lego.

410
00:22:51,497 --> 00:22:55,217
eddie: How do you all plan to
make money or how do you all

411
00:22:55,337 --> 00:22:57,177
operate on an open source model?

412
00:22:57,607 --> 00:23:02,737
anh-tho: So we wrote a blog post about
like, um, the engineering nightmares about

413
00:23:02,737 --> 00:23:05,917
bidding, because a lot of people think
bidding is easy, but it's not like once

414
00:23:05,917 --> 00:23:10,777
you're, uh, an engineer who did bidding
like you, you know, the s and the details.

415
00:23:11,137 --> 00:23:12,937
So we wrote a blog post around it.

416
00:23:13,177 --> 00:23:17,077
He posted on Hack Can News, and
we were like, number one on hack

417
00:23:17,077 --> 00:23:18,997
can use for more than 24 hours.

418
00:23:19,057 --> 00:23:20,527
Like, we had a lot of comments.

419
00:23:20,737 --> 00:23:24,097
So we talked to a lot of companies,
like hundreds of companies.

420
00:23:24,727 --> 00:23:27,967
And a lot of engineers just
told us we would pay for it.

421
00:23:28,027 --> 00:23:33,277
Like, we like the open source approach
because we were, we are able to look

422
00:23:33,277 --> 00:23:35,497
into the code and see how it works.

423
00:23:36,037 --> 00:23:40,237
And we like the, the fact that it can
be self hosted in case we, we need to

424
00:23:40,237 --> 00:23:44,267
build on top of Legos that we don't
need to wait for you to like, Do

425
00:23:44,267 --> 00:23:45,857
another integration or stuff like this.

426
00:23:46,187 --> 00:23:49,967
And we think, and we validated that
people are ready to pay for billing.

427
00:23:50,237 --> 00:23:52,277
They're used to paying for billing today.

428
00:23:52,607 --> 00:23:58,187
Usually they pay like, uh, a cut on their
revenues, like Stripe billing is like 0.4

429
00:23:58,187 --> 00:24:03,857
or 0.8% of revenue on top of the, of the
billing of the payment processing fees.

430
00:24:04,067 --> 00:24:05,377
Charge me is kind of the.

431
00:24:05,802 --> 00:24:07,782
So there's a market for
people I used to pay.

432
00:24:08,142 --> 00:24:12,402
They just resent like what they call
like renter pricing, like percentage and

433
00:24:12,402 --> 00:24:17,172
revenues when bidding is just a SaaS and
they recognize like the value of bidding

434
00:24:17,232 --> 00:24:18,822
and nobody says, I don't need bidding.

435
00:24:19,362 --> 00:24:22,062
So we know people are,
are ready to pay for it.

436
00:24:22,122 --> 00:24:26,592
One, one of the ways we want to monetize
is like selling the cloud versions.

437
00:24:26,712 --> 00:24:29,982
So it's exactly the same
product, but it's hosted by.

438
00:24:30,707 --> 00:24:35,177
So that it's easier to deploy and then
for like many of the like open source

439
00:24:35,177 --> 00:24:39,917
models that, you know, the community
might, might be aware of for like, um,

440
00:24:39,947 --> 00:24:44,297
support models for like partnerships,
models or like o other ways to monetize.

441
00:24:44,567 --> 00:24:47,867
But yeah, we we're not so worried about
like monetization, to be honest, because

442
00:24:47,867 --> 00:24:52,067
people are so, like, used to pay for
billing and pay a lot of, a lot of money.

443
00:24:52,772 --> 00:24:53,282
eddie: That's great.

444
00:24:53,282 --> 00:24:53,492
Yeah.

445
00:24:53,492 --> 00:24:57,302
I, I always love when a company can
say, Hey, we're gonna build this thing,

446
00:24:57,302 --> 00:25:00,122
we're gonna make it open source, we're
gonna make it available to people.

447
00:25:00,482 --> 00:25:05,132
And then, right, like, there are so
many other ways you can make money

448
00:25:05,252 --> 00:25:08,852
without, like, hiding the source
code and like keeping it to yourself.

449
00:25:08,852 --> 00:25:11,222
So, no, that's super encouraging too.

450
00:25:11,737 --> 00:25:17,497
Just see, you know, how companies
can do, can do a good clean business.

451
00:25:17,617 --> 00:25:17,797
Gets

452
00:25:17,797 --> 00:25:18,307
anh-tho: me excited.

453
00:25:18,487 --> 00:25:19,207
Yeah, exactly.

454
00:25:19,537 --> 00:25:21,577
Try to be as open as possible as well.

455
00:25:21,577 --> 00:25:26,467
I, I, honestly, I've always wanted to
do something open source, so it's also

456
00:25:26,467 --> 00:25:30,467
like, The founders being excited about
open source and being an open company.

457
00:25:30,467 --> 00:25:34,157
So we try to be, just be
transparent with users and the

458
00:25:34,157 --> 00:25:35,807
best ways to just open our code.

459
00:25:36,287 --> 00:25:38,687
eddie: Well, thank you so
much for joining us today.

460
00:25:38,927 --> 00:25:42,767
It's been just a pleasure chatting and,
and hearing about you and your company.

461
00:25:43,037 --> 00:25:43,457
Thank you.

462
00:25:43,547 --> 00:25:44,687
Thank you for having me.

463
00:25:44,807 --> 00:25:45,497
Absolutely.

464
00:25:46,997 --> 00:25:51,197
Thanks for joining us for
episode 27, you need to date

465
00:25:51,197 --> 00:25:53,537
ideas straight away with Anto.

466
00:25:53,987 --> 00:25:56,807
You can find out more
about Anto on her Twitter.

467
00:25:57,167 --> 00:25:58,397
At BI.

468
00:25:58,907 --> 00:25:59,357
Anto.

469
00:25:59,987 --> 00:26:03,797
You can find links to everything we talked
about in this episode, as well as a link

470
00:26:03,917 --> 00:26:06,047
to ant those Twitter in the show notes.

471
00:26:06,467 --> 00:26:09,707
If you enjoyed this episode,
help others discover it as well.

472
00:26:09,887 --> 00:26:13,787
Give us a shout out on Twitter
or tag a friend or coworker

473
00:26:13,817 --> 00:26:15,017
that you think would enjoy it.

474
00:26:15,917 --> 00:26:19,097
And don't forget to follow us
on Twitter or subscribe to our

475
00:26:19,097 --> 00:26:20,537
newsletter to stay up to date.

476
00:26:21,317 --> 00:26:24,077
Thank you for listening
and have a great day.