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Beyond Two Percent: Building in Emerging Markets

"One of the biggest challenges is that we're getting significantly less funding to do so. So you're getting less funding, but you're expected to build like five times more, and bring these products to market as quick as effectively as efficiently." -Jihan Abass, CEO and Founder of Lami.

Beyond Two Percent: Building in Emerging Markets

In this episode, Helen and Julie were joined by two incredible guests:

Jihan and Anais fill us in on what it's like to build companies as a woman in emerging economies. What similarities and what differences are there in places like Peru or Kenya vs New York and San Francisco? Tune in to find out!

‎Beyond Two Percent: Beyond Two Percent: Building in Emerging Markets on Apple Podcasts
‎Show Beyond Two Percent, Ep Beyond Two Percent: Building in Emerging Markets - Aug 29, 2023
Beyond Two Percent: Building in Emerging Markets by Beyond Two Percent
In this episode, Helen and Julie were joined by two incredible guests: Jihan Abass, CEO and Founder of Lami Anais Cisneros, Co-Founder of Amela Jihan and Anais fill us in on what it’s like to build companies as a woman in emerging economies. What similarities and what differences are there in pl…

Summary

  • Introductions and welcome. ⁠0:16⁠
  • Tech development in emerging economies. ⁠3:48
  • Being a female founder in the Global South. 8:42
  • Similarities and differences of Global North and South. 20:22
  • Opportunities for collaboration. 26:58
  • Being an LP or Angel in Emerging Markets. 30:43

Transcript

Helen 0:16
This is the beyond 2% podcast and I'm your host Helen Femi Williams

Julie 0:20
and I'm your second host, Julie VerHage-Greenberg.

Helen 0:22
We're so excited to dive into our second season of Beyond Two Percent. This podcast is brought to you by This Week In FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership events, and of course, podcasts.

Julie 0:37
In Season One, we covered everything from motherhood to intersectionality. And this season, we'll take a look at what it's like to build an emerging markets as a woman and impostor syndrome. We encourage you to give us feedback on the topics you think we should be discussing and asking in our future panels. Let's dive in.

Hey, all, Julie here. So before we get started, one quick update. This is the final Beyond Two Percent episode, but Helen and I have some very exciting updates to share at the end of this podcast. So stay tuned for that! This was such a great episode to end on. There's never been a place where I've been on a podcast where I'm sitting here in Austin, Texas, someone else is sitting in Latin America. Someone else is sitting in Africa and someone else is sitting in the UK. Getting four women together from literally across the world. Dreams are made of things like that. I'm so excited for you guys to dive in, as we talk about building and emerging markets.

Anais is the co founder of Amela, a VC consultant and community builder on a mission to bring more people into opportunities in tech as a catalyzer to tangible change in society. She has more than 10 years of operational consulting and venture building experience and has been a venture partner at a global FinTech infrastructure fund Ralicap ventures, a VC at an early stage European fund Samos Investments, Chief of Staff at an early stage decentralized recruitment platform, a consultant in the financial services industry, and has held several roles at fintechs. In addition to that, she is an RSM alumni and Included VC 2021 Fellow.

Helen 2:30
Jihan is currently the founder and CEO of Lami, and insurance-as-a-Service provider and API. Lami has digitized the entire insurance value chain from KYC pricing, underwriting and claims processing all in one platform and API that can be used to distribute any type of insurance products at any point of sale. She set up Lami with the aim of increasing insurance penetration in the developing world. Prior to Lami, she worked as a sugar trader in the City of London, trading on the New York and London sugar markets. She has an MBA from the University of Oxford. Hope you enjoy this episode. Beyond 2%.

Julie 3:10
I'm excited to dive in, as Anais was saying in our intro, before we started recording and everything, if not that often that you see someone from Latam and Africa on a podcast together. So I'm really excited to dive in. And the topic today is obviously what it's like building in emerging economies, something that I'm really excited to dive into simply because I don't know that much about it. Like I know more about building in the developed world, so on. So I'd love to have you kick us off just because you have background not only a founding your own company, but working with a lot of other women that are doing the same thing in Latam.

Anais 3:48
Yeah, so I mean, my background is both Europe and Latin. So I see a lot of like differences between the two markets quite a lot. I think generally, like one thing that I would say from Latam is that being an entrepreneur in an emerging market, to my viewpoint is hard, like extremely hard, sometimes even harder than doing it in a developed economy. Because many times you don't actually have the infrastructure for it. So you have to build like not only just like the service layer, but also the infrastructure layer. And like if you look at tech development in Latin America, it was like sort of really jumped after the pandemic. So previous to a pandemic, a lot of people were not actually using the the products, and all of the sudden we were all stuck at home, we had to use those digital products. So I think generally like regardless of the gender, it's hard to be an entrepreneur in emerging markets, because you just have so many things to figure out. And there's a lot of uncertainty. And I think like if you look at like the gender lens of those things, like specifically for them, I think historically we've had more of a culture where like, men, run companies, and it's not always the case. Like for instance, I come from a family where my mom was a business woman Like she started multiple businesses, but I know that's not always been the case. And we didn't Latam like, it's actually a fairly large region. And there are different degrees in which people feel comfortable with like, I don't know, having leadership positions. And yeah, so I think there is, like, broad variety of scales. Like I was talking to a friend, I told him, I'm always amazed by Argentinian women, because I feel like they're so out there. And they're like, Oh, I'm going to do this. And they're so confident. And like coming from Peru, it's not like Peruvians are not confident. But I think generally, like, we're just to be a little bit more quiet. And so like that can show you like the different ranges that you find in like, the countries within like, the Latin American region. And, yeah, like, I mean, I could add, but we could also like, get the African take on this.

Jihan 5:52
Yeah, I think in Africa, it's fairly similar. There's very few women, I think, when it comes to traditional businesses, so not in the tech landscape, I would say that you definitely find a lot of female entrepreneurs a lot more. Because most of the time the mother is usually the one that takes care of the family in traditional African cultures. And I think like, that's when you when you translate that from the traditional economy into technology, I think you see a very, it's a complete opposites, when we look at the technology space is very few women founders. particularly in FinTech, and there's even even less women founders that have raised capital across Africa. And I think that has to do with a lot of different factors. I would say that when it comes to risk, and how people are viewing risk, I would say that maybe what we see here, particularly in Kenya, maybe there's less inclination to take that kind of risk and start a business, or start your own business, and scale that. But I would say that it's, it's quite quite similar to Latin America in general, because of course, every African country is quite different. I think, when you look at countries like Nigeria, you find a lot more founders, a lot more diversity. But when you look at places like Kenya, it's maybe a little bit different.

Helen 7:07
Do you know, though, when when Jihan was talking, it actually reminded me because like, there's this, so I'm Nigerian, and there's this song, and it's all around like colonization, right? And it's called Market woman. And it's basically around how when colonization happened, women became ladies. But before that, they were market women, because market because kind of historically, it's women who were in the market, it's women who were trading. And that's kind of how the society was like pre colonization. And then after that, things have changed so drastically where it's like, actually, to your point, you're right, like women are the kind of face of Africa like when I think of like, Nigerian society, but it's kind of not necessarily seen like that. It's more it's more than traditional economy that kind of like, focuses that not necessarily like the emerging economy and stuff like that. But you're right, like, in the sense of I do meet a lot of like, Nigerian founders, but it's still not where it is, it's not comparable to men. I kind of want to ask you, because the issue is not just necessarily I guess, women getting in, there's kind of like a background to that as well, like, so, Jihan you come from it from a founder perspective? And, Anais you come from it as someone who's kind of in the whole ecosystem, from VC to helping women fund. So how does that work from like, a financials perspective, like when it comes to how you find funding or how women access funding, because I think there's so many processes around that, even if it's just culturally, or just a woman walking in the room. And then we also add in your different regions that you guys are both in.

Jihan 8:42
Yeah, I think, from my perspective, I would say that I had no idea of what I needed to do to raise money to scale a business, I was sort of going into it, hoping I would figure it out. So it was it was sort of that kind of approach. And I think what I was not prepared for was how difficult it would be to actually get actually in the room, but to have these conversations with investors, with people who could potentially mentor me through the journey. I think that was actually what shocked me the most is that getting in the room was the heart was really even, I guess, more difficult than the fundraising process. And in the beginning, when I started law, me actually had to fund the business with my savings and get money from my family to be able to get going. And without that, I would, I wouldn't even be here because it was so difficult to actually meet these investors. The ecosystem felt very closed off in a way, if you were not part of it, or in it, you it was very difficult to get into it, and I would say that when I was in the initial process of fundraising, I think also you don't really know what investors are looking for. You don't know what you need to have prepared. You don't really, you're sort of trying to figure out and navigate that that piece. And it was very interesting because in the beginning, you don't really have a lot of confidence when you're going into these conversations. But over time, of course, you're learning, you're adapting, and you're sort of becoming better at telling your own story. Because I think also for women generally, how it was for myself, as well as that, you don't really want to be that person talking about yourself excessively, and in such a big way, although, you of course, I believe in my capabilities, and the vision and everything, but, it's very difficult to get into that mindset of, of sort of painting that picture so broadly, and so, so big, I think I'm more of a realist as well, in a way. So that was also a big learning for me just figuring out like, it's okay to tell them what you actually dream or it's fine, you, they're probably gonna get excited about it. I think all of those were pretty interesting lessons. Our first fundraising took a very long time, it took a few months. But then of course, over time, I think we became a lot better. One other interesting thing, I guess, that I, we see with our investors is that most of our lead investors that we're meeting with, actually women, so women are the ones who found us. And I think that that was an interesting thing to see and notice, because people always talk about these biases in the in the funding landscape, investors are funding less women and all that. And I think what I saw from my experience was that if the person in the in the room had, if there's women in the room, as investors, they're more likely to actually go out and find these great businesses or women to invest in. And I think that was also, unfortunately, it was the case, but it was very interesting to see it actually play out in practice.

Anais 11:43
I think a lot of the points that you've mentioned, actually resonated with me, because like, the first time I actually started a business, I also had no idea. And it's a crazy because like, if you look at my profile, like I used to be a consultant, I went to the best MBA school in Europe, like I have, like the founder background, that you usually check and say, Oh, that's like what a premium founder looks like, so to say. So I went in thinking, it's gonna be hard, but very, they know, let's go. The way I was in the field, they realized I didn't understand the jargon that most investors were using. And like, up to that point, I actually like, it sounds silly. But I used to think venture capital was investment banking, because every person I would see was like the investment banking bro. And so I was like, Well, I've visited, I don't know, like, 10 VCs on site, during my school times, and they were all guys. So like, I just never felt like it was a place where I felt like, welcome. So to say. That being said, I feel like the landscape has changed quite a lot. And specifically, in terms of Latam, like, you don't get exclude, you're actually very much invited to be part of the room. But I think there is a gap on knowledge that you can clearly see like someone's there. And it's like the first time they fundraise. And what I found that it's maybe slightly different on women founders, like guy founders is that many guys just because of the environment they're in and the conversations they talk about, like informally, they somehow know someone who started a tech business at some point. And so then you won't you ask your friend. And when I first went into entrepreneurship, which wasn't that long ago, it was in 2020. Like, even though I used to be surrounded by investment bankers, consultants, like all of these type a women, most of them were working for someone else, they were not working for themselves, or building venture backable businesses. So suddenly, I felt alone. And this is why I went into community, to try and find someone who somehow resembled me, and who had seen similar challenges and things like that. If we look at research, like women get asked more prevention questions, right, and promotion questions. And this is actually living in such unconscious bias, that sometimes like that people that ask those questions, don't even realize that they're doing that. But it is a reality. And so I think like, there are some challenges to like, fundraising being a woman, one is like, you have to learn quite a lot. And you are not necessarily surrounded by all of the sources of information that would give you that knowledge. Then secondly, you don't see anyone who looks like you. And I think it's very hard to become something that you've never seen. So in my case, I always thought I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. Because growing up, I grew up with a very, very strong role model, which was my mom, she wasn't a tech entrepreneur up to this day, she still kind of wondering what the heck I'm doing. But I knew that women could build companies because I had seen in real life, so, yeah, I think those are some of the challenges and like back in 2020, like I remember looking for other women founders in Latin America and swear to God, maybe there were like 20. Like, very few and when I started mentoring 2021, already when I was in the VC side, I went out of my way to scout them. And I was able to find like 50. And now we're a community of 240. So like, you see how much there are, and sometimes that you're not necessarily aware that there are others like you. Like, we recently did our like soft launch to Europe, so to say. And we got a very small room of like 14 people that we handpicked, that I scouted and they didn't know each other. And it was interesting for me to see that they didn't know they existed. But once I know they exist, they're like, ok, now we can collaborate. And we can help each other out. And so, yeah, I think there are some challenges on the fundraise side, but I also see, like rapidly changing, at least on Latin America.

Helen 15:40
A couple points you made that I feel like, first of all, whose mom knows what they do? Like, I feel like nobody's mom really knows what they do. That's how that's how it feels like to me. But I was gonna say just something you said something you said, it kind of resonated me with me, like, this is more of a comment. But I was gonna say a point you made it really, I don't know, if you agree with this. But you were saying you came to Europe. And that's where you studied, and you did your education, I feel like there's two, you're kind of like battling to think on two levels, because you're battling your gender identity, you're not battling, but you're coming, you're trying to confront, investing, or working in a field because of your gender. And it's a very male dominated environment. But outside of that, there's also like this cultural element. So me even myself, I can't lie. I'm born and raised in the UK. And sometimes when I'm in certain demographics, or in in more white spaces, which I tend to be because that's just obviously that just makes sense. Given where I work. Sometimes I don't even know what they're talking about. And I don't know what the I don't know, the jokes, I don't have any understanding of why this is funny, or what we're even talking about. So even me, I sometimes struggle with this cultural element, especially when I had a more corporate job, because not only is it my gender, but also sometimes culturally, I'm not really sure what we're talking about. And I'm just wondering if you kind of, maybe agree or or Jihan I know as well, like you moved back. So like, Is that also something that you found to be, I wouldn't say a problem, but something you maybe encountered when it came to kind of like trying to kind of meet them on their level, especially when it comes to being a founder investor, or networking? I

Anais 17:26
I think like, so look, there are certain aspects to that, like, people tend to like or invest in people that look like them, and that's a concept that's called homophily. So you like certainly, if you're vegan, and you talk to another vegan and you have something to talk on, you bond, right. So if you look and sound like that's why it's important to actually increase the diversity side on investors so that we can also like have more female founders. But it's not the only thing. Like I've been able to bond with, like, super. I don't know, like, really, the stereotypical white men and they've been the biggest supporters of Amela, and feminism and all of that. But yeah, like, there are different layers to that. But I think instead of like focusing on like, how that has created challenges for me, I think I these days, look at it as a strength. Like I really feel like it's made me like much more resourceful in the way I express myself, in a way I can combine my cultures. So like, for instance, when I started investing in Latin America, I wasn't able to just bring like the Latin American lens, but also part of the European lens. Part of like, the background I had had, like living in China or living in Abu Dhabi, like different places, um, bring that into my like, cultural environment and think slightly different from like, the usual there. And like now that we're bringing a miller up to a certain point to Europe, I see that there are so many things that people can learn from what we've seen in our founders in Latin America. That, yeah, like, there is definitely like people are bound to like, the environment that they grew up with. But I think once you stop seeing it as oh, maybe this is going to make it challenging for me to connect with other people and you find like different things that you can connect about, suddenly, you end up becoming the super diverse person, where you end up fitting there, and then somewhere else too, and having just like different tools added to your toolkit.

Jihan 17:34
Just to add on that. I think also it's just really the power of perspective, you end up having a lot broader perspective, a lot more understanding of different scenarios and cultures and environments as well. And I think, as difficult as it can be, I think, also similar to you, for me when I when I moved back to Kenya, I was also living in the UK for a long time. And I think the saving grace is that I grew up in Kenya and I spoke them I speak the language I speak Swahili. So I think that helps a lot. But I think that if I didn't it would be a lot more difficult actually, to resonate with people. But I think that that that has I think that helps a lot actually.

Julie 20:01
Something I wanted to ask too is we've talked a lot about some of the similarities, like a lot of these things resonate in the developed world as well. Is there anything that you think is a notable difference between building and being a founder in the developed world versus emerging markets where you guys are?

Jihan 20:22
I think one of the main differences is that we're really, it's really a leap frogging kind of situation, for a lot of businesses, a lot of technologies that we're bringing forward to the market, we don't really have a lot of that basic level, technology. Even for example, here in Kenya before, we had M-PESA, which is like money transfer. By mobile, people were sending money via bus, parcel. So it's sort of like a very big shift between that and now having technology. And I think that's what is, the most interesting part is that you're really starting from scratch, and you're able to actually build from the ground up, including the infrastructure, including, all the different layers into what it is that you're looking for, in order to actually provide the right solution to people. And it could mean that you surpass a whole, a whole layer in that process. So I think that that is maybe one interesting part. And it also becomes a big challenge, because you often have to build a lot everything yourself, as Anais mentioned, you have to build everything yourself, which, is a lot more difficult. And I think one of the biggest challenges with that is that we're getting significantly less funding to do so. So you're getting less funding, but you're expected to build like five times more, and bring these products to market as quick as effectively as efficiently. But we're not really considering that piece where you're doing it with a lot less money. But I think it also forces us to think outside the box, a lot to be more progressive in how we're viewing things, to actually reach that goal that we have.

Anais 22:00
I agree, like so much. Because I really do think like, for instance, when I became an investor for Latin America, I actually became an infrastructure investor for Ralicap. Because the main, the main thesis is like, the infrastructure layer needs to be built in Latin America so that bigger fintechs can be built, you can't build a nneobank, if you don't even have like the I don't know, like the rails for it. So that's, like, extremely exciting to me. And as someone who actually used to travel across Latam, working for big traditional banks, like when I say to people, to people I love fintech is because of that, because you see big impact on the things that you do, like crazy amounts of impact, like people are suddenly able to service themselves better. And yeah, like, I think that's where, like, I read some sort of quote, you can build a company and like, I don't know, in like some sort of developed market, and you will help a few people, you build a company in a developing market. And so and you will, for a lot more people, like you impact all of these people's lives, because they just didn't have anything before. And all of these changes happening in like, what the last 10 years or so to say. So it's extremely exciting. But yeah, it's also challenging us like we've previously mentioned. And I think another like a specific challenge of like, especially like being a woman building in developing markets is that at least for Latam, I think there is a certain stereotype of what you're supposed to be, like, I grew up along this narrative of like, you need to be calm, and be really, really nice. And like, don't say much for your opinion, and be humble, like, take care of your family, take care of your brother, take care of your like, community are everything. And I think when you decide to actually leap into entrepreneurship and become a leader, yes, you can do all of those things. Absolutely. But you're sort of going against what's usual. And so because of that, I sometimes say that every woman founder is sort of like, going against the current. And so that's also why I think you get such amazing returns with them, because they have to overcome a lot of challenges from society to get to where they are on top of like, the challenges of execution as a founder. So yeah, like, that's just something to be aware of. And I think it just makes us more resilient. entrapreneurs and that's also a relief that just meeting all of these people that are sort of like swimming on their own and swimming to air you like really create massive change in the environment that you're in.

Helen 24:37
That makes sense. And actually even like some of my friends who have like gone back to Nigeria as an example to found and stuff. That's, that's sometimes a challenge they've had or because there's so many like unwritten cultural rules that they have to kind of, we prioritize gender, but also like age. Age is a massive thing in Nigerian society. So it's like If you employ someone, but they're older than you, how do you interact with that, and these are the literally the issues that people like, it may seem minor, but these are real big issues when it comes to kind of founding a business, especially as a woman, founder in a country, which has such strong cultural norms that, just so unwritten in society. And something else you guys were talking about is just the infrastructure. And for me, I always think, especially in Africa where I know more, but the internet, for instance, is just not as good as it is here. And to me, that's a major barrier to moving things forward, because I'm just like, until we see the internet as a human right for all, there is this massive disparity that is going to happen. I was just wondering, actually, just to kind of go on tangent. You're building in Africa, you're building in Latin America, what are the kind of do you see, we could talk about as like the Global North and the Global South, but like, do you see any like opportunities where there is this collaboration that needs to happen between those two regions? Or like, how do you perceive that? So for instance, Jihan, when you're talking about insurance, I remember that I once spoke to another founder, and they said, the issue with insurance in Africa, is that your competitor is God. And so there's no defeating it, because it's a mentality situation, necess, rather than whether you need insurance or not, and I can imagine, in Latin America, that's also a competitor, because in these regions, whether it's not even about the religion, it's just about the culture, religion, religion is just so important. And maybe more yet, I mean, so I'm just wondering what you guys think and where the collaboration or similarities and differences are between the regions?

Jihan 26:58
I think there's a lot of opportunity for collaboration. I would say that one of the things that surprised me a lot, not only with the Latin America with other developing countries, as well as that the problems are quite similar within the insurance space, people are not able to access the products, they're not the right kind of products, a lot of that customer journey issue are pretty similar. And I think that, that there's really an opportunity to collaborate and then also share learnings because I think we're experiencing a lot of things that I'm sure a lot of businesses have also experienced or experiencing currently. So I'd say that's definitely the first one. And I think previously, I had a couple conversations with, with some investors that were based actually out of Latin America, and they were looking a lot at the insuretech space. And actually, that's when I was actually surprised to find out that even the insurance penetration level is similar to what we see in Africa as well. Yeah, but I think we don't we don't often see a lot of companies moving in that way, but I think it would definitely be very interesting and exciting.

Anais 27:57
I believe a lot in global place. And I know it's like kind of bullish, right, because you sometimes need to think, how to execute in my region and then like, take over the world, but I like to dream big. It was interesting for me to be part of a global FinTech VC, because Ralicp actually, we thrive on that arbitrage that you can get by looking at different markets at the same time. So obviously, I was not covering Africa. No way I could cover Africa. But I would talk to people who are venture partners in Africa, and they would tell me, oh, what we see we solve that problem here in this way. And he would just give me interesting insight that then I could go talk to a Latin America owner about and be like, Have you thought about these? I think in a way a bit of a privileged position, I was able to see like different connections among those. And now within Amela, we're starting to connect quite a bit with like Europe, which is a very, very different playground. But I think, I don't know, like, usually, you see a lot of US startups thinking of building global, and not as many like, developing market startups thinking, How do I build global? Or even European startups thinking, How do I build global, although Spotify are really good exam. And so like, whenever I talk to founders, I encourage them to think yes, it's important to make sure that you have like the execution nailed in your local place. And sometimes it's even hard to like expand within that time, like so many people try Mexico, Brazil, and it's like them hard. But like when you think about the vision, like you got to dream really big. And so I hope to see much more collaboration going forward. And that's why a mela is currently mostly in London, but we're like very much from our beginning thinking, how do we make this scalable so that we can actually untap opportunities across the world and like, I wanted to sort of mentioned like, my former boss is actually Nigeria. And she's such an inspiration to me, and she's told me a lot about the forces. You see, like the African continent. So like someday, hopefully we'll make it there. But in the meantime, we cheer along the sides and say, Hey, like, if you ever need to do more about expansion into limb to America, like, here we are. So yeah, collaboration is sort of like what makes the world go round.

Julie 30:17
Something that Anais reminded me of as we did an episode before about becoming a female, LP or angel investor. Obviously, in the US, I know that there's far more male investors in our female since you have that background and investing as well. Is it a bit more balanced in emerging markets? Or do you view that is like, it's still far male dominated?

Anais 30:43
My current obsession with the problem is like that 2%? Is the title of this podcast? Like, how do we make sure that more women get funded? And what's wild to me is that you look at the states and it's 2%, you look at Africa is 2%, you look at let me get the person and you look in Europe and Asia, it's 2%, I don't get how that merge seems to have captured the world. Like, I think thankfully, I see a lot of women investors in Latin America. But then there's also a question of retention, right? How many of these women actually have the position to be able to be decision makers, because if you're not like a managing director, or a GP, sometimes your deals don't go through I see. Like, I ended up becoming an investor, because what I wanted to do was open doors for other founders who very much like me, we're just trying to make the world a better place. And so that were looked at by our business models, instead of what gender we have, or how we look, I'm happy to see that there is rapid change, but we're we got to continue pushing for that.

Jihan 31:41
There are female investors, I would say that they are there. But there's not as many who are leading the funds. I think that's where the problem is a lot of the people who are making as ice mentioned people who are making the decisions, who are actually trying to get these businesses funded. Those, I think there's very few within that space. But I definitely see a difference between now. And when I first started in 2020. I think we're seeing a lot more women even even within like, I think, of course, there's also that process of moving up the ladder within these funds. I think we're seeing a lot more women now coming in as well, even at the associate level going upwards. And I think that's going to actually transform the landscape is really that change and that shift.

Julie 32:25
Quinn says this was a great episode, and she learned a lot. She got so fascinated, I needed to pick her up so she could come listen more intently and say hi, thank you so much, you guys for coming on. I really appreciate it!

Jihan 32:36
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Julie 32:39
Beyond 2%

Helen 32:43
Okay, what a great episode. I think just like Julie said in the beginning, you see similarities between building in Africa, in Latin America, and how they can connect but also how they're so different. And it just it feels like such an exciting proposition to be part of. This is our last official episode with guests in this format of Beyond Two Percent. We absolutely loved doing this podcast, we learned so much from each other from our guests, just in general even researching topics sometimes. But we have an exciting update. Beyond Two Percent is not going it's just evolving. So it will be folded into Hey FinTech Friends, and we're going to keep the conversations going along. So listen up. Oh, and just before I go, so we do have one more episode of Beyond Two Percent. And that's where you're going to hear from our guests. They're sending in voice notes, thoughts, opinions on their topics, as well as wider ideas surrounding the 90%. So watch out for that next month. Thank you so much for being amazing listeners!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai