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Next to no new Fintechs, and no Insuretechs see themselves as building the “full stack”. Rather for many, once one has a product the secret is successful partnering.
Jimmy Williams, CEO of Urban Jungle, an Insuretech for the renting generation has developed a succinct a methodology for partnering success and shares it on this show.
Urban Jungle also have some pretty heavy-hitting Fintech Grande Cheeses backing them so sound like they are onto something good.
Topics discussed on the show include:
- how people discover particular podcasts
- the benefits of oldskool media
- driving from London to Capetown
- rescuing 7 vicars at night in Uganda
- making helpful friends early on in one’s career
- founders of early Fintechs vs later Fintechs
- Insurance is the most expensive keyword on Google – $54 per click :-O
- you can’t give away insurance for free due to regulation
- two flavours of advice (a) what startups can do that incumbents can’t, (b) golden rules that apply to all companies
- 1. MOVE QUICKLY
- Incumbent โ eg 3 month internal approval process
- important to refactor underlying process before one digitises; boil it down until a junior person can implement in an afternoon
- Urban Jungle – get partners testing things with customers within a week; minimise cost of saying โyes
- 2.ย BE OPEN TO PARTNER NEEDS
- need to know what you will do and what you won’t – if you do everything then its more like consultancy than having a product
- 3.ย BE DEVELOPER FRIENDLY
- APIs etc
- 4. BE AVAILABLE
- need to provide human bandwidth at your end to fix problems when they arise – as they will
- invest enough in the partnership to make it work..
- 5. COMMERCIALLY AWARE
- different market have different requirements, priorities
- “its much more successful when we are important to our partner”
- 6. SHARE LEARNING
- what has worked well, what has not, each time round one starts with a larger body of experience
- a shoutout for which kind of customer and partner Urban Jungle is looking for right now
And much much more ๐
Share and enjoy!