Marketing Darwinism:  Pulak, tell us about Pepper.

Pulak:  Thanks Paul.  Pepper was conceived as an end-to-end platform for Asset Managers who seek simplicity in a deeply complex world.  Asset Management is indeed complex; think of the questions Asset Managers have to answer:  What investments should I make?  How should I optimally manage the investments I have made/my portfolio?  What are the regulatory and data frameworks that govern the different asset classes in the portfolio?  How should I get real-time intelligence on my investments?  How should I report to my investors?  How do I differentiate from other Asset Managers?  These questions lend themselves to a platform- approach to this space.  So we built Pepper.

Marketing Darwinism:  Tell us more about Pepper’s origins.

Pulak:  I’ve spent my whole career in and around this space.  What appears to be a perfectly working machine from the outside has the usual issues when viewed from the inside.  We are talking about the management of trillions of dollars across a plethora of asset classes and a complex and dynamic international system of rules, regulations, compliance, and risk tolerance.  When I realized there are ways to simplify this, to help Asset Managers focus on client-return and not the perspiration and minutiae they have to spend much of their time on, Pepper was born.

Marketing Darwinism:  So is Pepper just an idea like so many startups or are you in market?

Pulak:  Great question.  There are so many claims made in the “Fintech” space that are theoretical and not tried and tested.  So I appreciate the question.  We are very much in market.  We are a revenue generating company with a blue-chip client base.  But I will say that my background is deep product design so I over-indexed on building a resilient comprehensive platform.  So we are now launching a massive marketing push to expand our customer footprint.

Marketing Darwinism:  Marketing is “music to my ears.”  Tell us more about your plans.

Pulak:  We are in a sector that requires very strategic marketing and not scatter-shooting.  First of all, given the impact of this sector- with the trillions of dollars at play- we should not exaggerate or embellish.  We plan to use a very clear, authentic messaging strategy in the voice of a peer.  After all, the idea is to be clear that we built this on the backs of our own experience and from within the cauldron not from the outside.  We will certainly leverage the tools of modern marketing- LinkedIn and others to get our message out but ultimately we know the true potential of Pepper will be realized when organizations trial it and see its power.

Marketing Darwinism:  Pulak, you have mentioned “Fintech” a few times.  What do you think the future of the space is?

Pulak:  I think the future of Fintech is very healthy but as entrepreneurs we have to help make it healthy by building truly useful products and truly helping customers adopt them in their own contexts.  No technologies are silver-bullets without context and culture surrounding them.  We have to think about those aspects of our industry and then devise and hone products that are in keeping with those principles.  I’m very bullish but also very clear that we have to work hard for that bullishness to be warranted.

The following is a guest post from Samir Saluja, Founder DeriveOne and Romi Mahajan, CMRO Quantarium. Enjoy …

The metaphors we use to understand and process events, data, and thoughts are the ones that ultimately govern the ways in which we react to the stream of information that comes our way.  As we attempt to navigate the shoals of human behavior- in order to create a model for how indeed these metaphors connect with actions- it is clear that sentiments as a whole direct economic behavior, whether classified as consumer or business-to-business.   These sentiments are governed by a host of variables.

With the Covid-19 Pandemic raging across the world, we see sentiments gyrate wildly.  The stress of virus-induced death and sickness, the constant admonitions, our fear for loved ones and friends, and the disruption of life-as-we-know-it is real and palpable.  The lack of fixity, the presence of a persistent “unknown” exacerbates this stress and affects sentiments about all manner of subjects. 

In the first quarter of 2020, as the payload of the virus was delivered and public health experts suggested ways in which to slow its spread, many parts of the world witnessed a sudden economic downturn.  People stayed at home suddenly, weren’t able to either work or spend; demand for certain goods and services plummeted.  Employers laid millions of workers off.  A variety of businesses closed-shop many of which will likely stay shut.   Well, these processes cannot be referred to only in the past tense.  These trends continue unabated- dismal economic figures are released daily by many of the world’s major economies. 

Precarity is the order of the day.  Mental health providers are witnessing a spectacular rise and cannot handle the scale of calls upon their services.  Depression has become commonplace. 

In this environment, the metaphors that govern the sentiments and thus the outlook of most Americans are direct results of the pandemic and its consequences -and understandably so.

How will this affect economic decision-making?  To speculate thus, it is important to understand the metaphors people use to process information and thus inform decisions.  Some early thoughts here based on recent reviews of news, polls, and in-person conversations:

Clearly, more nuance is required.  For instance, a recent study by Simile shows that “Boomers” and “Millennials” have markedly different views of and sentiments triggered by the Covid-19 Pandemic.  As such, their responses, even economic responses, will be inflected by these sentiments; likely, millennials will want to “transact” in “normal” ways with more haste than older Americans. 

The biggest asset class and backbone of the US Economy- Housing- will undergo a sea-change not only in scope but also in process.  March 2020 witnessed a 22% decline in housing starts and the largest dip in homebuilder sentiment in the history of its measurement.  Multiple anecdotes from Real Estate agents refer to a blight in listings and a “dead” market.  Being able to understand sentiment and translate the understanding into predictions is an incredibly important part of the planning process, as we seek economic retooling and recovery.  Here, the sentiments of fear and uncertainty play a large role as do some of the elements of the purchase/sale process.   For example, no one wants an appraiser traipsing through his house and no one wants to stage her house and open it for viewing, not to mention that very few people would risk touring houses in an era of fear and social-distancing.  These trends bode ill for business-as-usual in the housing economy.

The sentiments provoked by the pandemic will change existing economic patterns and create new ones.  Understanding the metaphors and sentiments evoked by this crisis and then innovating around the processes by which they can be translated into economic activity is key.  Without a doubt, the human tragedy unfolding is the biggest story related to the Pandemic; when and if we contain the virus and reduce it to a minor irritation, fixing the economy is next-up.