This week we have an interview with Ed Messman and Kevin Cawley of Rook Capital – where traditional real estate finance meets DeFi. For more info please go to … www.rook.capital

Marketing Darwinism:  Ed /Kevin:  Tell us about Rook Capital. Where did the inspiration come from?

For Ed, the inspiration came from two personal real life use cases of having to sell homes prematurely because of lack of access to liquidity.  Then more recently watching the phenomenal rise in housing prices and thinking about the next generation of home buyers getting boxed out from home ownership.  The original idea however has been on Kevin’s mind for a few years.  How can we at once innovate on a mortgage idea without attempting to disrupt what works with mortgages, to provide liquidity to house-poor Americans, and to make real estate appreciation attainable to everyone—these are the questions we feel we’ve answered with Rook.

Marketing Darwinism:  What are the main issues in the Housing Market?

Home affordability (for everyone but particularly for the next generation that is newly entering the workforce and family stage of life).  Access to easy investing in the asset class and/or the simple ability to support a friend, family member or accommodate a unique situation with a home purchase.  Easier access to liquidity for all stakeholders if and when you need it for your largest asset – your home.  The asset class is huge- $45 trillion- but the riches don’t accrue to everyone in a fair manner.

Marketing Darwinism:  Where does innovation come in with regard to these issues?

To fix home affordability we either need to increase supply (which will take years and is multi-pronged in new builds, zoning, supply chain, etc.) or develop new creative financing mechanisms- like a Shared Value Mortgage.  Furthermore, how do we engage the broader community of people to rally around supporting this by giving them a way to help by co-investing together within a fractionalization framework that is easy to understand, trustworthy, and not onerous

Marketing Darwinism:  What is your plan for scale and market ownership?

We will leverage and partner with the existing and entrenched ecosystem of 1.5M real estate agents and 750K mortgage lenders to help them introduce a new option for homebuyers.  By working with the existing ecosystem we align incentives and achieve scale more naturally than trying to completely disrupt or taking a full DTC approach.  We believe very much in scaling through channels and partnerships.

Marketing Darwinism:  Tell us about your individual journeys and how you arrived here?

Ed: I spent the first half of my career in venture finance where I structured financial instruments for high growth tech companies.  I jumped onto the operating side in 2008 where I was involved in software, fintech and data analytics startups.  As a parent of 3 Gen Z kids, I’m watching a new generation embrace new behaviors and mindsets and also face a daunting path to homeownership — which they are redefining what that even means.  The collision of fintech, real estate price acceleration, and DeFI with the behaviors and wants of a new generation has sparked a new mission for us.

Marketing Darwinism:  Parting thoughts?

Owning a home is sacred.  It offers the space for raising a family, for fellowship, for rest and sanctuary.  The issue in front of us and our kids is daunting and will require new creative ways that embrace the new mindsets and behaviors that are already in place.  It will require resilience to innovate in the backdrop of a highly regulated environment.  It will require more than just us…but the community at large…including the brave new world of DeFi.  If there were ever a moment for DeFi to flex it’s might, it is now.

A guest post by: Pulak Sinha, CEO Pepper and Paras Shah, CEO LAMR Group

In the world of Business and Technology, two areas are drawing a great deal of attention- FinTech and Security.  It’s no surprise- they are deeply connected and causally related areas.  The connection between the two reminds us of the apocryphal story of Bank Robber Willie Sutton who when asked why he robbed banks, replied sheepishly, “Because that’s where the money is.”  So too with Fintech.

In our experiences- very different experiences that is—the issues of Security and Financial Services converge neatly and can be summed up with two core conditions:  Stewardship and Trust.  When the “product” being dealt with is peoples’ money or other core assets, the absence of trust is a death-knell; conversely, the existence of trust creates a bridge to success.  For the FinTech dealing with money, the role of stewardship is critical- they have to be dutiful stewards of both money and data related to that money.

Stewardship is of course not simply about intent.  It is also about having the systems in place- and the processes, culture, and personnel- that allow for the enactment of that stewardship.  Good intentions are wonderful, but insufficient.  Stewardship is not about a point in time, either.  It is about ongoing resiliency and an “always on” culture of proactive behaviors that ensure the proper handling of money, data, and other assets.

Financial Services as an industry has a mixed record here.  For the most part, things are good.  Most people interact with the industry on a daily basis and do so with ease.  Of course, when things are almost always good, we take them for granted.  As such, when a lapse or breach does take place, it becomes the defining characteristic, the Achilles heel of an otherwise useful and productive company.  In addition, since we are talking about money, data, and personal information, such lapses can have outsized impacts on peoples’ and companies’ lives.  It’s great to be good 99.9999% of the time.  But if that .0001 % possibility is an “extinction event,” then even that is not tolerable.

The responsibilities here are joint.  In the world of, for example, Asset Management, the AM company has to take the issue seriously and invest in the right systems and platforms to ensure that ROI doesn’t come at the cost of impossible risk or regulatory breach.  But the investors who entrust their money to the AM company also have to demand of its executives to invest in these systems, processes, and people.  The passive approach by any party is a non-starter.

Massive advances have been made in Security but just as they’ve been made, the attack vectors have multiplied exponentially.  The Security industry has done a fine job of elevating Security to a top business issue, but many companies still honor that notion only rhetorically.

We need a new paradigm.

Trust in Fintech is key.  So too is stewardship.  A flexible and powerful security stance helps get us to both.

In an earlier article, Marketing Darwinism spoke to Pulak Sinha, Founder and CEO of Pepper.  Since we spoke with Pulak, the company has done some incredible things.  We enjoy watching the evolution and growth of those we’ve covered before.  

Marketing Darwinism:  Pulak, some amazing things are going on.  Tell us a bit about developments.

Pulak Sinha:  Thanks Paul.  There are many things to say but I’ll restrict it to three.  First of all, we couldn’t be happier with our customers.  They are amazing “partners” in the business and tell us that they are realizing real value very quickly from the Pepper platform.  As they take on new workloads, they are able to do so seamlessly and get to ROI in record time.  Nothing makes us happier.  Second, we are happy to announce that as of January 2022, we have over $6 billion on the platform, which is testament to the efforts of our team and the intense partnerships I referred to above.  Finally, we are happy to be able to announce our “Pepper Inside” campaign with you.  Please look for our ads on LinkedIn and elsewhere and check out our website for our benefits statement- how Asset Management and related companies can benefit from “Pepper Inside.”

Marketing Darwinism: Superb updates. Congrats on the $6 Billion.  What’s next?

Pulak Sinha: We are focused like a laser now.  We want to get more companies on our platform but also to deepen our footprint/partnerships with existing customers.  We built a platform for a reason- not to just offer one point solution and then be done.  We are talking full life-cycle, cross-workload stuff- truly a platform.  2022 is the year of the platform and “Pepper Inside.”

Marketing Darwinism: You’ve helped coin the term “AssetTech” as a sub-area of FinTech.  Tell us more.

Pulak Sinha: Paul, the numbers are just staggering.  PwC estimates that approximately $120 trillion is managed world-wide by Asset Managers.  $120 trillion!  This area dwarves so many others that get more “respect” and focus.  We want to change that. We want to help steward a new era of technology and trust in the world of Asset Management, an area of enormous importance.  Thus, the term “AssetTech.”

Marketing Darwinism: How do you see 2022 as compared to 2021?

Pulak Sinha: 2021 was a strange year.  People went through a lot.   Death and health issues were everywhere. Commerce pulled up.  Investors focused on different things than usual.  Tumult was a constant.  Our team worked hard to stabilize, to be optimistic, and to serve customers.  We more than doubled the business in the year and are very proud of that.  But there is so much more to do- that’s 2022!

Marketing Darwinism: Tell us about “Pepper Inside”

Pulak Sinha:  We as a team conceived of this campaign after a realization:  When we are “inside” an organization –which is to say when Asset Managers run the Pepper platform, the level of stewardship – of money, data, assets- goes up and investors can rest assured that their money is going to be handled with an eye towards high ROI, risk management, and so on.  Trust.  Pepper Inside is about trust and results.  When we realized that, we knew we had to go big with this campaign. 

A guest post by Romi Mahajan
CMO Quantarium

In the financial world, a few themes have emerged of late that are worthy of note.  These themes connect strongly to both the risk and the opportunities available in the world of Finance and Fintech.  They should be of interest not only to CFOs and other people whose roles relate directly to Finance but also to anyone looking at the health and well-being of industry in general.

The emerging themes are:

1. Decentralized Finance (Defi)
2. Platformization
3. Data Management
4. Risk and Regulation

We say “emerging” not because all of these ideas are new but because the rate of change in these spaces is high-enough to warrant comment.

A sentence or two on each.

1. Defi:  With the advent of Block chain and Crypto on the one hand and increasingly enabled consumers on the other, Decentralized Finance has emerged not only as a huge market but also as the subject of a culture war between incumbent/infrastructure-like finance stalwarts and a new breed of Cloud-enabled startups.
2. Platformization:  In the world of technology, cycles are common.  We are now in the phase in which connected and interoperable applications built on flexible platforms are the order of the day.  Point solutions are being abandoned in favor of platforms and funding patterns are shifting in that direction as well.
3. Data Management:  With data growing exponentially and AI/ML emerging as mainstays in business, a new truism exists:  Those organizations that frame data as an asset and who make the requisite investments in data infrastructure emerge as winners in a competitive marketplace.
4. Risk and Regulation:  Stories abound of financial mismanagement, large-scale and structurally inherent risk, and massive failure not only because of fraud but also because “asleep at the wheel” is almost a natural state without the infrastructure to deal with data, differential and complex asset classes, and the slew of regulations that govern the world of finance.

Far-sighted organizations will understand these themes not as discrete and disconnected but as part of a holistic view of Finance and its futures.  Customers and investors alike need to think of these four factors as they acid-test vendors and any organizations that purport to offer “solutions” for the various needs and opportunities in FinServ in general.

Those whose charge is to make the right technology purchase decisions in Financial Services, need to understand these trends not simply as “flavors of the month” but, instead, as tectonic shifts in how businesses need to run in a modern economy.  Similarly, investors need to take into account elements of a firm’s technology and business model that provide for medium and long-term growth, not just “flash in the pan” results.

These two audiences need to converge on the four themes.  The Financial Services and Fintech markets are attracting billions of dollars in venture capital and account for hundreds of billions of dollars of tech-spend.

Which companies will become the resonant Finance brands of the future?  To answer that ask yourself how they connect with and engage with these four themes.

Marketing Darwinism chatted with Pepper’s CEO Pulak Sinha on progress since last time we spoke.

Marketing Darwinism:  Pulak, how has progress been since connecting six months ago?

Pulak:  I appreciate the question around progress since in fact that is the key determinant of a company’s success.  We’ve made enormous progress on a variety of fronts, most significantly around customers, product, and team.  We’ve expanded and deepened our customer connection; over $5B runs on the Pepper platform today- doubling in 6 months.  Produce-wise we’ve introduced a variety of new modules and connectors and have launched a low-code orchestrator for our customers.  And we’ve expanded our team, with two solid executives joining over the last quarter.  Miles to go still of course but real velocity in the right direction.

Marketing Darwinism: Remind us again about your “raison d’etre” and your core target market

Pulak:  We built Pepper from the ground up to offer simplicity, ease, success, and ROI to Asset Management and Portfolio Management teams.  That Asset Manager with a new fund or one that is seeking optimization of data to improve outcomes in a current fund, the portfolio manager who wants to harness data- across investment and asset classes- to drive customer value, the data-drenched Asset Manager who is looking to at once increase returns while simultaneously complying with the varied regulatory frameworks in the industries and geographies that government his/her investments—these are the people for whom we’ve built Pepper.  We believe we are the leading data platform for ROI optimization in the space.

Marketing Darwinism: As an entrepreneur, how did you land on this space and why does it continue to animate you?

Pulak:  Great question.  The numbers are striking.  Asset Managers have been given $120 trillion to manage on behalf of clients.  Such staggering numbers can overwhelm.  Of this, over $15 trillion is invested in alternatives.  Making sense of all these investments, optimizing current portfolios, and analyzing the benefits of new investments in a data-driven fashion – these are all areas we support.  I got into the space because when I was deep in the industry, I needed a “Pepper.”  Such stories to me are the essence of the journey we are on.  We’ve been successful so far but are humbled by the possibilities ahead.

Marketing Darwinism: Recent articles have emphasized the connections between great Chief Information Officers, Asset Managers, and Chief Investment Officers.  Can you comment on that?

Pulak:  Every time one of the articles comes out, it is great for us.  We’ve built an enterprise-class platform that would align all of these roles- a SaaS platform with low time to value, cloud-native and extensible apps, integrations, and ease of use—we believe that we are a crucial piece in the alignment of Asset Management ROI and technology.

Marketing Darwinism: What is your customer success strategy?

Pulak:  This relates back to our mission. Helping customers harness the power of data is never a one-off, point-in-time “task” but is instead a process.  While our platform is very easy to deploy, we make sure to connect with our customers regularly to ensure that they are prospering and getting what they need.  There’s nothing better than seeing them succeed but also getting their feedback and rolling it into the product.

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.