[00:00:00] Josh DeTar: You know, your podcast hasn't officially made it until there's ads in it, but this is one you're not going to want to skip past. And if you do, feel free to hit that fast-forward 15 seconds button twice. Ever wonder what gives me my energy and enthusiasm during these podcasts, you know, outside of my relentless desire to learn about, connect, share, and build up community FIs and their mission to support the communities they serve?
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[00:01:15] So, if you want to listen to this episode with epic levels of caffeine-induced focus and help kids in need, head to Java for kids.org to learn more and buy a bag or 10. Thanks.
[00:01:28] Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast. My guest today is Tom Shen, who sits on and invest in several FinTech boards. But Tom is also the former Founder and CEO of Malauzai, a digital banking company for community FIs. And through both his personal and professional journey in life, Tom has really developed a battle cry to build up and support the community FI model and its essential role in helping people live the American dream.
[00:01:57] Tom, thank you so much for coming and being a guest today.
[00:02:00] Tom Shen: Absolutely delighted, Josh. I'm honored and humbled to be part of your podcast here.
[00:02:07] Josh DeTar: Well, you know, it's, it's really funny. Um, you know, Tom and I met, what, this would have been maybe a month and a half, two months ago now at conference in San Diego where I just happened to bombard him and come sit down at his table at breakfast and, kind of got to talking and then got a chance to run into each other a little bit later and, and, and talk a little bit more.
[00:02:25] And I remember it was one of those within the first five minutes of talking to you, I was already making notes on my phone. I was like, "Oh, I gotta this guy in the podcast."
[00:02:34] Tom Shen: No, that's great. Similarly, here I was sitting. If you remember, I was sitting at the table with a couple of folks, and you stop by and, and I really wanted to engage you in a conversation, but the two other guests that were with me were bombarding me with questions. And so, if you remember, I
[00:02:51] waited until
[00:02:51] they left and tracked you down.
[00:02:53] And we had a great conversation after that.
[00:02:56] Josh DeTar: Yeah. No, I appreciated that. You know, and I think that's one of the things that I love so much about, you know, just being able to get back out and have conversations with people again. And that was really why we started this podcast in the first place was to really try and replicate some of these very fascinating conversations that you get an opportunity to have with people at things like conferences and events.
[00:03:14] But a lot of times those things happen in silo, right? And you and I have this really fascinating conversation, and that's, as far as it goes, nobody else gets to partake in that or provide feedback or potentially gain some new insights based on that conversation. So, you know, that's really the purpose of this podcast.
[00:03:30] And boy, I tell you just again, from five minutes of talking to you, there's a tremendous amount of insights rolling around in that brain of yours that I'm really excited to kind of hopefully extract some of today.
[00:03:41] Tom Shen: I'm glad you think there's something there. Some days I wonder myself.
[00:03:46] Josh DeTar: Well, look, I got to get the elephant out of the room first. I have to start with one of the reasons I'm really excited about this is, you know, we started this podcast now a little over a year and a half ago, and we call it the Digital Banking Podcast, and to date, I have never been able to, even though I asked, have a direct competitor on the podcast.
[00:04:06] I'm not shy from having conversations with folks because I really and truly believe in this industry. And I believe that Tyfone does not have the ability to serve every single community FI in this country with our digital banking solution. We're not right for everybody. And there's power in competition. I think competition breeds innovation, it breeds better service.
[00:04:27] So I think there's a lot of room for competition. And obviously, you know, Malauzai is a direct competitor. And so I'm really excited to be able to, just to have an opportunity to talk to you a little bit about kind of your perceptions on the market, on digital banking, where it's been, and where it needs to go.
[00:04:44] So, one of the things that we actually typically shy away from on the podcast is that, tell me your story. How did you get here? You know, what was the last position you held? I know, we really want to kind of jump into what are the things you're a subject matter expert on. But I think in this instance, a little bit of your story and journey is actually really important to the conversation that we're going to have today.
[00:05:06] So, I don't know if we want to maybe go back to like the day you were born and like what you had for your first meal, but if you want to kind of walk us through a little bit of kind of your personal and professional journey and what got you to the point of saying, "You know what?
[00:05:20] There's like 30 different digital banking providers out there. I think there needs to be 31. I'm going to start one."
[00:05:26] Tom Shen: Right, right. Well, okay. How about this? We'll start from the moment I was born. So I'll just drop a few words here. So who am I? I was, uh, born and raised in Taiwan, grew up in Taiwan in Southeast Asia, immigrant to the United States. I came here when I was 14. And yes, I did speak a little English.
[00:05:47] I was a college dropout and then became an accidental entrepreneur. And over a period of years learned servant leadership. And today I sit on boards and invest in FinTech and help grow our industry. So we'll fast forward to the point of the beginnings of Malauzai. I had helped out companies, such as Digital Insight, Q2, well-known brands in our marketplace.
[00:06:17] And at one point in 2010, I came to the belief that we will be in a digital phone world. I came to believe that that would be the single most important form factor, that while we started from branches and we migrated to using internet, banking, but the phone will be the simple center of digital interaction between consumers, small business owners, and their financial institution.
[00:06:54] And so given that, I started Malauzai in 2010, with the idea, and it was wrong, with the idea that the only thing that will matter is the phone. And in fact, when we launched the company, we had these T-shirts made up that says, "Digital banking, internet banking is dead." Well, we were a little bit wrong. And so we launched the company with only one
[00:07:21] form factor, and that was the phone.
[00:07:25] So iPhone, Android, iPad, those were the three form factors we launched with. And over a period of three, four years, our customers are coming back to us and saying, "Hey, look, we love what you do, but we still got desktop users and we need to provide them something, and we don't want a different experience."
[00:07:44] So Malauzai made a U-turn, and we build out a web form factor, which looks exactly like our phone. And so, that's sort of the origins of Malauzai, why we started the company and sort of how we build out the company over the years, as far as competition would Tyfone. Your bank fascinated me at the conference as well, because I'm sure we competed numerous times, but as someone who
[00:08:16] rather remember the losses than the wins because I learned more through my losses, I remember a very large credit union, 7, $8-billion credit union that we really wanted to win. I, then Tyfone won the business. And so I was fascinated by your technology and what you all have done, the successes that you've had.
[00:08:39] And so I followed you after losing that particular transaction. And so that's sort of where my Malauzai history and your company crossed.
[00:08:51] Josh DeTar: What's funny, you know, I think we have really similar origin stories in a lot of ways, right? Where granted, you know, Malauzai was formed to start in digital banking, and Tyfone didn't start in digital banking. You know, when we both kind of came to digital banking, I wasn't here at Tyfone when we originally got into digital banking, but it was a very similar thesis.
[00:09:11] Like the phone is the jam. Like that's where it is. That's where we're going to go. So, we started as a mobile-only company too and then had to, exactly like you said, go or, "Abort mission. Got to go back." Nope. We've got to rearchitect this
[00:09:22] Tom Shen: Yeah.
[00:09:23] Josh DeTar: whole thing. Like we got to do the whole kitten caboodle, you know?
[00:09:26] So it's just, it's, it's interesting to see similar stories in that regard. I have to ask one very important question, though, Tom. Because I think a lot of people are gonna want to know the answer to this. How did the name Malauzai come about?
[00:09:40] Tom Shen: Oh, my goodness. So again, as a Chinese American and probably so bilingual Chinese Mandarin dialect, a little bit of Cantonese and then ESL, English as a second language. And so when I started my first company, I was 25-years old and, you know, I needed gravitas. And so I named it Software Dynamics Incorporated. And you needed all that because I was 25-years old and nobody took me seriously.
[00:10:12] Right? This was a long time ago. And so, over the years, we had a successful exit from Software Dynamics and to help Digital Insight, to help Q2, help several other companies. And when it came to starting this digital company, I named it Malauzai, really because I was born the Chinese year of the monkey. And my dad used to call me a little monkey, and in the Cantonese dialect of Chinese, Malauzai means a little male monkey.
[00:10:47] And so that was the code name for the project. When I recruited Robb Gaynor and Danny Piangerelli to help me start the company, Rob ran product, and Danny built out the technology. The three of us, we codenamed it Malauzai. And that name stuck. And when we went out and raised our first round of friends and family funding, we decided to keep the name.
[00:11:14] Of course, our lead director, Joe McDoniel, would argue that why would you name a company where 80, 90% of your intended audience to community bankers can not pronounce the company name. So over the years, we've just had funny, funny rendering of all of our company name. We had a banker that, he tried hard, but he couldn't pronounce it.
[00:11:38] And he would say, "My lousy." And I'm like, "No, no. You can call it anything, but don't call my mom lousy. Okay?" And so, so we had another one who, who would try real hard and he would pronounce it, "Muluzi, Muluzi," but everybody remembered the green monkey. So, that was the important part.
[00:11:57] Josh DeTar: That's awesome. You know, I love those kinds of stories that, you know, at the end of the day, a company is made up of people, and we're all human. And there's so much more to us than just a lot of times it's on the surface, right? Or that is the corporate perception of a company. It's always really fascinating to me to hear a little bit of the backstory of the people and how it actually came about and why it came about.
[00:12:21] And, that's why I said, you know, we don't usually do this on the podcast and talking a little bit about people's journey and history and different roles that they've held. But I thought it was really important in your specific sense, because as an immigrant to America, you know, we were talking just before we started recording about how
[00:12:38] really, this has become a battle cry to you, to help build up and support community FIs, because you really believe, I mean, in your heart of hearts, that they are an essential element of the fabric that makes up everyday American's ability to quote strive for the American dream. And so, you know, I think a lot of that personal side of things is what influences so much of what you do in business, right?
[00:13:05] Tom Shen: Right, right. I feel like, first of all, being an immigrant, I appreciate this country so much. And there's a unique way of life. America gave me, Tom Shen, an opportunity that was not afford me anywhere else in the world. As a 20-year-old today, I may go somewhere else in the world. But when I was 20-years old, this was the only place that could afford me, that would afford me the opportunity to do what I've been able to do in my career.
[00:13:35] And so I feel like the American community banking system, which is unique in the world, nowhere else in the world, will you find such an open community banking system that it helped shape and foster the American way of life. And so, while there may be folks that are trying to curve or, in some ways, destroy the American community banking system, I feel like one of the things, primary objectives of my life is to help community banks and credit unions compete and win against the biggest and the largest in the world.
[00:14:17] Josh DeTar: Why do you think that that's so important, though, Tom? I mean, I guess from your perspective, what's so wrong with all these neobanks coming in or big tech pushing their way into banking? Why do you feel that community banking in the US is so and that that uniqueness plays an important role
[00:14:35] and needs to stay around?
[00:14:36] Tom Shen: Right. Well, before I answer that, I want to be clear. I'm not anti-neobank necessarily. I feel that a lot of the large money center bank, maybe in some way be harmful. But, the community banking system, I believe, lends to the small businesses in the local communities. The decisions that are local is within a community.
[00:15:03] And often, the lending process is based on having grown up with somebody are knowing somebody's a brother and gone to high school with him. Character matters in that kind of an environment. So I, I believe it allows a unique way of lending, we, unique way of doing banking locally.
[00:15:27] Josh DeTar: You know, you mentioned that you started Malauzai because you felt that the phone was going to be, right, the quintessential device for consumption of digital goods and services and the connection point to different service providers and specifically in banking obviously, but when you take your passion for the community FI model, and you take what you were just talking about, this idea that relationships really matter, what were those types of things going through your head?
[00:15:58] How did that influence your decision to start a digital banking company? And why did you feel it was necessary to bring another one to market?
[00:16:06] Tom Shen: Well, I felt like having sort of a psycho through my journey, so I'll drop some names. So my first company Software Dynamics, the company was acquired by S1 Corporation, Chip Mahan, and the folks at S1, of whom I remain very good friends with today, acquire my first company. So I cycled through S1 for a couple of years.
[00:16:31] After taking a different path, I came back into what we call the FinTech space and helped out Digital Insight through its journey to acquisition by Intuit. And then, past that, I helped Q2 in its early stages gain market share and mind share. I just felt like if you think about where customers go for their service, right, from branches, when we started out to the desktop and then to,
[00:17:03] what I believe, the future, which is the phone, there was a need to build and have a strategic differentiator in that particular form factor. I think Brett King, in his original book, BANK BANK 2.0, spoke of the journey to visit your money. Mainly the manufacturing facilities of banking are the same from one organization to other. One might argue community banks are more community-friendly or credit unions as such.
[00:17:38] But the journey to visit your money is important at differentiator. And to have that strategic differentiation of which a financial institution can have their brand front and center, I remember when I launched Malauzai, I used to go to bankers, and I would ask them, " Look! There's a device in your customer's pocket of which they paid for, and they pay for the electricity to power it and give you, get to put your brand on it and show off who you are and why you're relevant in their particular lives.
[00:18:20] Why would you not take advantage of that? That says versus buying billboards or having large signs at brick and mortar locations, right? This is at your customer's choosing, and that can set the difference." I remember an early story that I'll bore you and the audience with, Josh, when I first got started, it was a little bit of an uphill battle convincing financial institutions that this form factor was the most important thing
[00:18:50] and you need to differentiate yourself. And I remember calling on a financial institution in upstate New York area. And it was not a very successful sales call. And the CFO basically said, "Thank you. I'm not interested, maybe a few years down the road. Good enough is good enough for us right now." And so, as I was packing my equipment, I smiled and I said to the CFO lady, and I said, "There's nothing you can say that will ruin my day because I'm driving about two, two hours down from your location to New York City to have dinner with the love of my life, my daughter. She's going to school at Columbia.
[00:19:36] And so it's going to be all good. Thank you for giving me your time." She's all like, "Goodness." She says, "You know, I have two kids similar age. One is off in college here. The other fellow's off in college somewhere else." I said, "Oh, that's great. And just, as an aside, I said to her, I said, "And do they bank with your bank?"
[00:19:56] She's a, "Nah, nah. We don't have good enough mobile product. They're banking with a money center bank somewhere else." And then she caught herself, and she smiled. And she said, "You made your point." Well, I really wasn't trying to make a point. And two days later, I got a call from the CIO of the bank saying the CFO wants to know how we can get your mobile application up and
[00:20:20] running.
[00:20:21] Josh DeTar: That’s awesome.
[00:20:21] Tom Shen: Yeah. I don't want to name the individual or the financial institution, but it was wonderful. And man, I play that up for the next 18 months everywhere.
[00:20:33] Josh DeTar: That's funny. So, I guess, as somebody who then was really one of the early pioneers of recognizing that, you know, mobile was an important form factor and then building out a mobile banking company and then realizing it needed to morph into an omnichannel banking company, and then looking at supporting both credit unions, banks, retail, commercial, you know, as you kind of went through that whole life cycle and journey, and now being on the other side of it, what really changed during that time period? And specifically now that, you know, you're not having to have, when I go talk to a community FI, I don't have to convince them that mobile's important. Right?
[00:21:10] Now the question is, is your solution mobile-first? And even then, the vast majority of digital banking providers are really coming at it from a mobile-first perspective anymore. So, now that that's kind of table stakes and it's not really this huge differentiator to be putting a focus on mobile, what do you see that doing to the industry?
[00:21:28] So I guess, you know, what have you seen leading up to it, and what do you see happening now that it's so ubiquitous?
[00:21:34] Tom Shen: Right. Well, let me come at it from several different angles, Josh. I think the first angle is this. And I often talk to bankers about how to think about digital. It is this, I believe in any type of a solution for a financial institution, the leaders of the financial institution needs to decide which one of the three categories they want this product to fall into. So I often talk about strategic differentiators. I talk about the good enough, and I talk about the cheap and cheerful. And we don't need to name brands and so on and so forth. We, but we understand in any competitive landscape, there are companies that if your financial institution want to focus on being different, being better, you need to acquire the product set that allows your brand to shine.
[00:22:37] The good enough simply does everything you need to do. It's got all the table stakes, and other digital providers have that. And then the last category really are the cheap and cheerful where you're really buying on price. Right? So that's a way of thinking and to have the right customer set and the right customer mindset.
[00:22:59] Right? The worst thing is to sell your solution into somebody that's looking for cheap and cheerful when you're a vendor, a partner that strategically differentiates because you're not going to win that deal. And if you did, nobody be happy anyway. Right? Yeah. So that's one angle at looking at the space.
[00:23:22] The second one, I'll say, is that, when you look at many providers out there in the marketplace place today, and there's fantastic players out there, right? I've named the Digital Insights and the Q2. Certainly, there's the OutcomeMDs. There's the Lumens of the world that are, there are coming up. So some really fantastic organizations that are building out great solution.
[00:23:47] But if you look, for example, a Tyfone, and you're looking at your product set and function feature, and you listed out the top 1000 features, okay? And mapped it against all these other names, you've got them all. Right? You've got them all. It may be the 900th feature and the six variation you don't have.
[00:24:12] Right? But the truth of the matter is the platform, really the digital platform, it's a bit of a commodity now in the marketplace. So then what differentiates? Then what differentiates them are the shiny objects. And really when I exit Malauzai, and we had a very nice transaction that by Vista to bring Malauzai into the financial family, and Finastra has done a good job with Malauzai since then.
[00:24:45] But I saw the trend where the platform is really becoming sort of just a commodity and how fast you can deliver the shiny objects allow you to quickly differentiate. And different companies have different strategies. One might argue Q2 as a leader in this marketplace, would go out and find something they like and just acquire it and incorporate into their product.
[00:25:15] There are others that would build long-lasting partnerships because they're good at partnering with companies. So really, these various, shiny objects that either helps enhance the relevancy of the platform for the end-user or bring some type of greater efficiency. Right? So let's talk about some of the shiny objects that are starting to differentiate.
[00:25:42] The first one that I've looked at, that I'm fascinated by, and I've invested in companies to sit on board, which is sort of under this broad category of humanizing the banking experience. So if digital, if the phone is the centerpiece of that interaction and it's in your pocket, then it should be relevant and we should be able to hyper personalize
[00:26:12] that particular end-user experience is to know that end-user, is to think through what is that customer's preferred method of communications, right? And as we all know today, we use various channels, but we all use it differently. Right? The sort of very simple example I like to use is, of my favorite airlines is Delta Airlines.
[00:26:42] I use my phone for checking in and boarding and last-minute changes to my flight. I actually purchase my plane ticket through my iPad, maybe because I'm older and it's easier on my eyes. So it's easier for me to purchase on iPad versus on my iPhone. But whenever I want to work on my frequent-flyer program, I use a desktop and log into delta.com.
[00:27:11] Right? But why is it? Every time I log into delta.com, it says, "Welcome back, Tom. You're a diamond user. We love you. Where do you want to go?" The truth of matter is delta.com knows I never buy a plane ticket on my desktop. I never check in on my desktop. Why does it take me to my frequent-flyer page and say,
[00:27:34] "I know you're on here because you want to manage something through your frequent-flyer program." Now, the next time that happens of delta.com, I'm going to fall off my chair with joy, right? This is a very, very simple example of hyper-personalization. You know who I am.
[00:27:53] Josh DeTar: Yeah.
[00:27:53] Tom Shen: You know how I use the devices. Why don't you make it a little bit easier for me, rather than a find a frequent-flyer button, it and ask me a few questions from that point forward?
[00:28:05] Right? So, hyper-personalization.
[00:28:05] Josh DeTar: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a really important one. And it's simple little things in software that make it feel a lot more personal and human.
[00:28:17] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:28:18] Josh DeTar: I saved this example for talking with you because I knew it was going to come up. I'm like most Americans, and I waited until two days before taxes were due to finalize my taxes.
[00:28:28] And so, I use TurboTax, and I'm going through TurboTax, and we had our firstborn last year, you got to meet him, in San Diego. So I'm filling out our taxes, and TurboTax asks, " Did you add any family members?" I said, "Yes." They said, "Okay, what's Jack's birthday?" So, I put Jack's birthday.
[00:28:49] And then we're going through series of questions, itemizing my deductions. It got to a question, Tom. And it asked me, did Jackson pay for over 50% of his household expenses. And I'm getting ready to be like, "You, dingbats. He's 11-months old. No, he didn't." Then I looked down, and sure enough, there's a little line from TurboTax.
[00:29:20] And it said, "Don't worry. We know Jack's just a baby, and he didn't pay for any of his expenses, but the IRS still makes us ask this question."
[00:29:30] Tom Shen: Nice.
[00:29:31] Josh DeTar: And I was like, "Oh, you got it."
[00:29:34] Tom Shen: Yeah.
[00:29:35] Josh DeTar: Like something so simple as just somebody wrote a piece of code that said, "Check the birth date to the dependent. "The birth date is, and I don't know, I almost kind of want to go back and play with it and see what kind of variable answers it gives me.
[00:29:47] But I wouldn't be surprised if they programmed some sort of logic in there that says, if they're under one, say, "We know he's a baby." If he's between one and five, say, "We know he's a toddler." If he's between five and twelve, say, "Hey, we know he's a twin and probably eating too many pizza rolls, but that he's not paying for them just yet."
[00:30:06] But just going through that thought process of saying, "Hey, look, we have this data. We have this information on them," rather than asking Josh a silly question like, "Did your baby pay for over half as his expenses?" And then ask you to just put yes or no. They took the opportunity to say, "Hey, we're going to talk to him like a person."
[00:30:24] And a person would have said, "We know he's a baby, but the IRS still makes us ask this question." I thought it was a really cool example.
[00:30:31] Tom Shen: Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. One of the examples I use hyper-personalization and understanding your customer. Right? So let me pull one level up before I go into. When you think about understanding your customers, what are some of the key tenets? Right? What do we focus on? Number one is to anticipate customers' needs. Anticipate customers' needs.
[00:30:55] The second is behaviors. Understand their behavior, their preferred platform, their preferred way of communicating. And then to understand the context, the life stage, upcoming events and preferences. Right? So based on these types of basic understanding, we can extract certain information. So the fundamental example I use is, "Tom Shen goes out and buys a blue baby crib.
[00:31:31] Aha, aha. Tom must be having a little boy coming. Oh, but wait a minute. We know more than that about him. We know that he's 65-years old. Not that 65-year-olds can have a baby coming, but that's generally not the case. And if we know that Tom bought that crib and he shipped it somewhere that's not as address, then we would suspect that's a gift and maybe a family member. Maybe he's got a grandson coming."
[00:32:09] Right? So these are understandings based on understanding needs, behavior, context, and preferences.
[00:32:20] Josh DeTar: Yeah, that's a really good example, Tom, because I think this is one of those times where we get into the, "We're getting really good at it, but we're still not great at it."
[00:32:29] Tom Shen: Yeah.
[00:32:29] Josh DeTar: My dad was just telling me the exact same example the other day, Tom. And he was laughing, and he was saying because he now has two grandbabies.
[00:32:37] We had our baby, and my little brother had a daughter just a couple of months before we had Jack. And so, my dad now has two grandkids. And so he started doing the grandad thing, and he's always buying us the most random of stuff funny on Amazon. And so he was joking, and he said, now all Amazon serves up to him and adds is baby stuff.
[00:33:00] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:33:01] Right.
[00:33:02] Josh DeTar: And he’s like, "No,no,no,no. Actually, the other stuff is a bigger part of my life that you used to advertise to me for. And I would
[00:33:07] Tom Shen: Yeah.
[00:33:08] Josh DeTar: buy more of that.
[00:33:09] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:33:10] Josh DeTar: "But yes, occasionally I'm going to buy baby stuff because I'm a new granddad, but like that's not my predominant life."
[00:33:15] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:33:16] Right.
[00:33:17] Josh DeTar: And so, they got it close, but they didn't quite knock it out of the park.
[00:33:21] Tom Shen: Right. And when you think about in the context our working lives, right, Josh, we're helping community banks. Right? And banks do have that information. Right? And yet over the last, you know, we'll say five years, maybe more, the Amazons in the
[00:33:41] world know more about us. The Costcos in the world know more about us. And why shouldn't the financial institutions seize that high ground back? Because they actually have the Bible of us. They know where we live, they know our
[00:34:00] names, they know all about us, right? But they need this other piece of information. Right? And one of the most important ones, again I go back this, I harp on this all the time, is they know our digital usage pattern.
[00:34:16] They know that. Now they may not use it, but they do know that.
[00:34:21] Josh DeTar: Yep.
[00:34:22] Tom Shen: And given that knowledge, how can I serve my customers better?
[00:34:27] Josh DeTar: So true. Yeah.
[00:34:28] You know, I was going to argue with you when you said, " The Amazons, they know us better than our community FIs," but you added that little element of, "They look like they know us more," but the community FI actually knows more. It's just, they are acting on it and demonstrating that they know me even better than Amazon does. Because, yeah.
[00:34:47] I mean
[00:34:47] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:34:48] Josh DeTar: Amazon knows what I buy on Amazon.
[00:34:51] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:34:51] Josh DeTar: It may have some ties into other things and other places that I do interactions.
[00:34:55] But my
[00:34:55] union knows that I buy from Amazon. They know that I buy from Target. Well, I don't buy from Target. My wife goes bonkers at Target.
[00:35:03] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:35:04] Josh DeTar: They know a lot more about me holistically
[00:35:06] than maybe one retailer does.
[00:35:08] Tom Shen: Right. Absolutely. They have a bigger picture.
[00:35:10] Josh DeTar: Yeah, I apologize. I kind of derailed you a little bit. You were talking a little bit about some of the things that you felt were the shiny squirrels. And we went off on a tangent of the humanizing digital experience side of things. So what other things do you see as kind of, the shiny squirrels now that we've kind of commoditized the platform of digital banking?
[00:35:29] What are the shiny objects that we're all chasing, from your perspective?
[00:35:33] Tom Shen: Yeah. Yeah. And so I apologize, this is going to sound like the commercial section of the interview, simply because of the companies I invested, and sit on the boards of and I put my money where my mouth is. So, for example, when we talk about customer intelligence and hyper-personalization, I sit on a board of a company, Toronto-based company called Sensibill. And Sensibill takes a picture of a receipt and extracts the data from there to better understand not only where did you buy,
[00:36:06] but what did you buy and what categories did you buy. Right? That particular feature is in hundreds of financial institutions app today, right, apps today. So another area that I'm interested in, and I use this word several times is relevancy. And one of the companies I invested in is Larky.
[00:36:29] And so what Larky does is based on the location, the GPS location of your particular app, where is it in your pocket. It serves up relevant ads to help the consumer, to particular discounts or particular product set. Okay? Now what's interesting is one innovative credit union use this feature so that when someone
[00:36:59] has location turned on using Larky within their app when they drive up to a credit union, fizzle physical location, they actually know you're at one of their branches. And if they had an offer, they would make that offer why you're inside the branch. So when you walk in, they actually know you've arrived. Now that, it's an interesting intersection between physical and digital, or some people would call it phygital.
[00:37:30] So it's an interesting intersection, again, is to make it more relevant. Another usage might be on relevancy is, I'm standing on the corner of First and Main, and there are happens to be Main Street Fort sitting there. And if that's GPS fenced in and I'm there for more than 20 minutes, might I be looking at a car and shouldn't I serve up
[00:37:57] some lending program that would be relevant? I think that type of shiny object is important. Something else.
[00:38:08] Josh DeTar: Before you go to the next one, I think that's a really good point in the relevant side of things too, Tom. I remember the first time Apple started doing this. At first, I thought it was creepy.
[00:38:19] And then I was like, "This is awesome," but it's the suggested maps.
[00:38:24] Tom Shen: Yeah.
[00:38:25] Josh DeTar: And I get in my car, and I mean, it's pretty freaky how good it is sometimes.
[00:38:30] Like it knows pretty unequivocally that if we're getting in our car Saturday morning,
[00:38:37] Tom Shen: yeah.
[00:38:37] Josh DeTar: I mean, it's raining, then we've skipped our walk to Dutch Bros for coffee, and we're driving.
[00:38:42] Tom Shen: Yup. Yup.
[00:38:45] Josh DeTar: And it brings up Dutch Bros. And knows every Sunday morning gives me direction to church.
[00:38:46] Tom Shen: Yup. Yup.
[00:38:48] Josh DeTar: It knows what I'm doing based on, "Hey, you typically go to this place, this day, this time."
[00:38:55] It just, soon as I get in my car, Apple CarPlay pops up and says, "Hey, do you need directions to Dutch Bros?" Now, maybe what would be a little bit better is if they realized it's a mile from my house. I go there like way too much. And I know how to get there. I don't need directions to get there. Maybe like serve me up a coupon for Dutch Bros or something.
[00:39:11] I don't know, but you know, you get the point. It's, they're using that data and the GPS tracking on me to know, "Hey, these are your common patterns. So we're going to help you out with those types of things."
[00:39:22] Tom Shen: Well, we'll just piggyback on that, and to ride that for a second more, is your example of Sunday morning. I'll tell you what's really creepy. So during winter time, I have a place out in Palm Desert. So I stay out in the desert so I could play more bad golf. And then during, during the rest of the year, I live in Southern California. I live in Calabasas.
[00:39:46] And so I go to different churches on Sunday morning, depending on where I am. I'm not going to drive two and a half hours, right, to go to the church in the valley. So actually, when you get into your car Sunday morning, it would direct me to the church going to in the desert, when I'm in the desert. And direct me to the church that I'm going to in the valley when I'm in the valley. That's pretty doggone smart.
[00:40:10] Josh DeTar: Yeah.
[00:40:11] Tom Shen: It is a bit creepy, but you're right. After a while, you not only like it, it gives you sort of this little, yeah.
[00:40:19] That's kind of cool, which is actually sort of fully cycle all the way back is when we started Malauzai, the one thing that we wanted to do was to create this thing we called an emotive response, that when something happened to your application and in our case banking, you say, "Ah."
[00:40:43] This little, "Ah" moment, that good. I like it. As we used to say, "You're not going to call your bank CEO and say, 'Well, thank you, Susie, for giving us that feature,'" but it gives the bank's brand a little bit of extra shine and a little bit more relevancy.
[00:41:03] Josh DeTar: Yep. I think that we, as consumers, really are that much more excited by those types of interactions.
[00:41:12] Tom Shen: Yeah.
[00:41:13] Josh DeTar: As we move to more digital, we want those digital experiences to feel a little bit more human. And it's everything from the way it communicates to me to the way, again, it understands relevance and context and brings all of that into hyper-personalization.
[00:41:32] You see people kind of expecting that more and more as they see it in other platforms.
[00:41:38] Tom Shen: Right. So going down this trail of shiny objects, something else I'm a bit focused on for years and hopefully has started to make a difference is SMB. Part of the reason for community banking is lending, is SMB, but we've talked about servicing SMB customers better over the years. And while we made something, we really have a made a great deal of difference.
[00:42:13] And what's the biggest problem for SMB? The biggest problem is getting paid, right? We talk about cash flow. Well, if our customers paid us in 3 hours versus 30 days, we would have less of a cash flow problem for small business users. And so, that's another area that I'm focused on and looking at. How can we have a form of payment, say request to pay where we can take a picture of a QR code and pay it from a bank account again, simplifying bookkeeping and getting paid faster?
[00:42:54] Right? So another area of my focus is SMB. We talk a lot about the consumers, but here's a little bit about SMB.
[00:43:02] Josh DeTar: Yeah, I think SMB, two points on that. One is, SMB is changing too. Right? And you look at the number of gig workers. I mean, this was up exponentially even pre-pandemic, but during and post-pandemic, it's through the roof. I mean, the number of sole props that have theoretically started is astronomical.
[00:43:25] Everything from Lyft drivers to Grubhub delivers, you name it, Airbnb hosts. There's all these new ways for people to quote, start a business of one.
[00:43:38] Tom Shen: Yes.
[00:43:39] Josh DeTar: So there's a huge market that needs to be serviced there. And especially if you think about, how he's kind of trying to preface this, I say it with all due love and respect, but my fellow Americans, we're not the smartest with our money.
[00:43:54] And a lot of it just comes down to education. Right? And so, I mean, I'm a perfect case in point. Like I would struggle to know where to start. If I wanted to start a business tomorrow of how I would want to manage my cash flow, manage my accounts, all of these different elements from a banking perspective.
[00:44:11] Right? So how awesome would it be if I had a community FI that brought their sense of community and relationship-building to help me build up the financial strength and stability of my business from the start.
[00:44:26] Tom Shen: Well, we can even cycle that back a little bit. Right, Josh? Let's ask this question. How many small businesses are actually hiding on the retail platform?
[00:44:39] Josh DeTar: Yeah.
[00:44:40] Tom Shen: Okay? When I was running Malauzai, we had an engine that was called REBA Analytics, and we would track not only usage, but how a particular app was used, whether they went through a menu to get to screen, or they swipe left or right.
[00:44:58] And so on and so forth. Now we didn't know what was going to do with the data, but over time we figured out how to use the data. But one of the things that was interesting was we focused for a quarter on mobile check deposit and look at, looking at mobile check deposit transactions. And we found one particular financial institution. That was an ethnic bank that had very, very high number of mobile check deposit, like four times for, other financial institutions had.
[00:45:29] And we thought, "Golly, the numbers gotta be wrong." This dissects these numbers. And we went through the numbers and we found out. All was happening was, there was a lot of ethnic small business owners that was sitting on the retail platform. And every now and again, they got a check. At the end of the day, they take a picture of your check and deposit the money.
[00:45:49] Okay? How is it that we could uncover these small business users hiding on the retail platform and offer them more services so we can serve them better? So that now many of them don't grow, but when they do grow, that they stay with our financial institution and not move over to some other financial institution because somehow we didn't serve them
[00:46:15] right. It's not we didn't serve them right. You're hiding on a retail platform. We couldn't have serve you right. But what's our fault? Our fault is we did discover you. Right? Those are some of the areas that some of the companies I'm working on are trying to uncover to help community banks. This is certainly an area where FinTechs are starting up and taking business away from commu, community financial institutions as well.
[00:46:42] Right? So how can we offer a better solution so that community financial institutions can compete and win against FinTechs in that space?
[00:46:52] Josh DeTar: Yeah, it's an interesting challenge, right? I mean, we see it in all industry, not just our own.
[00:46:57] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:46:58] Josh DeTar: That sometimes you get the legacy provider or company, and you get lots of flavors of that. Then a lot of times your disruptors just focus on a very specific niche, and they do the one thing, and they do it really, really well.
[00:47:15] And they get a lot of market share because of it. And the question
[00:47:18] is
[00:47:19] do you also become really good at doing those niche things, or do they become really good at doing the things you do? Or do you just simply happily co-exist doing your own things? I think some of it is, you know, the feature, future will tell, but I think some of it too, we can see some of that writing on the wall, kind of along the same lines of things that just get you fired up. I'm quite frankly shocked, flabbergasted, upset, not okay with how okay
[00:47:47] community FIs are. That rocket mortgage is just crushing it. I talked to so many FIs, Tom. They're like, "Oh yeah. You know, I mean, they, yeah, they do a good job getting it, but, you know, we ended up buying the business anyway, and," or, you know, "Our members aren't, they aren't doing that, that..." Do you know how many people applied for a mortgage through rocket mortgage last year? Man, I wish I had, I looked up the stat recently.
[00:48:12] I can't remember. So I don't want to quote it incorrectly, but it's a crazy number.
[00:48:16] Tom Shen: Right. It's about the speed, right? The velocity of decisioning, right? And many community financial institutions simply are not built to respond in that kind, at that kind of velocity.
[00:48:33] Josh DeTar: Well, and this is where it comes back to what you were kind of talking about. And again, some of the reasons why you started Malauzai was community FIs. They really need good technology partners to help them do this, to compete effectively.
[00:48:45] Tom Shen: Yes. Yes. It's the ability to partner with FinTechs, right? I recently joined the board of a bank, and I really just always wanted to see how it works from the other side. I've always sold to community banks and credit unions. And so what am I sort of desires of this stage of my life is to be on the other side and see how a financial institutions make decisions.
[00:49:12] And fortunately for me, Axiom Bank in Florida asked me to join their board to help chair their FinTech investment community. And I have spoken to hundreds of bankers over the years, over the last few years, on how best to partner with FinTechs. The challenge with a lot of community banks wanting to partner with FinTechs is, again, I go back to that issue of velocity.
[00:49:41] They can't move as fast as the FinTechs move. And so you've got these two trains are moving at different speed trying to collaborate. And so how best, and there's a number of keys secrets in working for community banks, work with FinTechs and to leverage the power of FinTechs.
[00:50:03] Josh DeTar: I'm going to ask you a little bit of a loaded question. So bear with me here, Tom. But I'm going to give you the question, but then I want to preface it with one element that I want you to kind of keep in mind as you answer. So, you know, what do you see as the future for digital banking and for the role that it plays for community FIs and maybe with the context of you exited Malauzai? And Malauzai was acquired by Finastra.
[00:50:29] So why did you see that that was the correct course of action and what needed to happen so that Malauzai could remain competitive and could really deliver on the things that FIs needed in the future?
[00:50:44] Tom Shen: Yeah. So felt, in 2018, when we enacted a transaction with Vista and a Finastra that as I shared earlier in this podcast, that the platform itself is starting to get commoditized. What I felt like Malauzai built a very advanced platform with lots of, lots of differentiators that will allow a financial institution to strategically differentiate.
[00:51:18] It was starting to become obvious to me that while we innovated a fast as we could, we still could not out-innovate the shiny objects. And therefore, we need to partner with companies that are building out the shiny objects. As I said, like the Larkys of the world, even the same payments where we leverage Ally payment for picture pay. And now other forms of payments request to pay other types of payments.
[00:51:50] So we need to partner. So you need a larger and larger ecosystem and they became harder and harder to manage. Some of the companies acquire some partner and so, so forth. And we felt like Finastra being a global FinTech with a lot of interesting assets, payments assets, lending assets within the company would turbocharge Malauzai and digital in terms of the shiny objects.
[00:52:22] And that's the reason for the timing of our exit. And as we look at the marketplace now, three, three and a half years later, right, indeed, that has happened. Right? We saw recently the alchemy transaction of segment, right? On the surface, you say, "Well, that's kind of interesting. Segment takes core data warehouse and have better understanding of the customer intelligence.
[00:52:51] And here's a digital provider of digital inter interaction." Well, but if you peel away at it, you say, "Well, that's kind of interesting because now they have the core data on the customer warehouse, and you make that up to the digital interaction behavior." Now that creates an interesting intersection of how to better serve a customer, right?
[00:53:17] So these are the kinds of transaction we've seen in the marketplace. And I feel like, I guess I would say that, I feel like that validated my decision as when was the right time to exit Malauzai so that it could scale and grow correctly in the marketplace and serve our customers better.
[00:53:41] Josh DeTar: When you made a comment that resonates really well with me very early in the episode where we were talking about, if you just do a feature matrix and you look at every digital banking provider, you know, sure, there'll be a few outliers,
[00:53:56] but the vast majority of us, I mean, got it, got it, got it, got it.
[00:54:01] Cross board. Got it, got it, got it. Cross board, which I always find is interesting when we get different RFPs that ask all these same questions for these checkmark the boxes. And my favorite one is, "Does your platform offer internal transfers from your own account to your own account?"
[00:54:17] I'm like, "Good grief. I can't. Like holy cow, we'd be not in business."
[00:54:20] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:54:21] Right.
[00:54:22] Josh DeTar: You know, like you said, I mean the vast majority of us, we're going to checkmark 99% of the same features. And it's just, we each have a little bit different shiny objects, and that may seem as a differentiator for that specific FI. Right?
[00:54:38] Maybe because we've had a couple of customers that have expressed interest in XYZ shiny object, we went and built that thing. And you resonate with that group of people, and you say, "I want that shiny object too. You have it, your competitor doesn't. Therefore, I'm going to go with you." So you're going to get some of that.
[00:54:55] But I think you've kind of alluded to one of the other bigger differentiators. It's not just the software or the product, but it's really the people.
[00:55:03] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:55:04] Josh DeTar: So what does that mean to you as somebody who started a software company? Like how are people the differentiator, and how do you guys leverage that?
[00:55:12] Tom Shen: Yeah, yeah. That's something that's a close and dear to my heart, Josh, which is leadership. Leadership is an area that I focus on sort of, maybe mid-career where really from my seat, I was able to see that organizations with the right style of leadership tend to serve their customers better,
[00:55:39] tend to retain their own people for longer period of time. And so I developed a way of thinking within an organization and a way of working that I called GOT WOW, great operating team way of working. And that's really modeled after a style of leadership called servant leadership. And at his roots is that leaders are servants, and they're servants foremost.
[00:56:12] They serve their customers. They serve their own people, their teammates so that they could better service the customer. So that the language that I use is we want delighted customers. We want thriving teammates, which ends in satisfied shareholders. Just three legs of a stool. So, leadership is important to me.
[00:56:39] It's sort of the way we interact, the way we build a culture within the company and GOT WOW has these five anchors that I often talk about. Integrity and discipline. Often we talk about integrity. I think every company's got those words somewhere, integrity. But integrity without discipline is hard to actuate. Right?
[00:57:06] Passion for customer service, wider circle of teamwork and power to lead, and presumption of good intent. So those are the five tenets of GOT WOW. And so I believe leaders make a difference. Leaders recruit people, leaders retain people. You build a culture. I'm proud to say if the companies that I've built over the years have retained as culture Malauzai today lives on. In fact,
[00:57:37] I'm proud of the fact that Finastra retained a brand of Malauzai. Over the years, Finastra was made up of many different companies, and all the brand names have gone away. But Malauzai the brand stayed because when Vista did the acquisition, they survey the marketplace, and they found a particular shine to the brand of innovation, of integrity in the marketplace.
[00:58:02] And they kept the brand. And so I believe that
[00:58:06] starts with the people, and it ends with the people. And so, leadership is something that's near and dear to my heart.
[00:58:13] Josh DeTar: I love that, Tom. I think it's a great way to kind of sum all of this up, right? It starts with the people, and it ends with the people. We've talked a lot about just how important elements of digital banking as it evolves over the years and should be focused around personalization and relevance and all of this.
[00:58:32] And, and at the end of the day, the software only does that if the people program it to do that. Happy passionate people program happy passionate software.
[00:58:43] Tom Shen: Absolutely.
[00:58:44] Josh DeTar: Give one other example that I think was a really cool. I need to validate this, so I really hope it's true. Because it was a great example,
[00:58:52] I felt, of when culture and people have an impact on how software is built. And I saw, I wanna say it was a Reddit thread about somebody went to use Lyft, the card sharing service or ride share service to get a ride somewhere. When they matched up with their Lyft driver, Lyft popped up of notification that said, "Just FYI, your Lyft driver is deaf."
[00:59:21] And here are a handful of signs in ASL on how to communicate with your driver. And these are key things that your driver will be helpful for them. And so the person practiced a couple of the signs while waiting for their Lyft to show up, got in their Lyft, was able to do a few of these signs, and was able to somewhat communicate back and forth with their driver.
[00:59:46] And it made both of their days.
[00:59:50] Tom Shen: Right.
[00:59:51] Josh DeTar: Like how cool is that, that software facilitated that interaction of just human bonding? It's such a core and elemental level. And it was because, it wasn't because Lyft's software was, I don't know, it wasn't some, at least in my own perception of this, it wasn't some cold revenue-generating opportunity.
[01:00:13] It wasn't, it was because somebody somewhere that organization said, "Hey, you know what? We've got some folks that could benefit from this as a feature."
[01:00:24] Tom Shen: Right. Yeah. Yup.
[01:00:27] Josh DeTar: And that took people. And it started with people, and it finished with people.
[01:00:29] Tom Shen: Right. And you know, when we talk about humanizing the experience, right, it's just that. Right? I remember in my years of Malauzai, and as you know, we were an Austin-based company, and we hired a lot of young folks and so on and so forth, new to the workforce. And one of the things he talk about leadership, I felt was my responsibility,
[01:00:52] is to help our people understand the real impact of what we're doing. And the example I often give is mobile check deposit. Think about the hours you've saved your customer to be able to take a picture of a check and deposit, whether a dad that could take a picture of a check while sitting at a soccer field so that he can watch his daughter play soccer.
[01:01:25] Think about the time you save. If you add that up, then you realize what you're doing is really important. And don't forget when you mess up, when we mess up and that dad can't do that, or that mom can't do that, or that college student can't do that, what harm we caused them? The inconvenience. So, not only does that speak to the humanizing of the feature, but to understand the impact when something goes wrong. Because something will go wrong, somewhere, something will go wrong.
[01:02:02] Right? And how do we recover from that? Right? So, absolutely a humanizing experience. I love your Lyft story.
[01:02:12] Josh DeTar: Looking back on it now, Tom,
[01:02:15] Tom Shen: Hmm.
[01:02:15] Josh DeTar: is there anything that you would have done differently?
[01:02:18] Tom Shen: Through the Malauzai years to my career, specifically?
[01:02:21] Josh DeTar: Yeah. For digital banking and specific.
[01:02:24] Tom Shen: Yeah, I tell you, Josh. I think of it this way. I live my life this way. I'm just the luckiest man alive. Right? I get to build companies. I get to recruit a work with some of the best people in our industry. I get to interact with folks that are my partners, as well as my competitors. I love my competitors.
[01:02:50] So when I look back, no, I don't have any regrets or think, "Gosh, if I had twisted here or turn there or got a better investor or something like that, I feel like, I've just had a great run at these various companies." And, today, I get to sit on boards and help mentor leaders, mostly younger people than me.
[01:03:14] All of them are younger me, actually, most people are younger than me, and work with 30-year-olds that are building up their company, scaling with a great idea, and I get to live vicariously through them and watch their success and cheer them on. My life model today is building into the lives of others
[01:03:35] and see others succeed. I've worked with people. Golly, I'll name one, and he'll probably hate me for saying this, but when Chip Mahan bought my company the S1, and had an opportunity to work two years at S1, I worked with a young man by the name of Matt Flake. And he was carrying a bag selling in a Western region, United States.
[01:03:53] And today, you know, he's a very, very successful CEO of a $7 billion public company in Q2 and, just watch his successful from afar, I've been afforded the honor of working with wonderful people and wonderful customers over the years that many of men, many of them today are personal friends.
[01:04:13] I travel across the United States and pop in somewhere for a cup of coffee or lunch or dinner with someone that, you know, I sold some software to 20 years ago, and talk about life, talk about family, talk about where they are, their grandkids, and now it's an unbelievable journey.
[01:04:31] Josh DeTar: Another maybe little bit of a loaded question that I probably could have prepped you for and maybe would have helped. But what about kind of rounding us out with a pessimistic view of the future for digital banking and even more importantly, an optimistic view of the future of digital banking?
[01:04:51] Tom Shen: Well, the one area focus, and not necessarily digital
[01:04:58] banking, an area of fear, is that somehow we, as a society, we as a system do not protect community banking, that we do not give community banks, community credit unions the tool to compete and win in the marketplace. And should we be so unfortunate as to destroy the marketplace, then I believe,
[01:05:32] we'll end up like Canada or Great Britain, where you've got a system. Australia was system of five, six large banks and a few small ones. I believe that is detrimental to our industry as a whole, is detrimental to our consumers, to our end customers and detrimental to SMB users. I think that's an area of caution, I would say. I'm not necessarily pessimistic, but to be cautious, if you count the number of financial institutions, when
[01:06:07] I started in this business a long, long time ago, to where it is, when I started Malauzai in 2010 to where we are here, there I say post-pandemic, the community financial number have shrunk over the years, right? I believe it's an area we should protect, promote, grow, so we can compete and win for the industry as a whole for people, for Americans as a whole.
[01:06:35] So I think that's the one area that I'm not pessimistic but just to be concerned about.
[01:06:42] Josh DeTar: Yeah. And then what about on the flip side, where do you think digital banking has the ability to really have a significant impact for the positive?
[01:06:51] Tom Shen: Yeah, I think we talked about this, which is but hyper-personalization for good. There I say, which is not to use that hyper-personalization for more commerce, but for good. And for financial wellness. That we, as a society, we, as an industry need to focus on building out these function features so that the end-user could consume more of it
[01:07:28] for the benefit for their own financial wellness. And I think that should be a focus, not necessarily regulated, legislated, but we, as an industry through groups, like where we had our conference of AFT Association for Financial Technology. Organizations like that continue to focus, and promote that. So I'll put it in the category of hyper-personalization for good, for financial wellness.
[01:08:01] Josh DeTar: Thanks, Tom. Well, before I let you go, I have two final questions for you. So first, where do you go to get information, to stay up to date on what's happening in our industry?
[01:08:12] Tom Shen: Well, there's the usual suspects, right? American Banker, Credit Union Times, GonzoBanker. These are places we all go read. Well, for me, sort of two areas that I go for thought leadership is, I know it sounds really crazy, but the first thing is, go talk to your customers. Go talk to bankers and credit union executives.
[01:08:41] They'll tell you what are their pain points. They'll tell you what they really need. And I think on our side of the table is that we need to listen. We need to listen. And so I spent a tremendous amount of time on my career, and I've found, just over a cup of coffee, over a sandwich, a lunch lunchtime and say, "What keeps you up at night?
[01:09:08] What do you need? How can I help?" Right? Is to learn from our customers. The second is, and this is based on Thomas Friedman's, The World Is Flat. The digital world is truly flat, and therefore, we need to learn cross industry, learn from other industry, see what other people are doing. Right? I read a lot of McKinsey.
[01:09:33] I read a lot of HBR. It is a little backward-looking, but it's great to understand how are other industries transforming and winning. Therefore take those learnings and apply to banking and to digital banking specifically. Those are sort of two areas, and they're really talking and looking outside our industry.
[01:10:03] Josh DeTar: Yeah, I appreciate the both inside and outside perspective, right? Last but not least. If people want to continue this conversation with you, they want to connect with you, they want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
[01:10:16] Tom Shen: Yeah, the easiest place is LinkedIn, right? So I'm on LinkedIn. You
[01:10:21] can email me @tom, @tomshen.net as well. That's easy to get ahold of me there too. So either places are fine.
[01:10:30] Josh DeTar: Awesome. Thanks, Tom. Well, I really appreciate you coming and being a guest today and sharing a little bit of your journey and just what you had seen being a part of this industry. And now kind of even looking from a different lens through some of the roles that you play today. So again, just thank you so much for sharing all of that incredible insight rolling around in your head.
[01:10:51] Tom Shen: Well, I'll tell you, Josh. It has just been so fun. And as you said, before we started, "Let's just have a conversation like we're sitting outside on the lawn in LA." And that's exactly what we did. So most success to you, keep winning in the marketplace, and keep serving our community financial institution customers
[01:11:11] well. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[01:11:14] Josh DeTar: Of course. No, thank you. And I love that as the ending. Just keep serving our community and keep serving our community FIs.
[01:11:21] Tom Shen: Yup.
[01:11:23] Josh DeTar: Well, thanks for being a guest on the Digital Banking Podcast. Tom, you have a great rest of your day.
[01:11:27] Tom Shen: Okay. Thanks so much.