angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

From Solopreneurs to Small Firms: Why Cybersecurity Matters More Than Ever

September 2, 2025 by angishields

Veteran Business Radio

From Solopreneurs to Small Firms: Why Cybersecurity Matters More Than Ever

00:00 /

In this episode of Veteran Business Radio, Lee Kantor talks with Todd Mitchell, owner of Cybersecurity4biz. Todd shares his journey from military service to providing affordable cybersecurity solutions for small businesses and solopreneurs. He discusses the unique risks these businesses face, the importance of prevention, and practical steps like multi-factor authentication and regular backups. Todd highlights his focus on compliance-driven industries and emphasizes that no business is too small for robust cybersecurity.

Todd Mitchell, owner of Cybersecurity4biz LLC (a Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business), is a retired US Navy veteran and cybersecurity expert with over 30 years of experience.

A member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework (NIST CSF) advisory board, he holds advanced degrees in Cyber Security Policy, IT, and Business.

Todd helps solopreneurs and micro-businesses achieve compliance and protect their customers’ information.

He also empowers families to stay safe from online threats through prevention-focused strategies that build a cyber-safe culture.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Veterans Business Radio, brought to you by ATL Vets, providing the tools and support that help veteran owned businesses thrive. For more information, go to ATLVets.org. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Veterans Business Radio and this is gonna be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, ATL Vets, inspiring veterans to build their foundation of success and empowering them to become the backbone of society after the uniform. For more information, go to ATLvets.org. Today on the show we have Todd Mitchell, owner of Cybersecurity4biz LLC. Welcome.

Todd Mitchell: Well, thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Before we get too far into things, tell us about Cybersecurity4biz LLC. Who are you serving? How are you doing?

Todd Mitchell: Well, I, uh, I focus on cyber security for smaller businesses. Uh, I’m in that 0 to 10 employee space. So solopreneurs and small firms. And I found a niche. Back when I first got started, I realized that there was a huge gap in. Most cybersecurity companies won’t work with you unless you’re a major company with, like, 250 or 1000 or 10,000 employees. And it was really important to me to, uh, I guess my military background, you always have to have a mission. So that’s how I found my mission in life was to be the the little guy helping the little guy, so to speak.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved with cyber security?

Todd Mitchell: Well, it’s kind of a long time coming, and I actually avoided it for many years. It’s kind of a funny story. So I’ve been a computer geek since high school. Not to give away too much about how old I am, but back in the late 70s, early 80s, Dungeons and Dragons came out and I was a huge fan of playing that game. And then they come up with a video game. Of course, back then video games were black screen with green writing. You know, the textual saying, you’re going through the woods and you see a monster, you know, a run, B scream, C hide, you know, fight whatever. And I wanted this video game really bad. Of course, you have to have a computer to play it on. And at that time, computers cost more than cars. So my dad’s like, yeah, no way. We’re buying an IBM computer just so he can play a video game. And I made a deal with everybody for Christmas presents instead of everybody giving me presents. They gave me money. And I went to RadioShack and bought a box full of parts. Came home and built my own computer. Um, and that kind of launched my computer geek ness. I had to learn how to program the thing because this was pre windows, and once What I did 20 years in the military and retired. And after that I was kind of looking for a second career. And computers was still something that I was very interested in. I’d been the local IT guy, fixing everything for everybody for years, and I got into cybersecurity and it just kind of went on from there.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you were in cybersecurity, you mentioned kind of the distinction where most from a business standpoint, most people look at cybersecurity for kind of the enterprise level organizations, the the ones with hundreds if not thousands of employees. But you felt it was important to serve kind of the the entrepreneur, the solopreneur, the small firms who probably think that cybersecurity is just installing, you know, some antivirus?

Todd Mitchell: Yes, definitely. Um, and that transition, what kind of really woke me up was I was actually working for the Marine Corps. Uh, I was the lead engineer in charge of software development for, uh, command and control the battlefield. All the software that helps with that. And cybersecurity was a huge piece of that, obviously, because, you know, the information secret where they’re at secret, all the stuff going on in secret. Uh, and then what happened was my best friend, who was a disc jockey, um, that I had known him since grade school, and he got hacked with a ransomware attack and lost all of his music. And he called me up in a panic, and he’s like, hey, you know, you got to find somebody to help me. So we started looking for cybersecurity companies that could help them. And that’s when I realized that all this, you know, if you Google cybersecurity companies, the first, you know, 7 or 8 pages of a Google search is nothing. All those companies are looking for fortune 500 companies. They’re all enterprise level and large business. And, uh, so we couldn’t find anybody. We finally found one that said Small business. And I called them and they’re like, oh, yeah, we love small business. You got to have at least 250 employees, 10 million in revenue. It’s like, oh my gosh, that’s not a small business. So I ended up helping my best friend, uh, in my spare time. Of course, I wasn’t getting paid. And, you know, it was all nights and weekends labor. And he kept poking at me, trying to get me to open my own business.

Todd Mitchell: And I was telling him that there wasn’t a big enough need. And then he started bringing people to me, one after the other. And after about 5 or 6 of them, I’m like, okay, maybe there is a thing here. So I dove head first, quit the corporate world, jumped in head first into, uh, owning my own business. And and so it’s been my my mission right from the beginning to, uh, help those solopreneurs that have no other resources available to them. And I do a lot with, uh, compliance. Um, and and, like you said, you know, a lot of, a lot of, uh, people think that, you know, having an antivirus is is all you really need. But, uh, 92% of data breaches are caused by human error. Uh, the days of, you know, like Hollywood likes to present, you know, where somebody in a black hoodie in her mom’s basement, clacking away on a keyboard for 12 hours to hack into you. That just rarely happens anymore. Uh, most most of the time, it’s our own, uh, bad habits. Sharing passwords, weak passwords, uh, not using multifactor authentication because it’s too inconvenient to have to look up that tax code every time you get into a website. Things like that are our worst enemies. So when I’m working with a company, I basically take a look at how they receive information, where do they store it, and take a deep dive into the business itself and see how we can effectively create a culture of cyber safe environment.

Lee Kantor: Now, you’ve been able to do this in a way that’s affordable for small business, because that’s usually the rub, right? That the reason the enterprise people are the ones that are so well served in this area is because they can afford it.

Todd Mitchell: Right? Definitely. And I think I have, um, based on, My client input. When I first started this, I was doing the typical consulting thing where you charge, you know, for however many hours of work you think it’s going to be and, you know, half up front, half when you’re done type of thing. And, you know, it comes out to be, you know, thousands of dollars worth of work and, and a lot of people couldn’t afford that. And one time it was actually kind of funny. I was watching TV and saw some ads for some iPhones around Christmas time about 2 or 3 years ago. And I’m in my head thinking, how can all these people, you know, all these broke people running around with $3,000 iPhones? I’m like, and then it hit me. I’m like, they take the price of the phone and spread it out over a contract. And I’m like, well, I can do that. So I kind of switched my my whole pricing model to a 24 month contract, which lets me divide out that cost over a 24 month payment plan and make it quite affordable. So now I’m more like another utility bill instead of a lifetime investment.

Lee Kantor: But it’s something that it doesn’t go away after 24 months, right? Like, isn’t this something that you need forever?

Todd Mitchell: Yeah. True. And the way I usually do it is that first 24 months we’re building a culture. And then a lot of that part once, once you have that culture in place, um, that’s a lot of the big work. And also as a follow on after after that 24 months, um, I usually drop the cost way down because now it’s kind of more in maintenance mode, and it’s just doing a monthly check in and making sure everything is still in place, and that reduces the cost way down.

Lee Kantor: So what has been the hardest part of serving this niche? Is it just an education standpoint or they think they’re too small? It’s not the they’ll never be hacked.

Todd Mitchell: Um, I think one of the hardest obstacles I have is not necessarily, um, it’s more of just letting people know that there is an option for them out there. They get disgruntled, you know, all the big cybersecurity companies that you would recognize the names of, you know, IBM, Cisco, Trend Micro, Bitdefender, you know, all these big companies. They are unaffordable and or won’t even work with somebody that small if you don’t have a thousand employees or something. And so I think my biggest obstacle is just letting people understand that, hey, there is other options. There’s people like me out there that will work with you, and it won’t charge you enterprise level rates and only give you what you really need because it is a it’s the same cybersecurity, but it’s slightly different. If you have a big company and you have an IT closet and you have servers and you have switches and routers and firewalls, you know, all these things, you need different software to run that kind of stuff. When you’re working on your dining room table with a laptop in your home router, you don’t need any of that. But you do still have security risks because you got your kid the next bedroom over. Playing on a PlayStation that hasn’t had a security patch since he bought it. You’ve got your ring doorbells and your refrigerators and everything else hooked up to your network that’s on the same network as your work computer, and none of that stuff has any security in it at all. So if somebody hacks through there, you know, so it’s it’s just different. It’s it’s um, and that’s a lot of what I educate people on is what, what they can do, uh, free, cheap and easy. Uh, it takes a little elbow grease and be able to make themselves a lot safer just by changing some of the the way they do some things.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for the folks who are the small guys out there that are using maybe their phone as their main kind of device? They may not even be using a laptop or a desktop that everything’s happening through their phone or through cloud services.

Todd Mitchell: And, and with those types of, uh, individuals is still almost basically the same story. You know, uh, if everything you do is stored in a cloud, um, I would say, first of all, you still need to back up some of that because what happens if they go away, you know, and people tell me, well, you know, Google’s too big to fail. Well, they thought that about Kmart and Sears for decades, too. And where are they at? Um, so I would always keep a local copy, um, whether it’s on your phone or it’s on an external hard drive. And the other thing about those devices is it’s it’s slightly different, but you can still get security software like antivirus or anti ransomware things. Um, you still have to do the same types of protocols of making sure your data is encrypted so that if your phone gets left behind somewhere and somebody picks it up, they can’t, you know, make sure there’s a good, strong password to get into it. Make sure that everything on it’s encrypted so they can’t just pull all the files off of there. Uh, so there’s still those same types of things still apply.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those things, like you said, that if you do some of these fundamentals right, then that’s that’s the bulk of it. Now it becomes maintenance.

Todd Mitchell: Right. And I mean, it’s kind of a funny analogy, but it’s also very applicable, I think. Uh, you know, this is like the bear, you know? You don’t have to run faster than the bear. Just run faster than the guy next to you. If you do all the the basic cybersecurity, uh, um, best practices, and you’re going to be harder to get into and they’re going to give up and go find somebody else that’s not doing that stuff.

Lee Kantor: So that that’s how this is working, right? Like, like you mentioned, it’s not that kid in the basement anymore, but maybe it’s a nation state or it’s organizations that are doing this like their job, like they’re walking into rooms and they’re have whiteboards and they’re kind of, uh, engineering some strategies to get into computers.

Todd Mitchell: And a lot of it’s automated. I mean, it’s just like a business owner, right? When, when, uh, you know, I’m not a marketing expert, but I know some of the basics. When you when you’re marketing, you do email campaigns, any email address you can get a hold of, and you send them an email. And if they click on it and open it and they’re interested, you know, type of thing, then you follow up with better emails and things. The bad guys are doing the same thing. That’s what phishing is. I don’t need to target you specifically. I can send out some Viagra ad or whatever the heck it is and blast 10 million people with it. And if half of them click on that thing and I can download ransomware onto their computers, then it’s a win. And I didn’t have to target any specific individual.

Lee Kantor: Right. So they’re doing it kind of at scale. And they just hoping for that kind of lucky break that goes their way or the person that’s not prepared.

Todd Mitchell: Yeah. Because you never know when somebody’s clicking on a phishing attack and they get malware downloaded onto the computer that’s going to search their inbox. You don’t know if it’s a grandma that doesn’t do anything but check, you know, check your email once a month and look at pictures of the grandkids. Or if it’s the secretary at IBM with 10 million, you know, 10 million customers in their database. You know, and sometimes they get lucky. And that’s all it takes is one, one, uh, one bad. Uh, decision or, you know, one. Um, I don’t want to say bad decision. I guess that’s probably a bad way of saying it, but, you know, one wrong move by an employee, uh, and your whole company is at, uh, vulnerable.

Lee Kantor: So what? Uh, let’s give some advice to folks listening. Is there some low hanging fruit a person could do right now? Or in a few clicks that can, you know, protect them a bit?

Todd Mitchell: Yeah, definitely. Um, I’ll go on my soapbox for a second. Multifactor authentication. That is the single biggest thing that can help you, in my opinion. Um, I look at it this way. If for some reason just hypothetical your username and password for your bank account gets out there and it’s published and everybody knows it now, right? There’s 3 billion people on this planet with internet access that can hack into your bank account. If you use multifactor authentication, they got to send you a text code. Now you have like 5 or 6 people that can get access to you and your phone at the same time. So you literally just took your attack surface from 3 billion down to a handful. It is the single most effective thing I know. It’s a pain to have to punch in that six digit code or five digit code every time you get into a website or whatever. But, uh, your bank is going to force you to use it because of their laws. But all your social media, all your utility bills, your work accounts, your email accounts, all that offers multifactor authentication. And I encourage everybody, whether they’re business owners or, you know, forcing the people in their families, whatever. But everybody should be using multi-factor authentication on every possible account, because it really it’s like a deadbolt lock. It’s already on your front door. Why aren’t you using it now?

Lee Kantor: How do you recommend the business people who are kind of relying on remote workers to be maybe their virtual assistant or they’re, you know, they’re helping them in some manner and it’s just, you know, that you want to give everybody the access they need to get to what they need to get to, to do the work to help you grow your business. But you don’t want to be put yourself at risk.

Todd Mitchell: So in those types of cases, uh, I, I would say in most cases it’s possible sometimes it may be a little bit more difficult to arrange, but try to set them up on an admin account, um, where they have their own access. So they have their own username and password they’re using, like for an example like Facebook. You can do that, right? You have your own Facebook page, but you can assign admin to somebody else and let them go in and post for you. And that way if something happens, they’re not they don’t actually know your own password. And if something happens to that relationship and you want to cut them off, you can just go in there and uncheck the box and they no longer have access. So I would say that’s the way to do it for most of your accounts, um, giving them their own access that you can revoke if you want to, uh, as opposed to sharing passwords with people, because that’s really not a good way to do it, because not only do you not know what they’re going to be doing with that password, but if something goes wrong, you can’t If everybody, you know, if you had three people logging into your bank account as you the bank’s never going to know if it was you or not that actually did it. So it’s, you know, you have no you have no audit trail to prove who was in there and when, where if everybody has their own login, then you know exactly who was in there at that time.

Lee Kantor: Now when a new customer comes to you, is it usually because something bad has happened or are they being proactive?

Todd Mitchell: Uh, a lot of my customers are being proactive. I have a lot of clients that are in the financial industry, in the healthcare industry, because they have federal regulations telling them how they have to secure your financial information for all their customers or, you know, your patient files for all the healthcare industry. So a lot of those a lot of those types of businesses know they have to have security. They just don’t know exactly what that means or how to do it. But they know they got to have it. And those are the ones that reach out to me the most. I do have other types of customers, just general businesses that want to beef up their security. Um, I have individuals. I, um, you know, I call it my, uh, my, my crazy stalker ex is ruining my life type of thing. Um, you know where they’re they’re looking for, uh, a little extra protections. And so I work with just about anybody. I’m a kind of. Take a look at what they need and how to do it.

Lee Kantor: But the ideal customer sounds like, are those ones that have compliance, like healthcare or finance?

Todd Mitchell: Yeah, those are the ones that mainly got me into this business in the first place, because people who had a specific need. Um, but the more generic answer to your question, I guess, is I have I deal more in the prevention side. So I’d much rather have a client that I helped get safe in the first place than have the ones hit me up after they’ve already, uh, encountered something, because now it’s, uh, it’s a big, uh, mess that you have to clean up first, and then you got to try to get them safe so it doesn’t happen again.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So you’d rather I not mail you my, uh, laptop with the, uh, the ransom attack on it?

Todd Mitchell: Exactly. Yeah, it’s it’s one of those, uh, you know, that that old saying an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and the cost of setting your business up to be safe is way less than the cost of forensics, of figuring out what happened and how and making, uh, you know, and cleaning up the mess.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And it sounds like once they start working with you, you give them kind of that peace of mind that look, as long as we do what he said, then we’re going to be okay here.

Todd Mitchell: Yeah. For the most part, I’ve, I’ve had, uh, I’ve been working now, uh, I think I’m in what my a little over six years and, uh, I’ve got over 100 devices that I’m monitoring at any given time. And, uh, knock on wood, nobody’s been hacked yet. I’ve had a couple of people who had trouble with their website, but that was something outside the scope of what we were doing. Um, and I’m actually looking at how to, how to, how to fix that so that I can help them with their website security as well.

Lee Kantor: So but that’s a case where if people think like, oh, I think I’ve been hacked, you can assess like, no, you just have a computer problem. Like you can tell the difference, right?

Todd Mitchell: Yeah, yeah, I can go in there and look and find, uh, find out exactly what happened. It’s much, much easier for me to do that if there’s somebody who is already a client because I have software on their computers that will tell me if anything is happening or after the fact, it’s a little bit harder to find it. But, uh, yeah, definitely can go in there and see exactly what’s going on and find out if it’s, you know, if you actually have something on your computer that’s doing it, or did somebody just get your, your, your username and password and get into your account without you knowing about it? Uh, type of thing.

Lee Kantor: And then, um, it sounds like no business is too small for you. You want the small guy?

Todd Mitchell: Yeah. Basically, I think 75% of my clients are solopreneurs working from home on uh, on their with some of them have an office or a spare bedroom or whatever. But about 75% of my clients work from home with no other employees.

Lee Kantor: Well, Todd, if somebody wants to learn more, where should they go? What’s a website? What’s the best way to connect?

Todd Mitchell: Uh, so my website is cybersecurity for for biz. And that’s with the number four. Uh, com and uh, I’ve got, uh, a contact page on there. They can hit me up with questions, or they can sign up for a free, uh, assessment. We can have an hour to to talk. About what? You know, what they’ve got going on and, uh, what they’re looking for, and I’ll see if I can help them.

Lee Kantor: Well, Todd, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Todd Mitchell: Well, thank you for the opportunity.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Veterans Business Radio.

Building Trust in Restoration: How 1-800 Packout Supports Customers in Crisis

September 2, 2025 by angishields

Franchise Marketing Radio

Building Trust in Restoration: How 1-800 Packout Supports Customers in Crisis

00:00 /

In this episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Keith McBride, a former corporate executive turned franchisee with 1-800 Packouts. Keith shares his journey from business development to owning a restoration franchise in Philadelphia, detailing how his team helps customers recover from fire, flood, or storm damage. He discusses the challenges of starting a local business, the importance of empathy, building referral partnerships, and managing operational growth. Keith’s story highlights the value of community engagement, strong systems, and compassionate service in building a successful restoration business.

1-800 Packouts is a content focused restoration company and national franchise. The NW Philadelphia location is the first in Pennsylvania and Keith McBride is excited to be supporting his home town where he was raised and has lived for the past 25 years.

This location supports all of Bucks and Montogomery counties along with Philadelphia and the entire metro area.

When disaster strikes in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, trust 1-800 Packouts to make your recovery process smoother and less stressful. We’re proud to be part of this community, offering expert services in packing, cleaning, and storing your cherished belongings after water, fire, or mold damage.

We handle everything with care, making sure your items are returned in top condition. Our team works closely with local insurance companies and contractors, so you can focus on rebuilding your life while we take care of the rest. With our personalized service and commitment to excellence, you can feel confident that your home and possessions are in the best hands.

Call 1-800 Packouts today and let us help restore what matters most to you, right here at home.

Follow 1-800 Packouts on LinkedIn and Facebook.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio. And this is gonna be a good one. Today on the show we have Keith McBride, who is a franchisee with 1-800 Packouts. Welcome.

Keith McBride: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Uh, for folks who aren’t familiar, can you talk a little bit about 1-800 Packouts? How you serving, folks?

Keith McBride: Sure. So 1-800 Packouts. We are in the restoration business. So if you have a fire or a flood in your house or a storm damage, what we do is, you know, you need to have, you know, the water taken out off the rug. You need to get the walls potentially cut and the furniture and the things in the house are typically in the way. So what our franchise does is we go and we take the stuff out of the house, we bring it back to our warehouse, we evaluate it, we clean it, we deodorize it, we store it. And then when construction is completed on the home or business, we bring everything back to the customer. Like, you know, like brand new. If there’s issues with any of the content, then we can work with the insurance company. We can create what they call non salvage lists and help the customer get what they should get based on their policies.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Keith McBride: So I, I came from the corporate world. I worked for a cable manufacturer. So we were a supplier for cable companies and telcos, set top boxes, cable modems, fiber optics, things like that. I had been in the service organization for years, and the last about ten years. I was a senior director of business development and operations, and what that entailed was, was driving business. And in the last six years that I was there, we were able to drive business from 25 million to almost $200 million. This was a global organization, so we were servicing North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands. And we grew that business. Really a lot of it was internal. A little bit was through acquisition, but most of it was through internal. So in that what I, what I learned, I learned how to basically drive and grow a business from that background.

Lee Kantor: So I’m assuming you left corporate and then you were kind of on your own.

Keith McBride: Yeah, I, I left I, I had been helping grow a global organization and helping folks across the globe. I really wanted to start focusing on a community where I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia. I went to school in Philadelphia. In fact, I think only two years of my life, I didn’t live in the Philadelphia region. I now live just outside of Philadelphia in Bucks County. I’d been there for 25 years, raised my family there, and I really wanted to start giving back to the community and helping the community and getting into this franchise allowed me to really help and support my neighbors, my kid’s friends, their neighbors, their parents, and and the other folks in the community that really helped me become who I am and allowed me to raise my kids here.

Lee Kantor: So let’s talk a little bit about the journey to this particular franchise. Were you looking at lots of options? Did you think, oh, I can be. Maybe I’ll just, you know, be a a consultant or I’ll, you know, keep doing what I’m doing in the industry but still be based here. Like, like what were you looking at as options prior to signing on with one 800 Paco?

Keith McBride: I took a little bit of a pause, so when I left that company, I’d been there almost 20 years. I left the company. I needed a break to kind of reevaluate what I wanted to do. So I took a summer off. I looked into, you know, potentially creating a it was a hobby that I have. I like to make beer. I actually started looking into potentially starting a brewery in the area. And I realized that the market really wasn’t wasn’t going to be in a good spot for me to do something like that. So then I started evaluating, well, do I want to get back to the corporate world? Um, do I want to stay in the industry, out of the industry? And I started working with a business coach, really kind of digging into, you know, I knew the cable world really well. But what did I really like about about what I did and what I like to, like growing and driving business. I like the challenge. You know, something was always coming up that was new. And that’s really the driver of what I liked. I looked at about ten franchises when I first started, and I very quickly got it down to three. So I really started looking at those three, you know, looking at the franchise agreements, talking with other franchisees in the area, visiting some folks, looking at, you know, different market conditions. What I would have to do in the local Philadelphia area to get, you know, did I need office space, did I need warehouse space, um, and things like that. And then I really narrowed it down to two. And then, uh, after about 2 or 3 more weeks of, you know, serious due diligence, I narrowed it down to to one 800 pack outs and move forward with them about two years ago.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you made that decision, um, what was kind of the the the thing that that kind of closed the deal for you? What was the the one 800 pack outs? Uh, you know, what kind of was the thing that said, okay, this is the one for me. Like just everything aligned or 80% aligned. Like, you know, these are big decisions. Obviously, your life would have been in a different direction if you chose the other one. Um, so what kind of made the difference?

Speaker4: Uh, yeah. So what I did was I, you know, there were there.

Keith McBride: Were certain check marks I was trying to hit. One was, you know, local. I’d been on, you know, on the global side for so long, uh, taking long flights, you know, sitting in board meetings, kind of growing, uh, large companies and providing support to them. I knew I wanted to support my community, so that was one of the things that was really important. And that’s one thing that I really like, about 100 pack outs is it allows me to help literally my neighbors, uh, when they’re when they’re in a time of need. Um, I also was really impressed with one 800 pack outs, the systems that they had in place, kind of a marriage of of systems and structure and then opportunity. Um, and what I mean by that is they have the tools, they have everything that you need to be successful, uh, from project tracking tools to financial tools and quoting, um, inventory tracking, you know, the things that you need to do your business. Uh, but there’s also a lot of opportunity in that. I could talk to the other owners. I visited a few of the other owners. Um, you know, there wasn’t anything that was hidden there. It was all all wide open. And I still continue to to use that owner infrastructure. Um, you know, a lot of owners have been in it a lot longer than me, so I’m able to kind of pick their brains and and find out some of those details. So I really like the culture, um, and the tool set and, you know, coming from the corporate side of things, you know, I was used to, you know, fairly structured, um, and, you know, they have those tools that that help you drive what you need. But there’s also like just a ton of opportunity out there. And I think the Philadelphia market, um, it’s not oversaturated with pack out companies or content companies. Um, so I thought it was a very good opportunity to be able to drive that, you know, right here in my hometown.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned the importance of local. One of the, um, usually one of the drivers of business in local is you have to kind of go out and, uh, you know, be like a politician and shake some hands, right? You got to meet some people and build kind of that, uh, pipeline for business where they think of you. Um, was that something that you looked forward to doing, or is it do they have systems at one 800 pack outs? That makes that easy?

Keith McBride: I, um, so my prior job, part of what I did in the prior job was business development. So I was accustomed to having the introduction. So I, you know, we had a sales team and they would pull me in and I, you know, I would get introduced to the customer. I would go through the services of the things that we did. A lot of times it was after getting off a plane and staying in a hotel. Um, it’s actually exciting to do it in this local area. Um, I joined a whole ton of networking groups. I’ve, I’ve met a ton of people that way. And sometimes, you know, you find referral sources in the strangest of, of locations, things you would never think or people that you would never think could drive business toward you. Uh, you drive business toward you. Uh, one 800 pack outs provides a a lot of marketing support. Uh, they provide different campaigns. They provide content that I can provide when I go to these networking meetings. You know, I can shake hands. I obviously have the logo, um, and everything, and it’s hard to see, you know, the one 800 pack out logos. So all of that was there and in place for me. All of that marketing materials there in place. The expertise about, you know, in the past we had marketing departments that would do it in the corporate world. Now I had to do all that on my own. So, you know, the marketing team, you know, you do email campaigns, do you do mailing campaigns? Do you just, you know, shake hands and kiss babies? Um, and I think the answer to all that is all, you know, all of the above. And I do like doing a lot of that. I, you know, the networking meetings, the lunches, uh, and growing the local network, um, was definitely supported by 100 scouts. And it’s something that that I drive and I love doing.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your work, um, I’m sure people are contacting you when they’re in crisis because something bad has happened that they need you. Right? Um, are there referral sources, like, are you working with insurance companies? Do you have like, partnerships with, um, you know, kind of the first line people so that they, you know, where they don’t do the part you do, but you don’t do the part they do. So are there kind of referral partners for you in this model.

Keith McBride: And that’s a big part of. Building that trust. Um, so you think about I’ll stick with waters a little bit easier. I’ll stick with water. So buy a pipe bursts in your house. You’re not calling the content guy saying, hey, my couch might get wet. You’re calling the plumber. Plumber goes, stops the water. Plumber looks around and says, wow, there’s a lot of water in this living room. You need to have this taken care of. I have a, you know, water mitigation company. Now, the water mitigation company walks in and looks at it and says, wow, there’s a lot of stuff here. We need to get Keith. We need to get one 800 scouts out there. So yeah, you have to build the relationships with the water mitigation, um, also with the plumbers. And then, you know, it’s funny, the first job, it’s the first time you’re going to be talking to, uh, an insurance adjuster and an insurance agent. So I think it’s really important to have relationships with the insurance companies as well. I want to be known as a trusted source, someone that’s fair. Um, so building the insurance relationship, while they don’t always directly send you business, it’s good to get a reputation. Reputation from the insurance that, you know, I’m a good, reliable source. They can trust my pricing. Um, and that’s something that I have been growing, so. Yeah. Insurance adjusters, insurance agents, um, water mitigation, you know, fire, uh, you know, storm, um, people who support storm rebuilds, you know, all of that. You were driving. And as you grow like I’m less than two months in or two years in. So as I grow, I’m continuing to find new sources. And, yeah, you drive a lot of that, um, myself as the owner. And then, um, I have a business development person. He helps drive a lot of that activity as well.

Lee Kantor: But is that something that when you get the franchise, that one 800 Packhouse has relationships with certain insurance companies, so they kind of open the door for you? Or is this something that in every local market you got to kind of make your own friends?

Keith McBride: It’s a mix. So the Weidner Pack Outs has what they call third party administrators. So they have a lot of insurance companies will work through a third party to kind of mitigate all of the different vendors that they’re going to need to support different disasters that that they may get from a claim standpoint. So, one 800 Packhouse has a relationship with a lot of the third party administrators. They help us navigate. There’s a lot of paperwork. There’s a lot of things that you have to have in place insurance, certifications, things like that. They help us navigate all of that. Um, and then there’s different insurance companies that support different parts of the country. Um, so some of it is local. And then you have like State Farm and Allstate, some others are national so that there’s some relationship there. And then the local folks, that’s something that I would have to drive and I, I, I put together and put on the hat and run around and shake hands.

Lee Kantor: But they give you kind of what you need in order to give whatever that partner is, what they need. So they make it easy for you to to make friends.

Keith McBride: Yeah. And there’s also a lot of training. Like I didn’t have I didn’t work in, in this industry, you know, prior to two years ago, um, I didn’t know the insurance industry. I didn’t didn’t understand the restoration. So there was a lot of training that came involved to to get you up to speed. Like, I have the business side of it. I know how to run a business. I didn’t know a whole lot about restoration, and I didn’t know a whole lot about pack outs and insurance. So, um, they really helped kind of bridge that gap to get me to the point where I could become an expert in those areas and have the intelligent conversation with the water mitigation company and with the insurance, and know all the steps and what you need to do, what you can and what you can’t do in that space.

Lee Kantor: Right? Because you’re you’re your client is so vulnerable. I mean, they’re really looking at you to problem solve here in an area that they have no clue.

Keith McBride: Yeah. Empathy is really important. Uh, when working with the customer, um, they’re typically when I, when I see them the first time, they’re typically stressed out. They had, you know, their, their hot water heater burst or they had a, you know, a pipe up upstairs burst First in their whole entire, you know, first floor and basement or, uh, you know, dripping. Um, so they’re they’re fairly stressed out. Um, and that’s an understatement. So, you know, part of what I have to do is and they’re working with the plumber and they’re working with rebuild and insurance. And like, all these people are all kind of in the house. Um, so I think the important job for me at that point is to let the customer know that, you know, we have them taken care of. Uh, we verify the coverage, make sure everything is good, kind of keep them calm. I always let them know that you know the content. We’re going to make the content portion of this claim as easy as as possible. Um, you know, I work with the insurance. I do everything through that. A lot of times the customer doesn’t even need to see the bill. Um, if they don’t want to see it, I, you know, I deal with it directly. So, yeah, having that empathy for the customer, knowing where they’re coming from, uh, staying in touch with them after, like, you know, we’re taking their stuff and you think the rest of the house, they’re ripping up the rug, they’re ripping out the walls, and then they’re going to rebuild them.

Keith McBride: But their stuff, they wanted to come back the way it was before this, before this event happened. Um, so that’s that’s super, you know, and I’m not just throwing it out and then giving them new things. So, you know, that that’s really important. I have to build trust and rapport with the customer within, you know, 5 minutes or 10 minutes of meeting them, um, or I’m not going to get hired to do that. And, uh, when I did support quite a bit of training around that, how to do that, understanding the fact that, that, you know, everybody’s going to be stressed out, everybody’s home, um, is going to be different. Every little thing that they have is a treasure for them. Um, and it’s really important to understand, uh, that that part of the, um, that part of the process. And then the best thing and one of the things I love about the job is typically when we’re bringing those stuff back, they’re happy their house is back to normal, their stuff is coming back. Uh, they’re usually very, very happy when they get all their stuff back. So it’s it’s a very fulfilling portion of the job.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Can you talk about maybe that first time that you went in there, got the stuff and then returned it? What was that like?

Keith McBride: Well, scary. I mean, when you when you first jump into something like this, you really don’t feel like you know what you’re doing. Um, because you don’t really know what you’re doing. So you’re driving to the estimate, and, you know, I’m calling, you know, my franchise coach and saying, I don’t know what I’m doing. Help me out here. Um, and they said, all right, you’ve had the training, you know, calm down a little bit. And they were right. You know, I was trained and I was ready. It’s just the first, you know, the first out. Um, but, yeah, meeting the customer. I think that the empathy, um, I was excited because it was very different from what I had done in the past. I was meeting, you know, a customer that had a multi-million dollar company, um, or, you know, they were part of a multi-million dollar company. And we were trying to to provide them services to, to do a new fiber build or something like that, where now we’re working with a customer who’s stressed out. They have, you know, wet basement and we’re trying to get all their stuff for them.

Keith McBride: So, you know, that I think the empathy part of it was fairly easy to bring on, um, because you’re there and you can see it and you can like, you know, depending on the water loss, you can smell it. You can see the issues and and letting them know that that you can you can help them is really good and it’s very fulfilling. Um, and then yeah, bringing it back is like I said, it’s the best part because they’re getting their stuff back. They’re super happy. They’re, you know, they’ve gone through this trial of, you know, a couple of weeks to a couple of months of their house being in turmoil and their stuff not being there. And now they’re getting it all back and they just feel really good. And that yeah, that first one felt like that. And and they all really feel like that. Most of them do feel really good as you’re bringing them back. Um, as we, you know, we do more and more and more of these.

Lee Kantor: Now, is your business primarily residential?

Keith McBride: A big part of it is residential right now. Um, I’m looking to expand into other areas. Property management. Um, where where, um, people own, you know, apartment complexes and things like that. We’re starting to get some work in there. Um, on the commercial side, there’s there’s definitely opportunity in the commercial space. It’s just very different on the commercial side. A lot of times, um, large offices have space to move a lot of that stuff, and we can help and we can support in that. Um, but it’s something that I haven’t started to branch into just yet.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you get the franchise, is it something that you have to have kind of warehouse space to, to put all this stuff and to, uh, you know, fix it up like there’s a, there’s some overhead component to this business.

Keith McBride: Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of overhead. Um, yeah, I had to get I have almost, uh, almost 10,000ft² of warehouse space. The good thing is I have good clear height. Um, so we we store everything in seven foot 7.5ft tall, uh, wooden vaults. And, you know, I want to be able to stack them. So luckily, I have I have room to stack two high. Um, so I got about slightly more than about 18 foot of clearance. I needed 15, so that helps a lot. Um, and then growth is, you know, it’s a challenge once you run out of the space, either you have too much space, you don’t have enough space. So, you know, as you start getting close, you have to start brainstorming on, you know, you have a lease for a certain amount of time. What do you do with the space? Do you partner with some other groups? Um, and that’s part of the problem solving. It’s part of what I, what I love about what I’m doing is just trying to figure out, um, you know, the growth strategy. And I think that’s, you know, it’s a good problem to have. It’s better than the warehouse being completely empty, which it is not.

Lee Kantor: Now, how often does something happen where your services are needed? Like, is this kind of a seasonal thing?

Keith McBride: A little, tiny bit. Um, it’s I had always assumed before starting that it would be, uh, storm related that everything is related to storms. And there’s a little bit of truth to that. Like we, you know, in the Philadelphia region, um, in the spring, early summer, we tend to get really bad thunderstorms and wind. Um, you get some tree damage. So, you know, we get a little bit of a spike not right after the storm. Usually about 5 or 6 days after the storm. Uh, where we’re helping people, where trees may have, you know, fallen, fallen and ruined an attic or something like that. Um, I haven’t seen really a whole lot. You get a little bit of frozen pipes in the winter. Um, but a lot of it is just, you know, in Philly, you’ll have old homes, and, you know, the sewer pipes are old and they may start falling apart.

Lee Kantor: So it’s just like random pipe breaking.

Keith McBride: A lot of it is random, but it’s also like this time of year for whatever. I guess it’s it’s the very end of the summer and kids are going back to school. It tends to be slow, and I haven’t quite figured out why. There’s like a three week period right around the start of school where it’s slow. Um, and then it picks up again in September in like July was a crazy July for us. So, um, yeah, some of it’s weather related. Some of it’s just random. Um.

Lee Kantor: But you don’t get you don’t get the stuff like in the, in California where they know they’re going to have wildfires every year and that’s going to affect and have smoke damage and things like that.

Keith McBride: Yeah. Not in this area. I mean, you get you get Fires. But not like that. Not where it’s, you know, this mass event. Um, I know that, you know, the folks that were out there were very busy at the beginning of the year, um, where they were doing five and six jobs a day, which is insane. Um, but yeah, in this area, you know, you might get a hurricane. The last big hurricane, um, that we had here. I know directly affected us was hurricane Sandy. That was 12 or 13 years ago. Um, so, you know, we don’t get a ton of that, but, yeah, the windstorms we’re starting to get tornados, believe it or not. This is not an area that’s prone for tornadoes, but we do get them every once in a while here. But it’s more around just, you know, the house and things breaking or backups, you know, sewer clogs or things like that. Um, you know, like I said, it’s a mixture of homes that, you know, could be 2 or 300 years old. Some of the homes here, um, a lot of Philadelphia expanded over the last hundred, 150 years. So there’s a there’s a lot of homes with some old, old plumbing, um, and then even some new stuff. We, I tend to see, like old homes that have issues and then brand new homes. You know, the fitting was was bad and it broke after a year or two. So we get we get things like that too. Um, a little bit of weather related.

Lee Kantor: So what’s it been? You said it’s been about two years. Is it what you imagined? Like? How’s it going?

Keith McBride: It’s good. Well, so one of the things I did in the past, and, you know, pat myself on the back, I was pretty good at forecasting. Uh, at the corporate level. Um, I it’s really hard to forecast your first year, which was last year, but this year I forecasted and I’m, I’m doing well. I’m looking to hit I’m either going to hit or slightly exceed what I had forecasted for this year. So that’s really good. Um, my costs are a little bit lower. My cost of goods sold is a little bit lower. So like ultimately the bottom line is probably a little bit better. And it’s projected to do better than I had projected in in November or December when I put my forecast together. So I’m very happy about that. Um, my growth in the last 2 or 3 months has been really, really good. So, you know, really excited about that and driving that and pushing that. Uh, I’ve gotten to the point where I have a team like, you know, when you first start, you don’t have enough work to really have a dedicated team. So I was going out and doing a lot of this work. Now I have a team that does that, which allows me to really focus on on driving the business, putting the relationships in place, um, to be strategic with some of our partners, some of our referral sources. Um, starting to look at, at how do we become more efficient. And then also growth growth, growth, growth is is where we’re at right now.

Lee Kantor: So now are you seeing kind of the fruits of your labor when it comes to the referral sources that now they’re starting to come in with some rhythm.

Keith McBride: Yes. Yeah, it rhythm is probably not. It’s a weird because because it’s um.

Lee Kantor: It’s sporadic. I mean, it’s hard like it happens when it happens.

Keith McBride: Yes, it happens when it happens. I have a calendar behind me that, you know, all the jobs that we have on there are kind of I have them listed on there and you may have like 1 or 2 jobs for next week. But if the calendar is full and you get a call, then you can’t respond to it. So a lot of what we do, it’s almost like being in the fire department where you’re sitting waiting for the fire, and then once the bell rings, everybody runs out and takes care of it. Um, but yeah, what what happens is we had, you know, you start with one referral source and then you may have 2 or 3. Um, in the last 3 or 4 months, we’ve more than doubled the number that we’ve had. And then it’s more opportunities to get that call. And that’s what we’re that’s what we’re driving and we’re expanding those relationships as well. Some of them are franchised locations, some of them aren’t. Um, and you know, our space, if they don’t do content, it’s real easy to have the conversation. Now, they may have another solution for it, but if we can get in and show them that our process can really help them help their customer, and we’re going to make them look better, then that’s typically, you know, if I can get a little bit of money, if I can make you look better and I can help your customer, why not try us? And then they try us and they like what we’re doing. And then word starts getting out. So I think we’re at that point where the word’s getting out. Uh, we’re obviously we’re driving a lot of that activity. Um, and we’re seeing that momentum.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And you’re doing a good enough job where they’re saying, hey, I trust this guy. Let me. He’s my guy now.

Keith McBride: Yeah, exactly.

Lee Kantor: Now, did you get one territory or how does it work? You, when you were decided to pull the trigger with one 800 packhouse, was there something where you were like, should I get one, two, three? Like, are you doing this as this is my thing? Or is are you trying to build A18 hundred Packout empire?

Keith McBride: Uh, I’d love to have A18 hundred pack of Empire. I’m very methodical. I’m a little bit, um. I’m a little bit. I’m conservative for sure. Um, and how I. And how I build out things. So I want to make sure that we have everything that we need, uh, that it’s the right model, that we’re not going crazy on cost. You know, I could have bought a 50,000 square foot warehouse, but I’d probably be out of money right now. So, you know, you start out small, you make sure that it’s working, you get your processes all refined and then you start to grow. And that’s that’s where I’m at now. I have everything, I have everything set the way it needs to be. We have a really good product. We have a really good process. Um, everybody’s trained the way they need. And then now, as I’m starting to add people, we have a training process on how we do it. Um, we’re starting to add, you know, more referral sources. So we’re starting to get more of that. I bought one territory. Um, and I think this area is really good for for what I’m doing. And I think I probably will expand as, as demand requires is what I’ll definitely do.

Lee Kantor: Right. So you’re you’re just looking for organic growth.

Keith McBride: Yes. Yeah. At this point, organic. Like I haven’t hit everything that I need in my territory. It’s a pretty big territory. It’s two two counties and part of Northeast Philadelphia is my official, um, territory. And, you know, we’ve done a decent job. We’re probably 50%, um, uh, penetration into the territory. So we still have room to continue into the territory. Um, but then once that happens and we’re successfully providing the support and, and the work in those areas, then we’ll start to expand. And it’s probably sometime next year, I would guess is when we’ll start doing that.

Lee Kantor: So it sounds like kind of the metric that matters for you is just keep expanding those referral sources, just get more and more and just serve the heck out of them. And it seems like you’re unstoppable.

Keith McBride: Yep. That’s the goal.

Lee Kantor: And then you feel well taken care of by the one 800 Packhouse folks.

Keith McBride: Yes. Yeah, they’re very supportive. Um, I’ve had a few folks come here. I’ve had, uh, our brand president was here just a couple of months ago. Um, and and it’s funny, he was one of the ones that said, hey, you really need a salesperson. He was looking at, uh, what I had on my calendar. He could see there’s kind of a cyclical where, you know, it was really busy, and then I wasn’t busy, and then I’m busy. And he’s like, the reason that’s happening is because when you’re busy, you’re in the business instead of working on the business. So getting a salesperson and it’s kind of a guy that wears a whole lot of hats. He does sales, he does operations, does a whole lot of things for me, but it allows us to one of us is always pushing and driving and, you know, bringing the in the coffee and the donuts and, and bring, you know, talking to folks about referrals and then, you know, driving those networking meetings, you know, if I can’t make it, he goes, if he can’t make it, I go. Um, and that’s really helping drive kind of the steady, uh, referral sources growing and and the business and and. Yeah, that that helps a lot.

Lee Kantor: So was it hard to identify that right person and get them on board?

Keith McBride: I got lucky, I knew them. I had been working with them through, um, another channel. And, you know, things just happen to work out. And he decided to come over and, you know, I asked him to come over and he decided to come over. And so it’s working out really well. Um, I had prior to that been looking around and it it is difficult to find the right person and the right role. Um, but I got really lucky and, you know, very happy that that he came over and started helping me there.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you and, uh, you know, maybe they’re either a referral source or somebody who needs your services. What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Keith McBride: Yeah. One 800 pack out website. Um, if you go to if you click on Pennsylvania in there, I’m the only phone number on there, which is great. So you can click on that and get a hold of me. Um, yeah. It’s probably the easiest way.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Keith, congratulations on all the success you’re doing. Important work. We appreciate you.

Keith McBride: Thank you. Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right, this Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

How Rush Bowls Stands Out: A Commitment to Quality and Health

September 2, 2025 by angishields

Franchise Marketing Radio

How Rush Bowls Stands Out: A Commitment to Quality and Health

00:00 /

In this episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, Lee Kantor is joined by Andrew Pudalov, Founder of Rush Bowls. Andrew shares his journey from Wall Street to launching Rush Bowls in Boulder, Colorado, inspired by a desire for healthy, convenient meals. He discusses the brand’s growth, commitment to pure ingredients, and transition into franchising. Andrew explains Rush Bowls’ national expansion strategy, operational philosophy, and the qualities they seek in franchisees.

After 15 years of working his way up through the competitive ranks of NYC’s financial sector, Andrew Pudalov made a conscientious decision to leave his most recent position as Global Head of Fixed Income Derivative Trading at National Australia Bank to pursue an interest he felt was a virtue of higher importance.

While he worked his entire adult life for a number of prestigious financial institutions to achieve an expertise in institutional fixed income derivative trading, he simply felt it time to gratify another more altruistic ambition he had always held.

Andrew founded Boulder’s University Hill District’s first all-natural bowl/smoothie bar in the fall of 2004, providing a healthy alternative to the common “Hill” fare. After enormous success, Andrew launched a line of frozen grab-n-go bowls soon to meet the ever-mounting demand.

Today, he operates Rush Bowls retail, wholesaling, and franchising with over 100 stores in various stages of development throughout the US. Rush Bowls continues to receive both regional and national acclaim.

Andrew maintains a commitment to spreading the joys of pure, honest nutrition and making Rush Bowls the best possible company it can be.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today we have the CEO, I believe, of Rush Bowls. Andrew, welcome. Are you the CEO?

Andrew Pudalov: Thank you. It’s great to be on your show today. And yeah, I’m the founder.

Lee Kantor: I knew you were the founder. So tell us, for folks who aren’t familiar, tell us a little bit about Rush Bowls.

Andrew Pudalov: So I started a company about 21 years ago. We were doing bowls before anyone really even knew what a bowl was. And we really focused on health and wellness. So our products are no sorbets, no added sugars, no junk. It’s fruit and vegetables customizable to the needs of the consumer. And healthy meals on the go. Very focused on bowls. 80% of our sales are bowls and smoothies. But we’re not distracted by sandwiches, salads, and we’re the best in the business of doing bowls and smoothies and very diverse flavor. We do green tea, we do chai, we do detox, we do high end bowls and smoothies. These are meals to go also.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? Were you always involved in health and wellness or franchising?

Andrew Pudalov: No, I have a I have a dynamic backstory. I was global head of derivatives fixed income trading in New York City. I was taking massive positions on behalf of the banks and trading that according to how I felt the market was going to move in a particular time or trend. And nine over 11 happens. I was living in New York City with my wife on nine over 11. We had two kids at the time. One was two and the other was just born. And it was my wife’s first day of maternity. Nine over 11. Previously, most people don’t realize they bombed the towers in New York City twice. She was in the tower in 93 the first time they bombed it and luckily escaped and got out. And nine over 11, she was in the 20s. I was in Midtown. She literally saw the plane crash in and it was really catastrophic and life changing for us. I lost one of my good friends jump, and I realized right then, we’re gonna uproot and move to Boulder, and I was going to start a company, which is never easy. And hindsight is 2020, but it was something I really wanted to do, and I was lucky. It was pretty successful, what I did previously. So it afforded me the opportunity to try something very different and in a different place. So thank goodness it all worked out. But uh, but it was quite, quite an interesting time back then.

Lee Kantor: So you you uproot your family from the big city and move to, you know, a different environment, Colorado, in Colorado. And then you’re it becomes rush bowls like a go. Or was there kind of an evolution to get to where Rush Bowls is?

Andrew Pudalov: It really was a go, I would say.

Lee Kantor: So you had this idea before, like you can’t just flip a switch and all of a sudden now you’re in the bowl business like you were you thinking? So, so you didn’t know anything about bowls or mixing or have a recipe or like any inclination?

Andrew Pudalov: Well, the only thing I had a buddy, to be fair, in, uh, in Arizona, he owned a juice bar. So I was kind of talking to him for a bit, and I was like, oh, maybe I’ll license something and I’ll start it here. He didn’t want to do bowls, and I thought the opportunity was bowls. So I kind of did my whole concept based on bowls. So.

Lee Kantor: So where did you come up with bowls like?

Andrew Pudalov: I am a big texture guy and I wanted a meal, so I didn’t want to be a smoothie company back then. I think Jamba Juice had some footing. Actually. Not anymore, obviously, but back then it was one of the core brands, and I actually looked at smoothies and I didn’t really want to do a smoothie business. I wanted to do something that was really meal focused, that had texture, that had were really, truly health and wellness, and that really started with me. So I developed a menu based on a lot of not just acai, everyone just does acai. We were always very diversified power, which was, you know, blueberries, raspberries, raspberry, blueberry, raspberry, oats, um, a milk based coconut, almond, whatever milk you wanted. But we were always um, and whey protein. So we were always really figuring out flavor sets, and I had a very diversified flavor set within the bowl menu and same thing within the smoothie menu. And most of those items are still most of those things are still on the menu actually.

Lee Kantor: So so in your mind you were like, okay, smoothies, this straw, that’s fine. But I want something with a spoon. I want it to, you know, have more substance. And then you just started experimenting with different, uh, fruits and ingredients to come up with the bowls.

Andrew Pudalov: Yeah. And just, you know, I came from an environment that I was extremely mathematical, but I’m a creative guy. I like creativity, so it afforded me some of the creativity. And I have a good palate, obviously. So. And then after that, realistically, it was really customer feedback. So we had a menu and like, hey, do you like this? Don’t you like this? And really being there every day and really learning from the consumer what they were looking for and fairly early on. I knew right away that this was going to be something because people wanted this meal. They wanted a healthy, nutritious meal, um, that was not super heavy, but was filling. Filling. And we started attracting all these incredible Olympic athletes that came in because they could couldn’t go to a lot of these other places. They could only have our bowls and smoothies because we were the real deal. As we continue to be.

Lee Kantor: And you’re in the belly of the beast, where there’s a lot of athletic people in that part of the country.

Andrew Pudalov: Yes. And as people became more and more knowledgeable about bowls, we had more the general population really came in and really accepted it. And to this day, you know, when people figure out there’s a lot of pretenders out there doing, doing bowls with, you know, sorbets or sugars and this and that, we are still very pure product. So we don’t add add a lot of, we don’t put any junk in your bowl or smoothie. We always say, but, um, it’s really a more nutritious. Healthier tasting, you know, to get those sugar highs and lows with our products. And that’s why it’s still so popular.

Lee Kantor: Now, before you went to brick and mortar, did you, like, go test this at, like, farmers markets and those kind of festivals or you just went strong. You just went and say, hey, we’re building this out and this is the brand, and we’re going boldly forward here.

Andrew Pudalov: Yes. You know, you know, like I said, hindsight’s 2020, but we didn’t I, I, I never thought of failure at all. And I always had to and I think my background of being a big trader for the banks, um, I always had a bet on myself anyway, so I never thought about, hey, this won’t work or second guess myself. Um, listen, there’s times you always have to second guess yourself and and but I didn’t really focus on that. I focused on, hey, how do I make this work? And if it’s not working, how do I pivot or create something a little more? Uh, uh, a little slightly different. Uh, and fortuitously, you know, a lot of it’s luck to, um, people like the brand and they still love the brand. And we continue to grow, um, as a healthy, a truly healthy alternative to what’s out there. And bulls got more and more popular, become more mainstream. And now people are really focused on, you know, what’s the differences. And that only helps us because we’re the only really, truly one of the very few, only truly healthy, delicious bowls out there. Most are sugar and junk.

Lee Kantor: So now, um, was it always when you started this? The intention was always to franchise?

Andrew Pudalov: No, actually. So in 2010, I launched a wholesale company. Um, and we were in 40 states with Whole Foods. We were in regions with Costco, HEB with a frozen form of a bull. Um, and Fortunately, our Co-packer six and roughly six years later went out of business overnight and he stored our product and we couldn’t even get into us and 12 other brands, actually, um, couldn’t get any product. So it kind of killed that. At the time, uh, someone was convincing me to get into franchising, which I always put off because franchising is, I think, for a customer or for a person looking to get into a business I think is incredible. But as an owner, franchising is tough because, as they say, no one runs your store quite like you would want to run the store. Now, um, we’ve learned so many different things in franchising and and can get that down that they do run the store the way you want to run the store. But it was, uh, ominous to me initially to get into franchising. And I launched in 2016, um, uh, basically nine years ago, the the start of this franchise model for Russia.

Lee Kantor: So the prior to that, you did you have just one store in Colorado or you had several stores?

Andrew Pudalov: No. One store.

Lee Kantor: So one store.

Andrew Pudalov: In 2016, I opened another store just to verify that the franchise model in Denver. So we two stores and I knew the wholesale company. So I was very confident that we could go from there.

Lee Kantor: And then did you, um, figure it out on your own, or did you hire consultants to help you expand?

Andrew Pudalov: Yeah. No, we you know, by then we brought in a team that had experience with franchising from the franchising side, and we hired a company to help us franchise and sell franchises. Um, at that juncture, which later on we took in-house. But, uh, you know, we put a hefty team in to make sure we were doing it right. You know, franchising from a franchisor perspective, it’s very, you know, there’s a lot a ton of legal work. You got to have your processes down. Um, your organization. One thing I’m really super proud about, Rush bowls is very, very organized. And our depth of portal, which has every part of what to do or whatever else, um, is extremely involved, very detailed. So anyone really the objective can understand and open a store. Um, matter of fact, we had a franchisee from subway and said, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life from any other concepts I’ve been doing. Um, and that’s why he, you know, joined us. So I believe in really giving people real details. And on top of that, with Rush Bowls, a lot of the people in the franchising have run the stores. So one of my managers 11 years ago had sales for us. One of my managers, you know, 6 or 6 years ago had two operations for us. So they are youthful, yet they’re very knowledgeable. And that’s a long list of other people that I have, uh, that that have real practical experience on a store level and can give you answers, but also, you know, have experience, broader experience too. So we have pretty experienced team. We have old people like myself and young people. So it’s a great mix from the corporate side of things.

Lee Kantor: Now, obviously being a franchisor is a different business than operating a Rush Bowl store. Um, do you enjoy it as much as it is rewarding? Because, I mean, it’s a different thing.

Andrew Pudalov: Well, you know, I like doing I like doing a lot of different things. So I still own the original store. 21 years ago. I was there actually this morning talking to the staff and not there that often, but I was there today. Um, I like them both. I like doing a lot of different things. I like, you know, uh, I like the customer interaction. I always like that, uh, I like creating new products. I have a team that I work with on that specifically. And then, you know, it’s it’s just different. I like, you know, I like my hands in a lot of different things. Um, we’re going to launch a CPG, uh, in 2026. Some products too. So I like that too. It’s, you know, I always laugh that, um, other than sharing a name, they’re dynamically different businesses, from a retail store to a franchisor to CPG consumer products, you know, in like a retail grocery or wherever they share the name, but they’re dynamically different businesses with different tasks and different needs. And that’s fun for me. Uh, and I really enjoy that.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you see franchising as a way to building wealth compared to what you were doing in New York City?

Andrew Pudalov: Well, I think New York City is a very dynamically Different wealth building, um, you know, uh, wealth building in New York. I was a professional gambler for the bank, basically. And I would take, you know, big positions because I felt the market, if I was wrong, I’d be out of a job. I did it for 15 years, and I was lucky. I was right more than I was wrong. And like a professional gambler, if you’re right, 58% of the time you’re stellar. If you’re right 50% of the time, or 52% of the job, you’re out of a job, right? So you know where you fit in. I think franchising is paint by numbers. So I think if you’re if I was to start another business, I would only do a franchise business because building something from scratch is inherently so difficult. So I so believe in the franchise model. Listen, I think there’s great models and I think there’s some that are not as good as others. But on the whole, I think franchising is an incredible business model. And for me, if I was to buy a business, I would be a franchisee.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of the ideal franchisee look like for Rush Bowls? Do you want somebody that is going to be in the store, or is this something that can be managed by other people, like what is that ideal franchisee look like for you?

Andrew Pudalov: Well, first, first of all, they have to have business acumen and willing to reach the community. If you just want to sit back on a desk, that’s not the job, right? Um, but what is the job is, hey, I want to be part of the community. I want to serve them health and wellness and, and and I want to have a incredible brand that I can be part of a team. Um, what I feel what we look for is a business acumen, be we recommend for the first year that they are in the store, working the store at some capacity. Um, we feel that provide the greatest success. By being there and understanding it, you can manage it significantly better. We don’t mandate it, we strongly encourage it, and we are pretty selective. We turn a lot of people down, um, that may not fit what we’re looking for, but really hands on people. I would say, um, want to reach the community. Like I said earlier, business acumen, but also want to be there, want to be a part of Rush Bowls. And then as you open more stores or as you’re there a year, it’s easier to you can be not there very often, but certainly the first year we strongly encourage people to be there.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you want, um, kind of the empire builder that wants multiple territories or do you want the onesie 2Z3Z person?

Andrew Pudalov: Well, I think the Empire Builder is is generally more preferred, but we have plenty of onesies. Twosies. I think it’s um, I think it depends on the circumstance, the Location. We’re also unusual. I viewed this as a national brand right away. So we’re in 24 states. As most companies like us build up in regionally, very local because they can get suppliers. I knew how to do supply side right away, so I really wanted to be national. So we’re a national brand. So it depends. We want some builders that, hey, maybe in a state that we’re not in and want to build it and and build it extensively, but like we may have ones twos or threes, we have a lot of threes, um, that are, you know, there say in Colorado and most of Colorado is taken. They want to build it here. Um and like great. That’s fantastic. You know so or somewhere else. So it really I think we don’t go in it into it as, hey, there’s a master builder or a onesie. Twosie it’s really a personality how they look at the business, how they’re going to run the business. So we want stores that are run well and we try and do our best to really help facilitate that and pick the right people.

Lee Kantor: Well, it sounds like you’ve invested a lot of time and energy in the supply chain portion of this. And as well as the kind of operationally making it simple. Um, is that kind of set you apart as well?

Andrew Pudalov: Yes. Because, you know, I really understand the dynamics of math behind it and the finance. So it was really focused on it’s a really hard cut formula. You know, cost of goods is X, labor is Y. Rents should be in this range. So you really fundamentally have to have a really set formulaic equation of hey, it should do y. Right. Um, and it I think as long as you target those things, um, you we do our best to help you become successful.

Lee Kantor: Accessible now. Um. What are you seeing? If you look in your crystal ball when it comes to kind of health and wellness and the trends in that space, uh, in the near future, is this something that’s just going to keep going? Like, there’s obviously a push now, uh, you know, against the super ultra processed foods. Um, is this just kind of, uh, it’s just going to be more of that moving forward?

Andrew Pudalov: I think, uh, and I really appreciate what’s going on. A that only speaks to our strength. As I stated a little earlier, we’re really hardcore health and wellness without being preachy. So, um, our products, the flow of the people are coming more and more focused on what’s in their products that only we that only helps us strength wise because we don’t adulterate. We’re not sorbets. A lot of people use these sorbets. A lot of our competitors are sorbets because it’s cheap product. It’s some I know don’t even have fruit in it. It’s a color dye and a flavoring and and gums and sugar. So we actually use real fruit like you have fruit or iqf vegetables. We don’t do sorbets or anything like that. People are aware of that and people are getting smarter and smarter about it. So I think that only helps us. Um, you know, like I said, you have the real guys. I’ve been here 21 years. Probably the one, if not the first to the bowl business, one of the early ones. And we have an adulterated our products, nor will we. So I think that focus of purity of ingredients, people will be more and more attuned to it. And we’re seeing that, hey, I can’t I can’t even eat that product because your product is so much better. Like we grind our own peanut butter in the store. So we take unsalted, granulated peanuts, make our own peanut butter. No oils, no junk. We make our own jams in store for peanut butter and jelly bowl, which has chia seeds as a thickener. So it’s really, you know, delicious. Now, if you want Nutella on top, we have Nutella too. And we’ll say, hey, we’ll put Nutella. It’s not great for you, but if you want it on. Mm. It’s fantastic. Enjoy. Um, but our base, our core product is super, super healthy.

Lee Kantor: Now, what about the, um, maybe kind of the definition of a bowl being expanded to things like a burrito bowl or with meats and things like that? Is that on the roadmap or is that something you’re staying? You’re going to stay in your lane here?

Andrew Pudalov: Um, I’m going to stay away from that. Uh, at this juncture, we’re, you know, we just did a big, um, collaboration with La Colombe, which for a cold brew coffee, uh, with. And they’re owned by Chobani. Um, so we’re doing different collaborations with partners. But, you know, I don’t want to be everything to everyone. I want to be the best, which we are in the bowl business and smoothie business with complementary goods, but I don’t want to be everything to everyone. I never went into a deli for the most part and said the salad is the best salad I ever had. That’s not our business model. So it’s really focused on, you know, smaller. We’re generally smaller square footage. 30 to 60% of our business is takeout or delivery. Uh, and it’s really being, you know, high end yet really functional without, you know, being crazy priced. Um, so anyone can have our bowls and smoothies. Uh, and, uh, that’s how as, as far as you know, I’m the CEO and founder, so we’re not. I own everything, we’re not private equity that I have to get a return in or sell the company in 2 or 3 years. That’s not my objective. Long term success is is my objective, which is rare these days in this day and age. Um, and that’s what makes us so special.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what is the best way to connect?

Andrew Pudalov: Sure, you can always go to rush rush. Rush.com and hit on franchising. Or we have JD at rush Bulls.com he heads franchise sales, John David at Rush Bulls.com. Um, and uh, yeah, we we love great partners and we’re growing every day. We have 20 some odd stores open uh, this year into next. So, uh, that have signed leases. So we’re busy Beavers.

Lee Kantor: Good for you. Congratulations on all the success.

Andrew Pudalov: And thank you for for the podcast I appreciate it. Great being on your show.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Fintech South 2025: Gaurav Singal with Cantaloupe

September 2, 2025 by angishields

ABR-Cantaloupe-Fintech-South-2025-Feature

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2025: Gaurav Singal with Cantaloupe

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Gaurav Singal was named Chief Technology Officer in September 2022. Singal has over 20 years in experience scaling technology companies and driving product innovation.

Prior to joining Cantaloupe, Singal served as the executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of the Georgia Lottery Corporation, where he led the organization through a successful digital transformation.

His previous experience includes serving as the Chief Product Officer for Last Mile at XPO Logistics, a Vice President of technology at Goldman Sachs, and as a former technology startup founder.

Singal holds an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at Delhi and a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Connect with Gaurav on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Gaurav Singal with Cantaloupe. Welcome.

Gaurav Singal: Thank you so much for having me here.

Lee Kantor: For folks who aren’t familiar. Can you tell us a little bit about Cantaloupe?

Gaurav Singal: For sure. So we are the biggest unattended retail software company. So for folks, especially in North America, if you are going to a location and trying to buy something from a vending machine using your credit card, you’re going to a gas station and buying it in vacuum, going to Dave and Buster trying to play a clogging machine massage chair. You’re paying by credit card, a gas station, any of these locations, wherever there is not an attendant and you’re paying by credit card. It is actually going through our point of sale through our payment systems. And I have over 1.2 million IoT locations in North America that is providing that experience to end consumers to buy a product or a service.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the genesis of the idea? How did this business get launched?

Gaurav Singal: So essentially how it launched was I think some, you know, I think somebody’s family or their kids, they said, hey, dad, we want to make some money. Can we put like maybe a vending machine in our school so I can actually manage it while I’m at school and make some money? And that’s how the vending machine business started. And then when the kids did not have the money and they wanted their, you know, maybe a credit card to use or with Covid, we saw a huge leap and leapfrogging into people using credit cards on these vending machine and unattended locations. That’s where we saw a huge uptake in using credit cards at these locations.

Lee Kantor: So was cantaloupe going store to store and and converting all of these locations into customers.

Gaurav Singal: So what we did is, you know, we partnered with OEM partners, which are essentially the vending machine makers like cranes and Dixie, narco and other machine types. So they by default put our credit card into their machines. So that way, you know, they’re retrofitted and it is available for any of their operators to use. But we also did like, you know, social media campaigns. We reached out to people like, you know, our salespeople will contact the phone numbers on the vending machines and kind of do a cross-sell or upsell opportunity for them to be able to buy these credit card readers.

Lee Kantor: But the brand is kind of hidden from the.

Gaurav Singal: Yes. So that’s the beauty of technology, is when you don’t notice it and it happens in the background, or you’re getting an amazing experience and, you know, and the beauty of technology is, is when it doesn’t work, then you really see the impact, right? Everybody, you know, it sucks all the oxygen out of the room. So my real the beauty of my job or the beauty that I’m doing my job really well is when nobody notices that cantaloupe is actually in the ecosystem.

Lee Kantor: But it’s a double edged sword, though, right? Because you want to be known by your customers that, hey, cantaloupe is the solution that we should choose.

Gaurav Singal: Yeah, yeah. So in unattended retail, we are a big brand. So we are the biggest brand in North America that do unattended retail. So anywhere any of the, you know, merchants, they want to do a micropayments. They want to accept any payments below $25, they will naturally come to cantaloupe because we have made a name in making that payment possible at a very good acceptance rate. So cantaloupe is a big brand in the industry now. So while an end consumer may not know, but all the people who are running these businesses, you know, either they know us or they know it from word of mouth from their friends who are already in the business.

Lee Kantor: So what brings you to Fintech South? Why is it important for you and your team to be here?

Gaurav Singal: Yeah, as I said, you know, Atlanta is the transaction valley, not a Silicon Valley, but a transaction valley. So obviously, you know, coming to fintech South, it has given me an opportunity to look at various sponsors, various collaborators, various partnerships. I have met, you know, a lot of people who are also looking for jobs as well. So and access to talent as well. So it’s kind of a mix of all this, which keeps me, you know, excited to come back every year at Fintech South.

Lee Kantor: So, um, looking ahead, what do you see as trends or technology that you should be paying attention to or the consumer should be paying attention to?

Gaurav Singal: Yeah. Awesome. So basically, you know, as you see, right today we are seeing a healthy collision between attended retail and unattended retail. So anywhere if you’re going to a Costco or a Walmart, you see, you know, more and more unattended locations where the shift of checkout process is now more on the end consumer versus a Costco worker or a Walmart worker. So we are seeing a trend that unattended payments and unattended checkouts are going to grow and grow, right? Because of the shortage of labor, rising wages. Right. And the merchants want to give you the better cost of acceptance without increasing that burden for people who are actually just doing checkout. So what we are pivoting on is we are leveraging AI in our smart pending. So we are actually we have solutions today which have AI camera, you know, camera vision and AI vision that is built on smart vending. So you can actually go to those smart vending locations, use your credit card to open that, pick up any bag or bag of chips or a Coke or a beer and just walk out. And automatically, those AI vision camera will detect what you took and will automatically charge you.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a customer adoption issues with that kind of technology? Because I saw that some large brands tried that and didn’t work as well as maybe they anticipated.

Gaurav Singal: So as with any technology right there is always going to be adoption gap, right? A lot of times I see people overestimate things in the short run and underestimate in the long run. There are some concerns, legit concerns from consumers, but what we are doing is we are actually kind of providing that feedback to the customer that hey, there is. There are cameras that are in use. They’re only used to detect the product. We are not recording them. And that has helped us generate the trust in the customer that hey, by the way, this is really operating in a private way. Secondly, you know, what we are also doing is, you know, given, you know, we are using AI sensors as well as, you know, AI based cameras. We have we can 100% detect that this is the product that you have taken. So that has also increased trust in the transaction that customers know that your technology or our control technology will charge them for the right product at the right time.

Lee Kantor: So now, um, are you seeing kind of other countries leading more in this area, especially like when it comes to vending? Is there opportunities for America to really kind of get more out of vending than other countries maybe have already embraced?

Gaurav Singal: Yeah, no, for sure, I think I don’t know if you have been to Japan, but if you go to Japan, right. I think everything is available in a vending machine, right? With food, whether it’s a consumer product, whether it’s electronic, anything you can think of, it’s actually in a vending machine at different locations. So I still feel I think we are like not a traditional vending machine. But I think the more and more I’ve been thinking about it, I think the world is going to converge into smart vending, where you’re going to see all of these locations pop up, whether it’s in a retail store, airport, gym, school, college, wherever you are at. But, you know, with our technology will be automatically able to detect what you have taken. And there would not be a need for an attendant to be there. They will only be needed to restock, and all of that would be happening through technology and unattended location and self-service commerce.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I would think there’s a big opportunity because America has the space, but it may not have the employees to do the kind of work. And this kind of solves both of those problems?

Gaurav Singal: Absolutely. I think we are definitely getting these are definitely tailwinds for us. You know, with the as I said, with the rising, uh, you know, wages and, uh, you know, labor shortage, this is you know, as I said, this is a strong trend for unattended to grow and grow.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about cantaloupe and partner with you, uh, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Gaurav Singal: Yes. So the best way to connect with me is always on LinkedIn. So I’m the chief technology officer at cantaloupe. The fruit cantaloupe, because we couldn’t get the other fruit name, which was apple. Our website is WW cantaloupe.com.

Lee Kantor: Well thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Gaurav Singal: Thank you so much for having me here.

Fintech South 2025: Shanthi Shanmugam with Casap

September 2, 2025 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2025: Shanthi Shanmugam with Casap

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Shanthi Shanmugam is CEO and Co-Founder of Casap. Casap is a copilot & collaboration platform to automate disputes, reduce fraud loss, and create loyalty building opportunities.

Casap’s mission is driven by cutting-edge technology, client success, and a deep sense of empathy.

We are committed to creating innovative solutions that expedite resolution and provide financial peace of mind. We win when our clients win.

Casap safeguards your bottom line with a dual shield—exceptional automated compliant operations that don’t just reduce fraud loss, they delight your cardholders in the process.

Connect with Shanthi on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Shanthi Shanmugam with Casap.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Casap. How are you serving folks?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Yeah. So Casap, I started the company a couple of years ago. We help banks transform disputes, card disputes from something that sucks to something that actually keeps their customers happy.

Lee Kantor: Wow. How do you how were you able to flip the script like that?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Well, I mean, think about it. If you see a transaction on your account that wasn’t you, you’d be pretty upset. Then you go to your bank and you say, please help me out. Please give me my money back. That’s what you’re here for.

Lee Kantor: They’re known for their high level of customer service.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Exactly, exactly. You get it, you get it. So it’s really about. I mean, you don’t really expect them to make it easy to get your money back, but what if they gave you your money back immediately because they knew you were telling the truth?

Lee Kantor: Hey, I would.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Help them do that. We helped them do that.

Lee Kantor: So how do you help them do that?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Well, so let’s say let’s take that situation. Let’s say you’re looking at your account. You see a $2,000 TV from Best Buy. That wasn’t you wasn’t your family. It was no one. You know you. Instead of having to drive to a branch or call someone during business hours, you can go right in your app. You can pick that transaction. You say, that wasn’t me at that point. Csat we use AI to figure out based on your history. Do you tend to buy TVs at Best Buy?

Lee Kantor: Do you o’clock in the morning at 2:00 in the morning?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Exactly that. That. Well, look at all that stuff. We’ll ask you a set of questions that the best fraud investigator would ask you. And at the end of asking these questions in the app, we will have a win score. So we’re going to figure out do we think Lee’s telling the truth or not? And even if you are telling the truth, can we actually get the money back from BestBuy? Will they cough it up because we know how to win chargebacks against Best Buy. So based on all of this data, we’ll have this win score. Let’s say it’s like an 80% chance we’re going to get your money back. We will immediately give you that money. The moment you submit your dispute and close out your case. And if we can give it to you immediately, we’ll give you a status tracker. Think of it like the Domino’s Pizza tracker. You order a pizza, tells you when you have toppings on your pizza. We’ll do the same thing with your dispute. Make sure you always know what’s going on.

Lee Kantor: So how are banking institutions embracing this new technology?

Shanthi Shanmugam: You know they love it. And I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why. They do care about the customer experience, which is great. What they also really care about is the bottom line. Today, most banks have to outsource their disputes to someone there. It could be a processor.

Lee Kantor: So they’re not doing it. They didn’t say, hey, maybe we should solve this problem.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Some of them have tried and some of them have tried. No, don’t get me wrong, a lot of them have tried. It’s hard because you got regulations, you got Régie and regs that tell banks, if you’re not 1,000% sure that Lee is lying of right now, I made you a fraudster. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. So if we’re not a thousand, you know, is innocent until proven guilty for not 1,000% sure Lee is lying. And you can’t figure that out in the first ten business days, you got to give him his money back. So with all the volume. Because now there’s TikToks and YouTubes telling everyone, hey, did you know if you’re slightly inconvenienced by someone, instead of talking to the merchant about it, you can just use your bank like a concierge and get them to handle the refund. So now the disputes volume is increasing 100% year over year, and the banks are getting overwhelmed. And then they have this rule that says, hey, if you don’t figure it out in ten days, give the money back. So they’re losing a lot of money, $100 billion to first party fraud. So it’s not a hacker out in a different country stealing your information on the dark web. It’s actually your neighbor, your friendly next door neighbor that’s buying a TV, having a little buyer’s remorse and pretending they didn’t. And that’s the kind of fraud that’s really eating away at banks today. So when they embrace us, they say, cool, you’re going to make your customers happy and keep them longer because you’re going to help us show up in these moments that matter, gonna help us cut fraud in half. That’s what we do. We cut fraud losses by 51% for our institutions, and we’re going to keep them compliant and enable their teams to be five times more productive than they are today, because we’re a one stop shop for everything about disputes.

Lee Kantor: So who is your client? Is it the mega bank? Is it the community bank? Like all.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Of the.

Lee Kantor: Above? Well, it sounds like every bank could use you. But who are the ones that are actually, you know, paying to use you?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Yeah, so. But we don’t give it away for free, so all of our customers are paying us. But. Yes. Well, well, we’ve got banks that are in the top 25. We’ve got community financial institutions. We’ve also got public fintechs. So, Emily, you didn’t ask me how I got into disputes, but I did not come out of the womb wanting to solve disputes. So this.

Lee Kantor: Was.

Shanthi Shanmugam: A.

Lee Kantor: Childhood dream.

Shanthi Shanmugam: It was not. It was not. I did not think. Mom, dad. One day, one day, one a silly card dispute.

Lee Kantor: Solving this problem.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Right before I become president. Um, no, no, no, I was I was the second product hire at Robinhood. Um, and I had honestly, I spent a lot of time doing a lot of things there. I added crypto to the app, I helped redesign the app, but the most important thing was after that whole GameStop thing, if you guys remember that.

Lee Kantor: Yes.

Shanthi Shanmugam: I had to figure out how to rebuild trust. And that’s when I started thinking about these moments that matter. And then my co-founder had this kind of parallel life at chime fixing disputes. And then we looked at each other and we realized we spent three years building something that was comically the same, so decided to make it a company.

Lee Kantor: And then were you based?

Shanthi Shanmugam: We’re based in New York.

Lee Kantor: And then why are you here? Fintech. So.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Well, you know, transaction alley, if you heard that phrase, I’ve.

Lee Kantor: Heard.

Shanthi Shanmugam: It 20 times today. No. But actually, though I think it’s such a beautiful, beautiful community here, everyone know and everyone, all these processors all together. And honestly, this is especially when fighting fraud. We’ve got to work together. The fraudsters are hanging out, they’ve got a little group chat going on, like we got a collaborated places like this and help each other out. So that’s that’s why I’m here. I spoke a little bit earlier today and now I’m speaking with you.

Lee Kantor: So what is your take on the Atlanta ecosystem?

Shanthi Shanmugam: It’s warm. It’s fuzzy. It’s. No, I’m getting to learn it a bit better. But I think what’s what’s really amazing is that when it comes to financial infrastructure, how are money? When I bought my bagel at the airport today that was running on infrastructure created by the institutions here, and whether I bought my bagel here or in London or in India, where my family’s from, it’s actually running on this infrastructure. So I to answer your question, I think this ecosystem is beautiful and I’m excited to be a part of it.

Lee Kantor: So how do you see you and your firm kind of leaning into the Atlanta fintech ecosystem? In addition to Fintech South, obviously this great event, but also tagging Technology Association of Georgia, D.C. and the opportunities there for your company to benefit from that community.

Shanthi Shanmugam: I definitely do, and I think the best way to benefit from a community is to give to it. So I, I mean, when when I saw the Fintech Academy and all of these young professionals looking to figure out how to make their mark on this amazing ecosystem. I would love to share some of the insights I’ve learned the last two years. Building something that’s pretty, you know, touching, pretty critical fabric of of our infrastructure. And then the second thing is, I’d love to work with a lot of these companies, I think, I mean, I have the benefit of getting to build case up the same week ChatGPT came out. We’ve got to have a fundamentally different set of first principles that’s enabled us to do things in a very different way. And sometimes I think we’re it’s better working together than trying to rebuild what everything’s doing in separate companies like my co-founder and I were doing for a bit.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Honestly, visibility with the right, with the right folks. Like, we’ve got some really amazing folks in Atlanta. We’ve got canned decent, right? You know, digital banking and like how customers are interacting with their banks. We’ve got processors such as, you know, Fiserv and FIS with some presence here. And now visa is opening up, uh, some presence here. But just, I think awareness around how important it is to show up in moments that matter, and how disputes is, is exactly one of those moments.

Lee Kantor: Moments that matter.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Moments that matter.

Lee Kantor: And, um, I can’t wait to see more and more banks embracing that, that line of thought.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Yes. Me too. I mean, why are you laughing? Me?

Lee Kantor: I’ve been to the bank before. You have? Oh.

Shanthi Shanmugam: I’m so sorry.

Lee Kantor: We’ll rebuild that trust. We’ll get.

Shanthi Shanmugam: You back.

Lee Kantor: Well, um, if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you and learn more about KSAT, what is the best way to do that?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Yes. Well, find me on LinkedIn. I talk a lot about first party fraud stories, some of them not so safe for work, but we see a lot come through when customers are saying they didn’t do something, they totally did. So yes, definitely find me on LinkedIn. Shanthi Shanmugam. My name is a little hard to spell so you could also email me Shanti sh a and t h i@ksat.com.

Lee Kantor: And can you spell KSAT?

Shanthi Shanmugam: Yes, I can see ASAP see ASAP.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. And then before we wrap, is there a story you can share with maybe, uh, don’t name the company, but maybe a company you work with that illustrates how effective your system is at, um, you know, solving this problem and creating more moments of manner.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Absolutely. I will give you two really quick ones. All right. So we have we have a customer who who started seeing a very large volume of disputes. There was a TikTok video floating around saying, hey, did you know if you go to this customer, the bank will not be named and file a dispute under 45 bucks? They’re just going to give you your money back. You got all these 44.99 transactions. And in there there are a few. Um, there are a few folks that really needed their dispute resolved quickly. It was this it was this really innocent customer who saw it. It was actually that’s why I came up with the TD example, a $2,000 Best Buy TV on his debit card, and he had rent due at the end of the month and he was freaking out. There was no money left, so our platform one enabled them to figure out all the people that were abusing this policy and make sure that we were closing out invalid dispute cases and enabling the team to handle cases five times faster than they were doing before. And because of our win score, we realized we were going to help. Let’s call him Timmy. We were going to help Timmy pay rent at the end of the month, whereas if we if they didn’t have case up by the time they got around to Timmy’s case, his rent would have been due and who knows what his landlord would have done. So that’s that’s the way we’re really showing up in a moment that matters. And then on the other side, not just these folks that are saying, oh, file something less than 45 bucks, you’ll get your money back. We’ve got folks that are really abusing disputes. We saw a family fraud subscription ring. Let me describe it to you.

Lee Kantor: Family. It’s a family business.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Family business, a first party fraud. It’s. Imagine. Jane Smith reports a dispute for John Smith at the same house for a magazine subscription that she didn’t get. Then John Smith does one for Rhonda Smith, and Rhonda Smith does one for James Smith. So now in each dispute is worth 300 bucks. So that’s like $900 of disputes that they’re just winning before this institution had case up every month. It’s free money. It’s free money that’s going to the customer. And that’s honestly coming out of all of our wallets at the end of the day, because these are fraud losses that we’re paying for in fees and all of that. So KSAT was able to figure out this family fraud subscription. Ring had this home address in common. We’re able to deny all of these cases.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, the impact is real. And congratulations on all the success in the momentum. That sounds like you have a great solution.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Appreciate it. Thank you so much for.

Lee Kantor: Having me one more time on the website. Before we.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Wrap. Yes ksat hq.com see ASAP HQ and you could find some time with me and I’ll give you a demo of the product and show you how we cut fraud in half.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, Chauncey, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Shanthi Shanmugam: Thank you. Appreciate you, thank you. Lee.

Fintech South 2025: Charles Potts with ICBA

September 2, 2025 by angishields

ABR-Charles-Potts-Fintech-South-2025-Feature

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2025: Charles Potts with ICBA

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Charles E. Potts is Executive Vice President, Innovation for the Independent Community Bankers of America® (ICBA).

In this role Potts drives ICBA’s innovation initiatives, and financial technology strategies, working with ICBA leadership to develop impactful, value-added solutions that help community banks seize new market opportunities to meet customers’ evolving financial services’ needs.

Potts’ extensive experience in banking and financial service firms provided the background Potts needed to start, co-found or lead various fintech start-ups including digital banking, mobile engagement, financial management and payments providers. Many had successful exits via IPO’s or acquisition via strategic acquirers.

A frequent speaker at national trade shows and conferences, Potts previously served as executive managing director at First Performance Global, where he led international business and corporate development activities for its card-control and fraud alert platform. Before that he served as CEO for NetClarity, a start-up in the University of Florida’s Business Incubation Hub. Prior to ICBA, he worked at the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), leading the fintech practice where he mentored startups as part of the Georgia Tech-based incubator.

Charles attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, did his graduate studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta and attended the Graduate School of Banking at LSU. Potts, an avid masters runner, cyclist and soccer fan, lives with his wife in Atlanta, GA. They have a daughter who recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she was a nationally ranked pole vaulter on the Track and Field team.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest Charles Potts with ICBA. Welcome.

Charles Potts: Thank you Lee. Glad to be here and I appreciate you guys giving us this chance.

Lee Kantor: Well, for folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about ICBA? Uh, who are you serving? And, uh, why is it so important to learn more about what you guys got going on?

Charles Potts: Yeah, absolutely. ICBA is the independent community banks of America. We are the Washington DC based trade association or lobbying firm, if you will, for the community banks here in the United States, a little over 4000 community banks. We are their primary voice and advocate in DC, with with the legislative body and all the policy people. And we have been around for over 90 years looking out after the interest of the community banks and why this is critically important. Well, I have a unique role in the organization and why Fintech South is is again part of what we, um, immerse ourselves in. As I’m the chief innovation officer, I lead an arm of the organization that helps our community banks, um, address the real needs of their communities through the types of fintechs that that we see here, and taking advantage of the new technology to really service those customers. And this is more and more important because, you know, what we know is almost two thirds of all small business lending comes from a community bank in the United States, and 80% of all farm loans comes from community banks. And so in this very dynamic marketplace, we need to ensure that our community banks have the best tools and solutions to keep them competitive, to keep them on par with the biggest banks and biggest fintechs, and make sure they’re meeting the needs of the small businesses and customers that they serve in their communities.

Lee Kantor: Now, I’m a big fan of community banks, but for folks who aren’t familiar with maybe the difference between a community bank and one of those stadium banks that might be in a given community, um, can you share kind of what how they’re different and why it’s so important that each community has a thriving community bank ecosystem in their neighborhood?

Charles Potts: Well, look, it’s it’s not that far in our rearview mirror. What we dealt with in 2020 with the Payroll Protection Program, uh, and ultimately, Small Business America recognized once again that they needed a banker, Are not just a bank. And so the relationship model that is critical to the success of these communities, knowing who you’re doing business with. Uh, you know, knowing, uh, who is looking out after your interest in these communities is one of the biggest differentiators in community banks. They take local deposits, they make local loans. They really serve the needs of the community and the businesses that they that they’re part of. And they do this with their local leadership. So probably that relationship, knowing who you’re banking with, I tend to say, is one of the most critical differentiators in what, uh, what makes a community bank and, and ultimately, you know, you, you, you tend to know, um, what the pain points are and what the needs are of the community that you serve because you are part of it. You grew up in it. You have multi generations, uh, that have served it. And um, and that is a huge differentiator and for the customers in that community. You know, these are people that their kids go to school with. They play little league ball together with. And so there is a there’s a set of relationships there that are ingrained. Um, you know, very, very deeply.

Lee Kantor: And then when you as a customer go into a community bank, there’s a higher probability they’re going to remember you and know your name as opposed to you walk into some of these larger mega banks where it’s going to be a different person every time you go in there. They’re not going to know who you are. You’re a name on a spreadsheet.

Charles Potts: Well, and and look, as I said, um, you know, businesses particularly want to know who they’re doing business with. And, and the business owners and the operators of those banks understand that critical symbiotic relationship. And those are those are job creators in those communities. And so it is incumbent upon the community bank to know and understand the needs of that small business Operator.

Lee Kantor: And it’s also it’s it’s symbiotic, though. I mean, the community has to embrace the community bank as well. Oh, and they can’t take it for granted.

Charles Potts: Absolutely. And, you know, there’s a there’s a long, deep, rich history there that, uh, that that frankly, uh, plays out very, very well when you look at, as I said before, uh, the growth in the growth in jobs in the United States in general comes from small businesses, and small businesses rely upon community banks as their primary source of funding.

Lee Kantor: So now when you come to an event like a fintech South, um, how do you and your team, uh, attack it to make sure that you’re getting the most value out of it? Is it the education or is it the, uh, connectivity where you’re interacting and meeting new folks? Uh, how do you get the most out of something as important as a fintech south?

Charles Potts: Yeah. So. So, uh, our relationship, uh, from the innovation arm of ICB, and we really have three different pillars. We have the traditional advocacy, the lobbying side, if you will. We have a very robust education arm that works with hundreds of thousands of bankers every year to make sure that they’re trained on all aspects of banking, from compliance to lending and everything in between. And then our innovation arm sits at this really interesting intersection between the bankers themselves and these fintechs and these fintech entrepreneurs. And so an event like Fintech South is really as much as, um, our ability to promote and highlight what these companies are doing and how they’re helping community bankers, as well as it’s helping the community banks that are in attendance understand what these companies can do for them. So we, you know, we we kind of jokingly play matchmaker, if you will. And so our job is to continue to evangelize for all the great work that our community banks are doing. And at the same time, the great work a lot of these companies are doing to help our community banks. So we’re, you know, we’re, uh, we’re in oftentimes an extension of a lot of these companies at these kind of events where we’re helping highlight and promote what they’re doing. And we’re also always actively recruiting for new early stage and growth stage companies to be part of our programs. And one of our cornerstone programs is our Think Tech Accelerator, where twice a year we have six companies in a ten week program that is, uh, Community Banking 101. It is an immersive ten weeks where they, they learn and know and understand the community banking world, and we help bring them to market to solve real world problems that our community banks have. So this kind of event like Fintech South gives us all facets of really the business development side of our innovation arm.

Lee Kantor: So now, has there been any technology or trend that you’ve kind of picked up from being here that you’re bringing back to your folks.

Charles Potts: We know we’ve gone. We’ve gone this long and we haven’t said AI. But of course, anything artificial intelligence related, which in our world is more about operational efficiencies, sometimes backroom operations, uh, applying those tools and technologies to address some of the more redundant labor, intense repetitive practices. So there are a number of solution providers here that we know and work with very closely, who have tools and services and capabilities that can help our banks and those kinds of functions. There are a number of participants here who are longtime, um, corporate members and supporters of what we do, uh, sponsors of our programs. And so we’re constantly staying on top of what they’re doing and looking at their new initiatives. And as we’re starting to explore, I say we the industry, not just we ICB how things like stablecoins can be applied to to to banking opportunities and use cases, as well as all all types of other payments vehicles. Those are the things that we continue to look at in an environment like Fintech South.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, where are you when it comes to physical checks? Oh, good. Like, well, a lot of the a lot of the consumers have kind of moved to digital. And then a lot of the, uh, maybe legacy companies are.

Speaker4: A little smaller.

Charles Potts: Um, you know, this is this is not for attribution to my employer, ICB. This is Charles Potts personal opinion. But the biggest problem we’ve had in the last couple of years has been the increase in check fraud in the. And it is a well known, uh, issue in our industry. We have a task force that has been, uh, spun up to focus on this. We, we spend a lot of our efforts also inside of DC and Capitol Hill, the legislative bodies and regulatory agencies working to make sure that the policies are addressing the right ways for our community banks to address this this burgeoning check fraud world that’s happened over the last couple of years and one of the largest, I guess, drivers of that was, frankly, the Treasury Department and the federal government sending out, you know, millions of stimulus checks that brought a whole bunch of new bad actors into the world to figure out new ways to go back old school and, and steal checks and wash checks and sell checks on the dark web. So that issue of checks, I mean, we we we have a check zero mindset. One of our policy guys came up with that term check zero. We want we want no checks.

Lee Kantor: And but and the consumer seems to want no check.

Speaker4: No consumer wants no jail.

Charles Potts: Look for everybody out there. Please tell your your congressional representatives to tell the Department of Treasury that’s to the part of jigsaw.

Lee Kantor: It’s like a disconnect. Like some industries are just, like, still look like holding on to this.

Charles Potts: Like the businesses, B2C, um, rebates, refunds, um, those kinds of companies that are in those businesses, telecom insurance, so forth, they still produce a a massive amount of checks that go out to consumers. It is not consumer. Consumers are not writing checks. Small businesses aren’t writing checks. It is, uh, it’s some of the big players who are in those kinds of small business.

Lee Kantor: It’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Charles Potts: It’s it’s I mean, my my daughter is a small business operator, and, uh, and she, she and I talk about this far too often.

Lee Kantor: So, um, if somebody wants to learn more about the community bank in their community or learn more about what eBay is doing in their community.

Charles Potts: Um, find me Charles Potts on LinkedIn. I’m happy to share and connect. Uh, we have a, we have a very robust, uh, uh, world of, of partners and affiliates at all the state levels as well. And, uh, we’d love for, uh, businesses are looking for a good community bank in their marketplace to serve their needs. We’d love to connect you as well. And that is that is a critically important part of keeping and growing a vibrant communities, making sure that businesses have capital to grow. They have a good capital, partners who support them and, uh, and go create jobs.

Lee Kantor: Well, Charles, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Charles Potts: Well, thank you so much, Lee, and I appreciate what you guys do here at Business Radio. And, uh, and for all of our listeners out there, uh, I want to make sure that, uh, you know, you go use a community bank when you can.

Fintech South 2025: Prakash Devulapalli with Opus Technologies

September 2, 2025 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2025: Prakash Devulapalli with Opus Technologies

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Prakash Devulapalli with Opus Technologies is a Global Business and Technology leader with over 20 years of experience in Strategy, Consulting, Sales & Business Development with an entrepreneurial mindset.

Over the years, he has enjoyed many challenging leadership roles, including leading high-powered teams to deliver top-line and bottom-line growth, building practice and competency, driving customer satisfaction, and providing innovative solutions to the financial services industry globally.

With a global experience of working with clients from 20 different countries, Prakash brings a global perspective with an entrepreneurial mindset to business challenges.

Connect with Prakash on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Prakash Devulapalli with Opus Technologies. Welcome.

Prakash Devulapalli: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: Uh, for folks who aren’t familiar. Tell us about Opus Technologies. How are you serving folks?

Prakash Devulapalli: All right. So opus is a engineering company, software engineering company largely focused on building platforms and applications for the largely for the fintechs, banks and payment companies. Um, we specialize in building platforms which are high transaction throughput, low latency, high volume businesses. Um, that’s been our core strength of the company. We work with, uh, Companies like Mastercard, companies like Pfizer, if there’s a whole bunch of those firms.

Lee Kantor: So, um, where are y’all based?

Prakash Devulapalli: Uh, we are in Alpharetta. Uh, that’s where our delivery center is. But I live in new Jersey.

Lee Kantor: And then, um, why is it important for you to become part of the fintech south, uh, community and tag.

Prakash Devulapalli: Right. So we have been in Atlanta for a while, and, uh, coming from the payments industry. Um, Atlanta is a hub to a lot of payment companies and, uh, payment processing companies and fintechs. So we have been in this, um, Atlanta region for a while, and it’s a great opportunity to meet a lot of companies who are headquartered here.

Lee Kantor: So you primarily come to an event like this for the networking or the education. Like what? What are you hoping to get out of it for you and your team’s perspective?

Prakash Devulapalli: Both. Um, you know, there are some great sessions which helps us to understand what’s going on from a market perspective and react, um, listening to our clients, listening to your partners, etc., but also made a lot of prospect clients. Um, you know, I think, uh, good networking opportunities. So. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re, uh, kind of strategically assessing this event, how are you like, how are you communicating with your team? Like, how do you want them to go about experiencing this event? Like, what’s kind of your way to kind of wring out the most value from attending an event like this? It seems like it would be target rich for you and your firm.

Prakash Devulapalli: Absolutely. So, uh, one of the things that, uh, you know, I have done, um, I asked my team to do when they brought this to me is to look for opportunities where we could jointly talk about an important topic that is shaping our industry from a market point perspective. So we had, uh, one of my, um, partner from, uh, a GMC Nexus. Uh, uh, we did a session this morning to talk about how DeFi, decentralized finance, and the stablecoins are evolving in the market. It’s a great information sharing session for a lot of people who are coming here at the same time. You know, we also, you know, work with the sponsors to see, um, yeah, yeah, organizers to see how, um, uh, we could get return on investment from networking opportunities and stuff like that. So, uh, we did our homework and we are convinced that this is a good place to go.

Lee Kantor: So what have you learned when it comes to technology or trends that you think are going to impact the industry in the coming years?

Prakash Devulapalli: So our industry, specifically banking, financial services and payments? Um, I think two important trends from my perspective, which we are focused on as a company. One is clearly AI. Um, you know, I think everything related to I just not the, um, you know, a genetic aspects of AI, but the whole, um, data and AI space, uh, is a, um, uh, a lot of opportunity out there. I think this is 25, 26 is going to be a year of lot of experimentation in that space. And the second and most important thing is stablecoins. Right. So I think, uh, um, we are very focused on these two, and that could be a good set of opportunities for, uh, for all of us to work on in the next 2 to 3 years.

Lee Kantor: So where is the low hanging fruit when it comes to AI? What are your recommendations for your clients or prospective clients to kind of experiment in what areas?

Prakash Devulapalli: Um, we are seeing a lot of opportunities in, uh, in optimization and driving more efficiency, um, across the, across the spectrum, whether it is, uh, just infusing AI to software development lifecycle, uh, itself, uh, that’s, that’s, uh, significantly accelerating the time it takes to build the software to production very quickly, building the products, building the solutions. I think, you know, um, that’s evolving really rapidly. The other low hanging fruit is essentially looking at some of the areas where a lot of manual intervention is involved in, where RPI could not solve the problem. I think they’re looking at AI to solve some of the problems more intelligently.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of the problem that your prospective client is having right before they reach out and contact you at opus?

Prakash Devulapalli: Uh, it ranges it ranges from, uh, most of our clients reach out to us for, um, uh, heavy engineering work, uh, effectively when they are building a platform or enhancing the platform for a new features or new new markets that they’re launching, or they are, um, uh, you know, uh, modernizing the platforms for the cloud world or driving efficiency in their operations, a back office. So I think wherever there is a, uh, you know, transformation involved, um, that’s when we typically get called, uh, compared to a scale providers typically. Um, and one of the key differentiators why we get called is because, um, uh, Um, we focus on banking, we focus on payments. And most of our engineering talent, we call them domain native engineers, which is essentially they understand the domain. You know, the customers don’t need to tell us what is, uh, a payments transaction. Are ISO 2002 two for us to get involved and jump into the program and deliver the value. So we focus on such transformation engagements.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team.

Prakash Devulapalli: Well plus technologies comm and uh, we uh, we are on uh uh, we’re on LinkedIn. We’re on, uh, Twitter, uh, x now and uh, our website is Opus Global. Opus Opus technologies. Com and, uh, please reach out.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Prakash Devulapalli: Thank you very much for the time.

Fintech South 2025: Ania Lackey with FinTech Atlanta

September 2, 2025 by angishields

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2025: Ania Lackey with FinTech Atlanta

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Ania Lackey is the Executive Director of FinTech Atlanta.

FinTech Atlanta is a coalition of companies working to advance Atlanta as the recognized global capital of financial technology.

Led by seasoned industry executives, the group’s priorities are to drive fintech industry growth, talent expansion, innovation acceleration, and public policy influence in Atlanta and across the state of Georgia.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Ania Lackey with Fintech Atlanta. Welcome.

Ania Lackey: Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, for those who aren’t familiar, tell us a little bit about Fintech Atlanta. How are you serving folks?

Ania Lackey: We have been around for almost ten years working to advance, um, the fintech ecosystem in Atlanta by working with many, many companies in this space. We focus on four major areas. Um, one is just the general industry growth. Um, another one, talent expansion, uh, making sure that we influence the public policy and then also innovation acceleration. We’ve got a ton of companies that work with us to make that happen.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the start? How did this begin? Fintech Atlanta.

Ania Lackey: Listen, I am brand new to this wall. And one of the very surprising things to someone like me was the fact that this ecosystem has been around for decades. I mean, we’re going back to the 50s and 60s. So Atlanta has been always positioned to be the capital for payments and transactions. Um, so ten years ago, a group of organizations and people in the industry, including Metro Atlanta Chamber Technology Association of Georgia at EPC, decided that it’s time to have a common voice, one organization speaking for the industry to make sure that it’s, uh, the well-known fact for them, which is we process a ton of payments that are US payments going through a node in Atlanta. That’s a fact that’s known not just in Atlanta, but also in the United States and globally.

Lee Kantor: So what kind of is your role? What’s your day to day look like?

Ania Lackey: Ah, every day is different, as they say. Um. I mean, first of all, you know, it’s been an easy transition. Thank you to my predecessor, Hilary Champagne. Um, so I focused on that for the last few months, but now it’s really a deep dive into the programing and things that we have done very, very well and then things we have committed to doing even better in the future. So we focus on scaling startups and companies in Atlanta, giving them an opportunity to get in front of enterprise companies for potential future pilots and opportunities to work together. Uh, we work alongside Laura Gibson, la mothe with the Georgia Fintech Academy to make sure that, um, the talent pipeline for fintech, uh, is is healthy and ripe with opportunities. As I talked to companies here at Fintech South this year. Talent, as always, is top of mind. Um, so we tried to focus on those things with our partners and companies.

Lee Kantor: So how do you kind of marry the challenge of dealing with enterprise level organizations that have certain needs and then kind of brand new startups that have a totally different set of needs and try to satisfy each one of those constituents.

Ania Lackey: That’s a great question. But honestly, in Atlanta, it’s not as difficult as it may seem. As you probably know, Atlanta has a ton of enterprise presence. We rank number 3 or 4 in the United States as far as the number of fortune 501,000 companies. Plus, we have this history of of business community engaging heavily and collaborating across the board. So for those enterprise partners, working with scaling companies is nothing new. They see a lot of benefit and sort of uplifting others coming behind them. So it’s a culture. And so that makes it much easier. But then on, on on the side of our company, on our organization, um, we have a program called Run It by the Buyers. And that’s sort of the vehicle and how we get those scaling companies in front of the enterprise partners, we get them on stage. It’s a pitch event. Um, they have an opportunity to tell your banks and payments companies why they could be great in their ecosystem and sort of their infrastructure. And we tracked what happens after that. That’s the success for us.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what are the activities or what are the wins for you where you’re high fiving your team at the end of the week? What what are kind of those key, um, metrics for you that you’re looking at?

Ania Lackey: That’s another great question. You know, for us, five months in, in this role, um, any new company that’s a payments fintech, um, coming to Atlanta, whether from another part of the US or from another country, that’s a huge win. And it’s not just fintech Atlanta to do that. We collaborate with economic development organizations with others in the ecosystem. So it’s always a big high five moment for for many partners. Um, from the fintech Atlanta’s perspective, you know, we want to grow. That’s my big goal for the next few years. Um, so adding new members, making sure that when they join and they commit to support, you know, we keep them busy and they see the ROI on their end. So not only signing up new members, but then taking the time to develop, plug them in and potentially develop new opportunities for them. Um, that’s that’s where when we get excited.

Lee Kantor: So a new member for you, like, say an enterprise organization joins. Does that mean all their employees join or is I mean, the one leader joins, like, what is a member? Uh, you know, how are you defining the.

Ania Lackey: Company joins, and we typically want one rep for the board. But really, the reason why they join is because that second, third layer of their colleagues wants to be involved, wants to be plugged in. And that’s who I want to work with.

Lee Kantor: So you want them as members to. Right? Those are the people who are kind of boots on the ground.

Ania Lackey: That is.

Lee Kantor: Correct.

Ania Lackey: But they don’t pay the membership fees at that point. They they come with the company. And then I will take anybody who wants to be involved and don’t promise if you don’t meet.

Lee Kantor: It, but you don’t want to. I mean, you’ll take anybody, but you want them to be active and engaged, not just to sign the and just have a line on their LinkedIn that says.

Ania Lackey: That is correct. Listen, I spend the last three and a half years at the Atlanta Tech Village, and I’m sure you’re familiar with Ali Merritt and the great work that she does. And one thing that she often says is rising tide raises old boats. And then we also talk a lot about serendipity and serendipitous interactions. So for me, creating opportunities to sort of put people in one room and give them an opportunity to talk and figure it out, that’s another success, right?

Lee Kantor: Creating those collisions.

Ania Lackey: 100% collision was the word I was looking.

Speaker1: For.

Lee Kantor: And so more of those the better. So, um, so how are you finding this event? Is it what you expected? Are you looking for more collisions yourself? Like, what would you consider a win at the end of this event?

Ania Lackey: You know, for us, the goal was to show up as fintech Atlanta here in Support Technology Association of Georgia. Larry Williams is on my executive committee. And we want to make sure that he and Tag are successful. So showing up um, again, rising tide, uh, along those lines. Um, we also wanted to give some exposure to our board members. So we were holding, um, a small content studio here at the event and gathering a little bit of content that we then post on LinkedIn. So giving them a little bit more visibility, telling the story of the ecosystem, uh, sharing that story to make sure more people are aware. Um, the panels and content, uh, have been great. Um, and then really just gospel of Fintech Atlanta, making sure people know who we are now.

Lee Kantor: Um, we were talking to Larry earlier. There was a mention of maybe, um, the footprint of Tag expanding beyond not physically expanding beyond, uh, in Georgia, but touching maybe the southeast as a region and looking at kind of the, the whole of the region rather than just Georgia. How do you see that fitting into your mission and what you’re trying to accomplish?

Ania Lackey: Fintech Atlanta is focused on Atlanta. So I would love to work on the community level with the idea that we want to tell that story globally. So there’s definitely sort of this tug and pull between local and global, but we have so much work that needs to be done here. I mean, there are new companies joining this ecosystem literally every day and big names. You know, we all know about stripe opening in the office. So it’s building connections takes time. Um, you know, I definitely avoid the surface level connection. Um, so, so and that takes time. People do business with people that they like and enjoy, and that’s sort of what I live by.

Lee Kantor: And then for folks who want to learn more, what is the best way to connect the website? What’s the best? That’s correct.

Ania Lackey: So our website is Fintech Atlanta. Org. You’re going to find the basic information about our programing and how to find me. You can find us on LinkedIn. We try to push a lot of content through LinkedIn.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well Ania, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Ania Lackey: I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for having me.

Fintech South 2025: Mike Kresse with Mastercard

September 2, 2025 by angishields

ABR-Mike-Kresse-Fintech-South-2025-Feature

Atlanta Business Radio

Fintech South 2025: Mike Kresse with Mastercard

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Mike Kresse is Executive Vice President of Commercial and New Payment Flows at Mastercard, North America. In this role, he leads the go-to-market strategy for a diverse set of commercial products and services, spanning large corporate, middle market, SMB, healthcare, and money transfer solutions.

Mike oversees a cross-functional team that’s helping to scale innovation, accelerate market expansion, and drive revenue across customer segments. His leadership centers on unlocking growth through collaboration, customer-centricity, and the seamless commercialization of products that make money movement faster, smarter, and more inclusive.

With more than 25 years of experience in commercial payments, B2B commerce, fintech, and financial services, Mike brings a strategic mindset and deep operational expertise to every challenge.

Prior to joining Mastercard, he spent eight years at FIS, where he led P&Ls across key platforms including accounts payable and receivable, bill pay, card processing, embedded finance, and global money movement. Throughout his career, Mike has delivered results by aligning product and sales teams around customer value and future-ready innovation—fueling long-term business growth and digital transformation.

Mike is known for his optimistic, energetic leadership style and his ability to connect across teams and industries. He is passionate about the evolving role of finance and payments in powering opportunity—whether it’s helping a CFO better manage working capital, enabling small businesses to build credit, or reducing friction in cross-border payments.

Outside of work, he’s an advocate for mentorship, inclusion, and continuous learning.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my guest, Mike Kresse with Mastercard. So Mike, tell us a little bit about why Mastercard decided to sponsor and partner with Fintech South Fintech.

Mike Kresse: There’s just a tremendous amount of innovation that’s happening in fintech right now. And ultimately events like Fintech South. The types of investments that tag is making. Create a forum and an opportunity for us to gather together and do an idea exchange. Financial technology isn’t about market dominance. It’s about collaboration. It’s about looking at all the players that are in the ecosystem. Everyone is bringing good ideas to the table, and it’s about figuring out how can we enable success for all the constituents and stakeholders, whether those are consumers and small businesses that are now being included in the financial ecosystem? Through financial technology players, whether that’s large corporates that are looking for innovation and efficiencies, there’s just a tremendous amount of opportunity for financial institutions. So we’re here because it’s great. It’s an exchange of ideas. It’s collaboration, it’s ideation, and it’s really where the latest ideas are talked about.

Lee Kantor: So when you come here with your folks from Mastercard here in Atlanta, how do you recommend they take advantage of an event like Fintech South and the organization tag?

Mike Kresse: Yeah, I think there’s a there’s a few vectors that you look at. The first is of course education. There’s is opportunities here to learn about the latest breakthroughs on artificial intelligence, the latest happenings with crypto and stablecoins a big topic right now. And so I think first and foremost, there’s an opportunity for education. But the fast follow on that is building relationships. And of course, the the type of business development and networking that you expect would happen at an event like this. We encourage our team to come in very open minded, to not only be looking for the folks that we’re thinking we want to talk to and partner with, but to be available to be approached by organizations that we may not know that are actually out there in the ecosystem or doing something phenomenally interesting. So it’s come in, be ready to learn, be ready to build relationships and be open to the possibility of of meeting the the next big company that is going to do incredible things.

Lee Kantor: So Mastercard is so ubiquitous. Um, it’s probably in everybody’s wallet here. How do you stay relevant and current with all the advent of what’s happening in fintech digitally.

Mike Kresse: I really love that question. Ultimately, for us, it’s about keeping our attention focused on the customer. Is that customer a consumer cardholder? Is it a small business? Is it a large corporate? Is it someone that’s trying to send money home? Is it a financial institution? Is it the government and what are their needs? What are the needs that they actually have? What are problems that are getting in their way from growing, from being efficient, from having secure payment transactions so that fraud is not creeping into the mix. If we keep our eye on solving for the needs that are in the market, that’s how we stay relevant. Because if everything comes from need, everything comes from solving for the ecosystem as a whole, then we’ll know that we’re innovating in the right way.

Lee Kantor: So, um, how do your people communicate with each of those constituents? Like like what is how do they stay, you know, up to date with what’s happening and what those needs are, because it seems like they’re changing so rapidly.

Mike Kresse: Yeah. The the good news about a company like Mastercard is we’re very, very focused on the various end constituents that are benefiting via inclusion via, again, better security, via faster payments that are benefiting from the ecosystem. So not only do we spend a lot of time in consumer forums and doing small business and small town takeovers for small businesses and for consumers, but we spend a lot of time at conferences like Fintech South, where we can actually get the the real coalface information about what is those, what are those needs and what actually is taking place. So I’d love to give you some what seems like revelatory answer, but at the end of the day, it’s just about spending time with people with an open mind and with an open heart to hear what it is that they’re dealing with, and then to jointly solution and jointly solve around that.

Lee Kantor: Now, the the part that I’m struggling with is and maybe you’re not struggling with it is that Mastercard everyone’s heard of but have has everyone had a conversation with somebody from Mastercard, or do they have conversations with other people you know, on your behalf?

Mike Kresse: Yeah. So the question that you’re asking really gets back to what’s our our go to market model and what’s the what’s the way in which we impact our end constituents. You could you could say, well, no, no one talks to Mastercard. They just talk to the bank who’s issued the Mastercard card, like in just the plainest of contexts. Right. But the reality is our employees, um, are our trust in our brand and the experience that a consumer is able to have at the point of sale or at the time that they’re booking a trip that ends up getting facilitated because of Mastercard’s network, they actually are touching Mastercard, and they’re interacting with Mastercard in that context. And we’re able to look at that experience. We’re able to see what it is that we were able to bring to that consumer, to that small business and say to ourselves, how can we make that more elegant? How can we make that safer, faster, more efficient? So really, I mean, obviously we all talk to people all throughout our day in and day out. We have over 35,000 employees, but we’re touching people in all walks of life every day, just by the technology that’s in their hands that they’re capable of using.

Lee Kantor: And you’ve been able to build a brand that does, um, kind of garner that much trust in the ecosystem that allows people to feel comfortable and safe using, uh, Mastercard. So that kudos to you for doing that, because a lot of these newer, uh, digital, uh, choices haven’t, you know, done that from a branding standpoint and developed that level of trust with their end user? So, I mean, that has to be a huge advantage in the marketplace moving forward as even as the digital landscape evolves, it it.

Mike Kresse: It’s an advantage, but it’s also an opportunity. So what I’m going to be talking about on stage later today is we’re here as a scale player for all of the innovators that are here at Fintech South to leverage, to bring their unique user experience, their unique use case to fruition and to market. And by partnering with Mastercard and going through the process of onboarding, they then become a trusted provider of services to their clients. So we don’t see it as a, hey, we’ve built this trusted brand, so that’s that’s a moat and people can’t touch that. It’s very different than that. We’ve built this trusted brand so that it can be leveraged, and our capabilities can be leveraged to bring all sorts of new use cases, disruption and experiences out to the world.

Lee Kantor: So how do you partner with kind of that emerging, Innovative new brand.

Mike Kresse: There’s a number of ways that we do it. I mean, we have, um, our, uh, our fintech accelerator investments where people can get on our start path to really help start plugging into what Mastercard offers. Uh, we offer a lot of small business advisory services and forums where folks can engage. Our platforms are built with developer portals and ecosystems, so people can sandbox and play with Mastercard capabilities and how they would embed them into their overall ecosystem. We have dedicated account teams that are at events like this, looking and being being open to those companies, approaching Mastercard, looking for help or looking for how we can assist. And then we’re messaging out very actively, very actively through multiple channels in the market on what it is that we can help do for these customers. So it really is I got to tell you guys, like one of the things I love about fintech because I happen to love people is it’s not, um, it’s not a competition from the standpoint of only certain people can play. It’s a giant collaboration, and the term cooperation is fintech. We compete on some things, we cooperate on other things, and it’s a very, very healthy ecosystem that continues to drive innovation at pace.

Lee Kantor: So how do you find the Atlanta, um, technology and fintech community as compared to maybe other places around the country or the world that you work with?

Mike Kresse: So I did my entire career in Silicon Valley until about five years ago when I relocated out, and I’ve been on the East Coast now for about those five years. I was southeast for five years and in the northeast now for for eight months. So I’ve traveled around the country, I’ve traveled around the world. It lanta has just this unique dynamic of having major payment companies headquartered here, with very capable universities feeding into those employers and incredible organizations like Tag and others that are directly addressing financial technology innovation and creating forums for collaboration that doesn’t exist everywhere. Does it exist in San Francisco? You have some of it as it exists in New York. Yes, of course you have some of it. But Atlanta has this uniqueness of having major players headquartered here and having been the switching city for for decades, right, of where so many transactions come in and are switched. So I think that Atlanta just creates a very great environment for ideation, for collaboration, and transparently as people move from one company to the other and or start and found their own companies, it just creates a positive flywheel effect of accelerating innovation overall. And that for me personally, is really exciting. And it’s a differentiated aspect of Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: How do you see the talent pipeline that comes out of here? You mentioned universities, but there’s also fintech academies. There’s some other things that are happening here. Um, is this a healthy kind of thriving? Um, pipeline that we have here, or is this something that we’re going to have to be bringing in people from other places in order to really, um, you know, generate the talent that’s necessary to keep this a thriving fintech community.

Mike Kresse: So that’s a I get to answer the fun. Yes and yes answer. So what I would tell you is it’s a very thriving community. The point I was just making previously is that people move from company to company here, and they go from large, and then they try it as small, and they’re bringing those experiences in, and then they go back out to a large where they’ve learned to be really nimble and innovative at a small. All that back and forth between the companies, even just based here in Atlanta, are great. But I would, of course, always encourage any local economy, any local ecosystem to be importing talent as well and exporting talent, right, because that’s what creates a healthy ecosystem. So I think this is a phenomenal place. You’ve got the fintech academies, you’ve got I think Georgia was one of the first places that had actual financial technology sales as a major at one of the universities. Right. So there’s there’s a lot of innovation that’s happened here from a curriculum standpoint. And then of course, all the experience from the various employers that are here, but very vibrant market, very strong talent, uh, very much a place where having a strong footprint like we do as Mastercard is important.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How could our listeners help you?

Mike Kresse: I think first is, and I don’t know that we need more of it. I think what we need less of is, uh, thinking about, uh, Mastercard as it’s just a Cartoon Network and they’re not going to want to talk to us. I think when you look at a lot of the big players that are out there, and you could call us a big scaled player, there might be a hesitancy to want to see, like what it is that we could do for that small company that’s just getting started or for that founder. We want to help. We want to ideate, we want to really engage. So what we could do more of is really making Mastercard accessible to every one of the folks that are here, every one of the folks that are in the Atlanta market or are associated with Tag and letting them know, hey, come engage with Mastercard because we can help you get to market within a unique differentiation that only you can bring.

Lee Kantor: So the more fintech startups that called you, the happier you’d be.

Mike Kresse: 1,000%.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. So if somebody wants to connect with you and, you know, get on your calendar or explain what they got going on, what is the website, what’s the best way to connect?

Mike Kresse: I mean, obviously you can go through WW, Mastercard, com, you can of course reach out to me at Mike, which is Cressey, my last name at Mastercard. And gents, I really appreciate you having me on the show. This has just been a great discussion and it’s really, really great to be here with you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time at Fintech South 2025.