Jake Aaron Villarreal: I'm Jake Aaron Villarreal, born and raised in Silicon Valley, and here to take you behind the scenes to share what it's like to be a startup founder, the journey they're on, the problems they face, the products they build in effort to make our lives better. I'm excited to have with us today Leo Patching, co-founder and CEO of Compliant. Leo, welcome to the show.
Leo Patching: Hey, thanks so, great to be here with you.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Well, I'm excited to have you here, Leo. I know we had a, a conversation a few weeks back and really excited to dive into your, your company and the problem you're solving and the space you're in. But before we do that, let's talk a little bit about you and we'll talk about your origin story. I like to always kind of go down a little bit in terms of the background of our guests of, you know, how did you get into technology? How did you become an entrepreneur? Like what was that origin story that started you off on the track that led you to where you're at today? So, um I guess before we walk through that, where, where are you joining us from today?
Leo Patching: Yeah. So, um you're born in Silicon Valley. I was not. Um London, born and raised, but I now live in Silicon Valley. Um I think when we chatted, I think I live not far from where you grew up. Um right, so I'm, I'm in uh, in San Jose at the moment.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Hundreds of AI startups are launching every month, battling to build their founding teams. As a leader, your job is to get results. When it comes to hiring, that's where it gets tough. So, you go out and you try a recruitment firm, but they don't understand your story. They're off target, and when they send you candidates, it's a waste of time. We believe you should never have your time wasted. That's why we launch Match Relevant, because your story is more than just an open role. It's your founders' journey, the problem you're solving, the product you're building, and why it matters. When we work with companies, we make sure we understand your whole story. So, we go out and do a search. We're on target. It's worth their time. They're interested. And more importantly, it's worth yours. And when it comes to hiring engineers, we work to make sure we get it right. By deploying a team of seasoned CTOs that have built some of Silicon Valley's best companies that can collaborate with you in the technical interviewing process, they can be a sounding board or they can run it for you. When it comes to building teams, there's no time to waste. Let's make it count. If you have a role that needs to be filled, book a time with a hiring guide at matchrelevant.com and learn how we do it.
Yeah, really cool. I've got a special place in my heart for that town. Uh, and excited to uh, to jump into your background from London and wherever it started. So, um, give us the backstory here. What uh what was the DNA that led you into entrepreneurship here?
[The Journey to Entrepreneurship]
Leo Patching: Yeah. Um I, I think I had a bit of a cheat code in that my father was a business owner, entrepreneur. And so I got to see kind of through his journey um the highs, lows, but some of the value he took from business ownership, from uh kind of how his journey in kind of being an entrepreneur went. Um and kind of by virtue of his network I got to be around other entrepreneurs um and his network of friends, some of whom uh actually became uh investors in my first company. But uh that kind of jumps a little bit. Um so always had an interest I think like a lot of founders, um uh I started from an early age um in school um kind of different little ventures. Uh launched my own small business while still in school. Um and then um I think kind of graduated through that process.
And I was joking with you on our, our last chat that um my path into entrepreneurship really kind of came from um being, being around some entrepreneurs. And I spent some time trying to um work for a guy who I'd met um at a charity dinner actually. And I pursued him aggressively um because I saw some of the values and some of the, the ways he approached things and I just wanted to learn. And so I was able to convince him somehow to let me work for him. Um and I got to sit uh at the feet of a deal-making master. Um little bit of a ferocious entrepreneur in some ways. Um I was part of his team as he grew his business, um started off in the UK and launched uh China, India, and I was part of um working with him on his deal team. Um, and so went through that process and then we ran into the buzzsaw that was the great financial crisis, and his, his business was primarily in um real estate, telco, adjacent services. Um, and so uh that, he ran a publicly traded company in the UK that went through a market sale. Um, was a great baptism of fire for me as a learning. Um, and off the back of that, um, I was able to kind of jump and launch my own, um, business. Um, and kind of that was my kind of pathway in as it was to, um, entrepreneurship.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Very cool. And I know you've, you've had more than one company or one experience in the entrepreneur space. Um, we're going to be talking today about Compliant, your current company. Is this the first startup that you've kind of led uh as your really venture-backed startup?
[The Genesis of Compliant]
Leo Patching: No. Um it's, this is a fairly unique version of it actually, in that um kind of I came to Compliant... Compliant's genesis story was kind of a search fund project, um some great brain trust uh people around it. Um and as Compliant was emerging from the initial problem statement discovery inquiry process to commercializing, kind of I took the helm at that point. Um and have been kind of fortunate to be backed by some incredible investors. Um co-founders that really kind of led the way in a lot of ways have um... they're not day-to-day in the same way, but um incredible um kind of market knowledge. I have, I kind of inherited almost a board of titans of industry in the financial services space.
Um I led a venture backed company out of the UK previously um that bridged to Silicon Valley, um which was a, an amazing experience in itself. Um I learned the hard way that doing business in the UK is very different to doing business in the US. Um love the mindset shift but uh doing business over here was not a single nation. It was 50 nations with city, state, different compliance like requirements, regulations. Um a lot more complexity than I was expecting when I first um kind of from the outside in looking in. Um, the US is obviously uh kind of the shining light on the hill, the place every entrepreneur wants to get to, but there was a, there was a lot of adaptation that was needed when I first joined.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Gotcha. Well, I like the word and the name of your, t- of your company, Compliant. I mean, you kind of have an idea of what it's about, but walk us through what was the inspiration behind what it is that you're, you're building and solving and ultimately, you know, how, how, how did this come together?
Leo Patching: Yeah. Um, so mentioned previously the search fund idea. Um one of the early um investors that helped kind of somewhat incubate um the early project that became Compliant, um the problem statement was to explore why payments are so difficult for high-risk categories. Um and this venture fund had done some work in the cannabis space um, in other high-risk categories and um the principals had experienced just challenges generally in um in the merchant services space, in banking and kind of came to us with "Why is this so hard?" Um and um one of, one of the co-founders was in the fraud and um uh kind of had been in payments for a long time. And uh one of the other co-founders had done kind of emerging innovation work at Visa. And so we went through this really interesting inquiry of kind of "Where is the problem, where's the bottleneck?" and kind of going back through first principles of this problem to look at it from a payments perspective.
Um what we came out with was payments wasn't broken. The challenge was if you can't get a sponsor bank and a credit and risk program that...
[Understanding Compliance Challenges]
...approves something because it's not federally legal, um there's not really going to be an end-to-end solution um that's going to scale. Um and so we came from, we came away from the idea of looking at high-risk in a slightly smaller category. From, we ran these 300 interviews and discovery processes with banks, payments facilitators, um acquirers, issuers, everybody in the space. Um we got to do this kind of beautiful mind map of the ecosystem and came to the fact that one of the really broken back problems was in compliance, and specifically the lack of protocol, consistency, and automation in the compliance space that led... it led to a, a lengthy, time-consuming, expensive process that was also just a terrible user experience. Um, and when all these things came together, uh, and we had enough people that went through "this is an offering that would be relevant enough for us to pay you money," uh, we realized it was a compelling thing to spend some time digging into and building a product for.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. You know, compliance has been around for a long time, uh, in banks and traditional ways they look about going through compliance and process and protocols. Um, when you talk about sectors that your product or your focus in helping solve, where it's maybe more complex or I don't know, maybe more unregulated, like what, walk us through a couple of the areas that you're focused in on that others aren't focused.
Leo Patching: Yeah. I, I love this question. Um especially looking at it from a kind of startup uh... like oftentimes you associate startups, Silicon Valley companies with um a bit of a misnomer of disruption um and disrupting legacy or incumbent. Or, and, and I always look at entrepreneurship and kind of business value creation being finding value in areas that are currently underserved. Um, and one of the things we've looked at differently, oftentimes disruption comes from looking at the incumbents and doing something completely different or uniquely outside of that. One of the things that we actually arrived at was the institutional IP in some of the incumbent organizations was incredibly high. Um and some of the, the companies, the original fintechs um before fintech was even a, in the nomenclature, your, your Mastercards, your Visas, some of the companies we're, we're lucky enough to work with now, the level of talent, the level of knowledge inside the organization and the sophistication of what they were doing, incredibly high.
Um where value opportunity sat was in looking at how you can take an existing process and a existing need and solve...
[Innovating in High-Risk Categories]
...that in a way that extrapolates out some of the complexity that's there, uh automates areas that don't need to be as manual. Um and finds a way to do that in a seamless way that hits across all these kind of varied ecosystem players that need to be serviced. And so in our world, you have an applying business. They apply potentially on a software platform for a service that they will never interface with half of the members of the ecosystem behind them. Um but everybody in that ecosystem needs to touch certain components of the data. Um they need to hit certain verifications, run certain credit checks, verif- other, other elements that all go into that one journey. Um and so our job is to try and make the complex simple and find a way to run a seamless process across that.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. Sounds like a lot of moving parts and it certainly doesn't sound super simple, but I guess that's why they pay you guys the big bucks, right? You figure out how, how to take the problem that no one has been able to solve or maybe parts of it and then automate it or simplify it or make the user experience better. Um because that's where you keep your customer base, right? Like if you can solve the problem and then the response comes back where they enjoyed the process or it just made their lives easier, that's a good thing. If, in your opinion, how, how do you make your customers' lives better?
Leo Patching: Yeah, it's, it's something we talk about as a team quite often. Um, we don't sell software, we sell outcomes. The minute you start focusing on the software, like nobody really wants to come to us to buy software, they want to buy outcomes. Um, and can, as you said in the, we actually are, we benefit from the fact that there are people that have solved certain problems in the space. Um our job in large part is workflow automation, orchestrating uh between different solutions. Um and we see that as a huge opportunity. I typically borrow from uh the kind of first principles thinking that's been pioneered through kind of the Elon Musk elements, kind of Tobi Lütke, Shopify has done a great job of this in an adjacent space to us.
And our team kind of, a big part of what we do with customers to help short-, make sure that we're building um and we're working towards outcomes is we challenge every requirement um that's existing. Kind of, "Why is it there? What's going on? How does it show up? Uh, when did this originate? Who like, how does it sit?" So we go through this whole requirements process. Um as a part of that some of them are validated and some of them you delete. So the unnecessary steps get removed. That's kind of part of our extraction process, and that's, that's a place where you can simplify. Then what's left, you start...
[Customer-Centric Approach to Compliance]
...working to optimize. And oftentimes that's not wholesale change. That is um, what are you doing today? In our instance, one of the things we do in account opening is customers have fillable PDFs and point solutions where they're taking data from one place, plugging it into another platform, running information there, pulling that data. And you've got literal human beings doing tasks that could be system to system. So we optimize that. Then once you've optimized it, you can accelerate the cycle time. And in our world as well, that all leads to one of the key metrics we play for, which is time to money. Um, so reduce abandonment, reduce the cost, accelerate uh account opening, you accelerate time to money, everybody's happier.
And then kind of the key piece for us, and it is the future of where we're going, the "skating to where the puck is," is automating. Um so we then run through different elements of how once you've optimized, simplified, you can automate elements that really do become... we, we joke we're [the] worst-paid digital transformation consultants in the world because we don't charge for that service, but when we get there you create magic.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah that's really cool. This is a interesting space. Why is it so important to you?
Leo Patching: Yeah. Um and I, I, I think I bored you with this as well. Um specifically this part. Um I, previous to Compliant, um I ran uh a payment services company. Um and enjoyed a lot of what we were doing, uh hit a bunch of the similar verticals. And we built, um we built and we even had some of the imagery where we were, we built a rocket ship that was being pulled by a horse and buggy, um because some of the engagements we'd had with the legacy financial institutions uh meant that whatever we built on the front end was completely anchored by the lack of automation, technology and infrastructure on the back end with some of the legacy players that we were dealing with at that time. Um, so I felt the personal pain of selling a dream to SaaS founders, companies that expected a user experience and a speed that went with the software that we were showing, and then dealing with not being able to manage their expectations or deliver on the promise of what we'd built because we could not control the back end. And so looking at Compliant, it was solving for what I'd had so much brain damage and, and trauma in losing deals and losing like big eight figure contracts over, um, and not being able to service this market. Uh and actually hit this point where I understood why they weren't addressing this. And it was because economies of scale, single...
[The Role of AI in Compliance]
...operators, it didn't quite pencil to invest the time, energy, attract the talent and build the actual software needed uh to, to build, maintain, monitor, upgrade this specific orchestration platform for compliance. At that time especially, um on an individualized basis, they couldn't prioritize it on their roadmaps because they had so much stuff they had to build. And so looking at it from the outside in, having seen what it was like on their customer side, the, the opportunity there was huge to, on an individualized basis they should not build this. But if you build it and you can provide it as a service, then this becomes an IQ test for the financial institutions to adopt.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, you know, when you're talking to a financial institution or what-, whoever your client happens to be, who, who in that organization cares about this type of solution? Who are you selling to?
Leo Patching: Yeah, we just had um, we just had an on-site uh last week. And we do a, a fairly regular um ICP definition kind of run-through. And it's always one of those uh kind of fun internal debates. And the whole team play a role in it. We do this kind of cross team collaboration on, on making sure that that living breathing doc is, is uh is kept live in, inside the team and um different parts of the, or of our own org can empathize more kind of greatly with specific personas that fit within us.
And so we talk to uh within the financial institutions we'll talk to the credit and risk team. Um, oftentimes that is on a specific uh kind of needs basis where either there's a tailwind, where there's been regulatory changes, enforcement actions, things that have happened in the space. And that will prompt that persona or that buyer to, to make a move or be looking for a solution. Um and over the last two years there have been some kind of billion dollar enforcement actions that put everybody on notice that um regulation is actually being enforced from... and we are seeing beneficial ownership changes and all, all the things you need to do to um kind of sanctions lists, the reviews and reporting that are required. So that, that hits those, those individuals.
One of the loudest voices in the room at any company or any buyer that we talk to is revenue. Um, and they, if you can show a way whereby you can ex- accelerate their path to revenue, revenue is always a, a key buyer that, that is easy for us to talk to and get enrolled in a vision and then sell internally. Um, we also always talk in, in our world about treating the developer like a first class citizen. Um and a lot of our product in this space has been transformed by companies like Stripe, like Square, Adyen, um that have done a really good job of treating the developer like a first class citizen and providing them a toolkit of um APIs, webhooks, kind of solutions that actually meet their need and make it a delightful experience. And so we, we work closely um as part of our sales cycle with the development teams too.
[Compliance as a Core Business Strategy]
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. Makes a ton of sense to me. You know, as you look at almost every sector, AI is playing its role there. And, and it's either automating or simplifying or maybe making the user experience better, just giving you better access to data. Um, how do you see the role of AI evolving for fraud prevention and compliance without increasing exposure to regulatory scrutiny and unintended consequences?
Leo Patching: Yeah. Um, we benefit again from some of the kind of knowledge base on our board um, and some of the partnerships we have. So we work closely with companies that have been doing um kind of AI for fraud prevention before it was kind of cool or before the, the ChatGPT moment of a couple of years ago. Um and so we, we were built upon the foundation of um kind of deterministic AI. Uh we, we have a lot of work we've done within kind of the MLOps space. Um and obviously as, as things have gone forward, there's a huge potential in the agentic future. Um within our space uh can as, as you look at any manual process that is repeatable, um it, you can obviously automate. And as you automate there's a massive opportunity with the, the capabilities that we have today that were not here um uh just, just a couple of years ago. This, the acceleration of change.
It's also been interesting when you talk about the unintended consequences. So certain elements of what we do, deterministic AI um fits, meets the need, has a lower cost of compute. Um everything there actually makes sense. Um we're not blind to the fact that the landscape is changing quickly and we have to stay current. Um and so we have within our uh edge team, we have a team that is fully focused on where is it now, and asking the question that of like "what's going to be, what's still going to be true in 10 years' time?" And really kind of going through a rigorous process of "don't get stuck looking at shiny objects." Um again, ask the question of "what are the, what are our customers willing to adopt today?" Um because that's also important. If we can't get through regulators with specific technologies today, there's no point in us doing it. But what things can we pick off within our process that will be valuable?
Again, to our thing of not building uh software, we also don't build AI. We, we just build outcomes. Like, finding things that really do drive actual measurable outcomes for our customers. So, can it reduce speed? Can...
[Challenges in the Current Market]
...it accelerate time to completion? Um can it produce a better user experience for our customers?
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, well said. You know, compliance has traditionally been seen as a back office function. How is it changing and why should fintech leaders start treating it as a core business strategy?
Leo Patching: Yeah. Um, back office. And even when you talk to some of the compliance teams, they've felt like an afterthought. Um, and both uh having seen the pain of compliance not being met, but also having to play catchup with um getting customers onboarded or anything that has kind of gone to uh providing a bad experience for the customers they're looking to onboard, but also the customers they're looking to maintain. Um I, our belief is that compliance is coming out of the back office into the forefront because if you address it up front, um and it's another, a kind of use case for us with AI is um we talk about having been built from the regulations forward. So rather than building a, a product and then trying to make sure it's compliant, establish what compliance looks like. So what is the picture of good? Establish that up front, build that framework into the product so it's in the DNA of what you're building, and then have the automation and the process of delivering the product run on that basis.
Um you take out a lot of the manual process, you take out the afterwork. And you have it basically the end product. If you hit an audit or you need to do um continuous monitoring or anything like that, you're already set up to do what you need to do. Um, you're also architected in a way, and this is kind of the piece where the compliance team really help accelerate revenues. Um, if regulations change, you don't have to shut a program down and catch up. You just reconfigure what's set up because it's built into the DNA of your product. So, it can be a force multiplier on the sales teams.
And when you, when you can evidence... we, we talk about as our triple benefit. When you can evidence that you can reduce OpEx through economies of scale, through um automation, through reducing time in, in, in the actual process. You can accelerate revenue through reduced abandonment, different things. And you can also hit the kind of special piece at the end that we always push our customers to think on, is this the customer experience. Um unfortunately in financial services, especially in B2B, that's been an afterthought. And so if we can keep these two thoughts in our head at the same time of, have the friction that's needed to ensure that you have uh a mechanism that keeps the bad actors out and puts the good actors through in the most seamless way you can. Um but also find ways to, to delight your customers through the process. Um in that instant you see uh, you see the service of products that really do become transformational.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Well said. I always like to ask what you've learned as a leader and some...
[Lessons Learned as a Leader]
...of the insights you can provide to the audience that they can learn from. Before, before we go there though, uh you know, you've, you've gone out, you've raised, you know, 14 plus million dollars, you've got a team that's, you know, in San Jose and distributed. Um what, when you look in the market and you look at your company, what's the biggest challenge you see currently as you are continuing to grow, evolve and build your organization?
Leo Patching: Yeah. Um, and this is one where kind of in conversations I always love to kind of keep it real and be um, uh, kind of... we have all have talking points about what is your biggest challenge and it's like um, scaling too quickly or like you hear these things parroted. Um, I think the whole venture landscape has shifted. Um and so we've been fortunate um and, and kind of we've worked really hard as a team to get funded from institutions that have been incredible um kind of believers and they have doubled down kind of additional funding to, to kind of give us the runway we need to build the products that our customers are drawing out of us. Um so we, we've been kind of at a, at a good crossroads with that.
Um but I do think everybody is acutely aware that um capital markets have changed. There's been a level of volatility. Um and so we are, we have definitely gone through a refining process to ensure that um every small bet and blind alley we go down is kind of measured. Um that where we are taking risks we do a lot of assessment first. Um and where we are allocating resources, we do it in a capital efficient but very intentional and thoughtful way um where we can again map that closely to how we can um build for the future and deliver in the near term as well.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. Really cool. Well, let's then hit the second question I had for you, which is, you know, what are the biggest lessons you've learned as you're scaling your current business? And what advice could you give others uh and entrepreneurs in particular looking to build in the fintech space or the regtech space?
Leo Patching: Yeah. Um, big question um and lots of things um come to mind. I, I think um one of the things we talk about as a team is embracing the unknown. Um uh finding ways uh, so to make decisions quickly. You kind of finding momentum kind of moving forwards. One of the things I think I've learned and our team has embraced is there are times where you have to make decisions with incomplete information. Um, and there's, there's a component to that where it's taste, it's enough data points, it's experience. Um, but being willing to move and make decisions and take action has been a huge thing for us kind of pushing...
[Future Roadmap for Compliant]
...momentum. Um, we also kind of parrot some of the other Valley um, maxims of "strong opinions, loosely held." We built opinionated software. Um, and so we do have uh we have a very strong opinion on how compliance should be approached. Um, and we do try and assert that. We also then are always open to new information and changing our opinion. Um, and so that's the kind of key thing in configurability of our product.
Um I think one of the things you and I talked about on our, our first call was um I think talking points in these, in these sessions oftentimes um get lost on early stage in an entrepreneurial career. You oftentimes um are told like everybody has their little imposter syndrome moments. And so you start trying to mimic or um kind of cosplay as a, as a CEO or, or an entrepreneur. And in doing so you see these two binaries. You see either I'm going to be contrarian. And the minute you try and play contrarian and it's not who you are or what you're actually sitting with, it's not genuine, people smell that a mile off. Or you've not had to deal with a lot of um conflict or confrontation. Um and you then form the path of consensus. And so these, these kind of binaries of consensus and contrarianism lead you down terrible paths. And you, you end up at the uh kind of the final parts having the consequences of this and you realize, "Actually I didn't believe that, but I did that because I was being, I was trying to play a role."
So, not feeling the need or reacting to the impulse to play a role, but really sitting with this. "These are the data points that inform what I'm thinking. How do I feel about this?" Um, surrounding yourself with uh a cabinet of advisers that can really help test you and also are not "yes people." Um, incredibly valuable and something that can't be um I don't think that can ever be emphasized how strong of a cheat code having those people in your corner is.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Yeah. It's tough being a leader. You don't always have the right direction or path. You got to make some choices and take some chances. You just don't always get it right and then you have to learn from it. You know, as a company oftentimes you hit certain milestones, it evolves and you see the progress and you're excited about what you're doing and the people on the journey. But the same is true of the leader of the company. You know, you oftentimes have to evolve to really take your company to another level. And as you look at yourself, what is a breakthrough? What's a point of growth where you've seen, you know, when I started this company or maybe in my first company where I'm at now versus then? Um what, what have been a few breakthroughs or some areas of growth that you now um know that you've had to go through and you're at where you're at that you can share with others that might be able to learn from you know some of your learnings if you will.
Leo Patching: Um yeah, as, as a someone who was a very young CEO, um if you talk to the teams I led 15 years ago, um they would have some harrowing tales and so happy to share those. Um I think um my wife always reminds me of uh um one of my team members back then kind of having a, a bit of a meltdown at me um because I'd had a long weekend away um and she, I came back in the office and she saw a book in my hand and she said she had this like really panicked look and she's like, "Don't do anything new. We haven't even done the thing you talked to us about last week." Um, and I think kind of what that was speaking to was as a, a young leader, um, I didn't, I didn't figure out that you do need to have some guard rails around, um, the information you share with your team at times. And also, they don't all need to ride the roller coaster with you on every thought that pops into your head.
Um, and so finding a way to be consistent, um, to not... and at that point, um, I think I, I joke now that you're a pilot of a plane and your job is to not give the passengers or the people on, on the journey with you, um, kind of sickness or like they don't need to experience turbulence just because something's popped into your head. And I would do that. I'd go and I'd read a new book and all of a sudden we're going up this path. And then the, the amount of whipsawing people went through that didn't produce outcomes. Um now in our, in our company today, if something's important and we prioritize it, then that absolutely is something we talk about, we share, we get on board with, and if a change needs to happen, be decisive. But that's infrequent. Um and if that's, if that is very frequent, then there's a problem. And so I think kind of not whipsawing the team um not just trying to implement every new idea, method, methodology, um kind of yeah, you, you don't need to read a book and come in and try and teach a team something new every week um was a big learning for me.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's a good lesson to learn. It's also one of those, when you talk about like maybe putting guard rails up around information that needs to be shared versus not. I mean, you want everyone to be engaged of what's going through your mind, but at some point, they don't need to fear the things that, that you see. Maybe it could be financial, maybe it's, you know, hitting payroll and like we got to close these deals and, you know, whatever it happens to be. They don't need to know it all. That's kind of maybe one of the things of a leader that you do is you protect your people to a point, but you're transparent enough so they know like what has to get done. And that's always a tricky one, but that's really great. Um, you know, we're two months into almost well three, three months now into 2025. As you look at this year and going forward, what's on the road map? What are you excited about?
Leo Patching: It is actually wild that we're in March now. I can't quite get my head around that. Crazy. Um, yeah. And it is again the benefit of having our, our team on site last week was having a, a check-in of we, we did some planning in Q4 um kind of kicking into this year. We're already um, you start initiatives that you know you need to get going now, otherwise kind of you're going to hit Q3 and things will be um kind of yeah, it's playing catchup is never fun. Um, and I think as a startup you always feel underresourced and kind of with too many things to do. Um, I think one of the fun things we have this year um that is, is a really exciting thing for myself and the team is we've taken the Charlie Mungerism of "take a, take a, a simple idea and take it very seriously."
Um, as a company, we've hit a maturity point where we've got enough data points and enough customers who've reinforced what is a value of the myriad of things that we were shooting at. Um, and so we're very clear-sighted on what needs to be delivered to meet the outcomes of the customers we have and also broaden our approach to market to be able to really dive into it. Um, and we, we have these kind of these two areas of um, of our product. We have account opening, kind of the same obvious piece of capturing the self-reported data from a customer um and running it through that seamless approach, a choose your own adventure story where we capture the necessary information, hit the necessary friction and we run a series of automation um tools that run the verifications, score the application, fraud detect, all the things needed to get an account open.
And then an area we have uh pushed in for the roadmap this year is on account health. Um and this is the piece that we as a team find really fun. Um once an account is open um and a bunch of the, the kind of enforcement actions of the last few years have been less fraud. Fraud has its own place and there's a bunch of things there, but it's more being in compliance with what the regulators, what the banks need you to do once an account is opened. Um, and this is a real interesting place for us to apply automation and solve problems. Can, you and I talked in our first call about business being about solving problems. Um throughout the industry finding ways to do um the continuous monitoring that we're able to do in an intelligent way that matches with all the information they've got is in a single pane of glass and is actually proactive and not just a reactive stance. Um super exciting and I think it, it actually solves real problems in the market that people are willing to um go on the journey with us to bring to life.
Um and I, I kind of joke about it in a, in an example of you can do so on the health side of life, you've got um nowadays I just had a, a Lingo continuous glucose monitor. And you used to do for getting the information on your blood glucose you used to do blood panels and still, still do. And blood panels are a point in time, tell you a lot of information, a deluge of data, but nowadays it's very easy and it's become a lot more cost effective. Kind of the um Jevons paradox that everyone's using in AI you can apply to um kind of glucose monitors. Very cost effective, very easy, very user-friendly, great applications. A continuous glucose monitor tells you real time what's happening and you can check in and see anything that you've consumed how that spikes your, your blood glucose. Um you're not going to do blood panels on a kind of minute-by-minute or daily basis. You're going to do that sparingly, periodically. Um...
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah exactly. So once a year.
Leo Patching: But maybe within that period, so say you do it in January to January, um within that period a lot can change. Um and so the glucose monitor, in a lot of ways our account health approach is bringing the glucose monitor to uh kind of account monitoring. Um and so we, we just feel really passionate that this is solving real problems and adding real value.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, I like that analogy. Glucose monitor for the account. Uh, for the health of the business, why not? I mean, for the health of the business. There you go. There you go. Don't need to go and take your blood to tell you how you're doing. Just put on that monitor and you know minute-by-minute how you're doing. So, I like that idea. Um, I'm excited to see how things go and certainly can't wait to meet with you next time up in San Jose. If anybody wants to find Compliant, spelled with a K.
Leo Patching: Yeah.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Where do they go? And if they want to find you, where do they go?
Leo Patching: Yeah. So, we have a, we actually have a shiny new website um that our Head of Design has painstakingly worked on that is uh I think launching next week. Um but current one is there too. But um compliantwithk.com. Um and uh and we're easy to find. Um, and also kind of for myself, easy to find on LinkedIn. Um, kind of my information is out there as is everybody else's. Um, so, uh, yeah, love to hear from anybody um, on Compliant and also kind of anything relating to entrepreneurship, um, the CEO journey uh, and beyond.
Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah. Very cool. Well, Leo, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. I for one am excited to see how you guys go into 2025 and beyond. And for the listeners, thanks for listening today. Uh meant a lot to me and uh for everyone else. My name is Jake Villarreal signing off for now. I can't wait to catch up with you on the next episode. Until then, Leo, the world, take care. If you like what we're doing, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. Follow us on YouTube where we get behind the scenes to learn what it takes to be a startup founder.
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