Yoshi Yokokawa: The Man Behind the Alpaca

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Welcome to our podcast, From the Ground Up, where we interview startup founders exploring their journeys, their successes, challenges, and lessons learned. We hope you'd be inspired in discovering what it takes to build a thriving startup. I'm your host, Jake Aaron Villarreal, and here with us today we have Yoshi Yokokawa, the founder and CEO of Alpaca, a $120 million funded startup out of Y Combinator. It's a fascinating story. Hope you enjoy. Yoshi, welcome to the show.

Yoshi Yokokawa: Thank you for having me here.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Great. So a little bit about Yoshi. He is the co-founder and CEO of Alpaca, a California-based fintech company that offers an API brokerage platform that hundreds of businesses globally build their stock and crypto investing products with. Alpaca raised over $120 million in funding and has also been backed by Y Combinator. A great story, and I want to dive in, Yoshi, on your company, but before we do that, talk to us a little bit about where you're from originally and what led you to America.

Yoshi Yokokawa: Sure. Um, I was born uh and raised in Japan, and then uh you know I was going back and forth after um graduated from uh college. And uh I think like you know the reason why really I moved uh to the uh you know the Bay Area is that my co-founder Hitoshi was there and has been there for a pretty long time, uh been a, one of the key engineers at the uh uh you know the Bay Area company. And he just told me, "If we are doing a startup, we have to go to the Major League Baseball." Which means that you have to be in California. And that, that is really the key reason why uh uh we moved to the uh the Bay Area, United States.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. So for you, it was about building a company and knowing proximity to Silicon Valley or the Bay Area was important to do it. Um how long were you in the Bay Area, because now, now I think you're back in Japan now currently, is that correct?

Yoshi Yokokawa: That is correct. I uh currently in Kyoto, Japan um and I was in the Bay Area for uh I think six years until the uh pandemic uh started uh in I think like a couple years ago.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. Great. Now who's the engineer, or are both of you engineers amongst your co-founders?

Yoshi Yokokawa: So uh you know, since we're doing this uh uh fintech uh uh we had to have this kind of combination of understanding of the industry as well as a very deep uh knowledge about how to deal with the data in [the] database because uh financial transaction is all about the data. So uh my co-founder Hitoshi comes from a very deep uh database background. He's uh one of the key uh contributor to uh open source uh of the uh Postgres community. And that's how he uh basically like you know made him into the uh Bay Area uh engineering community from uh him really like you know grew up in Japan as well. Uh and then I come from of the financial services background. Uh I started my career originally at Lehman Brothers so I was, was uh one of the guys who was uh packaging and repackaging uh subprime mortgages uh back then when uh you know Great Financial Crisis happened.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Interesting times definitely. Wow, sounds like a good combination though. You've got industry experience and he's got the technical experience. You know in 2012 fintech was being disrupted in very different ways. And a company called Acorns was one that was down the street from us that we really helped build their engineering and really some of the early pioneers for the company joined. Um they've since raised $500 million, have two, three, 400 people on staff, and really I think kind of set the bar of how to get financially in, in the business but also you know get, got approved by FINRA and regulations. What was the opportunity you saw in fintech with Alpaca, and what, what inspired you to really launch that platform?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Sure. Uh by the way I love the Acorns like they recently launched this uh new card but, by the, the Rock, too, which I you know which I follow on the Instagram and everything, I was like "Wow this is really cool."

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, on that note it's funny that you say that because uh I was watching uh Jimmy Fallon and I saw the Rock on Jimmy Fallon talking about...

Yoshi Yokokawa: Yeah I saw that, and I was like "yeah exactly!" Oh my god, I know all those guys, that's crazy. That was really cool. Yeah, yeah it is super cool, super cool. But, but yeah anyway, um yeah, we saw, we saw Acorns. Uh we saw Robinhood. Uh you know, we saw Wealthfront and uh you know all those guys came out. Um you know when we started this uh business we were really like struggling to find actually like what is really next, right? Because I think like Acorns did like amazing job uh to really you know approach to new generations and new um you know group of the people in the United States who, who was not really like you know touched by the incumbent players of uh you know Charles Schwab or TD Ameritrade or like all those, all those big guys. And then uh you know Robinhood did even like you know m-, like you know push that like you know whole boundaries into like millennial uh to the investing and trading.

So you know when definitely like you know when we came into um you know "okay what can we do?" uh we really had a struggle. But then like you know I think I realized at that point there's like two phenomena happening around like you know uh 2016, 2017. No actually it was just 2015 when we were formulating the idea was the one phenomena was that uh this is really um you know the developers and the engineers are having more power uh than before and they continue to be the case. But like you know there's more coding schools, um you know that in school like more people are taking computer science instead of finance and business. And then like you know younger generations uh understood that being able to make something and engineer something is that, being able to code. So I think like you know that whole uh trend is becoming very, very obvious around that time, so that was like one key phenomena that we saw.

And another thing was that when talking about trading and investing, uh there's also the another community that was getting very much uh you know hyped up uh for the automation of investing. Um and the automation of investing meaning that it's more like DIY, do it yourself, um uh you know hedge fund do it yourself, uh you know algorithmic trading. Uh especially you know led by this company called Quantopian uh which was uh you know eventually bought out by Robinhood. But these two key things that we realized, you know made us realize that oh maybe like instead of targeting millennials and the new generations, maybe like you know we target the different angles of the sectors of the people that who was not like really served by anyone, which was the uh you know API, which is the developers. So that's like how we thought that there was an opportunity just really focusing on that double down to the community.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: So talk about the developers. Um you know in, in the US today there's lots of regulations and you can now develop technologies for financial services and medical and a number of different categories. That's in the US. When we start talking about other countries and there's a big world out there, you know there's other regulations and maybe some easier and harder countries to build in. What's your approach to international and taking your platform to you know, other countries?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Sure. Um you know when we launched our um first product in 2018 um we really didn't think about global or international. The only thing that we knew we wanted to do was that if we are to launch [a] product, we want to target um as many as people as possible in the vertical of developers. And like if you think about developers, obviously there's not only in the United States, there are a lot of people in India, there's a lot of people in you know everywhere in the world, so we just wanted to think about that, how we can target them. And obviously we realized and understood there's a you know more to that, that like you're not just selling the SaaS or like you know some tech products to everyone. Uh you know we are heavily regulated by FINRA and SEC, and at the same time if we go outside of the countries there's a different countries' regulators who are thinking [a] similar way that FINRA and SEC is thinking for their citizens. Uh so like you know we definitely like you know are very careful and understood like you know how we can or we cannot do.

And but like I think like it really comes down from our understanding, fundamental uh understanding of like you know what the um regulators' roles are. And I think like you know the anywhere you go in terms of like you know this uh wealth and brokerage uh regulation, there's only two things that you really have to think about and understand fundamentally. And first thing is the investor protection. Um you know regulators do care about their uh you know the people. So like you know if those like, if in the US if Americans are like lied to or manipulated by something that should not be, the regulators gets very upset. That's their job, to protect Americans. So like you know the protection of the investors is a very very important first thing. And the second thing is that uh you know the, the protection of the market. So like you know you don't want like you know gangsters' money or like you know Mafia money buying up some countries that's uh you know publicly listed. So you want to make sure that you're protecting the money uh uh uh flowing into [the] system is always healthy, which is like in money laundering, anti-money laundering people call it always AML, KYC all those things. So that you, as long as you are really thinking about those two fundamental things you know you can you know somehow figure it out even though you go international.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: So talk a little bit about you know the developers. You have a platform that developers can build on top of. What's the... talk about the, the infrastructure and the business model that you have because I think for listeners that don't know Alpaca and don't know about what you're bringing to market, kind of high level 30,000 foot what exactly are you providing to the market and why are the developers excited about it?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Sure. I think like you know the there are two, two things that we do or like two groups of the people that we look at um uh that like who use our product. The first thing that we launched with was really the API version of Robinhood. That's what we try to be. Like Robinhood is like you know very seamless user experience for the you know people who touches [the] mobile interface and then you know you can buy and sell, short sell whatever uh the stocks and crypto. So why don't we make that into [an] API? So that was really [the] original idea, because like you know the there's still and there's at the time uh you know the people who are trying to access uh Robinhood via uh you know API which is not exposed. And then you know that has been always the problem because uh you know the you know the investing flow, trading flow that's coming from [the] API and the trading flow that's coming from the m-, mobile interface is actually considered very differently on the back end. So you know that Robinhood has been always kind of reluctant to take those orders and they're not even exposing that, so that's kind of hacking. So like you know we just said "Okay we are the ones that if you want to trade API, we're the version of it, right?" And in order to do that we had to build uh similar architecture behind the scene like you know including regulations and then books and records and all those things. So that's what we offer. We are the you know, just a brokerage firm just like Robinhood or Acorns, but like you know who offers the uh developer face, which is API instead of mobile app. So that's what we offer.

And so like you know for the programmatic trading wise that is the case. But then you know there's a bunch of the people and groups of the people in the businesses who started using our product to actually build their own version of Robinhood. So like you know, yeah so like you know there's a mobile app uh and then you know some people are "okay I think I can build [a] better version of the Robinhood without really you know knowing what's behind the scene." Like people think that right? Like you know because, because Robinhood and Acorns did the beautiful job of "this is just a you know app" instead of "financial services." So people tend to think that "oh okay like as long as you build [a] beautiful app you know it should work." You know the, the reality is different, but you know that was a good kind of starting point for the people to you know do the entrepreneurship journey. So that's really also the platform that you know we have made it to be. And that's eventually like now used by the um you know 150 businesses who are building their own version of investing applications. And now that happened to be to the United States, different types of the group of the people. Maybe to the people in the different countries who have different cultures, different languages. So those are like kind of two things that we do and we offer, but we're really the uh you know broker uh company and the interface happens to be uh developer interface, which is API.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it. That's great. So talk a little bit about your business model because you have like three different offerings. Um walk us through those offerings and what that looks like.

Yoshi Yokokawa: Yeah. So like our offering is really like you know, we think about it like you know very simply uh about like you know what we do. But like you know we really think that um access to the stock market, ETF, crypto, and that can be done by API, so it's programmable. You can do it you know, roll it into your algorithmic trading, you can roll that into part of your app that you have already. You can do that because like it's API, it can be embeddable. So that's what we do. And in terms of the business model that we do uh, it's very similar to any other brokerage companies out there, that includes like Acorns or Robinhood or even Charles Schwab or TD Ameritrade. You know we make money from the transaction, which is trading volume, and then we also make money from the uh interest uh you know the cash and the securities, all those things. And then also like some of the subscriptions, because we do offer a lot of uh support when the developers are implementing our API into their services and systems, and then you know we have to provide you know support to do that. So like you know that, those kind of three things are our revenue model.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. So if I'm a developer and I'm sitting in Dubai for example, and I want to bring a product to market. I don't have the, the team to really build out the infrastructure to create a Robinhood, but I know that I could probably market this pretty well if I could just create you know some way to I don't know, connect with my users. Building out a US user interface, the front end whatever it happens to be, uh without having all the backend needs of engineering, I could literally like just launch my own service and product and basically become an entrepreneur without all the headaches of the back end.

Yoshi Yokokawa: Exactly. So what we take care of is that you know what we, people say middle mid-office and back office. So compliance um you know reporting, regulatory stat, that's mid office, back office. That's what we do as an infrastructure. What you really think about is, as you said, how to acquire customers and how to provide the best user experience uh to the people that you're targeting to. So yes, like the answer to the question is yes.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Got it, that's great. How many countries are you in today?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Right now we work with the uh businesses from 25 different countries.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's great. And you've went out and you raised you know $120 million. A lot of money. Um what's the employee size like today, and as you grow what's your thoughts about you know really on-site versus remote? It's a new world, a lot of different playbooks around how you do that. What's your thoughts there?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Um so the, from the result, like you know we are uh remote only company, and then you know we have employees around like 135 or so. Um and you know those are also spreaded out into like 30 different countries. Um and very remote first. Um the, and the like our thought process is that um I think like you know it comes from the actual practicalness and then also uh our mission and vision. It like both of them led to where we are. And our mission uh is to open financial services access to everyone on the planet, so which is 8.5 billion people. So that is really something that we're like seriously trying to go after. Which means that like you know in order to get everyone, you really need to understand everyone. Which means that like you know if we are just in the one place uh and then like you know having, having to try and understand all those people I think it's just very impossible. That's what I felt. And this is really coming from my background um you know grew up in Japan uh you know learned and studied and like worked in the United States. Like you know there's a very, very different cultures just in those two countries who have like similar economic um you know level and background. Um and but then like you know if we, we go to like you know complete different continents, like it's even farther different right? So like I, we even don't have no clue like what's happening into those like you know parts of the world. And in order for us to understand, like we have to have like very diverse um members who's working for Alpaca who continue to give us the feedback like you know, each other. So that we're doing the best job to serve u- you know those companies and entrepreneurs who are you know building businesses uh in all those places. So that really like required us to be globally diversified, and that's the first reason.

And the second reason why is that before you know pandemic happened, we were very much [a] physical office company like, like any other companies in the Bay Area. We had San M-, we had the office in San Mateo uh and then we had around like 20 people in the office. Uh you know five people you know remote like you know some people are remote. Um but what we've always felt was that there's always this kind of segregation between the kind of first-class employee and the second-class employee. Because like you know if you have like core members 20 people in the office, like things are happening in the office right. Like you know, that you write on the whiteboard and like you discuss there over the lunch, over the coffee. Whereas those people who are remote for higher people, they don't know what's going on, so it's, they're always late or like they're not like inside of the circle of the understanding what's happening. So you know when we went, we are forced to go to p- like you know full remote because of the pandemic, you know we realize that it has to be one way or another. Which is full 100% office, or it's full 100% remote. Because if 100% remote, you're forced to communicate, everyone has to communicate um you know virtually and that makes it fair to everyone. So those two kind of realizations uh basically led us to be where we are and we continue to be uh the remote only company. And that you know gives us a leverage that you know we continue to work and hire from everywhere in the world with a very different you know cultural backgrounds and very you know different places. That you know they have a very strength, and while like you know having the fair like kind of one group of the people with the one team because everyone's remote.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah that's great. You made a decision, you're moving forward with it. I like it. What's the playbook that works for you and your company in terms of managing people remotely where you can identify how to support them with the right tooling, the right systems so that they're you know feeling like you're, you're, you're backing them up but also ensuring that they're performing at a high level?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Uh that's very, very different uh difficult question Jake. Like you, that's something uh we continue to uh I guess like you know suffer and figure out. Like you know try and error. I, I feel like the um who is good in the office environment may not be good in the you know remote only company. The people who's really good at remote only company may not be good in the office environment. So I think like we have to embrace that fact that like you know the some capabilities and the skill sets are definitely required like if it's like [a] remote only company. And like you know I think the uh we firstly like kind of be honest, have to be honest about it and have to accept it. And that's the first thing.

And the second thing is that um you know definitely like you know touch points uh uh of the um like you know the people who work with closely and the people who you don't work closely uh becomes very important. So like you know there's of course like more kind of catch up meetings and that we do uh have kind of you know physical meetups. Uh it's not like for everyone, but like it's like smaller groups of the people like you know five to 10 people gathering here and there. You know that allows the people to really like you know see each other eyes to eyes, especially you know the members from the different teams that who need to collaborate. And that had been pretty um useful and impactful uh when like you know creating the one culture.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah that's, that's great. You know there's a lot of technologies that are coming out now that really can understand the behaviors and the habits of the performers within your company which can really be useful in how you model uh and coach your remote employees, which I think is gaining a lot of traction in a good way. Um yeah, you know you've got clients in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, North America, other locations. What's worked for you to get traction around the world? It's one thing to come up with the product, but it's another to actual market and get growth in you know, countries that are not where you live today and not maybe where your employees happen to be.

Yoshi Yokokawa: Yeah. I think like you know our key um component is that even though we are [a] financial services company like Acorns or Robinhood or even you know like other incumbents, and just like Acorns or Robinhood were you know non-financial services company uh to the you know front end, right? Because people consider Charles Schwab or TD Ameritrade as a financial services company and they, we know they are [a] financial services company. If you look at Acorns or you know the Rock, people think that that's a really cool service in [an] app, and they don't think about that as "oh this is like full fledge heavy financial services in this company." And I think that's [the] same thing for us. You know people consider us just a developer tool. We're just an API. You know API and developer tool is good for the developer community, and the developer community doesn't care where they live. They always [were] remote, they're having always remote. And they always talk to each other in a remote basis on the you know the forums on the internet and everything. So that's how we really like you know gain our attraction, continue to gain our attraction. So we never really cared about "okay this is where or the regions that you know we want to be uh you know known for," but like we really double down [on] how we can be known and used by the developers. And those developers tend to be you know [in] the US or you know somewhere in the Southeast Asia or you know Middle East or Africa or LatAm, and they you know continue to come to us and try to use our product. So that's how we've really you know made the whole kind of word of mouth spinning into the community of the developers who touch our API and try out our APIs.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's interesting. When it comes to uh your company in terms of growth, uh you raised a lot of money and you've got a lot of employees today. As you look into the future you know in fintech and financial services in general it's been a tough market for a lot of companies. What's, what's your growth strategy going into 2024?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Sure. I think like you know one uniqueness that we have is that um you know our business is super globally distributed. I think like you know when um the conversations happen about you know some industries is having a difficult time, there's of course like you know the macro trend about you know high interest rate and all those things. But there's always granularity and there's a, like it's not a black and white. For example like you know there's still a lot of like you know healthy um you know money out there for example to the Middle East, and that is the reason why the American Silicon Valley VCs continue to visit them to raise money there. And you know there's a you know those micro trends that you know we are exposed to because like we are so distributed in terms of a client base. So like you know yes there's like you know some client base that who are in the regions that got affected the most are maybe having a very difficult time. But those like you know the companies who are in the not-as-affected regions or countries are growing really fast. So we're very much distributed in that sense uh, so we're very much protected because of that.

With that said though, uh you know to going into the 2024 um I think like our strategy continue[s] to be really supporting our clients, how they can also make revenue. Because like you know they make revenue and they grow, that's going to be growth for us. So like you know we are focusing on providing in a way the tool, like more tools and the weapons, so that like you know the our partners can you know launch new products uh to make more revenue. So like you know that's really what we're focusing on. So like we are even accelerating our product development to launch new uh asset classes, new products uh that like you know our partners can utilize and then you know build on so that they can make more revenue and money.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: You talk about asset classes. Talk about crypto. How much uh is crypto part of your business and part of your strategy going forward?

Yoshi Yokokawa: As of right now, in terms of the revenue it's not much. Like you know definitely like you know the, you know the, there's a winter uh you know. Hope that now it's kind of you know getting a lot of clarity I guess compared to like six or nine months ago even in the United States. So I'm very hopeful and I'm very optimistic. Um and in terms of the strategy uh crypto is definitely a big part of it. Uh we have been uh always a big believer uh in the uh you know concept of that and like you know how it's going to take a you know you know major part of the financial services ecosystem uh not only with the uh you know investment asset class. So like you know we've been always like you know looking into that and try to adapt what we can do. And that's really coming from like you know Hitoshi my co-founder uh you know coming from the database um you know it's really like the blockchain uh you know he thinks about that very similar way. And that is why we're always like you know drawn into it. And then the nature of the crypto is very much open source, and that's where like our core identity comes from. Like you know, how can we be a part of the community, how we can contribute to the community, and how we can like you know push the open source nest of what we do. Uh so like in terms of longer term strategy, crypto is a very, very important component of what we do.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: That's, that's great. Yeah we, we see a lot of growth in that area uh on the development side, so I was just curious to know as from what you were seeing from developers that are using your platform or, or looking to build out you know their own company. Um when you started and you went through Y Combinator, did you have a thesis that was created that you stayed true to, or did you pivot once you got through Y Combinator to become what you are today?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Um I think like you know when we went into Y Combinator um yes like I think since then we've been true to um you know what we've said. The, the problem, problem statement that you know we went into, we went to Y Combinator with, is that broker dealers don't have APIs. That is that one line problem that we went with. And we continue to believe that is the case. Like you know without like you know other than Alpaca, I don't think anyone really have the APIs in the brokerage sector. They say they have API, [but] in our view it's not really an API. Like if you think that you understand API, you know there's a certain kind of philosophy behind it, right? Because when people say API it should be flexible, it should be contributable, it should be community uh there should be a lot of like you know um you know context comes with that, "you are an API company" or "you are an API." So I think that statement continues to be true in this industry, and you know we're trying to be the only one and leading player to make sure that the problem is solved, solved uh in this broker, broker, broker dealer world.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, that's great. Um as you look at your company today and you've gone through a lot of growth and some ups and the downs. What's one lesson you look back on that you wish you would have known you could share with the, the community of other entrepreneurs that are building today?

Yoshi Yokokawa: I'm, I'm learning new things like every day. And I think like you know I, I think about this all the time but like you know even reading like you know all those famous book like you know The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz or um you know Good to Great and like you know those books. And like you know I learn a lot, and then even like you know watching the Silicon Valley the TV show I think like you know that taught me a lot. Um I was thinking "oh that's crazy," but like you know everything actually happens. And even though you, you know that it will happen there's no way to really prevent it. That's what I really, I have learned. So the only way to really learn to prepare is like you know you go through it yourself and you react to it. Because it will happen inevitably and that, the, the skill set that you have to have is you react to it as quickly as possible with no hesitation when that happens. So I think like you know that is something that I trying to like you know still sink in myself uh uh so that like you know I'm not like you know scared of anything or like you know um I don't get hit by something that, that's unexpected because I, I think everything is unexpected. Yeah. Yeah that's great. Does that make sense Jake? Like do you feel that way?

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah I do, I think in a lot, in a lot of ways you, you, you always encounter things that you don't know that you have to learn on the fly or you have fears about things that you don't, maybe it's in your head you know. You want to do things but you're not sure if you know how to do it the right way, do it. And you know, you're the leader, people are looking at you to make sure that you're taking them on a path that's going to succeed. And so I, I, I think there's a lot of it that is uh unknown and in your mind, in your head, right?

Um but I want to kind of ask a, three questions here. Some call it a Lightning Round, I just call it Three Questions. Um you know Steve Jobs was a guy that would walk around the campus when he wanted to solve problems and he would take someone with him on that walk and have discussions. For you, where do you go to think big or to brainstorm?

Yoshi Yokokawa: I, I go jog. I go running.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah that's great, I do the same. When it comes to physical activity, I'm sure it gives you a different mindset about you know how you think about things. Is, what is the physical activity... it's probably jogging, but I'll just ask it again... that you feel helps you think healthy and mentally kind of keeps you I guess in the right frame of mind as you're, as you're building your company?

Yoshi Yokokawa: I think running and swimming are two things that I do very regularly. But like I think like when I try to meditate my thoughts uh into something, when I'm just don't know what to do uh I go to [a] public bath. And this is maybe like sound weird uh for people outside Japan, but there's a lot of public baths uh in Japan, especially in Kyoto where I live. Um and then it's extremely like weird different situation that like obviously you have no digital activity. Like you're forced to kind of be yourself, very local. You basically, you know there's no one like who's thinking business in the public bath. Like they're all local people. And that's how I feel very much isolated and like very alone. That like you know that thought process like you know just sinking. It's same, similar to what is it, Norwegian, the Swedish people, Norwegian people um you know do meetings in sauna, right? Like you know your brain gets heated up and then it just really sparks a lot of inspiration. And I feel the same way going to public baths, uh hot springs.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Absolutely love it. What hack keeps your mind positive when you're going through a challenging time?

Yoshi Yokokawa: I, I have like you know this uh saying uh always in my head is "Oh this is funny!" rather than "fun." So that is like how I think. Like you know try to keep everything to be in a perspective, "this is a comedy," instead of like "oh this is fun" because you're not forcing yourself that this is fun. So that's how I think about it.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah that's great. Great. Well this has been great to learn about your company Alpaca and the journey you've been on. What's next for you on the roadmap as you look forward uh and grow?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Yeah. So the, the biggest thing that we really work, working on [is] this uh launching the options trading. Uh and uh this has been highly, highly, highly requested since we launched our product in 2018. So it's been almost like five years. And now we are ready with this you know the, the raised funds and like you know the people that you know we have you know now worked with. Uh and then the you know the learnings that we had like going through the regulations and building the systems and all the internalization that we did. Now we're ready. So uh that's, we're super, super excited that we're working on. And um you know we really want to announce it to everyone that "Hey dude like you know we're finally here, we're launching this really soon." So that's something that you know we're super excited about.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah that's great, I can't wait to hear about that. Um well Yoshi, a big shout out to you for jumping on here and telling your story. Uh very, very insightful. If anyone listening wants to find Alpaca, where do they go?

Yoshi Yokokawa: Yes. Uh please go to the uh our website alpaca.markets. It's an alpaca.markets. Uh we're not that rich yet to buy that alpaca.markets, or alpacaHQ on the X, Twitter, LinkedIn. Uh uh like we on there constantly so please do check it, check us out.

Jake Aaron Villarreal: Yeah, great. Well a huge shout out again to you Yoshi for joining, and to all our listeners for listening. It world, means the world to me that you've taken your time to spend it with us today. My name is Jake Aaron Villarreal signing off for now, but can't wait to connect with you all in the next episode. Until then, take care.  

Before we wrap up, I want to give a big shout out to all the entrepreneurs that have joined to make this podcast possible. And for all the listeners for listening, it means the world to me that you chose to spend your time with us today. I'm your host Jake Aaron Villarreal signing off for now. We can't wait to connect with you all soon on the next episode. Take care.  

This show is sponsored by Match Relevant, a company that helps venture-backed startups find the best people in the market and they do it in three simple steps. First, they sit down with founders to understand their story. Second, they tell their story into multiple candidate channels. And third, they schedule interviews within 48 hours. Find us at matchrelevant.com to learn more about how we do it.

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