August 13, 2024 • 33 mins
Curious about why superapps are struggling to make a splash in the U.S. market? Join us as we uncover the unique barriers and skeptical outlook surrounding their success. Discover how the high costs of customer acquisition in fintech are pushing companies towards the super app model as a solution to maximize revenue from their existing user base. Tune in as we share insights from the latest Finnovate conference and debate if a major retailer like Walmart has what it takes to defy the odds and thrive in this complex landscape.
What makes the U.S. so different from regions where super apps have flourished? We examine the disparity between the enthusiasm of CEOs and the practical hurdles of implementing such apps stateside. From the lack of government support that has bolstered similar ventures in China and Dubai to the way the pandemic has altered consumer behavior with technologies like Apple Pay, we analyze whether these shifting market dynamics could pave the way for super apps in America. We also highlight the unique environments that have enabled super apps to excel abroad and why replicating that formula in the U.S. is not a straightforward task.
Could Walmart be the game-changer in the fintech arena? With a vast and loyal customer base, a significant physical footprint, and strong strategic partnerships, we explore Walmart's potential to offer superior financial solutions. We delve into the importance of their grocery business, substantial e-commerce growth, and the challenges posed by cultural and talent gaps in tech and financial services. Drawing on insights from Jason Del Rey's book "Winter Sales: Amazon, Walmart and the Battle for Our Wallets," we discuss whether Walmart can overcome these obstacles to emerge as a leader in the super app space. Join us for this engaging exploration of the future of super apps in the U.S. and Walmart's potential role in shaping it.
Hosts: Sam Maule & Maia Bittner
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Maia Bittner (00:06):
What's up guys?
Welcome to another episode ofArtificially Intelligent brought
to you by Money 2020.
I here with my three-month-oldbaby in the background, so you
might hear some tiny babyhiccups.
I'm Maia Bittner, yourperpetual fintech intern, and we
jumped on and Sam (Maule) waslike "Maia, I got a topic I
(00:28):
wanna talk to you about, let'sjam.
So here we are, sam.
What are you excited abouttoday?
Sam Maule (00:33):
And I can hear the baby and I'm so happy Because
one all my grandkids were withme in Ponte Vida Beach yesterday
and my six month oldgranddaughter literally thought
the bald spot on my head was achew toy and chewed on it for
like 30 minutes, which all mykids thought was hilarious.
So you know, goals, Maia, goals.
But the second is last week Iwas at Finnovate out in San
(00:56):
Francisco and I was asked togive one of those 15-minute
keynotes.
You got to love those 15minutes, right, tell us
everything about embeddedfinance and where it's headed
and all this other nonsense.
But part of it was in what wasmy take on super apps, and so
it's one of those.
I know you've experienced this.
You're on stage, you 100% knowyou're killing it, you're loving
(01:16):
yourself, it's just goingawesome.
You get off stage and someonegoes yeah, you were completely
wrong, which I love.
There's nothing better thangetting on stage and sitting
with somebody who's questioningwhat you said.
And the question came aboutsuper apps in the US because I
said I still just don't see ithappening.
(01:36):
I said, maybe, walmart, maybe,but again, I don't know.
Maybe I'm old and crusty or I'mjust jaded, I don't know.
But I'm still waiting toy, orI'm just jaded, I don't know.
But I'm still waiting to see asuper app take off, and I had
almost an hour and a halfdiscussion outside in the foyer
around Walmart, and so I wouldlove, love, love to get your
(01:56):
opinion on where you see superapps as far as their popularity
in the US.
Will it ever happen?
Is it going to be a retailerthat does that?
Maia Bittner (02:08):
Yeah, Dude, I was going to come in here and talk
about how skeptical I am aboutsuper apps.
I think there's really.
You know, when I think aboutsuper apps, I think there's.
So everybody loves to talkabout it.
Ceos, every fintech company isbuilding a super app.
I think there's two big reasons.
Loves to talk about it.
Ceos, every fintech company isbuilding a super app.
I think there's two big reasons, or there's like only two
(02:28):
reasons why people wanna build asuper app.
One I think it sounds cool andthat might sound goofy but, like
dude, all kinds of like productand business decisions are made
because the CEO thinks itsounds cool, Like it's actually
a huge driving force.
I actually also don't thinkit's that bad of a thing, but
yeah, super App sounds cool andtwo fintech CACs are killing
(02:51):
everybody.
The customer acquisition cost isso high to do anything that
people are drowning.
Their CAC to LTV ratio issuffering, like they're just not
making enough money given howmuch they're paying for
customers.
And so I think people aredesperate for like, okay, how
are we going to make more money?
Well, can we cross sell them onother things, like if we can
get the same customer we alreadypaid kind of too much for to do
(03:13):
more with us and to give usmore revenue, then maybe this
equation will start lookingworth it.
So I was going to be prettyskeptical, but, sam, you got me
intrigued with Walmart.
I actually think Walmart is avery sophisticated player.
I think they have a hugecustomer base that has a big
need for financial services andthey've tried a lot of stuff.
(03:36):
Now Walmart's had a lot of, Iwould say, kind of missteps on
their path to being a fintechplayer.
Do you agree their path tobeing a?
Sam Maule (03:45):
fintech player.
Do you agree?
And I do think that's part ofthe apprehension everybody has,
because, for Lord, 15 years now,everyone is talking about big
tech and banking, FANG andbanking, FANG and financial
services, and you know there's agroup of us that have made a
(04:06):
killing on stage talking aboutthis now for 15 plus years and
yet here we still are.
So, Maia, I was in SanFrancisco last week at Finnovate
Spring and I was lucky enoughto get one of those 15 minute
keynote slots everybody'sfavorite and it was on the topic
of embedded finance.
But they also wanted me tocomment on super apps in the US
and whether or not I believethese would take off.
(04:27):
And I can tell you that,historically, whenever I was
asked this question, I said no,that I just could not see in the
US environment, with the waythat we look at banking and
payments and the regulatory sideand all 50 states and take your
pick that a super app wouldn'ttake off here.
And that's what I said on stage.
(04:48):
And as soon as I got off stage,I was cornered by about two or
three people that questioned meon that statement and I had an
hour and a half discussionoutside of where I gave the
keynote on this and I got totell you I'm maybe a little bit
(05:09):
persuaded that we could have asuper app in the US and that if
we do have a super app in the US, it's going to be Walmart.
It's going to be a retailerthat pulls this off, and I so
wanted to get your opinion.
If you think I'm absolutelybonkers, or could we actually
see a super app take off in theUS?
Maia Bittner (05:28):
Wow, you know, sam , we're pretty aligned in that.
I'm also skeptical of superapps taking off in the US.
I think people look, right,obviously, china WePay.
People are so excited about thenumbers that they're seeing out
of China they forget that thatis a government-sponsored
company, right, very differentthan the environment and the
(05:51):
support and the infrastructurewe have in the United States.
And, to be honest, I thinkthere's two reasons why CEOs are
excited about super apps.
One, I think it sounds cool,like woo, super app, like don't
you want to be, yeah, the CEO ofa super app?
And I'm being silly, but I dothink, like, look, a lot of
(06:14):
business and marketing decisionsare based off of what CEOs
think sound cool.
It's also not the worst thing,but yeah, I think that, like
that is a big driving force overnecessarily it being a great
business decision or somethingthat's going to have a lot of
uptake.
I also think we are just beingcrushed on all sides by customer
(06:35):
acquisition costs in fintech.
It is brutal.
No matter what type of companyfintech are paying, there's so
much money to acquire customersand they're fintech, fintech,
fintech, fintech I'm trying tosay fintech, cac their customer
acquisition costs are too highgiven the lifetime value of
(06:57):
their customer base.
And so they're looking.
They're like okay, I can'tfigure out how to pay less money
and still acquire customers.
So in order to make that ratiowork, I've got to start making
more money from them.
Can I cross, sell them on moreprofitable things?
Can I drive more revenuestreams?
So people are excited, but notfrom a customer demand
perspective.
They're excited about thebusiness that would exist if the
(07:20):
customers were excited.
So if this, does that makesense?
Like that's why I worry.
Nobody's like oh, customershate that they have to open up
both their Chase app and theirVenmo app.
I've never heard someone saythat Is that?
Sam Maule (07:31):
a problem?
I have never heard anybodyAgain.
This gets back to what's verypopular here, especially in the
US, when it comes to big tech isa solution looking for a
problem?
Yes, I mean, it's again thatclassic no one buys a solution,
people buy problems.
People.
Oh my God, I love that you saidthat, cause I say this all the
time If you want to besuccessful, solve pain.
Maia Bittner (07:54):
Yes, Solve for pain when who was it?
Sam Maule (07:57):
Oh, remember, it was with Apple Pay when it was first
coming out and they they hadthat God awful video of the
person in their purse fumblingto find their credit card to
make the payment at the launch.
I still laugh at that.
I think it was Tim Cook talkingabout it.
I'm like bad acting and it'snot a pain point.
I just I refuse to believe,especially in the US, the idea
(08:19):
of using your card to swipe andyet tap to pay is taken off here
, which is a good thing, and youknow the continuous migration
of activities into a digitalformat.
Like I said, I was in SanFrancisco, I was at the airport
standing in line and you see thewhole thing about taking your
driver's license and put it inyour phone.
I'm like yeah.
I get it.
It is nice.
The phone's in my hand, it'shere, but then again on the
(08:42):
mobile, on this brick that wehold in our hands all the time.
This thing is 15 years old.
This is a form factor that'sgoing to get replaced.
I don't know what it's going tobe.
We talked about this in anepisode before about the
Facebook, the meta glasses withthe AI built into them and how
much you?
Love it right.
Maia Bittner (09:02):
Yeah right, how do I pay or validate my identity
with the meta glasses?
Can they scan my red?
Like that's interesting?
Yeah, and I think, like applepay, so apple pay, hugely
successful, tap to pay, nfc.
Um, part of that, I do think,was spurred by covid, because it
(09:22):
took paying with your card fromlike and not that big of a deal
to a real pain point.
People didn't want to touchthings.
They didn't want their thingsto touch things.
It seems like maybe that wasn'tactually a valid way to prevent
COVID.
Now that we have moreinformation about airborne
disease et cetera, like touchingstuff is kind of okay, but for
a long time people were reallyfreaked out and that was enough
(09:42):
of a hurdle for people to startusing tap to pay who never had
it set up on their phone before,who never bothered.
It made the pain bigger.
I think we need to look at thesame thing when trying to make
the argument for a super app.
Is is there?
You know this hasn't reallyexisted before.
But are there market changes ortechnology changes where this
(10:02):
is suddenly going to make a lotmore sense?
Sam Maule (10:04):
Yeah, and again, you talked about CEOs and boards
getting all excited aboutbuzzwords.
So, super App, I can see why itgets them excited.
So, especially if they look atAsia, because we hear about
China constantly, right WithAlipay and WeChat, and the
success, the billions of usersthat they have, or hundreds of
millions of users.
But then you look at, you know,we've seen super apps succeed
(10:27):
outside of China, um, with youknow stuff like um Carium or
Karma, however the hell you sayit out of Dubai, um, zappy in
Latin America, um, you know thePhilippines has, you know, their
own version, as does Vietnam,um, but whenever I heard those
arguments I would always comeback to yeah, if you're trying
(10:47):
to replicate what happens inChina, good luck, right, I mean,
this is more or less.
The government went in and saidyou're a winner, you're a
winner chicken dinner.
And you know, I don't see thathappening in the US.
Maia Bittner (11:00):
And the same with India and right, upi and their
identity system, like we don'teven have a national identity,
anything.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just this like smorgasbordof different providers and this
oligopoly of the credit bureaus, who are semi-independent but
(11:20):
state-sanctioned third partiesthat arbitrate.
I mean it's such a mess, it'sso different.
Sam Maule (11:27):
Yeah, I worked for 11FS, you know, based out of the
UK, for a long time and when Iwould ever describe the US, I
said you do all remember wefought a war of independence
against you.
So if you tell an American whatto do, if you want to get an
American to do something, tellthem the opposite of what you
(11:52):
want them to do, because we hateto be told what to do or to
only be given one choice.
Right, I mean, it's just.
You know, we love the varietyhere.
Good Lord, that makes me laugh.
But I say all that and I keepcoming back to.
Could Walmart pull this off?
Maia Bittner (11:59):
And, yeah, walmart and Walmart has a really unique
customer base.
They're very good at executing,though I would say that they've
had some missteps in fintechbefore and, frankly, their
customer base is prettyunderserved by the existing
players in the world of fintechand banking.
(12:19):
Right Like Chase is not servingthese customers particularly
well, wells Fargo is not servingthem well, bank of America
isn't serving them well.
They're mostly using WesternUnion, green Dot, a bunch of
kind of alternative financialproviders, and it would not
surprise me if Walmart, whopartners with a lot of these
(12:41):
companies, is looking at whatmakes sense and working behind
the scenes to stitch somethingtogether and would be able to
provide it with better marginsthan the existing players.
Sam Maule (12:53):
That was the argument that I was given as soon as I
left the stage at PinnabateSpring and walked out.
The person that challenged meand I love this because it was
perspective that I don't haveEverybody.
I live outside of Jacksonvilleand I love this because it was
perspective that I don't haveEverybody.
I live outside of Jacksonville,florida, which is a good size
city, and you know I've onlylived in large cities in the US,
so I don't have the perspectiveof more smaller town, rural
(13:14):
communities experiences.
And this was the person thatchallenged me because she lives
in Montana, like in the middleof nowhere in Montana, and she
goes all of my retail,everything I do is through
Walmart.
That is my experience.
And I was like, yeah, you knowwhat?
This is a point of view that Idon't have.
And I did a little bit ofresearch on this and I started
(13:34):
laughing.
You know, when you look at someof this, because the market
presence that Walmart has, youknow they'll tell you that 90%
of the US populations livewithin 10 miles of a Walmart
store.
That is amazing to me, right?
Wow, so over 5,000 stores.
I know 5,000 stores in the US.
That's like a JP Morgan stat,isn't?
Maia Bittner (13:54):
it Within how many miles?
Within 10 miles 90% of the USpopulation.
Interesting Within 10 miles 90%of the US population.
Interesting People who live inSan Francisco would be excluded
from that.
There's no Walmart within 10miles of downtown San Francisco.
Now, not that many people livein San Francisco.
It's actually a tiny city,about 800,000.
But it is such a culturallydominant force, particularly in
(14:17):
the tech industry.
It's funny that it's 90% ofAmericans but not a lot of the
people who are designing techapps and thinking about what
makes sense for Americanconsumers.
It's really interesting to me.
Sam Maule (14:30):
Yeah, and you see that in the products that
Walmart's tested with.
So you think about theirpartnerships they have with
Green Dot.
So again you're looking atprepaid.
They did with Amex and Bluebird, right.
Maia Bittner (14:39):
Yes.
Sam Maule (14:40):
Which made all the sense in the world, because the
thing that I like about Walmartis they have both an online and
a physical presence and thelogistics to make this all work
right, whereas Amazon is online,you know, and they've had
incredible success.
Walmart is well positioned,from both in real life and
online, to dominate in thisspace, which they already do,
(15:03):
don't get me wrong.
Maia Bittner (15:03):
I think they're incredibly well positioned for
that.
What do you think is importantabout the physical presence?
Sam Maule (15:09):
Here's what I think is interesting.
Right so, their averageconsumer.
A couple years ago I did someresearch on this their annual
revenues are $48,000, right so,again, it's a market, like you
said, outside of San Franciscocompletely different demographic
, and they're a loyal based.
They're very loyal in theshopping that they do.
It's repetitive.
(15:30):
I like repetition, huge fan ofrepetition.
I personally don't shop atWalmart, I barely shop period.
But when I do, I'm at Targetand I'm pulling out the red card
because my wife has beaten tome you will use the red card at
Target.
Maia Bittner (15:44):
You must use the red card.
Sam Maule (15:46):
Oh, yeah, yes, yeah, I've been slapped in the back of
the head several times for notpulling out.
Maia Bittner (15:50):
Cannot use a different credit card.
Sam Maule (15:52):
Exactly.
I have been trained so I don'tyou know I can't tell you the
last time I was personally in aWalmart, but still there's a
massive user base that does.
And also, you know, does theirpurchases online?
Do you know?
I just heard this on a podcasttoday from Scott Galloway 60% of
Walmart's revenue comes fromgroceries.
I was surprised by that.
(16:14):
I got to be honest.
So that's repetitive shopping.
Maia, you know where you go toget your groceries you know
where you go to get yourgroceries.
you know I live in Florida soit's Publix, but Walmart they're
a grocer, you know for in-store.
So I think controlling thatfoot traffic, but also
controlling you know what you'reseeing at the POS, that was a
big deal when they werepartnered with Green Dot and
(16:35):
then they did the partnershipwith Bluebird, was what were you
going to see?
You know, as you were standingin line, what was the offer
going to be?
That foot traffic that they got, because that was more or less
free advertising for them topush something.
So I and I will also tell youand I said this when we were
talking outside Finnovate if youwant to get some of the best
(16:57):
ethnic food in the US right now,go to Bentonville, arkansas.
Because of the engineering teamthat they have put there, the
sheer talent that Walmart hashired, don't go anywhere else in
Arkansas, but damn, go toBentonville.
Some really good restaurantsthere, by the way.
Maia Bittner (17:12):
E-commerce as well as doing online ordering and
pickup.
Huge force, Walmartcom.
Huge, walmart Plus huge.
They're really investing incoming after Amazon aggressively
from this angle and I thinkthey have their customers'
loyalty more than Amazon does.
Sam Maule (17:33):
I agree with you.
And here's another thing.
This is why I got so excitedabout this topic, Maia.
For those of you that don'tknow, and I think Maia will take
this as a compliment, Maia andI are geeks.
We really are In our free time.
We read about payments.
I go on YouTube and watchvideos on targeting payments so
(17:55):
I can learn more on weekends.
My wife is like you are justthe saddest person in the world
because she looks at my YouTubefeed.
This weekend I watched ones onSears Roebuck, Maia, because
Sears is fascinating to me.
Maia Bittner (18:05):
Here's a company that dominated.
Yes, I love Sears.
Sam Maule (18:08):
Yeah, but they dominated the market for well
over almost a century, and theircollapse was something that
didn't need to happen, andhere's what I mean by that.
Nope, they failed to keep up.
But think about this they hadthe opportunity to dominate
Amazon and what I meant by thatwas their catalog that they had
(18:30):
and the sheer volume ofemployees they had 30,000 to
50,000, if I remember right thatsupported that catalog, that
physical catalog.
If they had pivoted to online,they had the logistics in place,
they had the brand name inplace.
If they had pivoted thatcatalog to online and literally
it was right around the timethat Amazon was taken off that
they shut down their catalogcompany, they were positioned to
(18:54):
, you know, they were there.
Same with Blockbuster, withNetflix.
Blockbuster was well positioned, you know, especially as far as
an online distribution model,to own the market and didn't see
the curve coming.
Sears.
Example of this Blockbuster.
Example of this Walmart.
They're not playing that game.
They've invested, they'vebought companies, they bought
(19:17):
what, even Financial, they'retheir now and buy now, pay later
, if I'm not mistaken, rightPushing their own product.
Maia Bittner (19:23):
They bought Jet, they bought one.
Sam Maule (19:25):
They bought one.
Yeah, I mean, here's a companythat has the capital to invest
to bring talent on, that has auser base that can do what you
know.
When I was at Google it was,you know, that idea of
experiment like crazy.
But don't you know, don't beafraid to shut down ideas.
Walmart is well positioned todo that and to experiment both
(19:46):
online and at the physical store.
That's a fantastic combination.
Maia Bittner (19:50):
This is kind of an aside, but I love shopping by
catalog.
I don't know if you shop bycatalog.
Catalog I don't know if youshop by catalog.
I love that.
My wife does dude.
You get no entering your pop-uphere or like what, no pop?
You get no pop-ups that arelike enter your email here to
get 10 off.
There's none of that likestupid spin, discount shit.
(20:12):
There's no like thing that copsup in the corner and is like
talk to an ai customer, customer.
None of that.
There's none of that.
There's no.
I mean Amazon.
I can't even handle Amazon.
There's so many like weirdChinese brands and you have to
subscribe and save.
And then there's the discounts,reviews and the all.
It's too much for me.
I love opening a catalog.
(20:34):
I get to see pictures ofbeautiful women wearing clothes
and it's like like you wouldlook as beautiful as this woman
if you wore this clothing.
I'm like, yeah, that soundsnice.
It's just a nice experience.
Flip through, pick out somethings.
It's relaxing.
It's nothing like shoppingonline today.
That's uh, it's just an asidefor me.
Sam Maule (20:51):
I don't know how unique I am.
I know I'm with you, um, I I'man avid reader.
I cannot read online, I don'tread off a tablet.
I I read books.
They have to be in my hand.
That's just how I am and that'sthe experience that I
personally enjoy.
So I love the asides Maia, Ialways love the asides.
Back to Walmart, so they'reinnovating, they're buying.
Maia Bittner (21:13):
They're throwing everything in the bucket of
keeping up.
Their stock has been crankingrecently.
They Do.
We think they can pull it off.
I mean, what's an example ofsomebody who has really pivoted
their company from pre-tech tokind of this post-internet age
(21:33):
and has managed to pull that offsuccessfully and stayed
dominant.
Sam Maule (21:37):
Yeah, I mean especially from a retail
standpoint.
Right Again, I'm huge on churn.
I'm huge, like you said,customer acquisition costs when
you don't have it.
So I found a stat you'd findinteresting A typical Walmart
shopper is likely to go toWalmart 63 times a year and buy
13 different products once aweek.
(21:57):
So, that's through the gates,it's through the till.
I remember I was tellingsomebody, you know, my favorite
solutions are one that you justit's constant.
Like I like mass transportation.
I know, you know, I lived inthe UK for a long time and I
remember when Barclays was ableto get the tube, write the card
to go ahead and tap and go, andthat's seven million people a
(22:17):
day jumping on the tube everyday.
Same in New York, same withBART San Francisco.
I love that, that idea ofrepetition, repetition,
repetition, repetition.
And that is an advantage thatWalmart and, let's be honest,
amazon.
I'm a folks, I shop on Amazon.
I'll be honest.
I am not a catalog person, I ama let me search.
Whoever says this is the best.
Maia Bittner (22:41):
Sam do you shop on ?
Is it pronounced Temu?
Do you shop on Temu?
Sam Maule (22:44):
I do not but my kids, every one of my kids does.
Every single one of my kids andthat is one of the top 10
downloaded apps of 2023 in theUS is a Chinese shopping app.
Maia Bittner (22:55):
So I kind of I mean I don't like shopping on
Amazon in general because I feellike it's all Chinese garbage.
That said, I recognize thatsometimes we need some Chinese
garbage, like there's sort of aplace for it.
Like you know, I was looking at,my daughter loves bubbles and I
wanted a bubble maker, likejust a machine that sits on the
patio and spits out bubbles.
That's going to be Chinesegarbage, right, but that's all I
(23:18):
want.
I don't want a high qualityLike I, just it only even really
needs to last, like this onesummer.
I it only even really needs tolast, like this one summer.
I looked on Temu you can,because here's the thing it's
the same Chinese garbage as theysell on Amazon, but way cheaper
, and I think Wish before thatwas even cheaper and AliExpress
and Ali like it depends on youbasically exchange hassle for
(23:40):
saving money.
Sam Maule (23:42):
You know what it is.
As much of that as you want todo is fine.
I'm going to give myself ashout out.
That was my point when I talkedabout invented finance on stage
, and I actually stole this fromWade Arnold who had founded the
company I worked for, Move.
He said when you think aboutpayments, you got to quit
thinking about monetizingpayments and you got to think
about monetizing the point ofneed, that decision point.
(24:02):
Isn't that a good line?
Maia Bittner (24:03):
Yeah.
Sam Maule (24:04):
Really, wade, I'm giving you the shout out.
I should have made the t-shirtand trademarked that damn
comment.
But I love that idea that whenwe talk about embedded finance,
embedded wealth, you take yourpick.
It's all around pain points.
It's all around, I need itright now, and you just
described that in your shoppingexperience, right.
Yep, make this easy and make itright now.
Maia Bittner (24:27):
The other right yep, make this easy and make it
right now.
The other thing I, so I can'tsay this on twitter.
It's one of those things thatwould get me canceled.
Sam Maule (24:31):
I don't even know why , but but this is a safe spot.
Maia Bittner (24:33):
That's exactly this is my safe place because
you know, we only have somelittle couple devoted listeners
who are loyal to us, um, andit's hard to.
It's hard to cancel someone fora podcast.
You have to make a clip, it'slike a whole thing.
So it's just.
There's this interesting thingwhere I'm kind of the like tech
(24:53):
elite crowd right, that's been.
My background is like theobnoxious people who live in San
Francisco and are super bullishon tech and don't live like
real Americans.
Sam Maule (25:04):
You know what a DAF is, and I didn't.
There's a great example.
Maia Bittner (25:09):
That's my life, but there's been this really
interesting transition becausehaving kids has kind of brought
me closer to an averageAmerican's life in many ways,
because I think, like mostAmericans have kids and there's
a kind of a there is somesocioeconomic thing.
(25:29):
It goes both ways, like havinga lot of kids is a status symbol
in San Francisco because it'sso expensive to provide the life
that you want.
But also, but below that, belowlike that which in the class of
people I'm at, it's sort oflike you're less likely to have
kids the more money you have andthe less money to have kids.
The more money you have and theless money people have, the
more likely they're having kids.
It's just one of those things.
Anyway, point is having kids Ihave two now sort of living a
(25:55):
little bit more of an averageAmerican life because of that,
and I had this experiencerecently that I found quite
interesting.
So we've been spending more timeat Walmart, not because we
really shop at Walmart or wantto shop at Walmart, but because
they have awesome electric carchargers in very good condition.
They have 10 of them betweenour house in Seattle, which is a
(26:17):
route we drive a lot In goodcondition.
Our car actually comes withfree electric car charging for
the first couple of years atthese chargers, so it's great.
So we're always charging ourcar there and I go in.
Walmart is incrediblycomfortable and accessible for
my new lifestyle with kids,including.
(26:38):
They have a nursing room atWalmart.
They have a private room with alocking door and a comfy chair
that I can go in to nurse mybaby.
I've never seen any other storewith a nursing room.
And then and they've also got,you know, they've got the like,
everything else it's just likevery, very approachable and it's
(27:00):
comfortable for me to be there.
And I think it's like man.
If I could be doing more atWalmart not just electric car
charging, but some banking andmore pieces, it could be really
compelling.
I'm spending a half an hourthere, you know, at least once a
month charge my car anyway.
Sam Maule (27:16):
So it's interesting.
We've hit on all the reasonswhy this should work for Walmart
, right.
I mean loyal customers, anincredible online and physical
footprint, the logistics side,learning from history, the great
tech talent that they have.
What stops this or whatprevents this from happening?
Maia Bittner (27:40):
It's still not their thing.
Walmart is better than anyoneelse in the world at cramming
down the price that they paytheir suppliers.
I'm serious.
Sam Maule (27:53):
No, actually ask Target.
Target's now discounting priceson 5,000 items to keep up with
Walmart, who, Walmart, I believe, had a much better quarter.
Their stuff is so cheap.
Maia Bittner (28:04):
Yes, walmart had an incredible quarter.
Nobody can compete with theprices that Walmart has, and
that's because their costs areso low.
Negotiating down theirsuppliers, getting them to
change different things becausethey're a huge fit for it, so
they're best in the world atthat.
That's always going to be thecultural focus of the company.
That's where your starperformers are going to go.
(28:26):
Work is in that part of thecompany.
That's who gets the credit.
If you are, if that's your thing, right is doing supplier
negotiations like that.
You aspire to work at Walmart,right?
If you're an incredibleengineer, do you aspire to work
in a lot of different places?
You know, like a bunch ofplaces are doing cool stuff with
AI.
That's kind of interesting, youknow.
(28:46):
I don't know that you're goingto work at Walmart.
If you are a banker, if you're afinance person, if you are
payments, do you think ofWalmart?
No, like you want to build yourcareer brand elsewhere.
So, just, maybe they've gotpretty good talent, but they
don't have the best talent.
They don't have the cultural,the cultural emphasis.
(29:06):
It's not their thing.
Their thing is always going tobe having the lowest prices,
driven by those suppliernegotiations, and I think it's
really hard for a company toeither shift that focus to be
best in the world at somethingelse, and if they're not doing
that, it's hard for them to begood at two things in order to
(29:26):
compete in a free market.
That's why we see startups popup.
Is there somebody who's goingto be focused only on doing
financial services, only on asuper app that's going to be
doing a better job than Walmartcan ever give them the attention
to do?
Sam Maule (29:39):
I tell you, culture and focus is huge If you really
want to learn a lot about this.
Jason Del Rey I don't know ifyou know Jason or not.
He was with Vox for a long timeGreat tech writer, great writer
in this space but Jason wrote abook called Winter Sales L
Amazon, walmart and the Battlefor Our Wallets.
Go on Amazoncom and buy it,which, you've got to admit, is
(29:59):
kind of funny, seeing that itwas called the Battle Between
Walmart and Amazon.
But he focuses a lot in on thattech side and he talks about
the acquisition of Jet.
If you remember that, of courseand it is fascinating to read
about head-butting between youknow older Walmart and how the
(30:21):
tech boys kind of clashed rightwhich, by the way, the founder
of JetNow is going to do hisnext thing.
This always happens.
So if you're looking forsomething to read, jason giving
you a shout-out, a great one.
I'm going to say this now, aftertalking with you and talking
with everybody outside ofFinnovate I'm 50-50.
(30:42):
I'm 50-50 on this.
I'm still, eh, I'm 40-60.
I'm 50-50.
I'm 50-50 on this.
I'm still, eh, I'm 40-60.
I'm still not buying it.
I'm sorry, I don't think we'regoing to have a super app in the
US and that's going to beWalmart.
I think you're going to havesuper-ish apps and there's
nothing wrong with that I thinkWalmart will succeed very well
with their customer base.
(31:03):
Maybe grow it a little bit fromwhat they're able to do from a
technology standpoint.
I still think Amazon's going tobe a beast and watching my
college kids' behavior, theseChinese apps unless they get
banned they're going to do okayhere.
Maia Bittner (31:17):
They're going to be all right.
What I'm excited to see and Ithink Walmart is uniquely well
positioned to do and I haven'tseen a great play from somebody
else is combining personalbanking with remittances.
Yeah yeah, I think there's a bigneed for that in the US.
There's been a couple peopletrying at some pieces.
(31:38):
Wise is obviously a big player.
Western Union is still a hugecompany.
I think Walmart could come outwith hey, we've got your daily
spending and your internationalremittances in one place.
You come to Walmart, you get itdone.
You got a mobile app and theycould address the critical
(32:00):
identity parts.
They could use their retailfootprint in order to have a leg
up on fintech in terms ofidentity and combating fraud.
They know that people are notRussian hackers because they're
showing up in person at aWalmart store.
That, I think, could be acompetitive differentiator and
really, really interesting.
I don't have any informationthat says that's where they're
(32:21):
taking it, though.
Sam Maule (32:22):
Yeah, but it makes sense so I'd love to see that so
would I.
Isn't it fascinating how ourlife experience just drives
episodes like this me coming offon stage and being challenged,
and you having a baby?
Maia Bittner (32:32):
it is me having a baby, needing to nurse the baby
while charging my car that'll doit.
Sam Maule (32:38):
Okay, folks, that's it.
Having to nurse my baby whilecharging my car is the most west
coast thing I've ever heard.
Way to go, Maia, way to go.
Maia Bittner (32:46):
Tell me you live in the West coast without
telling me.
I know, I know Love itEverybody.
Sam Maule (32:52):
Thanks for listening today.
We'd love to get your feedbackon whether we're right or not on
super apps taking off in the U?
S and if Walmart is going to bethe beast, as always.
Reach out to Maia on Twitter,me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Take your pick.
Thanks for listening and go outand give us a review wherever
you listen to podcasts Fivestars, please.
Thank you.
I'll send you a Walmart giftcard, Maia, any last thoughts?
Maia Bittner (33:14):
No, can't wait to hear from you.
Let me know if you're buildinga super app.
Sam Maule (33:19):
Amen, all right, folks, talk to you next time.
What's up guys?
Welcome to another episode ofArtificially Intelligent brought
to you by Money 2020.
I here with my three-month-oldbaby in the background, so you
might hear some tiny babyhiccups.
I'm Maia Bittner, yourperpetual fintech intern, and we
jumped on and Sam (Maule) waslike "Maia, I got a topic I
(00:28):
wanna talk to you about, let'sjam.
So here we are, sam.
What are you excited abouttoday?
Sam Maule (00:33):
And I can hear the baby and I'm so happy Because
one all my grandkids were withme in Ponte Vida Beach yesterday
and my six month oldgranddaughter literally thought
the bald spot on my head was achew toy and chewed on it for
like 30 minutes, which all mykids thought was hilarious.
So you know, goals, Maia, goals.
But the second is last week Iwas at Finnovate out in San
(00:56):
Francisco and I was asked togive one of those 15-minute
keynotes.
You got to love those 15minutes, right, tell us
everything about embeddedfinance and where it's headed
and all this other nonsense.
But part of it was in what wasmy take on super apps, and so
it's one of those.
I know you've experienced this.
You're on stage, you 100% knowyou're killing it, you're loving
(01:16):
yourself, it's just goingawesome.
You get off stage and someonegoes yeah, you were completely
wrong, which I love.
There's nothing better thangetting on stage and sitting
with somebody who's questioningwhat you said.
And the question came aboutsuper apps in the US because I
said I still just don't see ithappening.
(01:36):
I said, maybe, walmart, maybe,but again, I don't know.
Maybe I'm old and crusty or I'mjust jaded, I don't know.
But I'm still waiting toy, orI'm just jaded, I don't know.
But I'm still waiting to see asuper app take off, and I had
almost an hour and a halfdiscussion outside in the foyer
around Walmart, and so I wouldlove, love, love to get your
(01:56):
opinion on where you see superapps as far as their popularity
in the US.
Will it ever happen?
Is it going to be a retailerthat does that?
Maia Bittner (02:08):
Yeah, Dude, I was going to come in here and talk
about how skeptical I am aboutsuper apps.
I think there's really.
You know, when I think aboutsuper apps, I think there's.
So everybody loves to talkabout it.
Ceos, every fintech company isbuilding a super app.
I think there's two big reasons.
Loves to talk about it.
Ceos, every fintech company isbuilding a super app.
I think there's two big reasons, or there's like only two
(02:28):
reasons why people wanna build asuper app.
One I think it sounds cool andthat might sound goofy but, like
dude, all kinds of like productand business decisions are made
because the CEO thinks itsounds cool, Like it's actually
a huge driving force.
I actually also don't thinkit's that bad of a thing, but
yeah, super App sounds cool andtwo fintech CACs are killing
(02:51):
everybody.
The customer acquisition cost isso high to do anything that
people are drowning.
Their CAC to LTV ratio issuffering, like they're just not
making enough money given howmuch they're paying for
customers.
And so I think people aredesperate for like, okay, how
are we going to make more money?
Well, can we cross sell them onother things, like if we can
get the same customer we alreadypaid kind of too much for to do
(03:13):
more with us and to give usmore revenue, then maybe this
equation will start lookingworth it.
So I was going to be prettyskeptical, but, sam, you got me
intrigued with Walmart.
I actually think Walmart is avery sophisticated player.
I think they have a hugecustomer base that has a big
need for financial services andthey've tried a lot of stuff.
(03:36):
Now Walmart's had a lot of, Iwould say, kind of missteps on
their path to being a fintechplayer.
Do you agree their path tobeing a?
Sam Maule (03:45):
fintech player.
Do you agree?
And I do think that's part ofthe apprehension everybody has,
because, for Lord, 15 years now,everyone is talking about big
tech and banking, FANG andbanking, FANG and financial
services, and you know there's agroup of us that have made a
(04:06):
killing on stage talking aboutthis now for 15 plus years and
yet here we still are.
So, Maia, I was in SanFrancisco last week at Finnovate
Spring and I was lucky enoughto get one of those 15 minute
keynote slots everybody'sfavorite and it was on the topic
of embedded finance.
But they also wanted me tocomment on super apps in the US
and whether or not I believethese would take off.
(04:27):
And I can tell you that,historically, whenever I was
asked this question, I said no,that I just could not see in the
US environment, with the waythat we look at banking and
payments and the regulatory sideand all 50 states and take your
pick that a super app wouldn'ttake off here.
And that's what I said on stage.
(04:48):
And as soon as I got off stage,I was cornered by about two or
three people that questioned meon that statement and I had an
hour and a half discussionoutside of where I gave the
keynote on this and I got totell you I'm maybe a little bit
(05:09):
persuaded that we could have asuper app in the US and that if
we do have a super app in the US, it's going to be Walmart.
It's going to be a retailerthat pulls this off, and I so
wanted to get your opinion.
If you think I'm absolutelybonkers, or could we actually
see a super app take off in theUS?
Maia Bittner (05:28):
Wow, you know, sam , we're pretty aligned in that.
I'm also skeptical of superapps taking off in the US.
I think people look, right,obviously, china WePay.
People are so excited about thenumbers that they're seeing out
of China they forget that thatis a government-sponsored
company, right, very differentthan the environment and the
(05:51):
support and the infrastructurewe have in the United States.
And, to be honest, I thinkthere's two reasons why CEOs are
excited about super apps.
One, I think it sounds cool,like woo, super app, like don't
you want to be, yeah, the CEO ofa super app?
And I'm being silly, but I dothink, like, look, a lot of
(06:14):
business and marketing decisionsare based off of what CEOs
think sound cool.
It's also not the worst thing,but yeah, I think that, like
that is a big driving force overnecessarily it being a great
business decision or somethingthat's going to have a lot of
uptake.
I also think we are just beingcrushed on all sides by customer
(06:35):
acquisition costs in fintech.
It is brutal.
No matter what type of companyfintech are paying, there's so
much money to acquire customersand they're fintech, fintech,
fintech, fintech I'm trying tosay fintech, cac their customer
acquisition costs are too highgiven the lifetime value of
(06:57):
their customer base.
And so they're looking.
They're like okay, I can'tfigure out how to pay less money
and still acquire customers.
So in order to make that ratiowork, I've got to start making
more money from them.
Can I cross, sell them on moreprofitable things?
Can I drive more revenuestreams?
So people are excited, but notfrom a customer demand
perspective.
They're excited about thebusiness that would exist if the
(07:20):
customers were excited.
So if this, does that makesense?
Like that's why I worry.
Nobody's like oh, customershate that they have to open up
both their Chase app and theirVenmo app.
I've never heard someone saythat Is that?
Sam Maule (07:31):
a problem?
I have never heard anybodyAgain.
This gets back to what's verypopular here, especially in the
US, when it comes to big tech isa solution looking for a
problem?
Yes, I mean, it's again thatclassic no one buys a solution,
people buy problems.
People.
Oh my God, I love that you saidthat, cause I say this all the
time If you want to besuccessful, solve pain.
Maia Bittner (07:54):
Yes, Solve for pain when who was it?
Sam Maule (07:57):
Oh, remember, it was with Apple Pay when it was first
coming out and they they hadthat God awful video of the
person in their purse fumblingto find their credit card to
make the payment at the launch.
I still laugh at that.
I think it was Tim Cook talkingabout it.
I'm like bad acting and it'snot a pain point.
I just I refuse to believe,especially in the US, the idea
(08:19):
of using your card to swipe andyet tap to pay is taken off here
, which is a good thing, and youknow the continuous migration
of activities into a digitalformat.
Like I said, I was in SanFrancisco, I was at the airport
standing in line and you see thewhole thing about taking your
driver's license and put it inyour phone.
I'm like yeah.
I get it.
It is nice.
The phone's in my hand, it'shere, but then again on the
(08:42):
mobile, on this brick that wehold in our hands all the time.
This thing is 15 years old.
This is a form factor that'sgoing to get replaced.
I don't know what it's going tobe.
We talked about this in anepisode before about the
Facebook, the meta glasses withthe AI built into them and how
much you?
Love it right.
Maia Bittner (09:02):
Yeah right, how do I pay or validate my identity
with the meta glasses?
Can they scan my red?
Like that's interesting?
Yeah, and I think, like applepay, so apple pay, hugely
successful, tap to pay, nfc.
Um, part of that, I do think,was spurred by covid, because it
(09:22):
took paying with your card fromlike and not that big of a deal
to a real pain point.
People didn't want to touchthings.
They didn't want their thingsto touch things.
It seems like maybe that wasn'tactually a valid way to prevent
COVID.
Now that we have moreinformation about airborne
disease et cetera, like touchingstuff is kind of okay, but for
a long time people were reallyfreaked out and that was enough
(09:42):
of a hurdle for people to startusing tap to pay who never had
it set up on their phone before,who never bothered.
It made the pain bigger.
I think we need to look at thesame thing when trying to make
the argument for a super app.
Is is there?
You know this hasn't reallyexisted before.
But are there market changes ortechnology changes where this
(10:02):
is suddenly going to make a lotmore sense?
Sam Maule (10:04):
Yeah, and again, you talked about CEOs and boards
getting all excited aboutbuzzwords.
So, super App, I can see why itgets them excited.
So, especially if they look atAsia, because we hear about
China constantly, right WithAlipay and WeChat, and the
success, the billions of usersthat they have, or hundreds of
millions of users.
But then you look at, you know,we've seen super apps succeed
(10:27):
outside of China, um, with youknow stuff like um Carium or
Karma, however the hell you sayit out of Dubai, um, zappy in
Latin America, um, you know thePhilippines has, you know, their
own version, as does Vietnam,um, but whenever I heard those
arguments I would always comeback to yeah, if you're trying
(10:47):
to replicate what happens inChina, good luck, right, I mean,
this is more or less.
The government went in and saidyou're a winner, you're a
winner chicken dinner.
And you know, I don't see thathappening in the US.
Maia Bittner (11:00):
And the same with India and right, upi and their
identity system, like we don'teven have a national identity,
anything.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just this like smorgasbordof different providers and this
oligopoly of the credit bureaus, who are semi-independent but
(11:20):
state-sanctioned third partiesthat arbitrate.
I mean it's such a mess, it'sso different.
Sam Maule (11:27):
Yeah, I worked for 11FS, you know, based out of the
UK, for a long time and when Iwould ever describe the US, I
said you do all remember wefought a war of independence
against you.
So if you tell an American whatto do, if you want to get an
American to do something, tellthem the opposite of what you
(11:52):
want them to do, because we hateto be told what to do or to
only be given one choice.
Right, I mean, it's just.
You know, we love the varietyhere.
Good Lord, that makes me laugh.
But I say all that and I keepcoming back to.
Could Walmart pull this off?
Maia Bittner (11:59):
And, yeah, walmart and Walmart has a really unique
customer base.
They're very good at executing,though I would say that they've
had some missteps in fintechbefore and, frankly, their
customer base is prettyunderserved by the existing
players in the world of fintechand banking.
(12:19):
Right Like Chase is not servingthese customers particularly
well, wells Fargo is not servingthem well, bank of America
isn't serving them well.
They're mostly using WesternUnion, green Dot, a bunch of
kind of alternative financialproviders, and it would not
surprise me if Walmart, whopartners with a lot of these
(12:41):
companies, is looking at whatmakes sense and working behind
the scenes to stitch somethingtogether and would be able to
provide it with better marginsthan the existing players.
Sam Maule (12:53):
That was the argument that I was given as soon as I
left the stage at PinnabateSpring and walked out.
The person that challenged meand I love this because it was
perspective that I don't haveEverybody.
I live outside of Jacksonvilleand I love this because it was
perspective that I don't haveEverybody.
I live outside of Jacksonville,florida, which is a good size
city, and you know I've onlylived in large cities in the US,
so I don't have the perspectiveof more smaller town, rural
(13:14):
communities experiences.
And this was the person thatchallenged me because she lives
in Montana, like in the middleof nowhere in Montana, and she
goes all of my retail,everything I do is through
Walmart.
That is my experience.
And I was like, yeah, you knowwhat?
This is a point of view that Idon't have.
And I did a little bit ofresearch on this and I started
(13:34):
laughing.
You know, when you look at someof this, because the market
presence that Walmart has, youknow they'll tell you that 90%
of the US populations livewithin 10 miles of a Walmart
store.
That is amazing to me, right?
Wow, so over 5,000 stores.
I know 5,000 stores in the US.
That's like a JP Morgan stat,isn't?
Maia Bittner (13:54):
it Within how many miles?
Within 10 miles 90% of the USpopulation.
Interesting Within 10 miles 90%of the US population.
Interesting People who live inSan Francisco would be excluded
from that.
There's no Walmart within 10miles of downtown San Francisco.
Now, not that many people livein San Francisco.
It's actually a tiny city,about 800,000.
But it is such a culturallydominant force, particularly in
(14:17):
the tech industry.
It's funny that it's 90% ofAmericans but not a lot of the
people who are designing techapps and thinking about what
makes sense for Americanconsumers.
It's really interesting to me.
Sam Maule (14:30):
Yeah, and you see that in the products that
Walmart's tested with.
So you think about theirpartnerships they have with
Green Dot.
So again you're looking atprepaid.
They did with Amex and Bluebird, right.
Maia Bittner (14:39):
Yes.
Sam Maule (14:40):
Which made all the sense in the world, because the
thing that I like about Walmartis they have both an online and
a physical presence and thelogistics to make this all work
right, whereas Amazon is online,you know, and they've had
incredible success.
Walmart is well positioned,from both in real life and
online, to dominate in thisspace, which they already do,
(15:03):
don't get me wrong.
Maia Bittner (15:03):
I think they're incredibly well positioned for
that.
What do you think is importantabout the physical presence?
Sam Maule (15:09):
Here's what I think is interesting.
Right so, their averageconsumer.
A couple years ago I did someresearch on this their annual
revenues are $48,000, right so,again, it's a market, like you
said, outside of San Franciscocompletely different demographic
, and they're a loyal based.
They're very loyal in theshopping that they do.
It's repetitive.
(15:30):
I like repetition, huge fan ofrepetition.
I personally don't shop atWalmart, I barely shop period.
But when I do, I'm at Targetand I'm pulling out the red card
because my wife has beaten tome you will use the red card at
Target.
Maia Bittner (15:44):
You must use the red card.
Sam Maule (15:46):
Oh, yeah, yes, yeah, I've been slapped in the back of
the head several times for notpulling out.
Maia Bittner (15:50):
Cannot use a different credit card.
Sam Maule (15:52):
Exactly.
I have been trained so I don'tyou know I can't tell you the
last time I was personally in aWalmart, but still there's a
massive user base that does.
And also, you know, does theirpurchases online?
Do you know?
I just heard this on a podcasttoday from Scott Galloway 60% of
Walmart's revenue comes fromgroceries.
I was surprised by that.
(16:14):
I got to be honest.
So that's repetitive shopping.
Maia, you know where you go toget your groceries you know
where you go to get yourgroceries.
you know I live in Florida soit's Publix, but Walmart they're
a grocer, you know for in-store.
So I think controlling thatfoot traffic, but also
controlling you know what you'reseeing at the POS, that was a
big deal when they werepartnered with Green Dot and
(16:35):
then they did the partnershipwith Bluebird, was what were you
going to see?
You know, as you were standingin line, what was the offer
going to be?
That foot traffic that they got, because that was more or less
free advertising for them topush something.
So I and I will also tell youand I said this when we were
talking outside Finnovate if youwant to get some of the best
(16:57):
ethnic food in the US right now,go to Bentonville, arkansas.
Because of the engineering teamthat they have put there, the
sheer talent that Walmart hashired, don't go anywhere else in
Arkansas, but damn, go toBentonville.
Some really good restaurantsthere, by the way.
Maia Bittner (17:12):
E-commerce as well as doing online ordering and
pickup.
Huge force, Walmartcom.
Huge, walmart Plus huge.
They're really investing incoming after Amazon aggressively
from this angle and I thinkthey have their customers'
loyalty more than Amazon does.
Sam Maule (17:33):
I agree with you.
And here's another thing.
This is why I got so excitedabout this topic, Maia.
For those of you that don'tknow, and I think Maia will take
this as a compliment, Maia andI are geeks.
We really are In our free time.
We read about payments.
I go on YouTube and watchvideos on targeting payments so
(17:55):
I can learn more on weekends.
My wife is like you are justthe saddest person in the world
because she looks at my YouTubefeed.
This weekend I watched ones onSears Roebuck, Maia, because
Sears is fascinating to me.
Maia Bittner (18:05):
Here's a company that dominated.
Yes, I love Sears.
Sam Maule (18:08):
Yeah, but they dominated the market for well
over almost a century, and theircollapse was something that
didn't need to happen, andhere's what I mean by that.
Nope, they failed to keep up.
But think about this they hadthe opportunity to dominate
Amazon and what I meant by thatwas their catalog that they had
(18:30):
and the sheer volume ofemployees they had 30,000 to
50,000, if I remember right thatsupported that catalog, that
physical catalog.
If they had pivoted to online,they had the logistics in place,
they had the brand name inplace.
If they had pivoted thatcatalog to online and literally
it was right around the timethat Amazon was taken off that
they shut down their catalogcompany, they were positioned to
(18:54):
, you know, they were there.
Same with Blockbuster, withNetflix.
Blockbuster was well positioned, you know, especially as far as
an online distribution model,to own the market and didn't see
the curve coming.
Sears.
Example of this Blockbuster.
Example of this Walmart.
They're not playing that game.
They've invested, they'vebought companies, they bought
(19:17):
what, even Financial, they'retheir now and buy now, pay later
, if I'm not mistaken, rightPushing their own product.
Maia Bittner (19:23):
They bought Jet, they bought one.
Sam Maule (19:25):
They bought one.
Yeah, I mean, here's a companythat has the capital to invest
to bring talent on, that has auser base that can do what you
know.
When I was at Google it was,you know, that idea of
experiment like crazy.
But don't you know, don't beafraid to shut down ideas.
Walmart is well positioned todo that and to experiment both
(19:46):
online and at the physical store.
That's a fantastic combination.
Maia Bittner (19:50):
This is kind of an aside, but I love shopping by
catalog.
I don't know if you shop bycatalog.
Catalog I don't know if youshop by catalog.
I love that.
My wife does dude.
You get no entering your pop-uphere or like what, no pop?
You get no pop-ups that arelike enter your email here to
get 10 off.
There's none of that likestupid spin, discount shit.
(20:12):
There's no like thing that copsup in the corner and is like
talk to an ai customer, customer.
None of that.
There's none of that.
There's no.
I mean Amazon.
I can't even handle Amazon.
There's so many like weirdChinese brands and you have to
subscribe and save.
And then there's the discounts,reviews and the all.
It's too much for me.
I love opening a catalog.
(20:34):
I get to see pictures ofbeautiful women wearing clothes
and it's like like you wouldlook as beautiful as this woman
if you wore this clothing.
I'm like, yeah, that soundsnice.
It's just a nice experience.
Flip through, pick out somethings.
It's relaxing.
It's nothing like shoppingonline today.
That's uh, it's just an asidefor me.
Sam Maule (20:51):
I don't know how unique I am.
I know I'm with you, um, I I'man avid reader.
I cannot read online, I don'tread off a tablet.
I I read books.
They have to be in my hand.
That's just how I am and that'sthe experience that I
personally enjoy.
So I love the asides Maia, Ialways love the asides.
Back to Walmart, so they'reinnovating, they're buying.
Maia Bittner (21:13):
They're throwing everything in the bucket of
keeping up.
Their stock has been crankingrecently.
They Do.
We think they can pull it off.
I mean, what's an example ofsomebody who has really pivoted
their company from pre-tech tokind of this post-internet age
(21:33):
and has managed to pull that offsuccessfully and stayed
dominant.
Sam Maule (21:37):
Yeah, I mean especially from a retail
standpoint.
Right Again, I'm huge on churn.
I'm huge, like you said,customer acquisition costs when
you don't have it.
So I found a stat you'd findinteresting A typical Walmart
shopper is likely to go toWalmart 63 times a year and buy
13 different products once aweek.
(21:57):
So, that's through the gates,it's through the till.
I remember I was tellingsomebody, you know, my favorite
solutions are one that you justit's constant.
Like I like mass transportation.
I know, you know, I lived inthe UK for a long time and I
remember when Barclays was ableto get the tube, write the card
to go ahead and tap and go, andthat's seven million people a
(22:17):
day jumping on the tube everyday.
Same in New York, same withBART San Francisco.
I love that, that idea ofrepetition, repetition,
repetition, repetition.
And that is an advantage thatWalmart and, let's be honest,
amazon.
I'm a folks, I shop on Amazon.
I'll be honest.
I am not a catalog person, I ama let me search.
Whoever says this is the best.
Maia Bittner (22:41):
Sam do you shop on ?
Is it pronounced Temu?
Do you shop on Temu?
Sam Maule (22:44):
I do not but my kids, every one of my kids does.
Every single one of my kids andthat is one of the top 10
downloaded apps of 2023 in theUS is a Chinese shopping app.
Maia Bittner (22:55):
So I kind of I mean I don't like shopping on
Amazon in general because I feellike it's all Chinese garbage.
That said, I recognize thatsometimes we need some Chinese
garbage, like there's sort of aplace for it.
Like you know, I was looking at,my daughter loves bubbles and I
wanted a bubble maker, likejust a machine that sits on the
patio and spits out bubbles.
That's going to be Chinesegarbage, right, but that's all I
(23:18):
want.
I don't want a high qualityLike I, just it only even really
needs to last, like this onesummer.
I it only even really needs tolast, like this one summer.
I looked on Temu you can,because here's the thing it's
the same Chinese garbage as theysell on Amazon, but way cheaper
, and I think Wish before thatwas even cheaper and AliExpress
and Ali like it depends on youbasically exchange hassle for
(23:40):
saving money.
Sam Maule (23:42):
You know what it is.
As much of that as you want todo is fine.
I'm going to give myself ashout out.
That was my point when I talkedabout invented finance on stage
, and I actually stole this fromWade Arnold who had founded the
company I worked for, Move.
He said when you think aboutpayments, you got to quit
thinking about monetizingpayments and you got to think
about monetizing the point ofneed, that decision point.
(24:02):
Isn't that a good line?
Maia Bittner (24:03):
Yeah.
Sam Maule (24:04):
Really, wade, I'm giving you the shout out.
I should have made the t-shirtand trademarked that damn
comment.
But I love that idea that whenwe talk about embedded finance,
embedded wealth, you take yourpick.
It's all around pain points.
It's all around, I need itright now, and you just
described that in your shoppingexperience, right.
Yep, make this easy and make itright now.
Maia Bittner (24:27):
The other right yep, make this easy and make it
right now.
The other thing I, so I can'tsay this on twitter.
It's one of those things thatwould get me canceled.
Sam Maule (24:31):
I don't even know why , but but this is a safe spot.
Maia Bittner (24:33):
That's exactly this is my safe place because
you know, we only have somelittle couple devoted listeners
who are loyal to us, um, andit's hard to.
It's hard to cancel someone fora podcast.
You have to make a clip, it'slike a whole thing.
So it's just.
There's this interesting thingwhere I'm kind of the like tech
(24:53):
elite crowd right, that's been.
My background is like theobnoxious people who live in San
Francisco and are super bullishon tech and don't live like
real Americans.
Sam Maule (25:04):
You know what a DAF is, and I didn't.
There's a great example.
Maia Bittner (25:09):
That's my life, but there's been this really
interesting transition becausehaving kids has kind of brought
me closer to an averageAmerican's life in many ways,
because I think, like mostAmericans have kids and there's
a kind of a there is somesocioeconomic thing.
(25:29):
It goes both ways, like havinga lot of kids is a status symbol
in San Francisco because it'sso expensive to provide the life
that you want.
But also, but below that, belowlike that which in the class of
people I'm at, it's sort oflike you're less likely to have
kids the more money you have andthe less money to have kids.
The more money you have and theless money people have, the
more likely they're having kids.
It's just one of those things.
Anyway, point is having kids Ihave two now sort of living a
(25:55):
little bit more of an averageAmerican life because of that,
and I had this experiencerecently that I found quite
interesting.
So we've been spending more timeat Walmart, not because we
really shop at Walmart or wantto shop at Walmart, but because
they have awesome electric carchargers in very good condition.
They have 10 of them betweenour house in Seattle, which is a
(26:17):
route we drive a lot In goodcondition.
Our car actually comes withfree electric car charging for
the first couple of years atthese chargers, so it's great.
So we're always charging ourcar there and I go in.
Walmart is incrediblycomfortable and accessible for
my new lifestyle with kids,including.
(26:38):
They have a nursing room atWalmart.
They have a private room with alocking door and a comfy chair
that I can go in to nurse mybaby.
I've never seen any other storewith a nursing room.
And then and they've also got,you know, they've got the like,
everything else it's just likevery, very approachable and it's
(27:00):
comfortable for me to be there.
And I think it's like man.
If I could be doing more atWalmart not just electric car
charging, but some banking andmore pieces, it could be really
compelling.
I'm spending a half an hourthere, you know, at least once a
month charge my car anyway.
Sam Maule (27:16):
So it's interesting.
We've hit on all the reasonswhy this should work for Walmart
, right.
I mean loyal customers, anincredible online and physical
footprint, the logistics side,learning from history, the great
tech talent that they have.
What stops this or whatprevents this from happening?
Maia Bittner (27:40):
It's still not their thing.
Walmart is better than anyoneelse in the world at cramming
down the price that they paytheir suppliers.
I'm serious.
Sam Maule (27:53):
No, actually ask Target.
Target's now discounting priceson 5,000 items to keep up with
Walmart, who, Walmart, I believe, had a much better quarter.
Their stuff is so cheap.
Maia Bittner (28:04):
Yes, walmart had an incredible quarter.
Nobody can compete with theprices that Walmart has, and
that's because their costs areso low.
Negotiating down theirsuppliers, getting them to
change different things becausethey're a huge fit for it, so
they're best in the world atthat.
That's always going to be thecultural focus of the company.
That's where your starperformers are going to go.
(28:26):
Work is in that part of thecompany.
That's who gets the credit.
If you are, if that's your thing, right is doing supplier
negotiations like that.
You aspire to work at Walmart,right?
If you're an incredibleengineer, do you aspire to work
in a lot of different places?
You know, like a bunch ofplaces are doing cool stuff with
AI.
That's kind of interesting, youknow.
(28:46):
I don't know that you're goingto work at Walmart.
If you are a banker, if you're afinance person, if you are
payments, do you think ofWalmart?
No, like you want to build yourcareer brand elsewhere.
So, just, maybe they've gotpretty good talent, but they
don't have the best talent.
They don't have the cultural,the cultural emphasis.
(29:06):
It's not their thing.
Their thing is always going tobe having the lowest prices,
driven by those suppliernegotiations, and I think it's
really hard for a company toeither shift that focus to be
best in the world at somethingelse, and if they're not doing
that, it's hard for them to begood at two things in order to
(29:26):
compete in a free market.
That's why we see startups popup.
Is there somebody who's goingto be focused only on doing
financial services, only on asuper app that's going to be
doing a better job than Walmartcan ever give them the attention
to do?
Sam Maule (29:39):
I tell you, culture and focus is huge If you really
want to learn a lot about this.
Jason Del Rey I don't know ifyou know Jason or not.
He was with Vox for a long timeGreat tech writer, great writer
in this space but Jason wrote abook called Winter Sales L
Amazon, walmart and the Battlefor Our Wallets.
Go on Amazoncom and buy it,which, you've got to admit, is
(29:59):
kind of funny, seeing that itwas called the Battle Between
Walmart and Amazon.
But he focuses a lot in on thattech side and he talks about
the acquisition of Jet.
If you remember that, of courseand it is fascinating to read
about head-butting between youknow older Walmart and how the
(30:21):
tech boys kind of clashed rightwhich, by the way, the founder
of JetNow is going to do hisnext thing.
This always happens.
So if you're looking forsomething to read, jason giving
you a shout-out, a great one.
I'm going to say this now, aftertalking with you and talking
with everybody outside ofFinnovate I'm 50-50.
(30:42):
I'm 50-50 on this.
I'm still, eh, I'm 40-60.
I'm 50-50.
I'm 50-50 on this.
I'm still, eh, I'm 40-60.
I'm still not buying it.
I'm sorry, I don't think we'regoing to have a super app in the
US and that's going to beWalmart.
I think you're going to havesuper-ish apps and there's
nothing wrong with that I thinkWalmart will succeed very well
with their customer base.
(31:03):
Maybe grow it a little bit fromwhat they're able to do from a
technology standpoint.
I still think Amazon's going tobe a beast and watching my
college kids' behavior, theseChinese apps unless they get
banned they're going to do okayhere.
Maia Bittner (31:17):
They're going to be all right.
What I'm excited to see and Ithink Walmart is uniquely well
positioned to do and I haven'tseen a great play from somebody
else is combining personalbanking with remittances.
Yeah yeah, I think there's a bigneed for that in the US.
There's been a couple peopletrying at some pieces.
(31:38):
Wise is obviously a big player.
Western Union is still a hugecompany.
I think Walmart could come outwith hey, we've got your daily
spending and your internationalremittances in one place.
You come to Walmart, you get itdone.
You got a mobile app and theycould address the critical
(32:00):
identity parts.
They could use their retailfootprint in order to have a leg
up on fintech in terms ofidentity and combating fraud.
They know that people are notRussian hackers because they're
showing up in person at aWalmart store.
That, I think, could be acompetitive differentiator and
really, really interesting.
I don't have any informationthat says that's where they're
(32:21):
taking it, though.
Sam Maule (32:22):
Yeah, but it makes sense so I'd love to see that so
would I.
Isn't it fascinating how ourlife experience just drives
episodes like this me coming offon stage and being challenged,
and you having a baby?
Maia Bittner (32:32):
it is me having a baby, needing to nurse the baby
while charging my car that'll doit.
Sam Maule (32:38):
Okay, folks, that's it.
Having to nurse my baby whilecharging my car is the most west
coast thing I've ever heard.
Way to go, Maia, way to go.
Maia Bittner (32:46):
Tell me you live in the West coast without
telling me.
I know, I know Love itEverybody.
Sam Maule (32:52):
Thanks for listening today.
We'd love to get your feedbackon whether we're right or not on
super apps taking off in the U?
S and if Walmart is going to bethe beast, as always.
Reach out to Maia on Twitter,me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Take your pick.
Thanks for listening and go outand give us a review wherever
you listen to podcasts Fivestars, please.
Thank you.
I'll send you a Walmart giftcard, Maia, any last thoughts?
Maia Bittner (33:14):
No, can't wait to hear from you.
Let me know if you're buildinga super app.
Sam Maule (33:19):
Amen, all right, folks, talk to you next time.
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