Bill Cilluffo sits down with Eduardo della Maggiora, founder and CEO of Betterfly, to discuss the life-altering events that catalyzed the birth of his company, the importance of social impact in Betterfly's business model and how the platform is integrating the worlds of insurance, well-being and purpose with a big mission to empower people to help them live longer, healthier, happier lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you.
Venture capital firm focused oninvesting in fintech companies
all the way from pre-seed to IPO.
Fintech Thought Leaders bringstogether the most talented
entrepreneurs tackling today'sbiggest problems.
If you're looking to learn moreabout what motivates our
founders and team members tosucceed, you're in the right
place.
Hello and welcome to theFintech Thought Leaders podcast.
(00:40):
I'm Bill Salufo, head of earlystage investments at QED
Investors.
Today on the podcast, I'm BillSalufo, head of early stage
investments at QED Investors.
Personal journey first, butjust to help orient the
(01:02):
listeners, I wonder if you canshare maybe a 60-second
commercial on Betterfly.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Sure.
So at Betterfly, we're aplatform that integrates the
worlds of insurance, well-beingand purpose, with a big mission
to empower people, to help themlive longer, healthier, happier
lives.
Right.
And we do that in this uniqueway, you know, integrating these
three separate worlds throughwhat we call the butterfly
effect, which turns habits dailyhabits like walking, meditating
(01:27):
, saving, investing intopositive ways of change right.
And we gamify being active andhealthy through a very unique
experience that againincorporates the insurance world
, financial services, health andwell-being tools and a very
powerful and purpose-drivengamification platform to
encourage healthy living.
So that is, in a verysummarized way, what we do,
(01:49):
right?
I'm happy to share later in thepodcast details of our business
model, go-to-market strategy,but at a high level.
That's what we do.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's awesome, and just one quick follow-on because
I think it'll provide goodperspective.
I know you started in Chile,but now you're in a number of
different countries around LATAMand the world.
How many countries are you inright now?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, so today we're in eight markets, eight
countries.
So we started, chile was ourfirst market, then we opened
Brazil.
Today we're in seven bigmarkets, major markets in Latin
America, mexico, brazil, chile,argentina, peru, ecuador,
Colombia and Spain.
We opened Spain a little bitover a year ago and in the
process of preparing the companyto go further to other markets,
(02:27):
not only in the region but, youknow, to the US and Europe and
above.
So yes, eight markets in alittle bit over three years
since we launched the platform.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's pretty amazing context and we'll get back into
that more.
But I know we don't get toomany companies that have had the
expansion that you guys have.
It's really impressive to see.
But even more impressive thanthat, I think, is a lot of your
story that I've heard a coupletimes now but is always one of
the more inspirational storiesthat I get to hear of our
founders which, by the way, areloaded with inspirational
stories.
But I'd love to hear a bit ofyour time how you got to the
(02:58):
startup world.
I mean, I know you started ininvestment banking and then you
know your life took a couple fundetours and so it's.
I'd love to you know just startwith your banking days and how
you got to where you are.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Sure, sure.
So I'm, you know, born andraised in Chile.
I'm an engineer, startedengineering, most of which I did
in Chile.
I spent a little bit under ayear in San Francisco, but
engineering school, right out ofschool I started working at JPP
, morgan and the Latin AmericaM&A group.
That's a very unique thing, Ithink, not only of Chile but of
Latam, that engineers go to workin financial institutions.
I think it's happening in theUS a little bit more, but in
(03:32):
Latin America and Chileparticularly, very common.
So, anyhow, the plan there wasto spend a couple of years, then
do my MBA.
Those two years led to a littlebit over 10 years of M&A,
mostly covering financialinstitutions in the region.
So I spent, I would say, mostof my time working in M&A
transactions, capital markets,in the insurance and financial
services space and year 2014,.
(03:55):
Maybe this is where the storystarts, you know, to take a
detour, I decided to change whatI was doing, right?
The story of BetterFlights.
One hour story, probably, butI'll try to make it short one,
right?
The story of BetterFlight is aone-hour story, probably, but
I'll try to make it a short one,right?
So, again, I'll go back to myearly years.
15 years of age, I was a bigtennis player.
Tennis sports was my greatestpassion in life.
My dad passed away at thatmoment in time, so I had to
(04:15):
change a little bit of plans.
Right, I'm the oldest of threebrothers.
My family did not have properfinancial protection.
They did not have insurancecoverage, so that led me to
change a little bit.
The plans of becoming aprofessional tennis players go
into engineering school and2014,.
You know, life again hit me inan unexpected way.
This time around it has a happyending, but at that moment it
(04:38):
didn't right.
My mom was diagnosed with avery severe form of leukemia.
I was, you know, living thegood life in New York, single,
34 years of age, you know,working at JP Morgan, and in one
business trip to Chile wediscovered she had this very
aggressive form of cancer.
And that made me rethink, bill,a little bit, what I was doing.
Right, as I mentioned, you know, professional success.
(05:00):
And I started, you know, askingmyself the question you know,
if I went out on the street andgot hit by a bus, how would I
measure, you know, my life?
And I started asking myselfwould I measure it by my
professional success?
Would I measure it by thegrades I got in school?
Would I measure it by the moneyI had in the bank?
And I started a very personalreflection process about the
meaning of life, literally right, and I came to the conclusion
(05:21):
that a good way to measure mylife was to see how I was using
my time, my skills, to helpother people, not only myself.
So, 2014, I started asking whatam I doing today to make an
impact in other people's lives?
How am I capitalizing my skillsto make that happen?
And I could not answer thatquestion.
So I went to my boss, the headof JP Morgan for LATAM.
I told him I'm quitting andhe's like where are you going?
(05:43):
Goldman Sachs, morgan Stanley?
And I told him, no, I'm goingto Africa.
He's like what, where are yougoing to go to Africa?
And the reality at that momentI just wanted to take six months
to do a sabbatical, a pause,and, just for six months, focus
my time in, you know, making animpact in other people's lives.
Decided to go do a volunteerprogram and then the idea was do
(06:06):
those six months and then comeback to normality, right and
banking, or whatever that mightbe.
And to your question you knowthat six-month sabbatical right
or that volunteering tripdefinitely planted the seeds to
what later would becomeBetterfly.
Right Before Betterfly, the nameof the company was Burnt to
Give, and I'll explain in asecond why that's important.
So, anyhow, two things happenedin that journey in Africa I
(06:29):
discovered the reality ofchildhood malnutrition.
And number two, I reconnectedwith my passion of sports
through a video I saw on theinternet of the Ironman
Triathlon in Kona right.
Believe it or not, I think I'vetold you the story, but I was
an overweight, overworked banker.
After 10 years of banking, Iwas probably 25, 30 pounds
(06:49):
heavier than I am today.
Health and well-being were nota big part of my life.
I saw that video when I was inTanzania, in Africa, of the
Ironman triathlon and somethingin my gut, in my heart, was like
what happened to your passionof sports that you had when you
were young?
You know the tennis dreams, youknow.
And I just signed up for a race, not an Ironman, a small local
(07:09):
triathlon right, and I connectedthat right.
As I mentioned, I went to Africa.
I discovered malnutrition andI'll explain why.
That was one of the seeds forBetterfly.
And, anyhow, finished those sixmonths, bill moved back to
Chile, started training for thatlocal triathlon race.
And Chile started training forthat local triathlon race.
And in one of these bike rides,a crazy thought crossed my mind
and I said what are the poundsI'm losing Because I started
training, eating healthier right, losing those extra pounds of
(07:31):
weight?
And I said, what if I couldconvert those kilos I've been
losing, or those pounds I'vebeen losing, into pounds of food
for these kids I met in Africa?
And what if we could convertcalories of sports into calories
of food right?
And what if we could use thepower of purpose, the power of
helping others, to help eachperson live healthier, happier
lives?
And let's start with somethingvery simple let's convert
calories of sports into caloriesof food right.
(07:53):
And that's how the company gotstarted right Under the name
Burn to Give Burn Calories toGive Calories right.
And I think in that part of theprocess, when we first met right
towards the end of that journeyand just to connect it with
BetterFlight right, we spent acouple of years building our
platform.
Right At the beginning it wasjust connecting, you know,
healthy living with giving backright.
And then in that process, oneof the things I think was very
(08:16):
instrumental and that's why wereached out to you guys, and
then you know everything thatcomes later on was that we
discovered one of my views andthis is where the professional
background comes in right isthat who should be the biggest
payer of well-being in society.
Our vision was it should be theinsurance industry.
Right, because they have anatural incentive.
You know, healthier, happierclients, customers, whatever
(08:38):
they be, right.
Not only you know are healthier, but they live longer, and if
you compare a customer of aninsurance company, right, one
that is unhealthy or actuallyaveraged, compared to someone
who's healthy and active, thiscustomer over here will be
between three to five X moreprofitable than this one over
here, right?
So that's where insurance camein and we integrated insurance
(08:59):
as the backbone of our businessmodel, and BetterFlight was
created, was launched as acombination not only of purpose
giving back healthy living butalso financial services.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
So fascinating, fascinating story.
I mean so much to unpack.
Let me start back on thissabbatical to Africa.
It's interesting.
You talked about firsthandseeing the malnutrition and the
impact that that had.
Ironically, I spent two nightsago I watched the Netflix
documentary on the we Are theWorld story.
So you know somebody else whowas inspired by a very similar
thing and took action in a verydifferent way, you know, but had
(09:32):
great impact.
I guess you know what was itabout that in particular that
you saw that was able to.
You know, many people get movedby a lot of things.
Very few people get inspired inthe way that you have to
literally create your entireprofessional life around, partly
directly, partly indirectlygiving back to that cause.
I mean, what was it about thatthat moved you so much?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, that's.
That was a really good questionand it's actually not the
obvious answer someone mightexpect.
For me, the biggest impact thatthat six-month sabbatical had
in me was, you know, I wascoming from New York, where you
know you have all the abundance,all the richness.
You know I was coming from NewYork where you know you have all
(10:10):
the abundance, all the richness.
You know, one of the wealthiestcities in the world, right, and
I went from that to a place inthe world where people had
barely enough to eat Actually,some people were dying of
malnutrition.
And I met really happy people,right.
And I met people you know, thevolunteer workers I work with.
They were intrinsically happypeople and what they had in
common was that they werededicating their lives in doing
something beyond themselves.
And I remember going back toChile, bill, and when I got back
(10:32):
to Chile, everyone was likegoing from banking to Africa.
Everyone was like, oh,congratulations, that's
incredible.
And I felt like the person whohad been more transformed by
that journey was way more myselfthan the kids I helped in
Africa, right, like what theygave me was way more than what I
(10:52):
was able to give them byvolunteering for six months in a
school right.
So that fulfillment that I feltfor six months and that I saw
in the country, in the region,people doing for decades, was
what I wanted to bottle and usetechnology as a motivator to get
people living better right.
And for me, what I felt there,going back, was like I'm so
privileged to be able to havespent six months doing this.
Not everyone can do that.
(11:13):
What if we could bottle thisand use it as a carrot, if you
will, to get people movingactive, healthy, right and
living better lives?
Again, it was not obvious forme Up until this day.
I'm still in touch with a lot ofthe folks with whom I
volunteered there and that was,for me, the biggest insight that
I got and the concept thatwe're as human beings.
(11:34):
We are designed to give back,to help others, to live in
community right, and when youprovide anyone anywhere,
regardless of religion, you knowwhat country they're from the
opportunity to help others.
Human beings do not hesitate todo so.
And that was the biggest,biggest insight and I was like
there's no way I'm doinganything else in my life than
(11:55):
building a company or working insomething that brings this to
life right, and that's how itall started to be honest, and it
would never have happened if Ihadn't taken that jump, which
made no sense at that time.
Right, everyone was like whyare you quitting JP Morgan at
this moment, when they'repromoting you?
You know you're going to be amanaging director next year and
(12:15):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it was one of those thingsthat you know changed my life.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, well, it's great to hear about such a
transformative experience andthat directly led you to Burn to
Give, which was actually anonprofit correct me if I'm
wrong about promoting folks totake their exercise and use that
to lead to donations.
And I know you learned a lotlike some things that worked
quite well, some things thatdidn't work quite like well, and
that was the predecessor to nowthe for-profit company
(12:42):
Betterfly.
Can you talk to me about whatyou learned in those period,
maybe one thing that was reallysuccessful that you were able to
take to Betterfly, and maybeone thing that wasn't working
quite right that caused you tochange your thinking and led you
to where you are now?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah.
So maybe let's let me sharesome things that are maybe not
not out there as common as thestory that I always tell.
So there was a lot of learningsbefore Better Fly.
Right in terms of how can wescale and build something that
creates impact beyond, at thatmoment, my wildest dreams.
Right, and at the beginning,the obvious way to do this was
to build a nonprofit.
Right, let's build a nonprofitthat people put money in it and
(13:17):
we just connect, giving back tobeing active and healthy, and we
can get into two pockets ofdonation interest right, people
that want to promote health andwell-being and others who want
to promote nutrition.
Right, I learned that that wasnot as scalable as, because at
the beginning, people reallylove to donate, but then up
until a certain point right, itdoesn't move more than that.
(13:39):
Then you continue to have tocontinue to win.
Right, and I actually beforeBurn to Give.
Right, I actually founded anonprofit called Yayo Fund,
which was also in themicrofinance space.
Right, which was a completenonprofit.
The company was amazing.
It did really well, but then itwas very difficult to scale and
I had to close it down because,you know, we were dependent on
donations.
Right, and I learned I don'tknow if the hard way, because it
(14:02):
was part of the process thatyou know, building a for-profit
for impact was the way to go, acompany that you know was
for-profit but had embeddedimpact in its business model,
structure, you know, et cetera.
And then I learned about BCorps right, you know, I hadn't
heard about them which wasbasically for-profit companies
(14:23):
that have a fiduciary duty tohave financial returns but at
the same time they also havesocial and environmental returns
as part of their structure,right.
And and I started going thatroute, and that's where Burn to
Give became Burn to Give, fromthe idea of a nonprofit to Burn
to Give LLC.
And then Better Fly, you know,pvc and building a business
model, that impact purpose wasthe main driver.
But in a for profit, for impact, right, and it's always that
(14:46):
what's the driver?
Is it the profit or the impact?
Right, and you know, decidinghow to do that.
And we structure Betterfly thatway, right?
So at the beginning it was justa certified B Corp for those
you know listening to thepodcast basically a
certification that you have tocomply with certain if you want
ESG requirements to make thathappen.
For me that was not enough andwhat we decided to do is take it
(15:06):
a step further and westructured the company as a
public benefit corporation inDelaware, right, but basically,
besides the certification, whereyou know we could walk out any
year if we wanted to do that webasically embedded a legal or
fiduciary duty to have a socialand environmental return
together with our fiduciary dutyas a financial return right,
(15:27):
and that's how the company gotstructured.
If you will and it was notobvious at all at that moment in
Latin America I mean, we werethe first ones to do that
Everyone, or 99% of people,especially from the financial
world, were like why are youdoing that?
You know people are going tothink you're a nonprofit.
You should not structure thecompany that way.
And, if you ask me, we'll talkabout later this was probably
(15:49):
one of the, or probably the mostrelevant decision that we made
that has allowed us to do whatwe do.
Because when you would purposean impact at the center again in
a model that has to grow, thathas to be scalable, that it has
to be profitable, you attract acertain type of talent, you
attract a certain type ofclients, you attract a certain
type of everything around you,right, it just starts moving at
(16:10):
a different pace, and I thinkthat's the power of purpose.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, we've got a couple examples in the portfolio
that have really integratedthese components together and
it's quite central to yourbusiness model.
So let's stick with the impactside.
Can you talk about how thatworks at Butterfly and kind of
how the impact piece of it hitsdirectly?
I know there's a couple ofdifferent aspects and then we'll
get more to the for-profitpiece here in a sec.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, so Butterfly is very unique in that way because
, first and foremost, impact isembedded in our business model
period.
So part of our gross profit ischaritable donations.
So let's say we, you know,we'll explain the go-to market.
Or the business model.
Let's say a company getsBetterFly for their employees
and they pay, you know, $10 peremployee per month.
(16:53):
Part of those $10 goes towardsnonprofits, right?
So it's a charitable donationthat get triggered the more our
users or members improve theirwell-being, right.
So that's the first part, right?
The second one has to be with,you know, compliant being a B
Corp, right, where every yearyou go through a review of ESG
(17:14):
standards, if you will, tocomply with that.
That, in my view, are the maybethe less relevant of the impact
that we have, because that'speople can get away with that.
That, in my view, are maybe theless relevant of the impact
that we have because people canget away with that.
Sometimes it's more vanitymetrics than anything, to be
honest, right.
So that's another part of thecomponent.
The third one I mentionedearlier is we have a fiduciary
duty to have a social andenvironmental return in our
(17:35):
bylaws directly as a PBCincorporated company.
And last but not least, andthis is one of those innovations
that we actually launched lastyear.
We actually created, built totake our impact further and
align it with our growth.
Last year we created a newinstrument financial instrument
called the social impact stockunits, which is basically a sort
(17:55):
of employee stock option thatwe create a small pool and we
link that to Betterfly'sprofitable growth, and these
stock options, which have nocost, are distributed to
nonprofits the more Betterflygrows, right.
So it's a way of aligning evenmore our financial returns with
our social impact and making theplanet and society a part of
(18:17):
our company and our strategy.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Oh, very cool, Very cool.
Well, let's move to the corebusiness model of BetterFly.
Now, at the centerpiece, you'reselling employee benefits to
employers.
I know life insurance is at thecenterpiece of this, but it's
by no means the only thingyou're selling.
But you've created aninteresting model that links a
number of these aspects togetherin terms of giving positive
incentives to consumers.
(18:41):
I wonder if you can just walkus through how that works?
Sure.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
So, as you correctly mentioned, so we started, you
know, 2020, when we launched thefirst.
You know we're a platformcompany, right?
So I'll explain a couple ofapplications of our platform
which you know start from thesame technology core, but as an
employee benefit subscriptionright.
So we go to a company, let'ssay a company with a hundred
employees, right, and thecompany gets BetterFly for their
(19:04):
employees and basically eachemployee gets access to a
platform, right, and theplatform we like to see
BetterFly as a three-in-oneplatform.
First you have the protection,then the prevention and then the
purpose part of the platform.
The protection we started withlife insurance, but today you
have not only life insurance butyou know, cancer cover,
critical illness, dental cover,pet insurance, and each of those
(19:26):
hundred employees, bill, canchoose what coverage they want
and what type of coverage theywant.
So the company just says youknow what, I want to invest $10,
$15, $20, whatever the amount,and then leaves to each employee
the ability to choose whichcoverage they want.
Let's say, you, you know youhave kids, right, you might
choose life insurance.
Then someone who has a pet,maybe life insurance is not
(19:47):
relevant, but they want petinsurance, right, and so on and
so forth, so we're able topersonalize the protection piece
for each employee, for them tofind meaning and value in each
product.
The second part is theprevention, or the health and
well-being part of the platform.
Same thing we're able topersonalize world-class
well-being tools for eachemployee.
So we have partnerships withHeadspace, phaeton and a bunch
(20:09):
of Udemy, booz, duolingo and abunch of physical, mental,
financial language apps.
Right for each employee tochoose, right Depending on the
plan that the company chooses.
Again, those hundred employeesare flexible, they can choose
whatever works for them.
(20:29):
And the third part, which is, Iwould say, the game changing and
what brings engagement you knowfrom single digits that happen
in all companies to you know, 70, 80% that we have is our
purpose driven engagement engine.
And we created this engagementengine, which is basically a
game.
Right, we use game mechanics toget people active and healthy
and living their best lives.
And look at it, bill, we'reactually launching very, very
(20:50):
shortly the next version.
But it's sort of like PokemonGo, a Legend of Zelda, or you
know.
We have hundreds of levels thatyou pass one to the other and
each level you have differentnodes where you get rewards from
, you know, amazon gift cards,you get insurance top-ups, you
get discounts, and every personagain personalizes that journey.
So, let's say, you play golf,so throughout that journey you
(21:12):
will get golf discounts, youwill get videos about golf, you
will get things that arepersonalized.
Now there's one thing that everyplayer or every user has in
common that to advance from onelevel to the next, you have to
make an impact in other people'slives.
So you have to give back andmake a donation, right.
So that's where the purposecomes in and you earn your right
(21:32):
to give back.
Again, this is all free for theend user, right, Because it's
you know, donations that theyearn with their good habits, and
that's how we connect.
You know donations that theyearn with their good habits, and
that's how we connect.
You know personal rewards withrewards for others and gamify,
being active and healthy.
So that's the value prop ofthat product, where, again, it's
a per employee, per monthsubscription that companies pay
for their employees.
And we have today roughly 3,000clients, corporate clients,
(21:56):
from SMBs with 50 employees tothe largest multinationals in
Latin America, right with tensof thousands of employees using
BetterFly.
At the same time, we provide HRmanagers and this is especially
valuable for bigger clientsaggregated and anonymized data
on the insights of their people.
So let me give you an examplewith a customer, a big customer
(22:17):
we had in Brazil a couple ofweeks ago.
So we realized their teams okay, you know, we integrate with
every single type of wearablesfitness app, so we integrate
with Whoop, with Aura, witheverything right and we saw that
their team were sleeping lessthan average.
Number one and number two theywere looking at sleeping quizzes
.
So they were doing a lot ofsleeping quizzes, about to learn
how to sleep better.
(22:37):
So we went to the HR managerand we told them hey, you should
bring a sleep coach to yourcompany, right, we don't have a
sleep coach, but go get one.
I won't say the name of thecompany, but I'll tell you who
they brought.
So they brought.
It was the wellness week ofthat company and they had Rafa
Nadal, the tennis player, as oneof the speakers of the week.
They also brought the sleepingcoach that week.
(23:01):
The sleeping coach had twotimes the visualizations of Rafa
Nadal, right, which is crazy.
So that's the best example ofyou know, we give you aggregated
data and let data drive yourwell-being strategy and not what
you know the CEO or the HRmanager wants to do.
Right, and those insights arejust growing in usefulness and
how targeted they are and howpowerful they are with AI right,
so we provide a series ofwell-being tools for HR managers
(23:23):
.
Right for this to be superseamless, super insightful.
So that's one part Superquickly.
But the second part of themodel right, which we started
growing in 2022, we realizedthat we were creating such an
amount of engagement Just shortparentheses after WhatsApp and
social media, betterfly is themost used app in an employee's
(23:45):
phone.
Right, that's how engaging theapp is.
Right, so it's just out ofcharts engaging.
Right.
So one of our providers, whichwas the carrier right, because,
remember, we built this techstack that bundles insurance
products and non-insuranceproducts and we're able to
distribute them with thesimplicity of Netflix or Spotify
right, so they told us look,why don't we do the same thing
you're doing with companies totheir employees?
(24:05):
Why don't we do it with ourclients?
So you know, I'll pay you thesubscription.
And why isn't BetterFlyembedded in a life insurance
policy?
Right, and that's how westarted our affinity business
model where, basically,betterflight comes as part of a
life insurance policy.
You know, you buy, you know,and it not only increases the
(24:26):
value that a life insurancepolicy that you never use.
Right, it gives you access tobenefits, discounts, but it also
, you know, rewards you forliving healthier, happier,
longer lives.
Right, because that's of everyinterest to the life carrier and
that one bill in the last 12months is just growing at an
exponential pace.
(24:47):
Right, because we're able toconnect that carrier with that
customer in a very unique way.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
That goes back to a little bit of your.
The original core of the idea,right, is you have this life
insurance and then you'reincenting people to take
behaviors that are in their bestinterest whether it's step
tracker or meditation or youname it and how directly sort of
that gives them more lifeinsurance coverage, which again
works for the life insurancecompany because they're
healthier.
I mean, it's just a reallyinteresting self-reinforcing
(25:14):
loop that you've built, and justto see how it's broadened so
much over the last handful ofyears is really impressive to
watch.
I know when you started thisbusiness, you had very much a
B2C model in mind.
You even referenced Netflix,spotify, etc.
You're now kind of headlonginto a couple different B2B
models, whether it's theinsurance partnership or the
employer model.
Why do you find B2B is kind ofmore the channel that tends to
(25:38):
work for this?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
versus a B2C model.
Yeah, so at the end of the day,we're a B2B2C right.
At the end it's a C that'susing it.
Right, but it's through a B2B.
And the reason for that is thatemployers and insurers, we
believe should be the payers ofmaking society well, healthy and
happy, right, they have afinancial incentive to do so and
they're directly influenced bythat.
So by doing it this way, goingto the end consumer through an
(26:03):
employer or through theirinsurer, makes economic sense
and makes the incentives we caninclude as part of that
well-being journey significantlylarger.
And that's at the core of ourmodel, right?
I mean, people know that eatinga chocolate cake is not good
for them.
Or, you know, walking more isbetter than walking less, right,
but why do we not do that?
(26:24):
Right, it's because we needincentives, right, to change
behavior.
And you know, the bigger theincentive, the bigger the
behavioral change.
And that's where insurers andemployers come in.
And we believe that the way toshift from protection to
prevention and aligningincentives is with these two key
partners in society.
Every year, 60 million peopledie in the world, total, okay,
(26:47):
roughly 6-0 million.
So of those 60 million deaths,75% of those deaths 45 million
are due to chronic disease.
Okay, 45 million Of those 45million, 80% ate zero, okay.
So four out of five or eightout of 10 of those deaths have
(27:07):
to do with things we do everyday.
So, you know, have to do withphysical inactivity, smoking,
drinking too much, you know, badnutrition, stress, and it's
actually 12 to 14 bad habits,right, and just 20% have to do
with accidents, shark attacks.
You know all the things.
We think it's more.
It's a massive number.
(27:27):
So there's a lot of things thatwe can do to change and extend
our longevity, our health spanand everything in between, and
the question is, why don't wechange that?
Look?
So let's go to the US, the US.
We have $4 trillion that the USspends in healthcare every year
.
97% of that is pills andsurgery.
Just 3% is preventative,lifestyle changing, and that's
(27:51):
where we want to jump in.
We were building theinfrastructure to connect
insurers with, and consumers,employers with, also their teams
right, because happy, healthyemployees also bring more
productivity, right, moreperformance.
So they have an incentive, andthat's our vision.
I think we've talked about thisonline and this is where AI
today is.
(28:12):
Just, you know, there's thingswe can do today of connecting
those two separate actorsinsurers with customers and
remember these two stakeholdersinsurers, policyholder, employer
, employee.
They have the same incentive.
They want healthy, happy people.
Who doesn't want to be healthy?
Who doesn't have to be happy?
So it's a win-win solutionwhere our business model is
(28:36):
driven by how we can engage withour members and make them
healthier, happier, livinglonger, which at the end of the
day, translates to profitability, both to the carrier and to
employers.
That's why we believe goingthrough employers and insurers
to the end consumer is the wayto go that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, it's really interesting that you talk about
the role of the employer, and Iknow you're in Latin America
and now Spain.
Who knows if you'll be in theUS someday or how that all plays
out.
But the US is an interestingmodel, given how goofy our
healthcare system is and howmany large employers are
effectively self-insured.
Really, those incentivesbetween what's good for the
employee, what's good for theemployer is incredibly tightly
(29:16):
linked here.
So it's interesting to justprocess what the future might
hold there in such aninteresting market.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
A hundred percent, yeah, a hundred percent.
There's a book that I recommend.
I actually have it here.
Look, I wasn't prepared, butit's called the Happiness
Advantage and I gave it to allmy team recently because it's
basically the link between apositive, healthy brain and
success company success,corporate success, right, and
you know, this is a book thatwas written 10, 15 years ago and
(29:43):
it was researched, you knowHarvard, but it wasn't.
Today we can see that inpractice.
I mean, we have ROI.
You know, with big employeeswe're healthy, happy, positive
thinking employees are one, two,three X more productive than
those who are not.
So there's a natural link, andthat's, I think, where the world
should go.
And something I'm very, I'mvery passionate about and where
(30:05):
I believe in the US is, you know, where it's more evident that
that needs to change.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, definitely, definitely so.
Look, a minute ago youreferenced the world's greatest
buzzword, ai, and talked abouthow that might play a role.
I know you're, as with manycompanies, kind of on the
journey to figure out where AItools might add value to the
business.
I think in your case, it's lessof enabling you to do something
dramatically different, butimproving kind of something you
(30:30):
were already down the path on.
I wonder if you can just sharekind of your early days of the
AI journey, as I'm sure everylistener is.
You know, trying to play aroundwith the concept.
Yeah sure.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
So for us, it's not doing something new, it's just
doing what we do at asignificantly greater pace,
right.
So the first one and I'll justmention three because there's so
many right the first one ispersonalization.
You know, ai brings the cost toserve and to recommend that end
user right At a pace we couldnot have done so before.
Look, and that employee or thatend customer that is using
(31:03):
BetterFly, we're able to givethem the incentives, the rewards
, the benefits that are tailoredto meet their needs and create
this virtuous circle between youknow, living healthier, happier
, happier lives right.
And three years ago this was avision.
You know, and you know,everyone knows that if you have
a personal coach, which you haveto pay I don't know 400, 500
bucks a month, you will changeyour habits, you will go to the
(31:23):
gym, you will lose, but noteveryone has that financial
capacity to do so.
What AI is doing for us rightis allowing us to bring that not
even a hundredths of the costright.
And you know, with theintegrations that we have, you
know, with the touch points thatwe have, with end user being
able to personalize theexperience right to help them,
him or her, live healthier,happier, happier lives.
(31:45):
So that's the first componentright, and we can do that on an
individual level, on a companylevel.
The second one, which is youknow I didn't know it was this
massive, but you know I was.
You know, three, three, fourweeks ago I was in Dallas and it
was not me saying thisInsurance will be the most
affected industry by AI in thenext 12 to 15 months, and the
(32:08):
reason behind that is because ofthe feedback loop you can
generate for claims payment andfraud detection right and
everything around that right.
When you have the touch points,the cost to serve and to detect
fraud is just crazy.
And you know, this is somethingwe started doing.
This is actually something inthe category that we did not do
before and that, thanks to AI,we could start doing, because
(32:31):
before we just had lifeinsurance right and life
insurance claims are very low,so we don't need to build a
smart algorithm.
But now that we're doing petcell phone, critical illness,
cancer and the frequency issuper high this has allowed us
to do a, you know, provide claimsettlement, claim processing
right, country agnostic, anymarket, any type of coverage and
(32:52):
build an algorithm that learnsby itself, again at a fraction
of the cost that we wouldn'thave been able to do this at the
pace that we're doing it todaywithout AI.
And the third one is servingsmaller customers and namely the
SMB segment.
The cost to sell and the costto serve was opening a blue
ocean for us.
(33:12):
That was not available beforeunless we would have had cheap
capital forever that we all knowis not out there anymore.
And look at this In the worldthere's 400 million SMBs okay,
400 million, depending on thestudy that you look at, 90 to
92% of these SMBs do not haveany type of employee benefit,
(33:34):
right.
So it's a, it's a blue ocean.
So acquire that customer and acost and then serve that
customer in a cost effective way.
It's a blue ocean.
So we're we've been building.
Last year we built, you know,this product led sales
infrastructure where the lastmonth we started to onboard SMBs
without human contact Right andserving them at the same way.
And you know, providinginfrastructure, where the last
month we started to onboard SMBswithout human contact right and
serving them at the same way.
(33:55):
And you know, providing andthat is just infinite right.
So those are three examples ofthings that are possible thanks
to AI.
The first one is maybe anaccelerator.
The other two is opening upopportunities to serve more SMBs
, more customers, in a way thatwouldn't have been possible.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, I love the last example in particular.
I mean it's funny.
I was at Capital One for 20years and a handful of times
over that period was part ofthese big consulting studies
talking about where there'sbusiness opportunities, and
every single time smallbusinesses was like number one
on the list.
If they get crappy financialservice, they get crappy other
service.
Nobody's building for them, etcetera.
It is really interesting tothink about AI as a tool to
(34:35):
maybe help people get at one ofthe most underserved markets.
Across almost any lens you cando Back to the combining of
business opportunity and impact,enabling small business,
especially in emerging markets.
You can just see the directimpact that that's going to have
given the prominence ofemployment in Latin.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
America.
Yeah, that is so massive, bill.
I mean because I mentioned 90,I mean you know SMBs have been
there.
The thing is it's too expensiveto or to sell or to serve right
, and AI is just bringing thatdown right.
And in an industry likeemployee benefits, you know
employee benefits, every companyneeds one and you know employee
benefits, every company needsone and you know it's a massive
(35:16):
category the 10% that do haveright, the bigger enterprise
customers, mid-market 99.999% dohave benefits.
So it's such a product that isjust so big that you know the
impact there can be massive.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, let me flip the story a little bit to the
BetterFly team.
You know we talked about how,you know, your product is so
well integrated.
Right, there's the part thatmakes money, the part that gives
back, the part that'sself-reinforcing in the middle,
but I've got to also think thatyour social impact focus really
helps you in terms of attractingand retaining and motivating
talent at the same time yetanother way that it's probably
(35:49):
self-reinforcing.
I wonder if you can just talkabout the talent side of your
business and how you're able to,you know, really get that
flywheel, you know, spinning ina different direction,
leveraging all the other great,great work that you do.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, no, that's a really good question and it's
probably the most important one,right, for us at BetterFly.
And I think where purpose is,you know, is number one, is
people, right.
And when you have a clear goalof the impact you're creating
and you're able to tangibilizethat and, you know, really make
it a part of the strategy, youknow, and something that is
visible not only in the annualreport at the end of the year,
you know, and some vanity metric, but actually part of the
business model, you're able toattract a type of talent that is
(36:27):
unavailable in any other way.
Right, I mean, and I've saidthis in our Series A, in our
Series B, in our Series C, andit continues to happen now we
have people working at BetterFlythat if we did not have such a
clear strategic focus tocreating, we could not have them
on board at this time.
And not only that, you're ableto attract talent and retain
talent in a different way,because people come here, as
(36:50):
cheesy as it sounds, right toyou know, to change the world,
right, and they are really,really in love with the product
we're building, with thesolution that we're creating,
and they know it's not going tobe easy.
Right, there's a lot to dostill, but giving them that
opportunity and giving them thetools not only to be able to
tangibilize the impact, to sharetheir stories with their kids
when they go back home afterwork, and you know the impact
(37:13):
that we're creating on a monthly, on a quarterly, on a yearly
basis, that is just massive,right, and it's like a fire that
never ends.
And you know, you can ask Mike,and you know the folks who have
met the team it's not just metalking with this passion about
the company and you know ourdream and our vision and you
know our mission and everything.
(37:37):
It's probably most of the teamand you know, and that allows
you to move also at a differentspeed, bill, right, we really
have a clear end goal in mindand an impact being what goes in
the middle, you know, empowersus to do more and have more
endurance at the end of the day.
And look, we have a boardmeeting in a couple of days and
our board presentations alwaysstart with purpose people, then
comes business and the last oneis finance.
So we have these three sections, right People, business and
(37:59):
finance and purpose.
It's not a section, becausethat's like at the very top and
that's the order, and that's theorder is very important because
profit financials have to bethere, but they're an output of
the business and the business isan output of the people and the
people are at the center right.
So that's maybe another way tolook at it, or at least how we
look at it.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, no.
I mean, it's so clear thatcompanies that are just built to
add value to people and you doit in a very special way others
do it in different ways.
You know it's just so mucheasier to bring on amazing
talent.
You know when you can reallyget behind and align behind the
mission.
I'd love to shift to talk alittle bit about how you take
care of yourself.
You know your entire businessis built on the premise that if
(38:39):
people take care of themselves,they'll live longer, happier
lives.
I know lots of entrepreneursthat work, you know, 120 hours a
week and don't take care ofthemselves at all.
I know that's not the case foryou.
I think you underestimated thelevel of which you are truly an
elite, world-class athlete whenyou were talking about it
earlier.
But I know you're also workinglike crazy at work.
I know you have a family.
(39:00):
I know you travel all the time.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I mean, how do you think about sort of making these
pieces you know fit togetherand any one of which could
easily cause someone to burn out?
Yeah, that's a really goodquestion.
I think, something you know.
We've talked a bunch in thepast with the QED group, right,
and you know other founders inthe portfolio, right, where I
think your question, bill.
So, sleep, nutrition, exercise,you know, mindfulness, all of
(39:39):
these things, right, connectionwith your family are relevant.
There's not a formula, becausewe're all at different points of
our lives.
You know needing more of thisor that, right, you can be a
founder, maybe don't have afamily, and you know, maybe you
like to exercise, maybemindfulness is your thing, but
you need to do what you know youneed to do to recharge, and
(39:59):
this is like being a top classathlete To win the race, you
need to train hard, recharge,train hard, recharge, right, and
the recharge component is veryindividual, right, but it needs
to be there, because or else youwill be able to, you know, have
all-nighters or work hard forone week, two weeks a month,
okay, two months but then you'lljust burn out and you won't be
(40:21):
able to run.
You know, building a company isnot a sprint.
It's not even a marathon.
It's a freaking Ironman, right,and maybe an ultra Ironman, an
Ultraman, right.
It's really really long.
So you have to be consistentfor a very long, long time.
So, first, you have to love whatyou do and that maybe is
obvious, because you shouldn'tbe building a company just for
you know.
You have to really find whyyou're doing what you're doing.
And, number two, you have totake care of yourself, right,
(40:44):
and there are small tips that Ithink are really relevant, but
nutrition plays a big role.
Exercise plays probably themost relevant role, and that's
not just because I'm, you know,I love sports and I love
exercising, but you know,exercise probably has a bigger
impact in your mental healththan in your physical health.
So that's a major one for me.
(41:04):
And yeah, and choosing whatbattles to do, right, bill,
because I get a lot of peoplethat ask you know, okay, but how
can you train for an Ironman?
You know you have two kids,you're going to be a dad or a
third one.
Then you have better, okay, butI have to exclude other things
in my life that you know.
You have to choose right,because if you do, I do believe
also and this is maybe apersonal.
If you really want to beworld-class at anything, be it
(41:24):
an athlete, be it anentrepreneur, you have to go all
in.
You cannot be doing 10 thingsat the same time.
Right, and maybe it's yourfamily and building a company.
Right, and maybe that's theonly two that you have to focus
in.
That means you will have toexclude partying.
That means you will need to,because or else you won't be
able to recharge.
You won't be able.
So.
So, in my personal journey atleast, right, for me, priorities
(41:59):
are better fly, my family anddoing what I love, you know,
which is sports, which is partof what gives me the energy to
continue.
You know, building Betterfly.
And again, that might mean, youknow, in my case at least, you
know, working 100-hour weeks,but I have to incorporate
recharging during the weeks, andsome weeks might be 100, 120,
others might be 20 hours, right,and that's why, for me, this is
you have to get be 20 hours,right, and that's why, for me,
this is you have to get to knowyourself.
Right, but recharge, recover.
It has to be at the center, orelse this does not work.
(42:21):
No, and look, you enjoy theprocess more, and you know,
that's the other thing I mean.
As a leader, you have to bewith energy, you have to have
your energy, right.
Right, if you're tired everymorning, if you don't have the
energy, you know, building acompany is about momentum as
well.
Right, the momentum you buildevery single day, every single
week, with your team, with yourinvestors, with your clients,
(42:41):
right?
And there's no way you canbuild momentum if you're
fatigued, if you're tired, ifyou're, you know, sleepy.
It's very difficult to do, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
You know, I think your lessons there are useful to
almost anybody, but inparticular in this industry,
where people are, I think, arevery prone to going absolutely
crazy and going all in and yousee a lot of burnout and a lot
of issues because of it.
And how do you find a model foryou that's sustainable?
I mean, I love the approachthere.
Well, look, eduardo, it's beenamazing having you on.
You know we could probably keeptalking all day, but I know
we've got, you know, all ofthese other goals of family work
(43:15):
and exercise to go.
Do you know?
I'd love to finish up with aquestion that I ask you know
just about everybody that comeson.
Hopefully we've got a number ofaspiring entrepreneurs who are
listening to this podcast.
You know what's one piece ofadvice that you'd?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
give to an aspiring entrepreneur.
Oh, that's a good one, I think,probably the most relevant do
something that you were again,maybe this sounds cliche but
that you love and that you'reuniquely qualified to do.
Right, I think there's a quotefrom someone you know, something
that looks like work for othersand it's play for you.
Right, you have to really enjoywhat you do because you need
this is an endurance sport,right, building a company is an
(43:51):
endurance sport.
It's not a year, it's not twoyears, it's 10 years in the
making.
Right.
And if you don't really lovewhat you do and you won't have
the endurance and the you know,the stamina to go very long,
right, so probably loving whatyou do is more relevant than
uniquely qualified.
Right, you have to have theskills but that will help you
(44:11):
very determined, who are willingto walk over brick walls to
make it happen.
And the only way for that tohappen is that you know doing
something you're reallypassionate about.
So my advice would be for thosestarting you know, at the
initial journeys, are you really, really in love with what
you're doing?
And as crazy as it sounds,right, because if you look at it
(44:34):
as a job, there's so much youwill be able to do so.
Enjoy it and you will enjoy it.
Look, you've seen me right.
We've known each other foralmost four years three years, I
don't know.
I'm enjoying BetterFly more andmore every day.
It's not easier, it getscomplex and every market we open
, you know.
But it's part of the journeyand I really you know, love what
I do.
I've never worked as much in mylife as I have right now, but
I'm doing it because I reallybelieve in what we're doing and
(44:57):
I really enjoy what we're doingright and enjoy working with the
people.
I do so.
At the end of the day, it'sthat passion and perseverance,
or another way to put it, gritright Towards what you do.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, I love it.
Well, look, thanks so much forjoining Eduardo.
Well, look, thanks so much forjoining Eduardo.
It's been great having you onand it's always fantastic to
hear the story and get a chanceto catch up.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Thanks, bill, great conversation.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou in person soon.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
And thanks to all of our listeners and until next
time, take care and thanks forlistening.
This has been the FinTechThought Leaders podcast your
window into the world of venturecapital and financial services
with today's digital disruptors.
Qed is proud to provide thebest FinTech advice you can get.
(45:41):
To learn more or to read thefull show notes from today's
episode, check outqedinvestorscom and be sure to
also follow QED on Twitter andLinkedIn at QED Investors.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you.
Venture capital firm focused oninvesting in fintech companies
all the way from pre-seed to IPO.
Fintech Thought Leaders bringstogether the most talented
entrepreneurs tackling today'sbiggest problems.
If you're looking to learn moreabout what motivates our
founders and team members tosucceed, you're in the right
place.
Hello and welcome to theFintech Thought Leaders podcast.
(00:40):
I'm Bill Salufo, head of earlystage investments at QED
Investors.
Today on the podcast, I'm BillSalufo, head of early stage
investments at QED Investors.
Personal journey first, butjust to help orient the
(01:02):
listeners, I wonder if you canshare maybe a 60-second
commercial on Betterfly.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Sure.
So at Betterfly, we're aplatform that integrates the
worlds of insurance, well-beingand purpose, with a big mission
to empower people, to help themlive longer, healthier, happier
lives.
Right.
And we do that in this uniqueway, you know, integrating these
three separate worlds throughwhat we call the butterfly
effect, which turns habits dailyhabits like walking, meditating
(01:27):
, saving, investing intopositive ways of change right.
And we gamify being active andhealthy through a very unique
experience that againincorporates the insurance world
, financial services, health andwell-being tools and a very
powerful and purpose-drivengamification platform to
encourage healthy living.
So that is, in a verysummarized way, what we do,
(01:49):
right?
I'm happy to share later in thepodcast details of our business
model, go-to-market strategy,but at a high level.
That's what we do.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
That's awesome, and just one quick follow-on because
I think it'll provide goodperspective.
I know you started in Chile,but now you're in a number of
different countries around LATAMand the world.
How many countries are you inright now?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, so today we're in eight markets, eight
countries.
So we started, chile was ourfirst market, then we opened
Brazil.
Today we're in seven bigmarkets, major markets in Latin
America, mexico, brazil, chile,argentina, peru, ecuador,
Colombia and Spain.
We opened Spain a little bitover a year ago and in the
process of preparing the companyto go further to other markets,
(02:27):
not only in the region but, youknow, to the US and Europe and
above.
So yes, eight markets in alittle bit over three years
since we launched the platform.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
That's pretty amazing context and we'll get back into
that more.
But I know we don't get toomany companies that have had the
expansion that you guys have.
It's really impressive to see.
But even more impressive thanthat, I think, is a lot of your
story that I've heard a coupletimes now but is always one of
the more inspirational storiesthat I get to hear of our
founders which, by the way, areloaded with inspirational
stories.
But I'd love to hear a bit ofyour time how you got to the
(02:58):
startup world.
I mean, I know you started ininvestment banking and then you
know your life took a couple fundetours and so it's.
I'd love to you know just startwith your banking days and how
you got to where you are.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Sure, sure.
So I'm, you know, born andraised in Chile.
I'm an engineer, startedengineering, most of which I did
in Chile.
I spent a little bit under ayear in San Francisco, but
engineering school, right out ofschool I started working at JPP
, morgan and the Latin AmericaM&A group.
That's a very unique thing, Ithink, not only of Chile but of
Latam, that engineers go to workin financial institutions.
I think it's happening in theUS a little bit more, but in
(03:32):
Latin America and Chileparticularly, very common.
So, anyhow, the plan there wasto spend a couple of years, then
do my MBA.
Those two years led to a littlebit over 10 years of M&A,
mostly covering financialinstitutions in the region.
So I spent, I would say, mostof my time working in M&A
transactions, capital markets,in the insurance and financial
services space and year 2014,.
(03:55):
Maybe this is where the storystarts, you know, to take a
detour, I decided to change whatI was doing, right?
The story of BetterFlights.
One hour story, probably, butI'll try to make it short one,
right?
The story of BetterFlight is aone-hour story, probably, but
I'll try to make it a short one,right?
So, again, I'll go back to myearly years.
15 years of age, I was a bigtennis player.
Tennis sports was my greatestpassion in life.
My dad passed away at thatmoment in time, so I had to
(04:15):
change a little bit of plans.
Right, I'm the oldest of threebrothers.
My family did not have properfinancial protection.
They did not have insurancecoverage, so that led me to
change a little bit.
The plans of becoming aprofessional tennis players go
into engineering school and2014,.
You know, life again hit me inan unexpected way.
This time around it has a happyending, but at that moment it
(04:38):
didn't right.
My mom was diagnosed with avery severe form of leukemia.
I was, you know, living thegood life in New York, single,
34 years of age, you know,working at JP Morgan, and in one
business trip to Chile wediscovered she had this very
aggressive form of cancer.
And that made me rethink, bill,a little bit, what I was doing.
Right, as I mentioned, you know, professional success.
(05:00):
And I started, you know, askingmyself the question you know,
if I went out on the street andgot hit by a bus, how would I
measure, you know, my life?
And I started asking myselfwould I measure it by my
professional success?
Would I measure it by thegrades I got in school?
Would I measure it by the moneyI had in the bank?
And I started a very personalreflection process about the
meaning of life, literally right, and I came to the conclusion
(05:21):
that a good way to measure mylife was to see how I was using
my time, my skills, to helpother people, not only myself.
So, 2014, I started asking whatam I doing today to make an
impact in other people's lives?
How am I capitalizing my skillsto make that happen?
And I could not answer thatquestion.
So I went to my boss, the headof JP Morgan for LATAM.
I told him I'm quitting andhe's like where are you going?
(05:43):
Goldman Sachs, morgan Stanley?
And I told him, no, I'm goingto Africa.
He's like what, where are yougoing to go to Africa?
And the reality at that momentI just wanted to take six months
to do a sabbatical, a pause,and, just for six months, focus
my time in, you know, making animpact in other people's lives.
Decided to go do a volunteerprogram and then the idea was do
(06:06):
those six months and then comeback to normality, right and
banking, or whatever that mightbe.
And to your question you knowthat six-month sabbatical right
or that volunteering tripdefinitely planted the seeds to
what later would becomeBetterfly.
Right Before Betterfly, the nameof the company was Burnt to
Give, and I'll explain in asecond why that's important.
So, anyhow, two things happenedin that journey in Africa I
(06:29):
discovered the reality ofchildhood malnutrition.
And number two, I reconnectedwith my passion of sports
through a video I saw on theinternet of the Ironman
Triathlon in Kona right.
Believe it or not, I think I'vetold you the story, but I was
an overweight, overworked banker.
After 10 years of banking, Iwas probably 25, 30 pounds
(06:49):
heavier than I am today.
Health and well-being were nota big part of my life.
I saw that video when I was inTanzania, in Africa, of the
Ironman triathlon and somethingin my gut, in my heart, was like
what happened to your passionof sports that you had when you
were young?
You know the tennis dreams, youknow.
And I just signed up for a race, not an Ironman, a small local
(07:09):
triathlon right, and I connectedthat right.
As I mentioned, I went to Africa.
I discovered malnutrition andI'll explain why.
That was one of the seeds forBetterfly.
And, anyhow, finished those sixmonths, bill moved back to
Chile, started training for thatlocal triathlon race.
And Chile started training forthat local triathlon race.
And in one of these bike rides,a crazy thought crossed my mind
and I said what are the poundsI'm losing Because I started
training, eating healthier right, losing those extra pounds of
(07:31):
weight?
And I said, what if I couldconvert those kilos I've been
losing, or those pounds I'vebeen losing, into pounds of food
for these kids I met in Africa?
And what if we could convertcalories of sports into calories
of food right?
And what if we could use thepower of purpose, the power of
helping others, to help eachperson live healthier, happier
lives?
And let's start with somethingvery simple let's convert
calories of sports into caloriesof food right.
(07:53):
And that's how the company gotstarted right Under the name
Burn to Give Burn Calories toGive Calories right.
And I think in that part of theprocess, when we first met right
towards the end of that journeyand just to connect it with
BetterFlight right, we spent acouple of years building our
platform.
Right At the beginning it wasjust connecting, you know,
healthy living with giving backright.
And then in that process, oneof the things I think was very
(08:16):
instrumental and that's why wereached out to you guys, and
then you know everything thatcomes later on was that we
discovered one of my views andthis is where the professional
background comes in right isthat who should be the biggest
payer of well-being in society.
Our vision was it should be theinsurance industry.
Right, because they have anatural incentive.
You know, healthier, happierclients, customers, whatever
(08:38):
they be, right.
Not only you know are healthier, but they live longer, and if
you compare a customer of aninsurance company, right, one
that is unhealthy or actuallyaveraged, compared to someone
who's healthy and active, thiscustomer over here will be
between three to five X moreprofitable than this one over
here, right?
So that's where insurance camein and we integrated insurance
(08:59):
as the backbone of our businessmodel, and BetterFlight was
created, was launched as acombination not only of purpose
giving back healthy living butalso financial services.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
So fascinating, fascinating story.
I mean so much to unpack.
Let me start back on thissabbatical to Africa.
It's interesting.
You talked about firsthandseeing the malnutrition and the
impact that that had.
Ironically, I spent two nightsago I watched the Netflix
documentary on the we Are theWorld story.
So you know somebody else whowas inspired by a very similar
thing and took action in a verydifferent way, you know, but had
(09:32):
great impact.
I guess you know what was itabout that in particular that
you saw that was able to.
You know, many people get movedby a lot of things.
Very few people get inspired inthe way that you have to
literally create your entireprofessional life around, partly
directly, partly indirectlygiving back to that cause.
I mean, what was it about thatthat moved you so much?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, that's.
That was a really good questionand it's actually not the
obvious answer someone mightexpect.
For me, the biggest impact thatthat six-month sabbatical had
in me was, you know, I wascoming from New York, where you
know you have all the abundance,all the richness.
You know I was coming from NewYork where you know you have all
(10:10):
the abundance, all the richness.
You know, one of the wealthiestcities in the world, right, and
I went from that to a place inthe world where people had
barely enough to eat Actually,some people were dying of
malnutrition.
And I met really happy people,right.
And I met people you know, thevolunteer workers I work with.
They were intrinsically happypeople and what they had in
common was that they werededicating their lives in doing
something beyond themselves.
And I remember going back toChile, bill, and when I got back
(10:32):
to Chile, everyone was likegoing from banking to Africa.
Everyone was like, oh,congratulations, that's
incredible.
And I felt like the person whohad been more transformed by
that journey was way more myselfthan the kids I helped in
Africa, right, like what theygave me was way more than what I
(10:52):
was able to give them byvolunteering for six months in a
school right.
So that fulfillment that I feltfor six months and that I saw
in the country, in the region,people doing for decades, was
what I wanted to bottle and usetechnology as a motivator to get
people living better right.
And for me, what I felt there,going back, was like I'm so
privileged to be able to havespent six months doing this.
Not everyone can do that.
(11:13):
What if we could bottle thisand use it as a carrot, if you
will, to get people movingactive, healthy, right and
living better lives?
Again, it was not obvious forme Up until this day.
I'm still in touch with a lot ofthe folks with whom I
volunteered there and that was,for me, the biggest insight that
I got and the concept thatwe're as human beings.
(11:34):
We are designed to give back,to help others, to live in
community right, and when youprovide anyone anywhere,
regardless of religion, you knowwhat country they're from the
opportunity to help others.
Human beings do not hesitate todo so.
And that was the biggest,biggest insight and I was like
there's no way I'm doinganything else in my life than
(11:55):
building a company or working insomething that brings this to
life right, and that's how itall started to be honest, and it
would never have happened if Ihadn't taken that jump, which
made no sense at that time.
Right, everyone was like whyare you quitting JP Morgan at
this moment, when they'repromoting you?
You know you're going to be amanaging director next year and
(12:15):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it was one of those thingsthat you know changed my life.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, well, it's great to hear about such a
transformative experience andthat directly led you to Burn to
Give, which was actually anonprofit correct me if I'm
wrong about promoting folks totake their exercise and use that
to lead to donations.
And I know you learned a lotlike some things that worked
quite well, some things thatdidn't work quite like well, and
that was the predecessor to nowthe for-profit company
(12:42):
Betterfly.
Can you talk to me about whatyou learned in those period,
maybe one thing that was reallysuccessful that you were able to
take to Betterfly, and maybeone thing that wasn't working
quite right that caused you tochange your thinking and led you
to where you are now?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah.
So maybe let's let me sharesome things that are maybe not
not out there as common as thestory that I always tell.
So there was a lot of learningsbefore Better Fly.
Right in terms of how can wescale and build something that
creates impact beyond, at thatmoment, my wildest dreams.
Right, and at the beginning,the obvious way to do this was
to build a nonprofit.
Right, let's build a nonprofitthat people put money in it and
(13:17):
we just connect, giving back tobeing active and healthy, and we
can get into two pockets ofdonation interest right, people
that want to promote health andwell-being and others who want
to promote nutrition.
Right, I learned that that wasnot as scalable as, because at
the beginning, people reallylove to donate, but then up
until a certain point right, itdoesn't move more than that.
(13:39):
Then you continue to have tocontinue to win.
Right, and I actually beforeBurn to Give.
Right, I actually founded anonprofit called Yayo Fund,
which was also in themicrofinance space.
Right, which was a completenonprofit.
The company was amazing.
It did really well, but then itwas very difficult to scale and
I had to close it down because,you know, we were dependent on
donations.
Right, and I learned I don'tknow if the hard way, because it
(14:02):
was part of the process thatyou know, building a for-profit
for impact was the way to go, acompany that you know was
for-profit but had embeddedimpact in its business model,
structure, you know, et cetera.
And then I learned about BCorps right, you know, I hadn't
heard about them which wasbasically for-profit companies
(14:23):
that have a fiduciary duty tohave financial returns but at
the same time they also havesocial and environmental returns
as part of their structure,right.
And and I started going thatroute, and that's where Burn to
Give became Burn to Give, fromthe idea of a nonprofit to Burn
to Give LLC.
And then Better Fly, you know,pvc and building a business
model, that impact purpose wasthe main driver.
But in a for profit, for impact, right, and it's always that
(14:46):
what's the driver?
Is it the profit or the impact?
Right, and you know, decidinghow to do that.
And we structure Betterfly thatway, right?
So at the beginning it was justa certified B Corp for those
you know listening to thepodcast basically a
certification that you have tocomply with certain if you want
ESG requirements to make thathappen.
For me that was not enough andwhat we decided to do is take it
(15:06):
a step further and westructured the company as a
public benefit corporation inDelaware, right, but basically,
besides the certification, whereyou know we could walk out any
year if we wanted to do that webasically embedded a legal or
fiduciary duty to have a socialand environmental return
together with our fiduciary dutyas a financial return right,
(15:27):
and that's how the company gotstructured.
If you will and it was notobvious at all at that moment in
Latin America I mean, we werethe first ones to do that
Everyone, or 99% of people,especially from the financial
world, were like why are youdoing that?
You know people are going tothink you're a nonprofit.
You should not structure thecompany that way.
And, if you ask me, we'll talkabout later this was probably
(15:49):
one of the, or probably the mostrelevant decision that we made
that has allowed us to do whatwe do.
Because when you would purposean impact at the center again in
a model that has to grow, thathas to be scalable, that it has
to be profitable, you attract acertain type of talent, you
attract a certain type ofclients, you attract a certain
type of everything around you,right, it just starts moving at
(16:10):
a different pace, and I thinkthat's the power of purpose.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, we've got a couple examples in the portfolio
that have really integratedthese components together and
it's quite central to yourbusiness model.
So let's stick with the impactside.
Can you talk about how thatworks at Butterfly and kind of
how the impact piece of it hitsdirectly?
I know there's a couple ofdifferent aspects and then we'll
get more to the for-profitpiece here in a sec.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yeah, so Butterfly is very unique in that way because
, first and foremost, impact isembedded in our business model
period.
So part of our gross profit ischaritable donations.
So let's say we, you know,we'll explain the go-to market.
Or the business model.
Let's say a company getsBetterFly for their employees
and they pay, you know, $10 peremployee per month.
(16:53):
Part of those $10 goes towardsnonprofits, right?
So it's a charitable donationthat get triggered the more our
users or members improve theirwell-being, right.
So that's the first part, right?
The second one has to be with,you know, compliant being a B
Corp, right, where every yearyou go through a review of ESG
(17:14):
standards, if you will, tocomply with that.
That, in my view, are the maybethe less relevant of the impact
that we have, because that'speople can get away with that.
That, in my view, are maybe theless relevant of the impact
that we have because people canget away with that.
Sometimes it's more vanitymetrics than anything, to be
honest, right.
So that's another part of thecomponent.
The third one I mentionedearlier is we have a fiduciary
duty to have a social andenvironmental return in our
(17:35):
bylaws directly as a PBCincorporated company.
And last but not least, andthis is one of those innovations
that we actually launched lastyear.
We actually created, built totake our impact further and
align it with our growth.
Last year we created a newinstrument financial instrument
called the social impact stockunits, which is basically a sort
(17:55):
of employee stock option thatwe create a small pool and we
link that to Betterfly'sprofitable growth, and these
stock options, which have nocost, are distributed to
nonprofits the more Betterflygrows, right.
So it's a way of aligning evenmore our financial returns with
our social impact and making theplanet and society a part of
(18:17):
our company and our strategy.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Oh, very cool, Very cool.
Well, let's move to the corebusiness model of BetterFly.
Now, at the centerpiece, you'reselling employee benefits to
employers.
I know life insurance is at thecenterpiece of this, but it's
by no means the only thingyou're selling.
But you've created aninteresting model that links a
number of these aspects togetherin terms of giving positive
incentives to consumers.
(18:41):
I wonder if you can just walkus through how that works?
Sure.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
So, as you correctly mentioned, so we started, you
know, 2020, when we launched thefirst.
You know we're a platformcompany, right?
So I'll explain a couple ofapplications of our platform
which you know start from thesame technology core, but as an
employee benefit subscriptionright.
So we go to a company, let'ssay a company with a hundred
employees, right, and thecompany gets BetterFly for their
(19:04):
employees and basically eachemployee gets access to a
platform, right, and theplatform we like to see
BetterFly as a three-in-oneplatform.
First you have the protection,then the prevention and then the
purpose part of the platform.
The protection we started withlife insurance, but today you
have not only life insurance butyou know, cancer cover,
critical illness, dental cover,pet insurance, and each of those
(19:26):
hundred employees, bill, canchoose what coverage they want
and what type of coverage theywant.
So the company just says youknow what, I want to invest $10,
$15, $20, whatever the amount,and then leaves to each employee
the ability to choose whichcoverage they want.
Let's say, you, you know youhave kids, right, you might
choose life insurance.
Then someone who has a pet,maybe life insurance is not
(19:47):
relevant, but they want petinsurance, right, and so on and
so forth, so we're able topersonalize the protection piece
for each employee, for them tofind meaning and value in each
product.
The second part is theprevention, or the health and
well-being part of the platform.
Same thing we're able topersonalize world-class
well-being tools for eachemployee.
So we have partnerships withHeadspace, phaeton and a bunch
(20:09):
of Udemy, booz, duolingo and abunch of physical, mental,
financial language apps.
Right for each employee tochoose, right Depending on the
plan that the company chooses.
Again, those hundred employeesare flexible, they can choose
whatever works for them.
(20:29):
And the third part, which is, Iwould say, the game changing and
what brings engagement you knowfrom single digits that happen
in all companies to you know, 70, 80% that we have is our
purpose driven engagement engine.
And we created this engagementengine, which is basically a
game.
Right, we use game mechanics toget people active and healthy
and living their best lives.
And look at it, bill, we'reactually launching very, very
(20:50):
shortly the next version.
But it's sort of like PokemonGo, a Legend of Zelda, or you
know.
We have hundreds of levels thatyou pass one to the other and
each level you have differentnodes where you get rewards from
, you know, amazon gift cards,you get insurance top-ups, you
get discounts, and every personagain personalizes that journey.
So, let's say, you play golf,so throughout that journey you
(21:12):
will get golf discounts, youwill get videos about golf, you
will get things that arepersonalized.
Now there's one thing that everyplayer or every user has in
common that to advance from onelevel to the next, you have to
make an impact in other people'slives.
So you have to give back andmake a donation, right.
So that's where the purposecomes in and you earn your right
(21:32):
to give back.
Again, this is all free for theend user, right, Because it's
you know, donations that theyearn with their good habits, and
that's how we connect.
You know donations that theyearn with their good habits, and
that's how we connect.
You know personal rewards withrewards for others and gamify,
being active and healthy.
So that's the value prop ofthat product, where, again, it's
a per employee, per monthsubscription that companies pay
for their employees.
And we have today roughly 3,000clients, corporate clients,
(21:56):
from SMBs with 50 employees tothe largest multinationals in
Latin America, right with tensof thousands of employees using
BetterFly.
At the same time, we provide HRmanagers and this is especially
valuable for bigger clientsaggregated and anonymized data
on the insights of their people.
So let me give you an examplewith a customer, a big customer
(22:17):
we had in Brazil a couple ofweeks ago.
So we realized their teams okay, you know, we integrate with
every single type of wearablesfitness app, so we integrate
with Whoop, with Aura, witheverything right and we saw that
their team were sleeping lessthan average.
Number one and number two theywere looking at sleeping quizzes
.
So they were doing a lot ofsleeping quizzes, about to learn
how to sleep better.
(22:37):
So we went to the HR managerand we told them hey, you should
bring a sleep coach to yourcompany, right, we don't have a
sleep coach, but go get one.
I won't say the name of thecompany, but I'll tell you who
they brought.
So they brought.
It was the wellness week ofthat company and they had Rafa
Nadal, the tennis player, as oneof the speakers of the week.
They also brought the sleepingcoach that week.
(23:01):
The sleeping coach had twotimes the visualizations of Rafa
Nadal, right, which is crazy.
So that's the best example ofyou know, we give you aggregated
data and let data drive yourwell-being strategy and not what
you know the CEO or the HRmanager wants to do.
Right, and those insights arejust growing in usefulness and
how targeted they are and howpowerful they are with AI right,
so we provide a series ofwell-being tools for HR managers
(23:23):
.
Right for this to be superseamless, super insightful.
So that's one part Superquickly.
But the second part of themodel right, which we started
growing in 2022, we realizedthat we were creating such an
amount of engagement Just shortparentheses after WhatsApp and
social media, betterfly is themost used app in an employee's
(23:45):
phone.
Right, that's how engaging theapp is.
Right, so it's just out ofcharts engaging.
Right.
So one of our providers, whichwas the carrier right, because,
remember, we built this techstack that bundles insurance
products and non-insuranceproducts and we're able to
distribute them with thesimplicity of Netflix or Spotify
right, so they told us look,why don't we do the same thing
you're doing with companies totheir employees?
(24:05):
Why don't we do it with ourclients?
So you know, I'll pay you thesubscription.
And why isn't BetterFlyembedded in a life insurance
policy?
Right, and that's how westarted our affinity business
model where, basically,betterflight comes as part of a
life insurance policy.
You know, you buy, you know,and it not only increases the
(24:26):
value that a life insurancepolicy that you never use.
Right, it gives you access tobenefits, discounts, but it also
, you know, rewards you forliving healthier, happier,
longer lives.
Right, because that's of everyinterest to the life carrier and
that one bill in the last 12months is just growing at an
exponential pace.
(24:47):
Right, because we're able toconnect that carrier with that
customer in a very unique way.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
That goes back to a little bit of your.
The original core of the idea,right, is you have this life
insurance and then you'reincenting people to take
behaviors that are in their bestinterest whether it's step
tracker or meditation or youname it and how directly sort of
that gives them more lifeinsurance coverage, which again
works for the life insurancecompany because they're
healthier.
I mean, it's just a reallyinteresting self-reinforcing
(25:14):
loop that you've built, and justto see how it's broadened so
much over the last handful ofyears is really impressive to
watch.
I know when you started thisbusiness, you had very much a
B2C model in mind.
You even referenced Netflix,spotify, etc.
You're now kind of headlonginto a couple different B2B
models, whether it's theinsurance partnership or the
employer model.
Why do you find B2B is kind ofmore the channel that tends to
(25:38):
work for this?
Speaker 2 (25:39):
versus a B2C model.
Yeah, so at the end of the day,we're a B2B2C right.
At the end it's a C that'susing it.
Right, but it's through a B2B.
And the reason for that is thatemployers and insurers, we
believe should be the payers ofmaking society well, healthy and
happy, right, they have afinancial incentive to do so and
they're directly influenced bythat.
So by doing it this way, goingto the end consumer through an
(26:03):
employer or through theirinsurer, makes economic sense
and makes the incentives we caninclude as part of that
well-being journey significantlylarger.
And that's at the core of ourmodel, right?
I mean, people know that eatinga chocolate cake is not good
for them.
Or, you know, walking more isbetter than walking less, right,
but why do we not do that?
(26:24):
Right, it's because we needincentives, right, to change
behavior.
And you know, the bigger theincentive, the bigger the
behavioral change.
And that's where insurers andemployers come in.
And we believe that the way toshift from protection to
prevention and aligningincentives is with these two key
partners in society.
Every year, 60 million peopledie in the world, total, okay,
(26:47):
roughly 6-0 million.
So of those 60 million deaths,75% of those deaths 45 million
are due to chronic disease.
Okay, 45 million Of those 45million, 80% ate zero, okay.
So four out of five or eightout of 10 of those deaths have
(27:07):
to do with things we do everyday.
So, you know, have to do withphysical inactivity, smoking,
drinking too much, you know, badnutrition, stress, and it's
actually 12 to 14 bad habits,right, and just 20% have to do
with accidents, shark attacks.
You know all the things.
We think it's more.
It's a massive number.
(27:27):
So there's a lot of things thatwe can do to change and extend
our longevity, our health spanand everything in between, and
the question is, why don't wechange that?
Look?
So let's go to the US, the US.
We have $4 trillion that the USspends in healthcare every year
.
97% of that is pills andsurgery.
Just 3% is preventative,lifestyle changing, and that's
(27:51):
where we want to jump in.
We were building theinfrastructure to connect
insurers with, and consumers,employers with, also their teams
right, because happy, healthyemployees also bring more
productivity, right, moreperformance.
So they have an incentive, andthat's our vision.
I think we've talked about thisonline and this is where AI
today is.
(28:12):
Just, you know, there's thingswe can do today of connecting
those two separate actorsinsurers with customers and
remember these two stakeholdersinsurers, policyholder, employer
, employee.
They have the same incentive.
They want healthy, happy people.
Who doesn't want to be healthy?
Who doesn't have to be happy?
So it's a win-win solutionwhere our business model is
(28:36):
driven by how we can engage withour members and make them
healthier, happier, livinglonger, which at the end of the
day, translates to profitability, both to the carrier and to
employers.
That's why we believe goingthrough employers and insurers
to the end consumer is the wayto go that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, it's really interesting that you talk about
the role of the employer, and Iknow you're in Latin America
and now Spain.
Who knows if you'll be in theUS someday or how that all plays
out.
But the US is an interestingmodel, given how goofy our
healthcare system is and howmany large employers are
effectively self-insured.
Really, those incentivesbetween what's good for the
employee, what's good for theemployer is incredibly tightly
(29:16):
linked here.
So it's interesting to justprocess what the future might
hold there in such aninteresting market.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
A hundred percent, yeah, a hundred percent.
There's a book that I recommend.
I actually have it here.
Look, I wasn't prepared, butit's called the Happiness
Advantage and I gave it to allmy team recently because it's
basically the link between apositive, healthy brain and
success company success,corporate success, right, and
you know, this is a book thatwas written 10, 15 years ago and
(29:43):
it was researched, you knowHarvard, but it wasn't.
Today we can see that inpractice.
I mean, we have ROI.
You know, with big employeeswe're healthy, happy, positive
thinking employees are one, two,three X more productive than
those who are not.
So there's a natural link, andthat's, I think, where the world
should go.
And something I'm very, I'mvery passionate about and where
(30:05):
I believe in the US is, you know, where it's more evident that
that needs to change.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, definitely, definitely so.
Look, a minute ago youreferenced the world's greatest
buzzword, ai, and talked abouthow that might play a role.
I know you're, as with manycompanies, kind of on the
journey to figure out where AItools might add value to the
business.
I think in your case, it's lessof enabling you to do something
dramatically different, butimproving kind of something you
(30:30):
were already down the path on.
I wonder if you can just sharekind of your early days of the
AI journey, as I'm sure everylistener is.
You know, trying to play aroundwith the concept.
Yeah sure.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
So for us, it's not doing something new, it's just
doing what we do at asignificantly greater pace,
right.
So the first one and I'll justmention three because there's so
many right the first one ispersonalization.
You know, ai brings the cost toserve and to recommend that end
user right At a pace we couldnot have done so before.
Look, and that employee or thatend customer that is using
(31:03):
BetterFly, we're able to givethem the incentives, the rewards
, the benefits that are tailoredto meet their needs and create
this virtuous circle between youknow, living healthier, happier
, happier lives right.
And three years ago this was avision.
You know, and you know,everyone knows that if you have
a personal coach, which you haveto pay I don't know 400, 500
bucks a month, you will changeyour habits, you will go to the
(31:23):
gym, you will lose, but noteveryone has that financial
capacity to do so.
What AI is doing for us rightis allowing us to bring that not
even a hundredths of the costright.
And you know, with theintegrations that we have, you
know, with the touch points thatwe have, with end user being
able to personalize theexperience right to help them,
him or her, live healthier,happier, happier lives.
(31:45):
So that's the first componentright, and we can do that on an
individual level, on a companylevel.
The second one, which is youknow I didn't know it was this
massive, but you know I was.
You know, three, three, fourweeks ago I was in Dallas and it
was not me saying thisInsurance will be the most
affected industry by AI in thenext 12 to 15 months, and the
(32:08):
reason behind that is because ofthe feedback loop you can
generate for claims payment andfraud detection right and
everything around that right.
When you have the touch points,the cost to serve and to detect
fraud is just crazy.
And you know, this is somethingwe started doing.
This is actually something inthe category that we did not do
before and that, thanks to AI,we could start doing, because
(32:31):
before we just had lifeinsurance right and life
insurance claims are very low,so we don't need to build a
smart algorithm.
But now that we're doing petcell phone, critical illness,
cancer and the frequency issuper high this has allowed us
to do a, you know, provide claimsettlement, claim processing
right, country agnostic, anymarket, any type of coverage and
(32:52):
build an algorithm that learnsby itself, again at a fraction
of the cost that we wouldn'thave been able to do this at the
pace that we're doing it todaywithout AI.
And the third one is servingsmaller customers and namely the
SMB segment.
The cost to sell and the costto serve was opening a blue
ocean for us.
(33:12):
That was not available beforeunless we would have had cheap
capital forever that we all knowis not out there anymore.
And look at this In the worldthere's 400 million SMBs okay,
400 million, depending on thestudy that you look at, 90 to
92% of these SMBs do not haveany type of employee benefit,
(33:34):
right.
So it's a, it's a blue ocean.
So acquire that customer and acost and then serve that
customer in a cost effective way.
It's a blue ocean.
So we're we've been building.
Last year we built, you know,this product led sales
infrastructure where the lastmonth we started to onboard SMBs
without human contact Right andserving them at the same way.
And you know, providinginfrastructure, where the last
month we started to onboard SMBswithout human contact right and
serving them at the same way.
(33:55):
And you know, providing andthat is just infinite right.
So those are three examples ofthings that are possible thanks
to AI.
The first one is maybe anaccelerator.
The other two is opening upopportunities to serve more SMBs
, more customers, in a way thatwouldn't have been possible.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, I love the last example in particular.
I mean it's funny.
I was at Capital One for 20years and a handful of times
over that period was part ofthese big consulting studies
talking about where there'sbusiness opportunities, and
every single time smallbusinesses was like number one
on the list.
If they get crappy financialservice, they get crappy other
service.
Nobody's building for them, etcetera.
It is really interesting tothink about AI as a tool to
(34:35):
maybe help people get at one ofthe most underserved markets.
Across almost any lens you cando Back to the combining of
business opportunity and impact,enabling small business,
especially in emerging markets.
You can just see the directimpact that that's going to have
given the prominence ofemployment in Latin.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
America.
Yeah, that is so massive, bill.
I mean because I mentioned 90,I mean you know SMBs have been
there.
The thing is it's too expensiveto or to sell or to serve right
, and AI is just bringing thatdown right.
And in an industry likeemployee benefits, you know
employee benefits, every companyneeds one and you know employee
benefits, every company needsone and you know it's a massive
(35:16):
category the 10% that do haveright, the bigger enterprise
customers, mid-market 99.999% dohave benefits.
So it's such a product that isjust so big that you know the
impact there can be massive.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, let me flip the story a little bit to the
BetterFly team.
You know we talked about how,you know, your product is so
well integrated.
Right, there's the part thatmakes money, the part that gives
back, the part that'sself-reinforcing in the middle,
but I've got to also think thatyour social impact focus really
helps you in terms of attractingand retaining and motivating
talent at the same time yetanother way that it's probably
(35:49):
self-reinforcing.
I wonder if you can just talkabout the talent side of your
business and how you're able to,you know, really get that
flywheel, you know, spinning ina different direction,
leveraging all the other great,great work that you do.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, no, that's a really good question and it's
probably the most important one,right, for us at BetterFly.
And I think where purpose is,you know, is number one, is
people, right.
And when you have a clear goalof the impact you're creating
and you're able to tangibilizethat and, you know, really make
it a part of the strategy, youknow, and something that is
visible not only in the annualreport at the end of the year,
you know, and some vanity metric, but actually part of the
business model, you're able toattract a type of talent that is
(36:27):
unavailable in any other way.
Right, I mean, and I've saidthis in our Series A, in our
Series B, in our Series C, andit continues to happen now we
have people working at BetterFlythat if we did not have such a
clear strategic focus tocreating, we could not have them
on board at this time.
And not only that, you're ableto attract talent and retain
talent in a different way,because people come here, as
(36:50):
cheesy as it sounds, right toyou know, to change the world,
right, and they are really,really in love with the product
we're building, with thesolution that we're creating,
and they know it's not going tobe easy.
Right, there's a lot to dostill, but giving them that
opportunity and giving them thetools not only to be able to
tangibilize the impact, to sharetheir stories with their kids
when they go back home afterwork, and you know the impact
(37:13):
that we're creating on a monthly, on a quarterly, on a yearly
basis, that is just massive,right, and it's like a fire that
never ends.
And you know, you can ask Mike,and you know the folks who have
met the team it's not just metalking with this passion about
the company and you know ourdream and our vision and you
know our mission and everything.
(37:37):
It's probably most of the teamand you know, and that allows
you to move also at a differentspeed, bill, right, we really
have a clear end goal in mindand an impact being what goes in
the middle, you know, empowersus to do more and have more
endurance at the end of the day.
And look, we have a boardmeeting in a couple of days and
our board presentations alwaysstart with purpose people, then
comes business and the last oneis finance.
So we have these three sections, right People, business and
(37:59):
finance and purpose.
It's not a section, becausethat's like at the very top and
that's the order, and that's theorder is very important because
profit financials have to bethere, but they're an output of
the business and the business isan output of the people and the
people are at the center right.
So that's maybe another way tolook at it, or at least how we
look at it.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, no.
I mean, it's so clear thatcompanies that are just built to
add value to people and you doit in a very special way others
do it in different ways.
You know it's just so mucheasier to bring on amazing
talent.
You know when you can reallyget behind and align behind the
mission.
I'd love to shift to talk alittle bit about how you take
care of yourself.
You know your entire businessis built on the premise that if
(38:39):
people take care of themselves,they'll live longer, happier
lives.
I know lots of entrepreneursthat work, you know, 120 hours a
week and don't take care ofthemselves at all.
I know that's not the case foryou.
I think you underestimated thelevel of which you are truly an
elite, world-class athlete whenyou were talking about it
earlier.
But I know you're also workinglike crazy at work.
I know you have a family.
(39:00):
I know you travel all the time.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I mean, how do you think about sort of making these
pieces you know fit togetherand any one of which could
easily cause someone to burn out?
Yeah, that's a really goodquestion.
I think, something you know.
We've talked a bunch in thepast with the QED group, right,
and you know other founders inthe portfolio, right, where I
think your question, bill.
So, sleep, nutrition, exercise,you know, mindfulness, all of
(39:39):
these things, right, connectionwith your family are relevant.
There's not a formula, becausewe're all at different points of
our lives.
You know needing more of thisor that, right, you can be a
founder, maybe don't have afamily, and you know, maybe you
like to exercise, maybemindfulness is your thing, but
you need to do what you know youneed to do to recharge, and
(39:59):
this is like being a top classathlete To win the race, you
need to train hard, recharge,train hard, recharge, right, and
the recharge component is veryindividual, right, but it needs
to be there, because or else youwill be able to, you know, have
all-nighters or work hard forone week, two weeks a month,
okay, two months but then you'lljust burn out and you won't be
(40:21):
able to run.
You know, building a company isnot a sprint.
It's not even a marathon.
It's a freaking Ironman, right,and maybe an ultra Ironman, an
Ultraman, right.
It's really really long.
So you have to be consistentfor a very long, long time.
So, first, you have to love whatyou do and that maybe is
obvious, because you shouldn'tbe building a company just for
you know.
You have to really find whyyou're doing what you're doing.
And, number two, you have totake care of yourself, right,
(40:44):
and there are small tips that Ithink are really relevant, but
nutrition plays a big role.
Exercise plays probably themost relevant role, and that's
not just because I'm, you know,I love sports and I love
exercising, but you know,exercise probably has a bigger
impact in your mental healththan in your physical health.
So that's a major one for me.
(41:04):
And yeah, and choosing whatbattles to do, right, bill,
because I get a lot of peoplethat ask you know, okay, but how
can you train for an Ironman?
You know you have two kids,you're going to be a dad or a
third one.
Then you have better, okay, butI have to exclude other things
in my life that you know.
You have to choose right,because if you do, I do believe
also and this is maybe apersonal.
If you really want to beworld-class at anything, be it
(41:24):
an athlete, be it anentrepreneur, you have to go all
in.
You cannot be doing 10 thingsat the same time.
Right, and maybe it's yourfamily and building a company.
Right, and maybe that's theonly two that you have to focus
in.
That means you will have toexclude partying.
That means you will need to,because or else you won't be
able to recharge.
You won't be able.
So.
So, in my personal journey atleast, right, for me, priorities
(41:59):
are better fly, my family anddoing what I love, you know,
which is sports, which is partof what gives me the energy to
continue.
You know, building Betterfly.
And again, that might mean, youknow, in my case at least, you
know, working 100-hour weeks,but I have to incorporate
recharging during the weeks, andsome weeks might be 100, 120,
others might be 20 hours, right,and that's why, for me, this is
you have to get be 20 hours,right, and that's why, for me,
this is you have to get to knowyourself.
Right, but recharge, recover.
It has to be at the center, orelse this does not work.
(42:21):
No, and look, you enjoy theprocess more, and you know,
that's the other thing I mean.
As a leader, you have to bewith energy, you have to have
your energy, right.
Right, if you're tired everymorning, if you don't have the
energy, you know, building acompany is about momentum as
well.
Right, the momentum you buildevery single day, every single
week, with your team, with yourinvestors, with your clients,
(42:41):
right?
And there's no way you canbuild momentum if you're
fatigued, if you're tired, ifyou're, you know, sleepy.
It's very difficult to do, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
You know, I think your lessons there are useful to
almost anybody, but inparticular in this industry,
where people are, I think, arevery prone to going absolutely
crazy and going all in and yousee a lot of burnout and a lot
of issues because of it.
And how do you find a model foryou that's sustainable?
I mean, I love the approachthere.
Well, look, eduardo, it's beenamazing having you on.
You know we could probably keeptalking all day, but I know
we've got, you know, all ofthese other goals of family work
(43:15):
and exercise to go.
Do you know?
I'd love to finish up with aquestion that I ask you know
just about everybody that comeson.
Hopefully we've got a number ofaspiring entrepreneurs who are
listening to this podcast.
You know what's one piece ofadvice that you'd?
Speaker 2 (43:30):
give to an aspiring entrepreneur.
Oh, that's a good one, I think,probably the most relevant do
something that you were again,maybe this sounds cliche but
that you love and that you'reuniquely qualified to do.
Right, I think there's a quotefrom someone you know, something
that looks like work for othersand it's play for you.
Right, you have to really enjoywhat you do because you need
this is an endurance sport,right, building a company is an
(43:51):
endurance sport.
It's not a year, it's not twoyears, it's 10 years in the
making.
Right.
And if you don't really lovewhat you do and you won't have
the endurance and the you know,the stamina to go very long,
right, so probably loving whatyou do is more relevant than
uniquely qualified.
Right, you have to have theskills but that will help you
(44:11):
very determined, who are willingto walk over brick walls to
make it happen.
And the only way for that tohappen is that you know doing
something you're reallypassionate about.
So my advice would be for thosestarting you know, at the
initial journeys, are you really, really in love with what
you're doing?
And as crazy as it sounds,right, because if you look at it
(44:34):
as a job, there's so much youwill be able to do so.
Enjoy it and you will enjoy it.
Look, you've seen me right.
We've known each other foralmost four years three years, I
don't know.
I'm enjoying BetterFly more andmore every day.
It's not easier, it getscomplex and every market we open
, you know.
But it's part of the journeyand I really you know, love what
I do.
I've never worked as much in mylife as I have right now, but
I'm doing it because I reallybelieve in what we're doing and
(44:57):
I really enjoy what we're doingright and enjoy working with the
people.
I do so.
At the end of the day, it'sthat passion and perseverance,
or another way to put it, gritright Towards what you do.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, I love it.
Well, look, thanks so much forjoining Eduardo.
Well, look, thanks so much forjoining Eduardo.
It's been great having you onand it's always fantastic to
hear the story and get a chanceto catch up.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Thanks, bill, great conversation.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou in person soon.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
And thanks to all of our listeners and until next
time, take care and thanks forlistening.
This has been the FinTechThought Leaders podcast your
window into the world of venturecapital and financial services
with today's digital disruptors.
Qed is proud to provide thebest FinTech advice you can get.
(45:41):
To learn more or to read thefull show notes from today's
episode, check outqedinvestorscom and be sure to
also follow QED on Twitter andLinkedIn at QED Investors.
Thanks for listening.
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