May 27, 2025 • 26 mins
As CEO & Co-Founder of Sling Money, Mike is transforming how we think about sending funds across borders by making international transfers as effortless as sending a text message.
During our conversation, Mike reveals how a personal experience moving USDC between the UK and San Francisco sparked his vision. The transfer itself was instant and free, but everything around it felt clunky – "like using a Unix command line from the 80s." This insight led him to create what he calls "the macOS or iPhone of stablecoins," abstracting away all of the complexity.
Sling's elegant approach allows users to add money through local payment methods in 75 countries, convert to stablecoins behind the scenes, and send funds globally in just seconds. Recipients can withdraw to their local currency almost instantly, never needing to understand the underlying technology. The use cases range from practical (managing finances across multiple countries) to spontaneous (buying someone a beer across continents) – transactions that were previously impossible or prohibitively expensive.
Mike places this innovation in a fascinating historical context, comparing the evolution of international payments to what happened with telecommunications and streaming video. Just as we no longer think twice about "long-distance calls," he envisions a future where the concept of "international payments" disappears entirely.
Ready to experience the future of global money transfer? Download Sling Money today and join the community making international payments instant, free, and frictionless.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Greg Myers (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, mike Hudak, theCEO of Sling Money.
So, mike, thank you for beinghere and welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me Reallyhappy to be here, great.
So, if you don't mind, let'sstart out having you tell the
audience a little bit aboutyourself, maybe where you grew
up, where you went to school,where you currently live, just a
few things like that.
Mike Hudack (00:38):
Yeah for sure.
I grew up in Connecticut,mostly kind of like in an orbit
around New York City really.
So I lived in kind of likeFairfield County, connecticut,
for a little while Westchester,new Jersey.
And then I dropped out of highschool when I was 15, before I
was legally allowed to do it,and I worked at a startup and
then moved to New York City andlived in New York for a number
(00:58):
of years working as like aprogrammer and sysadmin.
And then I started an onlinevideo company in New York in
like 2005.
And then that merged withanother company and Disney
bought the combined thing.
I went out to California andwent to work at Facebook where I
did product for a long time.
I kind of worked on profile andidentity and then I led ads
product for a while.
(01:19):
I met Britt in New York.
She grew up in London, she wasliving in New York.
I dragged her to California shedoesn't like it when I say that
and then after a few years inSan Francisco she was like I
want to go back.
I thought she meant New York,but we ended up moving to London
.
So I've been here 10 years now10, 11 years.
I live in a village outside ofCambridge in the UK now and my
(01:43):
office is in London.
After moving here, I stayedwith Facebook for a while and
then I worked at a companycalled Deliveroo, which is just
getting bought by DoorDash now.
It's basically like DoorDash inEurope and the Middle East and
parts of Asia.
And then I was chief productofficer at Monzo, which is like
a neobank in the UK, and then Istarted Sling a couple years ago
after discovering stablecoins.
Greg Myers (02:05):
Well, let's talk about Sling money, so tell the
audience what Sling does.
Mike Hudack (02:09):
Well, so we?
I had this experience aboutthree years ago of moving USDC
from the UK to San Francisco,and the payment itself was
instant and free.
But everything else about theexperience was not great.
To be honest with you, it feltlike using a Unix command line
(02:32):
from the 80s.
You're kind of like stitchingeverything together and you need
to go through this whole crazyIDP process and copy and paste
these addresses and all thatstuff.
The underlying transfer wasinstant and free, and I had this
moment where I was like, oh, Iknow how to fix everything that
is wrong with this, but thething which is right with this
is like world changing.
The fact that I can move valueyou know, 3000 miles, 4000 miles
(02:57):
, like this with the tap of abutton and my friend gets it
immediately is unbelievable.
And so, with Sling Money, whatwe're building is the macOS or
the iPhone or stable cons, sothey're really easy to use,
really fast, great userexperience, and we want to get
(03:20):
to the point where anyone in theworld can send money to anyone
else in the world instantly,with a couple of taps, without
having to worry about currencyat all.
It's all just abstracted away,you don't need to think about it
.
You don't need to think aboutthe or know anything about the
recipient's bank details.
The transfer is basicallyinstant and free, or as close to
free as possible.
So, just like sending a message, and I was talking to somebody
(03:44):
the other day, went for a walk,actually, with one of the guys
who founded Skype and we weretalking about how.
You know, in the old days youhad long distance phone calls,
you had international phonecalls.
You thought about this all thetime and money is still stuck in
that world.
You know you would never say,oh, I'm going to make a long
distance phone call, don't stayon the phone.
It's long distance.
You know, I grew up with that.
We're moving to a world where,like you know, nobody's going to
(04:07):
start making an internationalpayment anymore.
You know, it should all just bethe same thing.
I'm sending money, it should be, it's in free and that's what
we're doing.
We're doing it with the Solanablockchain and stable coins and
taking all the friction out ofit.
Greg Myers (04:21):
So your customers are more on the consumer side.
It's all consumer.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And how are you acquiring thoseconsumers?
It's a great question.
Mike Hudack (04:31):
So we think about this a lot like WhatsApp.
Like you start with the highestfriction thing initially.
So like WhatsApp grew in Spainbecause, like Telefonica was
very, they charged a lot ofmoney for international texting,
they charged a lot of money forsending an MMS or whatever, and
that was a huge opportunity.
And then WhatsApp texting isultimately a social activity.
(04:55):
And so if you get a couplepeople, if you solve a big
problem for a couple peopledoing that, they start sharing
it with other people and youstart growing geometrically.
So that's the way that we thinkabout it.
You know, get one personinviting another person.
You obviously have to bootstrapyour network initially.
So you know, we have somemarketing tactics for just like
(05:15):
getting lots of people onto theplatform very quickly.
And then from there you kind ofevolve from getting lots of
people on to, you know, justkind of like that rolling
barrage of friends invitingfriends After you work at
Facebook.
Everything looks like socialsoftware, every acquisition
strategy looks the same, youknow.
Greg Myers (05:33):
Right, right, right.
So the consumer just downloadsan app, so maybe walk through,
kind of what that.
Mike Hudack (05:40):
So you download the app, you sign up using your
like Google account or yourApple account, depending on what
kind of phone you're on.
Verify your phone number.
You go through a very easyidentity verification flow.
So in the US that's like adatabase check with name, social
security number, address,selfie.
In Africa it's a selfie and aphoto of your ID.
(06:04):
It varies depending on whereyou are.
We do that IDV check in about 10countries or something like
that, which is pretty wild.
Seems like that's a heavy liftFor sure.
So you get through that IDVcheck and then you generate a
self-custodial Solana walletwhich is stored on your device
and backed up seamlessly with athird-party partner of ours.
(06:26):
We can never access your wallet.
It's very important.
And then you're dropped intothe app and now you have a
Solana wallet that can takestablecoins and you can add
money to it using a localpayment method wherever you are
in the world.
We have 75 countries worth oflocal payment methods where you
can add money.
So in the US or Europe that'spredominantly debit card or like
(06:50):
a bank transfer.
In other countries, like inKenya, it's M-Peso, which is
mobile money.
In Brazil it's PIX, and so onand so forth, it's just whatever
local payment method.
And what happens is youtransfer your fiat in and then
you get a stable coin in yourwallet and, depending on where
you transfer your fiat in andthen you get a stable coin in
your wallet, and, depending onwhere you are, that might be a
US dollar stable coin or a eurostable coin.
You can then send that stablecoin to whoever you want.
(07:13):
If they're on Sling, you can doit.
You can just find them in thedirectory and you can search the
directory, find them.
We show that they've been IDverified, all that kind of thing
and you just send the money tothem.
It takes three seconds,literally just three seconds,
and then they can off-ramp thatmoney, they can get it in their
bank account or whatever superquickly.
(07:34):
Again, we support local paymentmethods in 75 countries where
you can get Indian shillings orBrazilian Rai or euros or Polish
zloty or pounds or whatever youwant, and 99% of those
transfers are like a minute orless.
You know we integrate with thefastest mechanism.
So the end to end like I canmove money between my own
(07:58):
accounts in Europe and the US inabout 45 seconds and it's just,
it's super smooth, like butter,you know, and just like, really
, really easy to use.
You never have to Think aboutstable coins or blockchains or
wallet addresses or anythinglike that.
It's just easy.
Greg Myers (08:13):
So what is the typical use case?
Why would someone in the US besending money to someone in
Africa or even Europe?
Why do they typically do that?
What kind of gets that started?
Mike Hudack (08:25):
So there's a range of use cases.
I mean, this is one of thebiggest markets in the world and
it ranges from on one end ofthe spectrum, kind of like a
self-transfer.
So like I live a little bitbetween the UK and the US and I
go to New York a lot.
I grew up in the US, you know,my family is here, my immediate
family is here in the UK, and soI very, very regularly move
(08:48):
money between the US and the UKin order to pay bills, pay
credit cards, pay rent, whatever.
All the time.
There are around the worldmillions and millions and
millions of people like me whostraddle multiple economies,
multiple currencies and need tomove money between the two.
That's a big use case.
Then there are people who sendmoney to friends and family
(09:09):
abroad.
That is a lot of activity.
Obviously that is a huge marketand you might have somebody.
You can imagine that I wouldsend money to my dad back in
Connecticut to help out withsomething or for a gift or
whatever.
So that again is just like ahuge use case.
And then I really believe thatthere's a new wave of like.
(09:29):
Sending money internationallyhas been so difficult for so
long and so expensive that itreally restricts the reasons why
people do it, the frequencywith which people do it.
So if you talk to people whosend money back to family on a
regular basis or whatever, theydo it once per month because
it's just a pain.
It's like paying your bills atthe end of the month.
(09:50):
You sit down at your desk andyou open up your computer and
you're like, okay, I'm going todo it.
It takes a while because it'sjust a pain.
It's like paying your bills atthe end of the month.
You sit down at your desk andyou open up your computer and
you're like, okay, I'm going todo it.
It takes a while and it'sexpensive, it's a chore.
I really strongly believe thatif you make it really easy and
you make it really fast, peoplewill do it more and for more
things.
We had a thing happen on Twittera little while ago which was
hilarious, which is like a userof ours in the Netherlands
(10:12):
tweeted that Sling was amazingbecause you could buy somebody a
beer from thousands of milesaway, and a user of ours in
Kenya saw the tweet and repliedto it and said buy me a beer.
The guy did.
He sent him $2, which is, likeyou know, translates to however
many shillings, it is to buy abeer in Nairobi and it arrived
(10:34):
about three seconds later andthe guy replied to the Twitter
thread saying hey, I bought thebeer.
And the guy in the Netherlandssays send me proof of beer.
And he did.
He sent a photo of the beer andit's just like you just
couldn't do that a few years ago.
Greg Myers (10:50):
It's incredible.
It really should be that easy,though, right.
It should be that easy, right,right.
So I don't know if you havecompetition, but maybe if you do
what makes it different andunique.
Or another way of answering iswhat did people do before this
kind of solution came on?
Mike Hudack (11:07):
Yeah, so there's the traditional I think about
this in terms of generations.
So there's like the old schoolway of moving money
internationally which a lot ofbanks still use, which is, you
know, swift, the Swift network,or correspondent banking and you
know all of that kind of stuff,and it takes a while and people
(11:27):
charge fees along the way, andthat's kind of like your first
generation of internationalpayment.
So that's what JP Morgan Chaseor HSBC or all these people do
basically.
Then there's like a secondgeneration really cool fintechs
that have built great consumerexperiences around international
(11:48):
money transfer, which is likesmoother and easier than that.
So Wise Revolut, those kind ofguys, and they're less expensive
than the traditional banks andwhat they've done is they've
built up these kind ofincredible kind of like fiat
networks around the world.
So they'll have somebody whocan settle Brazilian real for
them and somebody who can settlepounds or euros or whatever,
(12:12):
and they kind of move aroundwith a good UI there.
And then now there's kind oflike a set of people who are
building this on stable coins,where I think it's better,
faster and cheaper, easier, theinfrastructure is easier, all
this stuff is easier, and therethere's probably, you know,
there's Phantom.
There are a bunch of kind oflike crypto wallety kind of
(12:34):
people and there are a couple ofpeople building like regional
neobanks on top of these rails,so like a Revolut for Mexico or
something like that.
I think we're the only peoplecrazy enough to try to build
like WhatsApp for money in likea hundred something countries at
the same time, like you reallyhave to be insane Right.
Greg Myers (12:54):
Well, where do you see sort of if you step back and
look at payments as a whole, orkind of a fintech space?
Where do you see that headed inthe next, say, three to five
years?
Mike Hudack (13:02):
Look, I grew up with technology in a world where
once something becomes fast andonce it becomes cheap, there's
no going back becomes fast andonce it becomes cheap, there's
no going back.
So I really believe that fast,high-quality blockchains and
stablecoins are here to stay ina really meaningful way.
I just think that mostfinancial technology in the
(13:24):
future is going to be based mostexperiences are going to be
based on this technology, aregoing to be based on this
technology, and Bill Gates hasthis saying I'm going to
paraphrase poorly that peopleoverestimate the speed of change
and they underestimate its size, the size of the change.
I think that, like in howevermany years it takes I don't know
(13:45):
if it's five or 10 or 15,pretty much everything is going
to be blockchain-based and theproducts and the experiences is
going to be blockchain-based,and the products and the
experiences are going to lookdramatically different than the
products and the experiencestoday.
They're going to look a lotmore like a digital product
experience and a lot less like abanking product experience, and
(14:07):
that'll be a result of thetechnology.
It's going to be a result ofeverybody being on the same
database.
Everybody's money is going tobe on the same database.
It's one shared ledger, not allthese separate ledgers and
ledger movements between people,between countries, between
currencies are as simple as acouple lines of code and just
happen instantly and cost atenth of a penny.
That is fundamental, and italso is more accessible, which
(14:30):
means that more people can buildgreat user experiences.
On top of this, and I thinkthat means the products are
going to look more like WhatsAppand Gmail and Slack and
whatever than they look likeHSBC or by JPMorgan Chase app,
it'll be unrecognizable.
To be honest with you, and we'veseen this with video I worked
in online video back in 2005 andI actually did my first work on
(14:56):
online video in like 2000.
I worked at a company calledpseudo which was doing live
broadcasting of like 10 channelsfrom new york city on the
internet in 50s, you know, inreal video, when nobody even had
56k modems yet Everybody had28a modems at home.
So the pixels when you watchedthis thing were this big, you
couldn't see anything, and therewas a channel called 88HipHop
(15:19):
and all this stuff and it failed.
But the guy who started it,this guy, josh Harris, knew that
all television was going towork this way in the future and
he was 100% right.
And the cable people and thesatellite people were like, oh,
I don't know.
They had all the reasons forwhy this might not be true.
(15:39):
And now you look at today, it's25 years later.
I mean, we're recording thisthing, it's going to go on
YouTube, it's going to go onApple Podcasts, it's going to go
on Spotify.
All those things have come true.
My home TV is all streaming now.
You know, the whole thing isjust streaming.
So that happened over thecourse of like 20 years.
(16:01):
You know, youtube launched in2005,.
Like all this stuff kind ofhappened.
And I can't tell you exactlythe moment where everything
flipped.
I'm not sure if anybody can,but it flipped.
And that is the same thingthat's going to happen across
all financial services, I think,domestic and international.
Greg Myers (16:18):
Do you think so?
We talk a lot about even onthis show, is like removing the
friction from transactions oreven from just the whole
experience, not justtransactions, just the consumer
experience, shopping, buyingfrom merchants, the friction, I
mean it becomes the Uberexperience, right, you don't
even know the payment happens.
I mean, do you see kind of whatyou're doing, making that
(16:39):
frictionless, moving fromconsumer to B2B to where any B2B
and I don't mean business tobusiness necessarily transaction
, but consumer to business asopposed to consumer to consumer.
Mike Hudack (16:52):
For sure, I think that the real efficiency comes,
the real efficiency from thistechnology comes when you don't
have to transition between youknow, like fiat in a separate
database and like a stable coinon a blockchain, and everything
just stays in network.
(17:13):
You know, the on-ramp and theoff-ramp are the kind of
expensive and complicated pieces.
Everything on is cheap and easy.
So for sure, like it's going tobe important for us and for
others to facilitate not justpeer-to-peer payments but
consumer-to-business,business-to-business,
business-to-consumer.
It's really just a matter ofsequencing, but I imagine that a
(17:36):
very large percentage againover some period of time it's
hard to pinpoint exactly what'sgoing to happen, but a very
large percentage of onlinepurchases are going to be
entirely on-chain and nevertaken out At some point.
Why would you take it out?
And for sure, as we get toscale and as we get to the
critical mass in differentmarkets in different ways, those
features, I think, becomeincredibly important.
(17:58):
They're important for thebusiness model, they're
important for consumer value andthey're just kind of like an
inevitable part of where thistechnology goes.
Greg Myers (18:05):
Well, you talked a little bit about why this was a
problem that you saw kind of away to solve it.
What did you do?
Why did you do this?
Why did you take the leap offaith to start this company and
do what you're doing?
Mike Hudack (18:18):
I've been really incredibly lucky to work on a
bunch of really interestingproblems over my career.
So I worked on online video andonline media.
I worked on computer security,social media.
I did advertising and brought alot of advertising dollars
online at Facebook back in theday.
I worked on food delivery and Iworked on banking, and there
(18:40):
are a couple of different thingshere.
One one is that in my career Ihaven't seen very many
opportunities this big or thisamazing, that like have this
kind of potential to change theworld, and I think that
connecting everyone in the worldto an instant financial system
has the potential to do so muchgood for if you think about all
the people in the world whodon't have access to the
(19:00):
financial system right now in ameaningful way, or it's very
expensive.
It holds a lot of people back.
There's just a tremendousamount of social good that can
come out of building a thinglike this and that's very
appealing.
It's a huge technology-drivenparadigm shift and that's the
stuff that gets me out of bed inthe morning.
That's the stuff that I findfascinating, and I feel like all
the best things I've ever builthave been at that kind of like
(19:22):
the edge of this sort of thingand I feel like the combination
of experience that I have ofbuilding like social media and
like social networks and workingat a regulated financial
company and building consumertechnology, but also having
experience building the back endfor these things, you know it's
like my whole career and set ofexperiences like builds up to
(19:47):
the to this thing.
Then when you have thatexperience, you're like you look
around and you, you know I hadthat experience moving the money
from, like, the uk tocalifornia or whatever, and it,
you know, it's instant and free,and I was like I know how to
solve all these problems.
I asked like like why is anyoneelse doing this?
And I couldn't really figure itout.
Now a lot of people are tryingto do it, but you know, we saw
(20:09):
it early and started buildingearly and I imagined myself kind
of like five or 10 years in thefuture and I imagined how I
would feel under a bunch ofdifferent scenarios.
So if I didn't do this andsomebody else tried, how would I
feel?
How would I feel if theysucceeded or they failed?
How would I feel if I didn't dothis and nobody did it?
(20:31):
How would I feel if I did itand I failed?
How would I feel if I did itand I failed and somebody else
succeeded?
How would I feel if I did itand I succeeded?
And the answer was really clearthat I would feel pretty bad in
pretty much every scenario inwhich I didn't try to do this.
In some of the scenarios whereI try to do this, I would also
feel bad, but no worse than if Ididn't try, and in some of
(20:55):
those scenarios I was very happy.
So you do that and you're likewell, I have just no choice.
I have to build this thing.
Greg Myers (21:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
So what are some things you'repassionate about?
So, maybe one work-relatedpassion and one personal passion
.
Mike Hudack (21:09):
Well, I love building stuff Like this is part
of my work.
I just love building new things.
I love building things thatpeople use.
I love building things thatpeople get value out of In some
way.
I don't really care if it'slike food delivery or it's like,
you know, advertisements thathelp small businesses sell their
product, or if it's, you know,instant transfers that help
(21:31):
people you know live their lifeand move money faster and
cheaper and everything.
But it has to be something thatmakes a difference for a person
and it has to be something likenew and novel, which is like
hard to figure out how to do,and I just like that.
I love that.
I love that.
I love the detail of it.
I love the intricacy of it.
I love the puzzle Fantastic,sometimes very hard, but
beautiful.
Then, personally, I've got threekids.
(21:52):
I've got a nine-year-old, afive-year-old and a 15-month-old
.
They're great.
We do Lego.
The nine five-year-old and I.
We have a table in my officewhen they get home from school,
if I'm not on a call orsomething, we do Lego for a few
minutes and then we do it againbefore they go to bed and it's
great, it's just absolutelywonderful.
(22:12):
And we like you know we alsolike we live in the UK but we
kind of like throw a baseballaround play catch and you know
all that stuff and I mean thatis also just like the best thing
in the world.
Greg Myers (22:29):
You know, it's amazing.
So maybe someone comes to you,they're right out of college and
they're looking at payments orfintech as an industry to go
into and obviously you have avery wide background of
different you know verticals orindustries.
But if they came to you andsaid, hey, I want to build a
career in fintech because of theway it is today and the
technology and the money andeverything, what would you tell
them they need to do to besuccessful?
I think there are multiplepieces here.
Mike Hudack (22:47):
So the first thing, I think, is to go and work at
the best company you can find.
You want to go and play for theYankees.
You want to go and work at aplace which is just at the top
of their game so that you canlearn how they do everything.
Top of their game, so that youcan learn how they do everything
, and those habits will serveyou well for the rest of your
(23:07):
career.
You know you will learn a setof like good habits, right, and
not just like in doing the work,but how to think, how to
interact with other people, howto break down problems and solve
them and all that kind of stuff.
So that's, I think, reallyimportant.
Like pick that place reallyreally well.
In a lot of ways it doesn'tmatter if it's big or small,
(23:33):
it's just somewhere that they'regood and you really truly
respect them.
And that's more important thantitle, it's more important than
compensation, it's moreimportant than the else wants to
do.
Find the problems which areeverybody else avoids but that,
if you get them done, bring in atremendous amount of value and
people will respect you deeplyfor finding that, going through
(23:58):
the pain and solving it andseeing that opportunity.
You know, know I'll give you anexample.
Like one of the things that Iworked on at facebook was, um,
some of our logging wasincorrect across a bunch of
different things and it was likeit was insane.
You had to record like eachevent for like, clicking like or
commenting or sharing, or youknow, every impression across
(24:19):
like 17 different clients, likeall these different IOS.
I had to get 10 people into awar room with a giant
spreadsheet for a monthliterally just going through
every event recorded across allof Facebook.
It was the most boring, tedious, terrible work, but at the end
we could say, oh, we got thisright and it was wrong before
(24:41):
and that was unbelievablyvaluable for driving trust
within the organization, outsideof the organization, with our
customers, with everybody else.
It was something nobody elsewanted to do but the things that
then put your career on a greattrajectory and people trust you
and they want to do stuff withyou.
I feel like if you do those twothings and then you chase the
(25:07):
things that create value and youenjoy, you know I mean
obviously you have to do thosethings that are boring too, but,
like you know, work on problemsthat matter and you'll do great
.
Greg Myers (25:16):
I think that's great advice.
So, Mike, we've covered a lotof ground about the company, the
industry, what fascinatingthings you guys are doing.
Is there anything else you'dlike to cover before we wrap up
the show?
Mike Hudack (25:26):
No, I think.
I mean your question has beengreat and I've really enjoyed
this.
I mean, I think if I were tolike leave people with one
takeaway, it's probably that Ithink that international
payments are going the way ofthe long-distance phone call.
They're going to be ubiquitous,they're going to be fast,
they're going to be the same asmaking a local payment.
Everything is going instant andfree.
And a couple taps and that's ahuge paradigm shift that I think
(25:48):
people haven't totally adjustedto yet.
But that's the fun part and I'mjust really grateful.
Thank you for having me on theshow.
Greg Myers (25:55):
Yeah, thank you so much.
I really appreciate your time.
I know you're very busy, sothanks again for being on the
show my pleasure.
Thank you, and to all yourlisteners out there, I thank you
for your time as well, anduntil the next story.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersinpaymentscom, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
channels as well.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Greg Myers (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, mike Hudak, theCEO of Sling Money.
So, mike, thank you for beinghere and welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me Reallyhappy to be here, great.
So, if you don't mind, let'sstart out having you tell the
audience a little bit aboutyourself, maybe where you grew
up, where you went to school,where you currently live, just a
few things like that.
Mike Hudack (00:38):
Yeah for sure.
I grew up in Connecticut,mostly kind of like in an orbit
around New York City really.
So I lived in kind of likeFairfield County, connecticut,
for a little while Westchester,new Jersey.
And then I dropped out of highschool when I was 15, before I
was legally allowed to do it,and I worked at a startup and
then moved to New York City andlived in New York for a number
(00:58):
of years working as like aprogrammer and sysadmin.
And then I started an onlinevideo company in New York in
like 2005.
And then that merged withanother company and Disney
bought the combined thing.
I went out to California andwent to work at Facebook where I
did product for a long time.
I kind of worked on profile andidentity and then I led ads
product for a while.
(01:19):
I met Britt in New York.
She grew up in London, she wasliving in New York.
I dragged her to California shedoesn't like it when I say that
and then after a few years inSan Francisco she was like I
want to go back.
I thought she meant New York,but we ended up moving to London
.
So I've been here 10 years now10, 11 years.
I live in a village outside ofCambridge in the UK now and my
(01:43):
office is in London.
After moving here, I stayedwith Facebook for a while and
then I worked at a companycalled Deliveroo, which is just
getting bought by DoorDash now.
It's basically like DoorDash inEurope and the Middle East and
parts of Asia.
And then I was chief productofficer at Monzo, which is like
a neobank in the UK, and then Istarted Sling a couple years ago
after discovering stablecoins.
Greg Myers (02:05):
Well, let's talk about Sling money, so tell the
audience what Sling does.
Mike Hudack (02:09):
Well, so we?
I had this experience aboutthree years ago of moving USDC
from the UK to San Francisco,and the payment itself was
instant and free.
But everything else about theexperience was not great.
To be honest with you, it feltlike using a Unix command line
(02:32):
from the 80s.
You're kind of like stitchingeverything together and you need
to go through this whole crazyIDP process and copy and paste
these addresses and all thatstuff.
The underlying transfer wasinstant and free, and I had this
moment where I was like, oh, Iknow how to fix everything that
is wrong with this, but thething which is right with this
is like world changing.
The fact that I can move valueyou know, 3000 miles, 4000 miles
(02:57):
, like this with the tap of abutton and my friend gets it
immediately is unbelievable.
And so, with Sling Money, whatwe're building is the macOS or
the iPhone or stable cons, sothey're really easy to use,
really fast, great userexperience, and we want to get
(03:20):
to the point where anyone in theworld can send money to anyone
else in the world instantly,with a couple of taps, without
having to worry about currencyat all.
It's all just abstracted away,you don't need to think about it
.
You don't need to think aboutthe or know anything about the
recipient's bank details.
The transfer is basicallyinstant and free, or as close to
free as possible.
So, just like sending a message, and I was talking to somebody
(03:44):
the other day, went for a walk,actually, with one of the guys
who founded Skype and we weretalking about how.
You know, in the old days youhad long distance phone calls,
you had international phonecalls.
You thought about this all thetime and money is still stuck in
that world.
You know you would never say,oh, I'm going to make a long
distance phone call, don't stayon the phone.
It's long distance.
You know, I grew up with that.
We're moving to a world where,like you know, nobody's going to
(04:07):
start making an internationalpayment anymore.
You know, it should all just bethe same thing.
I'm sending money, it should be, it's in free and that's what
we're doing.
We're doing it with the Solanablockchain and stable coins and
taking all the friction out ofit.
Greg Myers (04:21):
So your customers are more on the consumer side.
It's all consumer.
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And how are you acquiring thoseconsumers?
It's a great question.
Mike Hudack (04:31):
So we think about this a lot like WhatsApp.
Like you start with the highestfriction thing initially.
So like WhatsApp grew in Spainbecause, like Telefonica was
very, they charged a lot ofmoney for international texting,
they charged a lot of money forsending an MMS or whatever, and
that was a huge opportunity.
And then WhatsApp texting isultimately a social activity.
(04:55):
And so if you get a couplepeople, if you solve a big
problem for a couple peopledoing that, they start sharing
it with other people and youstart growing geometrically.
So that's the way that we thinkabout it.
You know, get one personinviting another person.
You obviously have to bootstrapyour network initially.
So you know, we have somemarketing tactics for just like
(05:15):
getting lots of people onto theplatform very quickly.
And then from there you kind ofevolve from getting lots of
people on to, you know, justkind of like that rolling
barrage of friends invitingfriends After you work at
Facebook.
Everything looks like socialsoftware, every acquisition
strategy looks the same, youknow.
Greg Myers (05:33):
Right, right, right.
So the consumer just downloadsan app, so maybe walk through,
kind of what that.
Mike Hudack (05:40):
So you download the app, you sign up using your
like Google account or yourApple account, depending on what
kind of phone you're on.
Verify your phone number.
You go through a very easyidentity verification flow.
So in the US that's like adatabase check with name, social
security number, address,selfie.
In Africa it's a selfie and aphoto of your ID.
(06:04):
It varies depending on whereyou are.
We do that IDV check in about 10countries or something like
that, which is pretty wild.
Seems like that's a heavy liftFor sure.
So you get through that IDVcheck and then you generate a
self-custodial Solana walletwhich is stored on your device
and backed up seamlessly with athird-party partner of ours.
(06:26):
We can never access your wallet.
It's very important.
And then you're dropped intothe app and now you have a
Solana wallet that can takestablecoins and you can add
money to it using a localpayment method wherever you are
in the world.
We have 75 countries worth oflocal payment methods where you
can add money.
So in the US or Europe that'spredominantly debit card or like
(06:50):
a bank transfer.
In other countries, like inKenya, it's M-Peso, which is
mobile money.
In Brazil it's PIX, and so onand so forth, it's just whatever
local payment method.
And what happens is youtransfer your fiat in and then
you get a stable coin in yourwallet and, depending on where
you transfer your fiat in andthen you get a stable coin in
your wallet, and, depending onwhere you are, that might be a
US dollar stable coin or a eurostable coin.
You can then send that stablecoin to whoever you want.
(07:13):
If they're on Sling, you can doit.
You can just find them in thedirectory and you can search the
directory, find them.
We show that they've been IDverified, all that kind of thing
and you just send the money tothem.
It takes three seconds,literally just three seconds,
and then they can off-ramp thatmoney, they can get it in their
bank account or whatever superquickly.
(07:34):
Again, we support local paymentmethods in 75 countries where
you can get Indian shillings orBrazilian Rai or euros or Polish
zloty or pounds or whatever youwant, and 99% of those
transfers are like a minute orless.
You know we integrate with thefastest mechanism.
So the end to end like I canmove money between my own
(07:58):
accounts in Europe and the US inabout 45 seconds and it's just,
it's super smooth, like butter,you know, and just like, really
, really easy to use.
You never have to Think aboutstable coins or blockchains or
wallet addresses or anythinglike that.
It's just easy.
Greg Myers (08:13):
So what is the typical use case?
Why would someone in the US besending money to someone in
Africa or even Europe?
Why do they typically do that?
What kind of gets that started?
Mike Hudack (08:25):
So there's a range of use cases.
I mean, this is one of thebiggest markets in the world and
it ranges from on one end ofthe spectrum, kind of like a
self-transfer.
So like I live a little bitbetween the UK and the US and I
go to New York a lot.
I grew up in the US, you know,my family is here, my immediate
family is here in the UK, and soI very, very regularly move
(08:48):
money between the US and the UKin order to pay bills, pay
credit cards, pay rent, whatever.
All the time.
There are around the worldmillions and millions and
millions of people like me whostraddle multiple economies,
multiple currencies and need tomove money between the two.
That's a big use case.
Then there are people who sendmoney to friends and family
(09:09):
abroad.
That is a lot of activity.
Obviously that is a huge marketand you might have somebody.
You can imagine that I wouldsend money to my dad back in
Connecticut to help out withsomething or for a gift or
whatever.
So that again is just like ahuge use case.
And then I really believe thatthere's a new wave of like.
(09:29):
Sending money internationallyhas been so difficult for so
long and so expensive that itreally restricts the reasons why
people do it, the frequencywith which people do it.
So if you talk to people whosend money back to family on a
regular basis or whatever, theydo it once per month because
it's just a pain.
It's like paying your bills atthe end of the month.
(09:50):
You sit down at your desk andyou open up your computer and
you're like, okay, I'm going todo it.
It takes a while because it'sjust a pain.
It's like paying your bills atthe end of the month.
You sit down at your desk andyou open up your computer and
you're like, okay, I'm going todo it.
It takes a while and it'sexpensive, it's a chore.
I really strongly believe thatif you make it really easy and
you make it really fast, peoplewill do it more and for more
things.
We had a thing happen on Twittera little while ago which was
hilarious, which is like a userof ours in the Netherlands
(10:12):
tweeted that Sling was amazingbecause you could buy somebody a
beer from thousands of milesaway, and a user of ours in
Kenya saw the tweet and repliedto it and said buy me a beer.
The guy did.
He sent him $2, which is, likeyou know, translates to however
many shillings, it is to buy abeer in Nairobi and it arrived
(10:34):
about three seconds later andthe guy replied to the Twitter
thread saying hey, I bought thebeer.
And the guy in the Netherlandssays send me proof of beer.
And he did.
He sent a photo of the beer andit's just like you just
couldn't do that a few years ago.
Greg Myers (10:50):
It's incredible.
It really should be that easy,though, right.
It should be that easy, right,right.
So I don't know if you havecompetition, but maybe if you do
what makes it different andunique.
Or another way of answering iswhat did people do before this
kind of solution came on?
Mike Hudack (11:07):
Yeah, so there's the traditional I think about
this in terms of generations.
So there's like the old schoolway of moving money
internationally which a lot ofbanks still use, which is, you
know, swift, the Swift network,or correspondent banking and you
know all of that kind of stuff,and it takes a while and people
(11:27):
charge fees along the way, andthat's kind of like your first
generation of internationalpayment.
So that's what JP Morgan Chaseor HSBC or all these people do
basically.
Then there's like a secondgeneration really cool fintechs
that have built great consumerexperiences around international
(11:48):
money transfer, which is likesmoother and easier than that.
So Wise Revolut, those kind ofguys, and they're less expensive
than the traditional banks andwhat they've done is they've
built up these kind ofincredible kind of like fiat
networks around the world.
So they'll have somebody whocan settle Brazilian real for
them and somebody who can settlepounds or euros or whatever,
(12:12):
and they kind of move aroundwith a good UI there.
And then now there's kind oflike a set of people who are
building this on stable coins,where I think it's better,
faster and cheaper, easier, theinfrastructure is easier, all
this stuff is easier, and therethere's probably, you know,
there's Phantom.
There are a bunch of kind oflike crypto wallety kind of
(12:34):
people and there are a couple ofpeople building like regional
neobanks on top of these rails,so like a Revolut for Mexico or
something like that.
I think we're the only peoplecrazy enough to try to build
like WhatsApp for money in likea hundred something countries at
the same time, like you reallyhave to be insane Right.
Greg Myers (12:54):
Well, where do you see sort of if you step back and
look at payments as a whole, orkind of a fintech space?
Where do you see that headed inthe next, say, three to five
years?
Mike Hudack (13:02):
Look, I grew up with technology in a world where
once something becomes fast andonce it becomes cheap, there's
no going back becomes fast andonce it becomes cheap, there's
no going back.
So I really believe that fast,high-quality blockchains and
stablecoins are here to stay ina really meaningful way.
I just think that mostfinancial technology in the
(13:24):
future is going to be based mostexperiences are going to be
based on this technology, aregoing to be based on this
technology, and Bill Gates hasthis saying I'm going to
paraphrase poorly that peopleoverestimate the speed of change
and they underestimate its size, the size of the change.
I think that, like in howevermany years it takes I don't know
(13:45):
if it's five or 10 or 15,pretty much everything is going
to be blockchain-based and theproducts and the experiences is
going to be blockchain-based,and the products and the
experiences are going to lookdramatically different than the
products and the experiencestoday.
They're going to look a lotmore like a digital product
experience and a lot less like abanking product experience, and
(14:07):
that'll be a result of thetechnology.
It's going to be a result ofeverybody being on the same
database.
Everybody's money is going tobe on the same database.
It's one shared ledger, not allthese separate ledgers and
ledger movements between people,between countries, between
currencies are as simple as acouple lines of code and just
happen instantly and cost atenth of a penny.
That is fundamental, and italso is more accessible, which
(14:30):
means that more people can buildgreat user experiences.
On top of this, and I thinkthat means the products are
going to look more like WhatsAppand Gmail and Slack and
whatever than they look likeHSBC or by JPMorgan Chase app,
it'll be unrecognizable.
To be honest with you, and we'veseen this with video I worked
in online video back in 2005 andI actually did my first work on
(14:56):
online video in like 2000.
I worked at a company calledpseudo which was doing live
broadcasting of like 10 channelsfrom new york city on the
internet in 50s, you know, inreal video, when nobody even had
56k modems yet Everybody had28a modems at home.
So the pixels when you watchedthis thing were this big, you
couldn't see anything, and therewas a channel called 88HipHop
(15:19):
and all this stuff and it failed.
But the guy who started it,this guy, josh Harris, knew that
all television was going towork this way in the future and
he was 100% right.
And the cable people and thesatellite people were like, oh,
I don't know.
They had all the reasons forwhy this might not be true.
(15:39):
And now you look at today, it's25 years later.
I mean, we're recording thisthing, it's going to go on
YouTube, it's going to go onApple Podcasts, it's going to go
on Spotify.
All those things have come true.
My home TV is all streaming now.
You know, the whole thing isjust streaming.
So that happened over thecourse of like 20 years.
(16:01):
You know, youtube launched in2005,.
Like all this stuff kind ofhappened.
And I can't tell you exactlythe moment where everything
flipped.
I'm not sure if anybody can,but it flipped.
And that is the same thingthat's going to happen across
all financial services, I think,domestic and international.
Greg Myers (16:18):
Do you think so?
We talk a lot about even onthis show, is like removing the
friction from transactions oreven from just the whole
experience, not justtransactions, just the consumer
experience, shopping, buyingfrom merchants, the friction, I
mean it becomes the Uberexperience, right, you don't
even know the payment happens.
I mean, do you see kind of whatyou're doing, making that
(16:39):
frictionless, moving fromconsumer to B2B to where any B2B
and I don't mean business tobusiness necessarily transaction
, but consumer to business asopposed to consumer to consumer.
Mike Hudack (16:52):
For sure, I think that the real efficiency comes,
the real efficiency from thistechnology comes when you don't
have to transition between youknow, like fiat in a separate
database and like a stable coinon a blockchain, and everything
just stays in network.
(17:13):
You know, the on-ramp and theoff-ramp are the kind of
expensive and complicated pieces.
Everything on is cheap and easy.
So for sure, like it's going tobe important for us and for
others to facilitate not justpeer-to-peer payments but
consumer-to-business,business-to-business,
business-to-consumer.
It's really just a matter ofsequencing, but I imagine that a
(17:36):
very large percentage againover some period of time it's
hard to pinpoint exactly what'sgoing to happen, but a very
large percentage of onlinepurchases are going to be
entirely on-chain and nevertaken out At some point.
Why would you take it out?
And for sure, as we get toscale and as we get to the
critical mass in differentmarkets in different ways, those
features, I think, becomeincredibly important.
(17:58):
They're important for thebusiness model, they're
important for consumer value andthey're just kind of like an
inevitable part of where thistechnology goes.
Greg Myers (18:05):
Well, you talked a little bit about why this was a
problem that you saw kind of away to solve it.
What did you do?
Why did you do this?
Why did you take the leap offaith to start this company and
do what you're doing?
Mike Hudack (18:18):
I've been really incredibly lucky to work on a
bunch of really interestingproblems over my career.
So I worked on online video andonline media.
I worked on computer security,social media.
I did advertising and brought alot of advertising dollars
online at Facebook back in theday.
I worked on food delivery and Iworked on banking, and there
(18:40):
are a couple of different thingshere.
One one is that in my career Ihaven't seen very many
opportunities this big or thisamazing, that like have this
kind of potential to change theworld, and I think that
connecting everyone in the worldto an instant financial system
has the potential to do so muchgood for if you think about all
the people in the world whodon't have access to the
(19:00):
financial system right now in ameaningful way, or it's very
expensive.
It holds a lot of people back.
There's just a tremendousamount of social good that can
come out of building a thinglike this and that's very
appealing.
It's a huge technology-drivenparadigm shift and that's the
stuff that gets me out of bed inthe morning.
That's the stuff that I findfascinating, and I feel like all
the best things I've ever builthave been at that kind of like
(19:22):
the edge of this sort of thingand I feel like the combination
of experience that I have ofbuilding like social media and
like social networks and workingat a regulated financial
company and building consumertechnology, but also having
experience building the back endfor these things, you know it's
like my whole career and set ofexperiences like builds up to
(19:47):
the to this thing.
Then when you have thatexperience, you're like you look
around and you, you know I hadthat experience moving the money
from, like, the uk tocalifornia or whatever, and it,
you know, it's instant and free,and I was like I know how to
solve all these problems.
I asked like like why is anyoneelse doing this?
And I couldn't really figure itout.
Now a lot of people are tryingto do it, but you know, we saw
(20:09):
it early and started buildingearly and I imagined myself kind
of like five or 10 years in thefuture and I imagined how I
would feel under a bunch ofdifferent scenarios.
So if I didn't do this andsomebody else tried, how would I
feel?
How would I feel if theysucceeded or they failed?
How would I feel if I didn't dothis and nobody did it?
(20:31):
How would I feel if I did itand I failed?
How would I feel if I did itand I failed and somebody else
succeeded?
How would I feel if I did itand I succeeded?
And the answer was really clearthat I would feel pretty bad in
pretty much every scenario inwhich I didn't try to do this.
In some of the scenarios whereI try to do this, I would also
feel bad, but no worse than if Ididn't try, and in some of
(20:55):
those scenarios I was very happy.
So you do that and you're likewell, I have just no choice.
I have to build this thing.
Greg Myers (21:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
So what are some things you'repassionate about?
So, maybe one work-relatedpassion and one personal passion
.
Mike Hudack (21:09):
Well, I love building stuff Like this is part
of my work.
I just love building new things.
I love building things thatpeople use.
I love building things thatpeople get value out of In some
way.
I don't really care if it'slike food delivery or it's like,
you know, advertisements thathelp small businesses sell their
product, or if it's, you know,instant transfers that help
(21:31):
people you know live their lifeand move money faster and
cheaper and everything.
But it has to be something thatmakes a difference for a person
and it has to be something likenew and novel, which is like
hard to figure out how to do,and I just like that.
I love that.
I love that.
I love the detail of it.
I love the intricacy of it.
I love the puzzle Fantastic,sometimes very hard, but
beautiful.
Then, personally, I've got threekids.
(21:52):
I've got a nine-year-old, afive-year-old and a 15-month-old
.
They're great.
We do Lego.
The nine five-year-old and I.
We have a table in my officewhen they get home from school,
if I'm not on a call orsomething, we do Lego for a few
minutes and then we do it againbefore they go to bed and it's
great, it's just absolutelywonderful.
(22:12):
And we like you know we alsolike we live in the UK but we
kind of like throw a baseballaround play catch and you know
all that stuff and I mean thatis also just like the best thing
in the world.
Greg Myers (22:29):
You know, it's amazing.
So maybe someone comes to you,they're right out of college and
they're looking at payments orfintech as an industry to go
into and obviously you have avery wide background of
different you know verticals orindustries.
But if they came to you andsaid, hey, I want to build a
career in fintech because of theway it is today and the
technology and the money andeverything, what would you tell
them they need to do to besuccessful?
I think there are multiplepieces here.
Mike Hudack (22:47):
So the first thing, I think, is to go and work at
the best company you can find.
You want to go and play for theYankees.
You want to go and work at aplace which is just at the top
of their game so that you canlearn how they do everything.
Top of their game, so that youcan learn how they do everything
, and those habits will serveyou well for the rest of your
(23:07):
career.
You know you will learn a setof like good habits, right, and
not just like in doing the work,but how to think, how to
interact with other people, howto break down problems and solve
them and all that kind of stuff.
So that's, I think, reallyimportant.
Like pick that place reallyreally well.
In a lot of ways it doesn'tmatter if it's big or small,
(23:33):
it's just somewhere that they'regood and you really truly
respect them.
And that's more important thantitle, it's more important than
compensation, it's moreimportant than the else wants to
do.
Find the problems which areeverybody else avoids but that,
if you get them done, bring in atremendous amount of value and
people will respect you deeplyfor finding that, going through
(23:58):
the pain and solving it andseeing that opportunity.
You know, know I'll give you anexample.
Like one of the things that Iworked on at facebook was, um,
some of our logging wasincorrect across a bunch of
different things and it was likeit was insane.
You had to record like eachevent for like, clicking like or
commenting or sharing, or youknow, every impression across
(24:19):
like 17 different clients, likeall these different IOS.
I had to get 10 people into awar room with a giant
spreadsheet for a monthliterally just going through
every event recorded across allof Facebook.
It was the most boring, tedious, terrible work, but at the end
we could say, oh, we got thisright and it was wrong before
(24:41):
and that was unbelievablyvaluable for driving trust
within the organization, outsideof the organization, with our
customers, with everybody else.
It was something nobody elsewanted to do but the things that
then put your career on a greattrajectory and people trust you
and they want to do stuff withyou.
I feel like if you do those twothings and then you chase the
(25:07):
things that create value and youenjoy, you know I mean
obviously you have to do thosethings that are boring too, but,
like you know, work on problemsthat matter and you'll do great
.
Greg Myers (25:16):
I think that's great advice.
So, Mike, we've covered a lotof ground about the company, the
industry, what fascinatingthings you guys are doing.
Is there anything else you'dlike to cover before we wrap up
the show?
Mike Hudack (25:26):
No, I think.
I mean your question has beengreat and I've really enjoyed
this.
I mean, I think if I were tolike leave people with one
takeaway, it's probably that Ithink that international
payments are going the way ofthe long-distance phone call.
They're going to be ubiquitous,they're going to be fast,
they're going to be the same asmaking a local payment.
Everything is going instant andfree.
And a couple taps and that's ahuge paradigm shift that I think
(25:48):
people haven't totally adjustedto yet.
But that's the fun part and I'mjust really grateful.
Thank you for having me on theshow.
Greg Myers (25:55):
Yeah, thank you so much.
I really appreciate your time.
I know you're very busy, sothanks again for being on the
show my pleasure.
Thank you, and to all yourlisteners out there, I thank you
for your time as well, anduntil the next story.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersinpaymentscom, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
channels as well.
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