“Remaining Level Headed” — with Andrew Chau, Co-Founder & CEO Neo Financial

In this special Season 3 bonus episode, we are speaking with Andrew Chau, Co-Founder & CEO of Neo Financial. We discuss Andrew’s entrepreneurial beginnings at university, the success of SkipTheDishes, and how Neo Financial is reimagining the banking industry in Canada.

Today’s episode of Journey Map is brought to you by MindManager.

Journey Map listeners know that with the right map you can take your career anywhere you set your mind to. MindManager work management software puts your ideas, plans and projects on the path to success by transforming them into dynamic digital maps, charts, diagrams and more. Mind Managers flexible visual format makes it easy to capture, organize, understand and evolve critical business information and with powerful collaboration sharing features it’s the perfect tool for keeping remote teams aligned, on track and headed in the right direction.You can take a free thirty day no commitment trial today by visiting www.mindmanager.com/journeymap.

Welcome to Journey Map, the audio experience that deconstructs the career paths taken by some of the world’s most interesting people. Today’s guest graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in 2009 with a degree in Finance. He started his career as a Consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. During this time he also worked as an Efficiency Consultant with the United Nations World Food Programme. In 2014 he leaves his Consulting position to Co-Found the mobile food ordering & delivery service Skip the Dishes. He stays at Skip the Dishes running business development and strategy until 2018 when he leaves to Co-Found fintech company Neo Financial. For those of you who don’t know Neo Financial is a Calgary based fintech company built for Canadians. Neo Financial offers a no-annual fee credit card and savings account while also giving Neo members access to instant rewards from hundreds of brands all in one card.

Today’s episode of Journey Map is brought to you by MindManager. Journey Map listeners know that with the right map you can take your career anywhere you set your mind to. MindManager work management software puts your ideas, plans and projects on the path to success by transforming them into dynamic digital maps, charts, diagrams and more. Mind Managers flexible visual format makes it easy to capture, organize, understand and evolve critical business information and with powerful collaboration sharing features it’s the perfect tool for keeping remote teams aligned, on track and headed in the right direction.You can take a free thirty day no commitment trial today by visiting www.mindmanager.com/journeymap.

DH: Today’s guest is Andrew Chau, Co-Founder and CEO of Neo Financial. Andrew welcome to Journey Map!

AC: Thanks for having me Dave

DH: So when I read that bio it’s obvious where I think people will assume I’m gonna go in terms of diving into learning more about the journey with both Skip the Dishes and of course Neo Financial. Two brands that I’m sure anyone in Canada has definitely heard of, so because of that I actually want to go right back to the start and ask about one thing I didn’t cover in the bio but know that you were part of Enactus while in university. For anyone listening who doesn’t know Enactus is a student entrepreneurship group and could you just describe why you got into Enactus and maybe talk a little bit more about what the program is so people get a sense. Why did you get into Enactus while you were in university?

AC: Yeah so Enactus which I think used to be called SIFE but it’s the same program. So I had joined Enactus / SIFE for all four years of university and for me it was about getting involved in school beyond the classes. What attracted me to Enactus and SIFE was the fact that they had an entrepreneurial component to a lot of the programming we were doing, a lot of community based projects that centered around entrepreneurship. One of the pieces that I led during that time was working with highschool students to build their own companies. For one of them they were building their own tshirt company and raising money, and they had a large gala at the end. For me it was really one of the forays into entrepreneurship and I got to work with really great folks that all aligned in entrepreneurship.

DH: So my relationship with those organizations and you’re right sorry SIFE and Enactus are one and the same. Anyways, my business partner Phil was the President of SIFE at Carleton University and that’s how we met. So when you’re part of those kinds of groups that are interconnected, who are some of the people that you met through that experience over those four years that have gone on to be now lifelong connections of yours? In terms of some people that you got connected to through Enactus who have gone on to do their own incredible things are there any that come to mind?

AC: Yeah I mean I was part of a couple different groups. I wasn’t a keener but I was involved quite a bit in university. One of the other groups I was a part of was called Junior Team Canada where we went on trade missions to other countries to represent Canada. I actually met one of my co-founders from being a part of this program, and we stayed in touch after we graduated and after we worked for a few years and then ended up re-connecting and doing Skip the Dishes together.

DH: We’re going to get to Skip the Dishes in just a second, but you have this interesting mark on your resume that I mentioned in the intro being an Efficiency Consultant with the UN World Food Program and as we were preparing for this interview our producer Ellory said to me like I wonder if there’s any connection between the experience of being this Efficiency Consultant for the UN World Food Program and then co-founding a business that helps with food delivery efficiency. So is there or was there anything that you learned from that experience at the UN that you applied in co-founding Skip the Dishes or is it just a little happenstance?

AC: Yeah yeah I think it’s one of those coincidences in a way but at the same time I’ve always been around food. Growing up in Saskatoon and I essentially grew up in a restaurant since I was five and my parents owned a pretty stereotypical Chinese Canadian food restaurant. I grew up in the back you know peeling potatoes and carrots which I am very good at now, which then led me to working at the UN. I worked for about six months there, so no there’s not a direct relationship from the UN to Skip the Dishes but I did learn a lot and meet a bunch of great people from working at the UN.

DH: Okay so I’ll skip ahead to the meat of what I want to hear about for sure the co-founding of these last two ventures. So you and a few other people come together and you say you’re going to create this startup, what was the first year like if you could summarize it? I’m sure that’s difficult to do but could you summarize what the first year was like at Skip the Dishes? What memories come to the top of your mind?

AC: Yeah, when I think about the early beginnings of Skip I joined a few months after the original inception. The two other co-founders did the up front work, my friend had quit first and took the lead at the very beginning. But when I think about the early days we were doing a lot of bootstrapping to say the least. What I mean by that is we launched the delivery network, we actually didn’t start out doing deliveries we started out just being an online ordering platform for restaurants that already did their own delivery or had their own drivers. Over time we quickly realized that the demand for us to provide the delivery for restaurants that didn’t have drivers was actually quite large. So when we started out we didn’t have any tech built for having logistics software, so instead we would have four internet explorer windows open, one with google maps, one with skype to message and text with the couriers, and another one with our order portal that had the addresses of the customers and the address of the restaurant. So we would literally copy and paste the addresses and try to mentally map out where our couriers were in the city at any given point in time. This is really the true definition of bootstrapping before we had tech built.

DH: Yeah, wow I’ve never heard of that. I can only imagine doing that on IE (internet explorer) of all things, making that only more difficult. So over the course of five years before you decided to leave Skip the Dishes when you think about that experience on an emotional timeline what was one of the lower points that you can remember and what’s the story around that point?

AC: I think over my time at Skip I think of it as a journey and there were definitely a lot of lows and a lot of highs. People who know me would say I’m very level headed from that standpoint. When I think about the low times there were definitely times where we were a week away from going bankrupt and not having enough cash in the bank. In those times where from the outside in it might seem low but at the same time we were hunkering down and figuring out how to actually solve the problem at hand. So when I think about the low times nothing really stand out for me because the entire journey involves a lot of ups and downs throughout the last six or seven years.

DH: That’s fair and I appreciate the honesty about being level headed, that’s why I asked the question in the first place right? Because from the outside world people do assume that there must be those low times and wonder what you must go through. So I appreciate the perspective of saying sometimes you can be level headed through those experiences as well.

AC: There were definitely those times. I remember when we first launched in Calgary we had 50 restaurants onboard we were ready to go and it’s nerve racking when you turn on that city and you wait for that first order. You’ve got 15 or 20 couriers waiting there with their apps just waiting for an order to come in, the very first order from a stranger not one of our friends. It’s moments like that where it could be a low but there’s a high point in there as well. You know we didn’t do 500 orders on the first day so there’s definitely a lot of ups and downs.

DH: Ok so listen I’m only going to ask two other questions related to Skip I promise and thenI’m really interested to learn about your new venture as well. First question even though it’s been since you left, what’s it like turning on the TV and seeing John Ham promoting the company that you co-founded?

AC: It’s a pretty interesting feeling, that’s the best way I can put it. It’s pretty neat from that standpoint, the fact that over the last seven years what we had built and Skip the Dishes has over 2000 people working at the company across four different offices across Canada alone. One in five Canadians uses Skip the Dishes we have 5 million customers.So I think it’s crazy the growth but when you’re in it day in and day out and you’re trying to get double digit monthly growth every single month you don’t really see the big picture from that standpoint, you’re just focused on how do we launch this city? How do we make sure we can get enough couriers in Moose Jaw Saskatchewan? It’s those day to day pieces. So I have had time to reflect on it and I think it’s pretty neat.

DH: Well it is neat for me and I have nothing to do with the company whatsoever.

AC: Yeah it’s neat but being able to see the impact it was absolutely a team effort. Tons and tons of folks at Skip the Dishes that were instrumental in making it happen. So when I think of the impact we’ve been able to have it’s because of the team and not just any one person.

DH: Yeah and this isn’t my last question it’s more of a point. It’s a point of odd gratitude, I have friends that own restaurants who I think if it were not for Skip the Dishes right now would be completely out of business. So I think that also might be an interesting thing to see something that was initially thought of as a utility for the restaurants and for consumers, but now with what we’re living through is now an essential service that was built out at scale. I think that’s pretty incredible. Listen last question as it relates to Skip the Dishes, I’m sure you’re annoyed by constantly being asked by people like me about these kinds of things but maybe this question will be unique. You sell to Just Eats for something like the small amount of 200 million dollars. What was the first conversation with your parents like after that milestone?

AC: Hmmm the first conversation with my parents after that milestone. You know the relationship with my parents is interesting because they always wanted me to become a doctor, an engineer, or a pharmacist. When I went into business and finance and got my finance degree they said “Well what are you going to do with a finance degree?”. Then I went into consulting and moved to Toronto and they didn’t quite grasp what that meant. Then they realized it was a good and decent paying job. When I told them I was quitting to go and do Skip the Dishes they were like “are you crazy?”. Even during the time at Skip the Dishes and building it they had always wondered how are they going to make money by doing all these small deliveries aren’t we just a delivery company? It was a point of I wouldn’t say validation even after the acquisition. I would say my parents trust me a bit more from that standpoint, so even doing Neo Financial now I think they understand what building a technology company means and what it entails versus just questioning. But they still question me and they still challenge me which is a good thing.

DH: Okay so you win a bit of trust with them through the experience and then you decide to try your hand again in startup land. So I gave a bit of an overview of Neo Financial in the intro but walk me through what exactly the company is doing and why you chose this as the next problem you were going to solve?

AC: After doing Skip the Dishes we saw the opportunity when it comes to just consumer technology especially the banking space. Who could imagine that we could hail a ride, get hot food delivered through Skip the Dishes, or be in self isolation and streaming our favourite shows on demand. Yet when we think about the innovations in the banking space in Canada, they haven’t really translated to the world of everyday banking. When we think about what China is doing and what some of these other countries are doing when it comes to payments, when it comes to being able to scan a barcode. Instead in Canada we still use cards and all these other pieces. We saw a gap, and that gap really captured the opportunity to reimagine the way spending and saving should be. We saw an opportunity to really build Neo from the ground up using today’s technology. I mean when we think about the technology that banks are on today they’re all on your mainframe technology that’s quite old and quite legacy and what happens is that Canadians really suffer right? They suffer through a lack of innovation and a lack of a seamless consumer experience. We’re just trying to bring that experience to Canadians by building a rewarding experience overall.

DH: Okay so when you claim that you’re going to help people never miss payments with your Neo credit card, what are some of the ways you ensure that that happens?

AC: When we think about banking today and you think about consumer financial services the world today or in Canada there’s a lot of gotchas. There’s gotchas as it relates to if you happen to go over your limit, or if you happen to overdraft your bank account, or if you happen to forget to pay off your statement. A lot of these gotchas can be solved with technology. When we think about your monthly credit card statement for example why isn’t it just easier to get a reminder whether it’s seven days, three days, or one day before your bill is due. These are small little differences that because we’re reimagining, redefining, and remaking how banking should be from a consumer lens we can actually re-incorporate and re-build a lot of these functionalities so that it makes it easier for Canadians. Rather than just relying on hey you forgot your bill we’re going to charge you a late fee for naturally forgetting about it. So that’s what we mean by never miss a payment. There should be easier ways to use technology so that you don’t have to miss a payment.

DH: Trust me I need to sign up urgently. Just a few minutes left, but when do you think you first started thinking about and first started playing the tracks for solving this problem? Because technically you launched the company in October 2018 but if you could think back was this a problem you were thinking about when you were at BCG? Is this a problem you were thinking about in highschool? Is this a problem you were thinking about while at Skip the Dishes? When did the first inception of seeing this opportunity hit you?

AC: As a Canadian when we think about Canadian tech, especially consumer tech all of the tech we use today whether it’s Amazon, Uber, Netflix etc. These are all American companies opening up subsidiaries and building companies here in Canada versus a Canadian born technology company paving the way and being innovative when it comes to Canadian banking. So for us and for me working on this has been a culmination of all of my interactions with Canadian banks to date. Whether it’s having to wait in line in branches, whether it’s not being able to open an account online, or being on hold only to be tossed back and forth between different departments and having to re-explain my issue over and over again. These are all things that can be solved with technology and that’s where we saw an opportunity again in the financial services space, and banking was just like how do we create a better consumer experience? How do we add value to Canadians on the consumer side but also to merchants? A big premise of Neo Financial is what we have learned working with 25,000 merchants at Skip the Dishes. Learning a lot about their own issues around growth, data, and being able to market to their customers and that’s what gave us the premise of how to connect those two pieces together when it comes to consumer spending and saving, as well as merchants wanting to connect with their customers in a better way.

DH: Alright, well from one Canadian to another I appreciate that there are people like you, and actually several people we have had on this show. I should create a Journey Map slack group just because there are so many amazing Canadian founders who share that same passion as yourself.

AC: Yeah.

DH: So listen, we only have time for one more question. If you could go back to the young version of yourself who’s peeling potatoes and carrots in the back of your parents restaurant. If you could tell yourself where you’d end up some day do you think that the younger version of yourself wants to know that or do they want to be left to experience life as it comes at them?

AC: I think I would rather just leave it as a question mark for the younger self. I think it’s all part of the journey of not really knowing where you’re going to go next. I think that’s the fun part of life, otherwise if you’re you know where it’s going to go, what’s the point right? So yeah that’s what I would lean towards.

DH: Well thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story. I’m definitely going to be attempting to sign up for Neo.

AC: Yeah exactly you just need to sign up for the waitlist. We’ve got the waitlist up on the website. Obviously we’re creating a rewarding experience so you can refer your friends and you get rewarded by being able to jump the line. So you could jump to number one Dave?

DH: I’m goning to put a link to my Neo account in the shownotes (laughter) so the few thousand friends I have that listen to this can get me to the front of the line. listen thank you again and I hope we can do this again in a few years to see where you’ve got to in that time.

AC: Absolutely, thanks for having me Dave.