Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let's go. Let your heart guide your business journey.

Hello, hello, heroes of Heart-Led hustle, bringing a blitz of banking brilliance to our broadcast today is Andres Kleric, the co-captain of Fuse, a fintech that's fanning the flames of innovation. After a decade of dabbling on Wall Street, this wonder-filled Wall street whiz is wowing the world with a new way to wayward lending lags. So tune in as we ignite a conversation about commitment, co founding, and customization. Welcome to the Heart-Led Business Show. Where we proudly practice the motto, all business, all heart, no hyperbole. Welcome Andres to the show. How are you doing today?

Hey, Tom. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Awesome. Awesome. So, the first question that I like to ask everybody is what's your definition of a Heart-Led Business?

For me, a heart-led business is essentially like aligning personal goals and your professional goals in a way that they intertwine. And you're ultimately there, there's alignment, right? Like, so there's, I will tell you how does that come into fruition in my own business, right?. So, I am the son of immigrants. I remember being a teenager and going to banks to get the remittances that my father was sending us to Bolivia. So, I associated banks with fairly positive things, right? Like, it allowed me to go to school, it allowed me to pay for college, it allowed us to put food on the table. So, as my career, as I became a career person, right? Like I became a teenager, went to university and everything. I thought, Hey, like if there's something that is dear to my heart is the financial system, right? Like what is the most important part, non human part of the financial system are banks, right? So when I thought, what type of career can I pursue that? I first started as a banker and then as an investor. And now as I started a business with a founder, I thought I want to run in the same, I want to make those places where like so much hope, kind of was associated with when I was a kid. And I want to make them efficient. So like people can get access to more loans. The banks can be more profitable. They're more profitable. They have more money on their coffers. To have more money in the coffers that means, more opportunity for everyone else because everyone understands the importance of banks in the financial system. So, for me it goes back to that kid getting remittances and now it's kind of more at this broad spectrum of how do we make them more efficient.

That totally makes sense. And what a great story of your childhood and how that kind of inspired you now that you're looking back at that. So tell me a little bit about, about Fuse and the new startup that you're, you've started and how you envision that kind of being a Heart-Led business as well. Because most people that are listening are probably going,"Banks? Tom, are serious?","Heart-Led business? That's like the least heart of anything." But I think you have a really interesting take on how to of get some heart out of banks.

Well, we can also think it at the employee-level, right? As a startup, we have very young professionals kind of betting that they will learn like nowhere else by virtue of joining us, right? The type of like technological problems that we're solving for financial institutions, they're highly technical, right? So when people join, they could be working at a much more, a very predictable nine to five, but they chose us because they see the vision of what we want to do, right? So from a heartless standpoint, it doesn't go amiss with me. In my mind, I also feel like I owe it to this 20, 30 people that work with us that have bet like their twenties or thirties or older like just to come work with us and like really make a, turn this vision into a reality, right? So I want them to get the best out of this learning experience. I want them to learn more than anywhere else they would have learned. And that is a very important thing. Second thing, of course, your customers. I mean, not even a second, right? On par with everything else, your customers are, would actually just go with the typical traditional incumbents. And they bet on these two guys that are building this space, and they are taking a risk, right? Because the companies have been building for decades, you've been building for a little bit 25 years. So, that level of trust and that intimate set of relationships you build, like, it's not just a transaction, right? Like, you see how they attach their hopes and dreams to this organization. They also have employees, they have investors. You actually become very close to your customers, right? So, you could be a lawyer, you could be anything, right? All this type of industries in which like hearts is not the first thing that comes to mind, but everyone has families, everyone has food on the table. And I don't think of money particularly when it comes to like banking and things like that as dirty, right? Like we use money every day, right? Like we pay for rent, we pay for our mortgage, we pay for food, we pay for transportation. Making the process of, like, the economy move happens through that, right? So I'm very happy that we're making that that efficient. It is an inherently easy to perceive as a boring segment of the market. But it is precisely because it's boring. It's very exciting to come and build new things, right? Because for years, not that many people have been interested in solving this, right? So, it's the same way that, that's how like mathematical equations also get solved, right? Like someone that just, that was not paying attention to it, like, they decided to write a theory about it. So like, I think that from a product standpoint. I like the challenge of something that is perceived as boring because you put in a new light.

Yeah, no, that's really an interesting take on it too. And I want to go back to, you know, the employee piece of it. And you know, I read Richard Branson's first book,"Losing My Virginity", and he always said that the priority for him are employees first, then customers, and that will take care of shareholders. Like, and it sounds like what you were just saying, you talked about your employees first and then the customers that you have, and then obviously you have shareholders as well. But if you take care of those first two, the third will take care of itself. Like, do you agree with that same philosophy?

Well, we're a venture backed business, so, we obviously, like, have investors that they don't ask very early on, right? But, they know that without great employees and, like, people that they don't ask from a consumer standpoint, their money is going to become paper, right? I'm incredibly grateful for our investors, but I do recognize that without customers or employees to build the build of the real story, there's nothing there, right? And I wholeheartedly agree with that vision of Bransom.

Yeah, cool! So, talk to me a little bit about the technology that you're building and your vision to how that will help more and more people that wouldn't necessarily have access to capital, but when banks are getting more efficient, now they're going to have more access to that capital and it's going to help people that may never have had loans before, be able to get loans.

Oh, that's a great question. So, when we help folks, banks in this case, credit unions, finance companies, is to be able to process as many applications as possible in the most cost-efficient way, right? So, back in the day, you've probably done this, right? Like, paper-based applications that's like, the person keeps reading. Oh, if you say 10, 000 or 11, 000, right? Like, and it all becomes kind of like this, and they say, oh, you need to give me the proof of precedence, and all this process is used to live in paper has been digitalized. However, even the process of being digitalized, the channels through which you kind of collect that information where this joint, right? It would be email, it would be like scanned, like a text message or things like that. And even that data wasn't fully reliable, right? Because it doesn't come from the source, right? So, nowadays, with the advent of API integration and things like that. Now you can actually get a lot of information from the sources themselves. The problem is, like, you need to connect to them, right? So we are the infrastructure tool so that if someone wants to connect to the best in class, providers of income verification and employment verification, data verification, valuations, and things like that. We are that kind of like solution. So if they want to set workflows for like their applications, they can do that on a platform. So what does that translate into? If you lower the cost of an application and processing an application, that means that ultimately like that. Bank or a unit finance company is going to be willing to see the next application, right? Because that means another chance, another look, to someone that today because the costs are so high they are saying hey, I haven't tapped out on my acquisition costs. I just cannot see the next application I just this is the amount of loans that i've been able to originate and this is the amount of money that was willing to spend to buy it, right? So when you lower those costs that means they can look at workbooks,they can look at more folks, their algorithms can also learn more, right? Because they are able, the more it looks, the more the algorithms can be like, Oh, I can see like, I have the ability to kind of see like pattern recognition and things like that. So that in itself is what the product does. We of course help them save cost of data, operations. And ultimately, we created tools that are self-serve. What does that mean? That they don't need to rely on outside teams of engineers. They can either do it, their business teams can do it, meaning non-technical teams can make the changes. Or if they want to go other, more sophisticated, there's stuff that they can do with that. So that's in a nutshell what the product does. It's a pretty exciting set of solutions, and applications that the letters have, and borrowers notice it. Well, it's much faster to go through our funnel as much that they have a clear set of like within, I'm going to know within five minutes instead of like three days and I'm knowing where my application is at. Those are the elements giving certainty of the process, like duration of the process, but also like getting an answer, right? There's nothing more frustrating than living and not understanding what the next step is. With our platform, like we've solved all of that.

Now, that's really cool and a unique way of looking at it, that the more efficient the banks are, the lesser application cost is. Which means that they're going to have more money to lend and be able to take those more marginal applications, which could mean a house or not a house for somebody, which is incredible. So that's very cool. What you're working on. So let's talk about your business then in terms of you're leading with heart, but we also need to make a profit, right? At some point, a profit needs to be made or your investors aren't going to be super happy with you. So how do you balance like leading with the heart and, but still making sure that there's a profit at the end of the day for the business?

Because you love your customers, but you also love your employees, and you also love your investors, right? So you need to lead. Although we want to think about love is infinite. You also need to distribute that love, right? So that's kind of what the heart of kind of this for me, right? That if you could actually just give away your product and go for free, but your employees are going to starve, share investors are going to get a return, and ultimately you're not going to be able to get more and more customers. So having the ability to kind of make an honest return. That enables everyone to win. That's very important. I don't think there's any issue with building a profitable business. And justifying that you're just capturing a little bit of the value that you're creating for them. And as long as you're not, it's not an outsized component. I think everyone is very happy to, right? So they are saving millions of dollars of development costs and building this tool that we built for them. And in return, we actually reinvest that money in terms of, and keep it that system in place so that they have the best and they don't have to worry about it again, right? And our employees. Also get compensated in a way that like reflects the value they're creating for the customers. And so do our investors, right? I think it's there's no contradiction there. If anything, it just creates this, it stabilizes it like the flywheel of value creation.

If I can summarize a little bit what I understood that you said, so there is a balance between those three stakeholders in the equation, the employee, the customer, and the shareholder, and it's in that balance between all three, or that equilibrium between all that, that you're able to make a profit, but also lead with the heart and not worry about ethics at, you know, like your ethics are solid within that you're not having to, you know, cheat or, or do some funny, money business.

of like, your customers know that you need to kind of keep the lights on and they want you to keep the lights on because they're betting on your product being there for decades to come, right? So they don't have to worry about finding a replacement for you. Your employees know that, like, they cannot capture all the value either because they know that you need to be able to invest in the product. You need the, you know, you have investors that they give you the money to grow. So all of those parts, and like, it's not a one-time game theory game, right? It's an ongoing, repeatable game that aligns the incentives in such a way that, like, hey, this is not a one word, we're just going to play this once, we're going to play this every day. So that I think that creates that alignment that everyone understands. And you need to communicate with all parties. I mean, we're not the first business, right? Like, businesses that's capitalism and even before capitalism, like, businesses have been calling concerns like this.

Yeah. So, and how long has the startup been active?

We're in almost 40 years.

Four years. Oh, wow. So what type of advice would you give to someone that is kind of contemplating starting a Heart-Led business or just having that balance? You know, especially within, you know, the four years that you've been in business, I'm sure there's been quite some ups and downs.

Yeah, I think that it's important to kind of like, find like, there was something that we were talking with my co-founder, right? Like, sometimes it's not as important if there's a lot of things you love in life, right? But like, sometimes you're really do something that you're good at, too, right? Because I love planes, but that doesn't mean I should be a pilot. I love Formula 1. That doesn't mean I should be a Formula 1 driver. And neither does that mean that I'm good at it. But I do think for some of the things that we're doing today with Fuse, those are things that I'm good at, right? And I happen to like them too. So when you find that intersection of like you're good at something and on top of that you love it. It's a perfect kind of duality that enables you to do it. It's something you should pursue. Because sometimes when people say do something you love, I think that they're missing the part of like, but they actually are you good at executing on that particular subset of things, right? So don't only do something you love, do something you love doing, but you actually happen to be very good at it. Or that at least you have early signs that you're very good at it. Otherwise, you're going to go for the false set of things and you're going to fall in a trap, right? And if I may add to that, when things are going well reality is you're going to like to do it. Once things are working, you kind of like most jobs, like especially if you're as a founder. In something that is probably perceived as boring as a few cities. Reality is, when things are going well, everyone's happy. Like, people, it's kind of, it, and that creates a flywheel, so, it allows you to attract talent. It allows you to, things like that, obviously, like, that's why it's so important to keep the original mystique of the place, right, because, I'm sure that, like, working at Google for the first couple years, it had that kind of spirit of, we're doing it because we know what we're doing, and when things are going well, you just attract certain talent. So I think we're at that stage in which we're starting to get people that are more like, Hey, things are going well, like everyone likes it. So that, the magic, that's zero-to-one on like, Why you do it, it has to be, it probably has to be a combination of you love it and you're good at it.

Yeah, Would you add a third component to that, in that there's a market? For what you do as well because,

Oh, yeah.

you could be really good at something and love to do it, but nobody's going to buy it.

It's cool. Yeah, there's this entire thesis around fast moving water. That you're good at it, you love it. And on top of that, that the market is hot. Because you can have the biggest brains and ability effects if you're in a space. If the market sucks, you're not going to succeed. That's kind of like, they have this entire desert of very good founders that have failed, right? And they probably love what they did, and they were probably very good at what they did, but there was not fast moving water, right? Like they were just stuck, right? It just, you want your kayak to go in the direction you want to go.

Yeah. The kind of blockchain I think comes to mind with that for the early years of blockchain, uh, technology. Yeah.

Like AI.

Yeah, AI too. Awesome. Well, cool. So Andres, how can people learn a little bit more about you and Fuse?

Fuse is fusefinance.com for the work, for our website and for me, like LinkedIn is the, probably the best source. So I've had great founders through my career. And being able to return that favor or pay it forward just feel free to reach out that way.

Awesome. Well, thanks for offering that to the show listeners as well. And thank you very much for being on the show today. I know you're probably very busy you're in New York, right?

in New York, City, you can see a little bit of it.

The window looks great. Thanks for spending your time with us and sharing your heart and your story as well. I really appreciate it.

Thank you Tom, I really appreciate it.

And thank you, listeners, for tuning in for today's show. I really do appreciate that as well. Make sure you're checking out what Andres is doing. And especially in the show notes, because we're going to link up some of those links as well. And also if you could do what other smart and considerate listeners are doing, and that is giving a rating and review of the show. It really helps spread the word about what we're doing here and help other Heart-Led business owners get the advice and just know that they're not alone out there doing what they love and doing what they're good at. So until next time, lead with your heart.

You've been listening to the Heart Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.