Yoshi Yokokawa of Alpaca on Fintech, ReCaps, and the Stress of Losing Momentum at an Early Stage Startup (EP.189)
I'm excited to bring one of my favorite guests back for his second round of Panic: Yoshi Yokokowa, founder of Alpaca, a Social Leverage Fund III portfolio company. Coming to you all the way from Japan, Yoshi is here to talk fintech, the stress of a recap, and the stress of losing momentum at an early stage. And to all those founders out there listening, we don't talk about recaps or losing momentum much because it's not fun. But people pricing their companies to perfection in the first year, should be careful what they wish for; things can and do go sideways. Guest - Yoshi Yokokawa, Co-Founder and CEO at Alpaca howardlindzon.com, alpaca.markets Twitter: @howardlindzon, @PanicwFriends, @iyoshyoshi, @AlpacaHQ, @knutjensen linkedin.com/in/yoshiyokokawa #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance Show Notes: (00:39) – Show intro (04:50) – Introducing Yoshi (05:46) – Quick summation of Alpaca (08:44) – A distributed global workforce (10:32) – Extreme tailwinds in the fintech industry (11:46) – The "Great Round Trip" (13:14) – A macro bet on owning the stack (14:40) – Disrupters, incumbents, and wallet share (17:10) – Not everybody gets a balloon and lollipop (19:08) – Transparency and how things work (19:45) – Open source. Like water/public utility (22:02) – The 'sameness' of financial services (22:14) – Leveraging information asymmetry (23:36) – Advice to Robinhood (24:12) – Understanding your customers (24:56) – Laying some digital pipe (26:48) – Advice to fintech founders (32:34) – Filling the gap for certain regions (37:03) – Creating more convenience peer-to-peer (37:48) – Keeping up with fintech trends (42:06) – Closing thoughts