Things Have Changed
Things Have Changed
From Uganda to Mexico: Asaak's Inspiring Journey Unveiled with Dylan Terrill
Ever wondered how startups grow by buying other companies?
Today on Things Have Changed, we're delighted to host returning guest, Dylan Terrill, Chief Business Officer of Asaak, as he discusses his company's remarkable expansion, now spanning two continents.
Asaak, founded in 2016, is a fintech company offering loans for motorcycles and smartphones to people who couldn't get traditional bank loans. This approach not only addressed a critical financial gap but also spurred economic empowerment in Uganda.
Now they've set their sights on to Mexico, through a strategic acquisition of FlexClub Mexico. With over 300,000 active Uber drivers and a smartphone penetration of 93%, yet with less than half the adult population banked, Mexico presents a fertile ground for Asaak's mission-driven approach.
This move raises several questions: How will Asaak's experience in Uganda's unique market translate to Mexico's diverse economy? With Mexico's significant unbanked population, what new opportunities and challenges will Asaak encounter?
Join us on Things Have Changed for a deep dive into Asaak's groundbreaking journey and the visionary leadership steering it into new frontiers.
Have you ever wondered what goes into strategic acquisitions within the startup world? How does one startup acquire another? What are the driving factors and long term vision that would be achieved via acquisitions? Today on Things Have Changed, we're delighted to host returning guest Dylan Terrell. Chief Business Officer of Asak, as he discusses his company's remarkable expansion, now spanning two continents.
Dylan Terrill:we are straddling Two continents by way of acquisition into Mexico. But very much still focused on Africa and trying to come up with a pan African solution.
Shikher Bhandary:But first, let's give a quick refresher on Asak. Asak, founded in 2016, is a fintech company that initially made waves in Uganda by offering innovative financing solutions. They specialize in providing loans for motorcycles and smartphones, catering to the needs of the unbanked and underbanked population.
Dylan Terrill:what we're essentially trying to build is a financial services platform specifically for mobility workers in emerging markets. We work with platforms like Uber, and we lend to their drivers to help them buy a vehicle to help them get access to Emergency lines of credit financial services, like savings and investments and insurance products.
Shikher Bhandary:This approach not only addressed a critical financial gap, but also spurred economic empowerment in Uganda. Now, Assak is stepping onto a new stage, acquiring FlexClub Mexico and venturing into the Latin American market. This move raises several questions. How will Assak's experience in Uganda help in Mexico?
Dylan Terrill:One day we want to be in all of the different pockets of the world.
Shikher Bhandary:With Mexico's significant unbanked population, what new opportunities and challenges will Assak encounter? Join us as we explore these questions and more, discussing the strategic implication of Assak's cross continental expansion and what it means for the future of financial inclusion.
Dylan Terrill:Mexico doesn't have usury right now. Basically they don't have limits on what you can charge for loans. And I think that's a, it's a huge, like predatory problem. And it needs to end.
Jed Tabernero:Today on things have changed podcast. We have one of our very first founders that have come on to the show. When we started this back in 2020, right after the pandemic, our good friend, Dylan Terrell had come to talk to us about a sock, a Ugandan FinTech company that has been making waves in the last few years. Dylan, welcome back to things have changed. It's such an honor to have you back on the show, man.
Dylan Terrill:Yeah, likewise, it's really good to be with you guys again. Yeah, super excited to dive in. Love the show. Just quickly, Asak, what we're essentially trying to build is a financial services platform specifically for mobility workers in emerging markets. So we work with platforms like Uber, and we lend to their drivers to help them buy a vehicle to help them get access to Emergency lines of credit to help them access other types of financial services, like savings and investments and insurance products. And our first market was in Uganda and East Africa. So we started back there in 2000 and 18 had. Taken a few different roads to get to where we are today sort of had a hard pivot to mobility in 2019 and then through the pandemic and a few different changes, we've ended up to where we are today. I think for just a little bit of context too, is, the idea was that we would start in Africa one day, we would get to. other markets around the world. But thinking about this being a very much an African business, we would expand to other parts of East Africa and then think about casting our business into different parts of the world. So where we are now is that we are straddling Two continents by way of acquisition into Mexico. And I know this episode is about that. We'll dive into that in more detail but very much still focused on Africa and trying to come up with a pan African solution. So we've set up businesses in other markets already in Africa. Not publicly disclosed because they're still very much in early days. But as we continue to look forward to the new year and 2024 ahead, I think we'll see a little bit more of that progressing. But very much still focused on the core business, trying to provide the best possible financial services to this customer demographic that is growing and extremely bankable.
Shikher Bhandary:Great, great to have you here. I know we spoke literally a month before the pandemic. So, so much has changed. I just wanted to ask just because of how relevant it will be with our discussion of your company expanding to different continents, why was the decision made to cater to the mobility? sector in Uganda. Like why motorcycles? Why bikes? What was the reasoning behind that decision?
Dylan Terrill:Yeah, it's a great question. Ultimately, when we started, we wanted to just be able to provide financial services in the form of credit to any type of business in Uganda. And we started with Uganda for a few different reasons, but ultimately found that it was a great market to be in and trying to figure out how we could leverage some of our experience working in other markets and bring that to a place that really needed this access to credit. And when you're looking at all these different types of businesses, it's very hard to underwrite all the different businesses under the sun. There's somebody from like a retail shop or could be like an import export business. It could be somebody that's even running a money lending business of their own. It's very difficult to understand, what are the macro factors and micro factors that make that business? bankable, investable and how we can track a path to profitability. And what we found was, lending to all these different types of businesses. This sort of segment around mobility was becoming extremely popular. There's a lot of labor shifting in that direction of this sort of gig economy where people are piecing together work from a few different sources. And companies like At least in Uganda, like Save Boda, like Jumia, like Uber we're offering a way for people to have a lot more stable income. And this, product has existed off platform for many, many years as a way for people to get around town, to deliver goods and services, to, go from school to work to wherever. And we thought if we start lending to that segment. We can one provide them with an asset that is income generating. So the asset is a hard good. You can't move it. It can't disappear. Cash can't be diverted into some other endeavor. It has to go to the physical asset. So that's great. And then it's income generating. So it provides them a livelihood. It's a clear path for them to be able to repay the loan. If we're funding a new business, it's very hard to understand will that work out or not, but in the case of buying a vehicle that provides them with a steady stream of income, it makes a lot of sense to bank that. So we started moving in that direction in 2019, mid 2019, and it became super clear just seeing like the first couple of repayment cohorts that people are repaying on a weekly basis. So payment volume and velocity is there. It became very quick after the first few months that this is where we should be. And just thinking about this gap that exists, not only in Uganda and East Africa, but across the continents and across many other markets. So it just made a lot of sense for us to start pushing in that direction. And so far, it's even through the pandemic, it's been going really well.
Jed Tabernero:So I think we talked about this a lot in the first episode. I think it's still an interesting Angle to point out, which is that there's typically a reason why certain populations or certain subsegments are unbanked. And one of the things that I found at least is that, banks are very traditional institutions have looked at these markets as like. Super risky. So it's tough for them to figure out, there's maybe there's not enough data to be able to give them the tools to start looking at these areas. Could you give us a refresher, a little insight into how you got comfortable with the risk? Because obviously going into this market, you're providing this access to these folks. It's a lot more difficult to get comfortable with, okay. How do I make sure that this is a sustainable business model? How did you think about risk? And how did you all deal with that? I guess in Uganda,
Dylan Terrill:Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a couple of different things. One, just from a pure business fundamentals perspective is you have the option for some pretty heavy, like interest rate arbitrage in a sense that, you're borrowing from the us USD'cause we are a US headquarter business. We have one leg here where cost of capital is relatively cheap even for this type of business. Whereas we can turn around and we can lend at a pretty high rate. So even thinking about, currency devaluation or potential for risk premium it still is a very profitable business from day one. And of course, it's hard to know, right? You think it's very easy to lend up money. Really, anybody will be willing to take your money if there's no strings attached, if they don't have to pledge, any sort of collateral they'll happily take your money. Getting money back is exceedingly difficult, but in the case of having an asset back loan you have an idea that, okay, every loan that we give out is tied to an asset that worse come to the worse, we can go ahead and repossess that vehicle. It's a very liquid market to sell a bike or to sell a car, and someone else will come in, perhaps even in step over and take that loan right from where that other person was paying, or you can just sell it off and get the cash back. So from that perspective, it. It's very risk averse on really what people needed was just someone that's willing to take that chance. That's willing to okay, lend out that first 10 K or 50 K and make a lot of mistakes, understand what works, what doesn't and then iterate from there. And I think that's what a lot of these digital lenders like us or tech enabled lenders have tried to do is just go work with the populations, try to find any source of data that you can that may indicate repayment. Whether that is smartphone data or actual earning data, whatever you can find, lend off of that and then iterate from there. So whereas we may have started with pretty high pricing when we're unsure about this market, it's now, trying to be the most efficient, the most cost effective lender in the market based on the data that we have that's not accessible by a bank. And that's usually why a lot of these populations have been ignored is that from the day one, it's not. It's not a good business decision for these larger banks to go bank an individual when they can work with one business customer. And have, a much more profitable, a much higher revenue generating product than they would if they worked with, hundreds of individuals until they figure that out. That's where we come in. I think just the traditional way of banking just doesn't work for a lot of these populations.
Jed Tabernero:just a quick follow up question to that, man. Interacting with you, interacting with a SOC and, continuing to take loans, asset backed loans and pay them back, does that make this population more bankable to the traditional banks as well? That helps them with their own credit scores, doesn't it?
Dylan Terrill:Yeah, no, absolutely. And of course, as we continue to evolve, we want to be. The bank of choice or sort of like the financial services center of choice for these guys. So we try to meet all of their needs. So in Uganda, we're partnered with the standard bank, the largest bank in Africa to try to provide them with other types of services that we can't legally offer like bank accounts to make sure that they have the option, even through our own platform, they can still save with us. They don't have to go to a bank to. To borrow other money they can, based on the credit that they have or the equity that they have built up in their bike or in their vehicle, they can borrow based on that. And in the case of an emergency or student loans or whatever the case may be, but of course, what was nice recently is that our sort of tier microfinance institution in Uganda was just approved to be able to report to these credit reference bureaus based on people's borrowing history. And it's something that we've tried to really push as hard as we can, even just among our competitors informally. So we've done that for a while. Like we're going to report to each other that if, this person is a good borrower or a bad borrower, there's a database of that. That way, if they do go to someone else, for perhaps, we just weren't the right fit at least. That other company knows that this person is bankable or not. But now, getting that official stamp of approval from the government is a huge step forward where, we might not be able to buy someone a house, or we might not be able to give them, the huge business loan that they're seeking. But if someone else can do that, and they can see their credit history with us. That's a huge win for all of us. So something that we're continuing to push and move forward with. Hopefully, we can either one stop solution, but recognizing that, that's not always going to be feasible.
Shikher Bhandary:It's awesome. You basically defined how the vehicle was like an entry point. And then based on the performance whether the person is a bad or a good borrower can request additional lines. And this could be for other things like school, smartphones, whatever. So that is so interesting. And how That can then play a lot better for all their future transactions, future needs, because now you've got that authentication from the government. So that's freaking cool.
Dylan Terrill:Yeah. Yeah. We're super happy about that.
Shikher Bhandary:Transitioning a little bit with the big news that was announced recently, we'd love to understand how that transition took place, because I know from the blog posts and so on you're still, ASAC is still a very Africa based. company that wants to actually expand all across the different diverse countries in the continent, right? So how did this whole opportunity actually arise?
Dylan Terrill:Yeah. So we, to be completely honest. We weren't thinking of expanding to another continent. At this time, we're thinking, okay, it's on the road map. One day we want to be in all of the different pockets of the world. But initially, the idea was, let's just look to our neighboring countries. It's pretty easy to go from Uganda to Kenya or from Uganda, Tanzania or from Uganda to Congo. And that's where we set up Our initial sort of pilot phases that we're still undergoing now is in our neighboring countries and This sort of opportunity came up from one of our investors. They had invested in another company called Flex Club that was based in both South Africa and Mexico that was thinking of selling. Themselves rather than going and pursuing additional funding, and they had been through, a few different changes along the way, they weren't necessarily sure of their path forward. They were looking to pursue a different type of business and thought, let's exit out of this one and try something different. And I think. Zooming out of what makes a good acquisition, it was just like a simple business fundamentals that, Hey, this is a good way for us to up level, we enter a new market and we can go through all of the macro micro factors of why that made sense. But fundamentally that was just like a good strategy for us to pursue. And it's similar to this idea of do you want to. Do you want to build something or do you want to buy something? In the case, where're, you're evaluating product. Often it is that you should build something because it's just cheaper than going ahead and buying, whatever software exists in the world. In the case of expansion, thinking about this, just fundamentals is okay, we could go to Mexico. By investing X millions of dollars to get to this point that this company had already done, or we could buy what this company was doing and expand that way. So initially, the talks were by the whole company, go to South Africa, go to Mexico. After doing some due diligence, we realized that the real value was moving to Mexico. And just took that step forward based on the recommendation of our investors going through our own sort of analysis and thesis of why it made sense. And now straddling these two continents that are, very different, but also very similar. And thinking about, where does that bring us next? It's this sort of strategy where we can be in many African countries. And we can also be in many Latin American countries at the same time. The value proposition, the business. The business model, everything makes sense in both places.
Jed Tabernero:Very interesting because as you've just pointed out earlier, we had an episode on things have changed talking about slobalization. And how Mexico is stepping up to be a place where manufacturing was booming, there were other industries that were growing and their middle class is starting to become more robust. Through this exercise of looking at this acquisition, we thought to ourselves what makes Mexico really similar to Uganda? Like what are the things that you might've learned from Uganda that you could have practiced in Mexico as well? And, some factors came into play, like just from our outside understanding, it looks like there's also a pretty large unbanked population. It seems like your model of working with kind of mobility also works really well in Mexico. Something interesting that I found just doing independent research on like, how is Uber doing in Mexico is that Uber's running a lot of business in Mexico. Ton of people are signing up to be Uber drivers. It's one of their most profitable markets.
Dylan Terrill:Yeah, everything definitely that you said for sure was part of the calculus. I think, just zooming out a little bit for why Mexico made sense aside from just being like a fundamental good business decision. The market itself, it's three times the population of Uganda. It's something like 60 percent of Africa's entire GDP. Just on that alone, like we would have to be in
Shikher Bhandary:that's massive.
Dylan Terrill:African countries right to match this level. Or if you say by population, like most of the E. A. C. Right? The East African community, which makes up many countries. So rather than trying to expand to, say, five or six countries at minimum to match this market. Rather than do that, we can go to one place. We can deal with one regulatory body with one set of rules, with one population, one language, et cetera. Like that just makes a lot of, fundamental sense. And then as you mentioned too, it's like a great place for mobility. It's one of Uber's most popular markets in the world. They have something like 300, 000 active Uber drivers on Uber alone. So this is not other platforms. And that's 5 percent of their driver population that, that's crazy. Coming from from one market, right? So and then, yeah, you mentioned manufacturing. Mexico is the seventh largest producer of vehicles on the planet. So thinking about supply on both electric vehicles, which we've been trying to do for a while and then regular combustion engine vehicles like supplies unlimited. So that's it's fantastic that companies like GM have had a huge presence there for decades. Yeah, and then, of course, the entry point to Latin America. Coming to other places. It just makes a lot of sense. But yeah, like comparing Uganda and Mexico. From our perspective, what we were getting into with Mexico is like a much easier country economy to operate in. And it's funny when you like telling our team in Mexico this or telling investors, telling, anyone that has like some experience working in Mexico they just laugh. They think you're crazy that to think that any place else harder to operate. It's a blessing that we started in Uganda because I think going anywhere else will be much easier for us. And taking sort of the playbook of. These are all the good things to do. These are all the bad things to do. And then compressing them and giving that to the team in Mexico and running with it it's going to just allow us to move a lot faster than we did. Previously. But yeah, a couple other things too, like just in comparison, you have a much higher smartphone penetration in Mexico. It's 93 percent of adults have a smartphone which is pretty crazy. So to think that. Okay. Maybe our smartphone loan product will not be super popular in Mexico as it is in Uganda, but we have the option from day one to offer them a bunch of different financial services because of the fact that they have a smartphone and we can get access to a bunch of data that we don't always have in Uganda to be able to lend on that. So that, that's a huge win. Similarities, they, Okay. They still have a pretty high unbanked population. So like less than 50 percent of adults have a bank account.
Shikher Bhandary:that's significant, right?
Dylan Terrill:Yeah, it is. It
Shikher Bhandary:Considering 93 percent of them have smartphones.
Dylan Terrill:Right. So just think about that connection there, right? Okay, they, they're used to operating digitally. They may be on Uber, but they have no bank account. So how can we close that gap? I think that's a huge value proposition right there. And then the other thing too, which is pretty alarming is that Mexico doesn't have usury right now. Basically they don't have limits on what you can charge for loans. And we see that as a huge opportunity. Like clearly there's a lot of room for improvement. It's not that we're going to come in and start charging the 200, 300, 4%, 400% like payday loans that we see in the market operating today. It's just that, Hey, we can offer something that's way more cost effective. We can take a little bit less. Profit but that'll just allow us to build immediate trust with the population. So in that case, it's very similar to Uganda where, people, the alternative to our product or the alternative to products like ours is just like crazy. Just like abusive. The rates really I just don't understand how anyone can pay 300 or 400 percent and make that like a profitable business decision on their side. Like they clearly are using that for only emergencies. And I think that's a, it's a huge, like predatory problem. And it needs to end. So just those few factors are just. Or something that we see is like, okay that margin of other businesses is definitely our opportunity to go in and start taking advantage of this and start building trust with customers and giving them a much better product.
Shikher Bhandary:What are the rates out in Uganda? It's probably like 400, 300, 400 percent because I remember when you came on last time, you did mention the interest rates were in the high two hundreds, three hundreds, and you're telling me that Mexico today. Which is the number one biggest trading partner with the US, which just overtook China this year. You still have those instances? That's incredible.
Dylan Terrill:Yes. Yeah. It's absolutely shocking. Yeah. So talking to our team there, running that due diligence process, it was just like this needs to end. It's crazy that is still the case. And in the U. S. too if you were to take a payday loan. You're still paying like an extremely high rate, and it's just, it's insane that these markets are allowed to operate. But some of the largest fintechs in Mexico are offering rates that are that high. And yeah, it just it's really frustrating for us, for our customers, and we're looking forward to closing that out.
Jed Tabernero:man. Yeah, I, a lot of the things you just mentioned didn't even come up in our research. So it's just shocking to see what kind of these macro factors look like. Just to help our listeners understand kind of what FlexClub's business is. Do you mind giving like a quick rundown and what they've done in Mexico, what their operation looks like and what their goals were?
Dylan Terrill:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I would say it's very similar to what we're doing. They call themselves like a lease to own product. So very similar sort of idea to us is that okay, we're going to offer a borrower, technically a vehicle on credit. They'll pay on a weekly basis access to this vehicle. They call it a subscription. We call that a loan. And then at the end of the loan, they are given the option to a vehicle. Essentially, X amount X percent toward the vehicle purchase, and then they can buy the vehicle outright. So very similar to what we do in Uganda that the idea still was to do this through, like a sort of tech enabled solution. So you apply online. You don't necessarily deal with anyone physically. And then when we hand over the vehicle. At one of our disbursement centers. That's like the only sort of in person interaction, but otherwise everything is happening online. And then you repay online as well. That was the mission. And, just looking at the micro factors are business specific factors that we thought were pretty. Interesting is that we had this tiny team. There was six people when we bought the business and then two people immediately left. So you had technically four people that were running, this multimillion dollar business a pretty sizable portfolio, outstanding, like just super motivated, achieving this outsized performance with no resources. And what was crazy, too, is that a lot of these processes that they had internally okay, the customer journey may have been digital, but everything that the company itself was doing behind the scenes was very manual. Google Sheets, Excel no real lending operating system. Nothing from like payment reconciliation was automated. So we just saw a lot of this stuff where we could come in and immediately from. from day one, essentially just make them way more efficient. So if they were already achieving, these crazy outsized performance, what can we do just by introducing some of the tools that we had built out already and bringing our playbook in? Yeah we've been on the hiring spree. So we've quadrupled the team since taking over. We've tripled the fleet size that they have outstanding. Brought a lot of external functions internal for more efficiency. Just try to take care of the customer. We launched our first in person customer service center. So that was like an external function. So we have an office, a dedicated space where customers can come. And then we just launched a Our soft loan product or personal loan product in December. So that allows people that have great repayment history That have built out that equity cushion to go ahead and borrow on that money Like we've done in uganda and it's been a great product great reception so far in mexico. Yeah these different factors and of the business I think made it make sense And then what we've seen so far is just a lot of great progress very quickly I think when you make so many mistakes the first time around in Uganda going to a new market is just going to feel so easy. And we've proven that out with Mexico so far.
Shikher Bhandary:dude, that's, that's incredible. You were just talking about like just four members being able, being responsible for such a huge operation. It just goes to show what's possible. There's a different level of like grit going into banking. So it's, that's incredible. With that team, were there like, because, the markets are so different, what you're trying to solve is the similar team over here, but were you. a bit surprised with, cultural differences of how things are. I know like maybe Uganda has a bit more cash based than Mexico with all the smartphone penetration. In addition to that, were there other things that you noticed that, huh, you know what, this could be a lot easier than, scaling it out in Africa where you were, building the train and putting down the rails?
Dylan Terrill:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, it's a great analogy. Yeah, absolutely. I would say that culturally there's a lot of similarities I'd say from like the people and the fundamentals of how they operate, what they think about, what's important to them, which I think has been really helpful both from a team and And how they think about working and their relationship with work and the relationship with each other as teammates, how they keep each other motivated and on this path and Remain, mission aligned. And then from our customer base, like there's still a lot of similarities. I, if you think about your average day to day in Uganda, you're going to still have a lot of cashless transactions because of the prevalence of the mobile money system. So that the telco based system that's been popularized by say, like M Pesa in Kenya, way back when that has now included companies like MTN and Airtel. A lot of our transactions. Well, 100 percent of our transactions are digital, whether that is disbursement of funds or repayments from borrowers. But even, the day to day paying invoices, paying our employees our drivers earning from customers, a lot of that happens on platform digitally. So that wasn't too much different. And it's still in Mexico. You have a lot of prevalence of cash and people wanting to pay for their Uber ride in cash. Trying to make that calculus of how that's similar or different. So yeah, a lot of similarities there, I would say less so on the differences side. But I think what is just stuck out the most two is a few different things. But Because Mexico is for us an easier market to operate in from a business perspective, like things just seemingly get done a little bit faster. There's a little bit less bureaucracy and our relationships with our customers are also a little bit different. One thing in particular stood out to us when we were running through our due diligence. And to be honest, it sounds like It can't be true. But they were having extremely high repayment rates and 98 percent of their customers pay on time. And this is just insane. Yes.
Shikher Bhandary:that unheard of?
Dylan Terrill:yes, completely unheard of. And when I tell people this now, they don't believe it until I show them the backup data. In Uganda, we also thought our product was really high. Like we have 90 percent Plus, I would say on time repayment, and that is still like pretty unheard of, and we think about it as being a factor of the product, but also the culture as well. And it's just that much higher in Mexico. And then in one case in particular, which is pretty insane, like in the case of a repossession. So when we are working with the borrower, and for whatever reason they can't repay in 80 percent of those cases in Mexico, the driver returns the car to us. Directly. So there's no chasing them. There's no calling a tow truck. There's no anything. They just say, you know what? I couldn't repay. I'll bring the car back to you. I can't imagine that happening. If I had a car and someone was repossessing it or trying to repossess them,
Shikher Bhandary:you're driving to a grand canyon, dude.
Dylan Terrill:Yes, I would set the car on fire, like, I would throw the keys in the Hudson, like, I, I would not, I would not be this nice about it, and they, but they do that, and they bring it back, they understand that, okay, I wasn't able to do it now. But maybe, maybe in a week, maybe in a couple of months, I'll go back, I'll be able to buy a different car with my, my down payment in hand and the subscription payment on a weekly basis. We leave that open for them, and they appreciate that. So I think that's like particularly unique There's no way that would happen in Uganda. There's 0 percent chance that someone is returning the vehicle to us. So I just thought that was particularly unique. That happens in 80 percent of the cases. And then in the other 20, like we can find the vehicle within a day and then we're able to find a replacement driver in four days. So it's just like this speed of execution is insane, like completely insane, like you just have not seen that. In East Africa at all. So those like indicators are pretty interesting that, okay, we have extreme product market fit. People really want this product. They're willing to pay for it. And they're willing to work within the confines of these guardrails that we have in place. So yeah, that's just particularly interesting to us and something that we can't wait to see expand.
Jed Tabernero:I guess, given the extreme product market fit, how do you feel about this Mexico expansion? Would you be down to just share with us a little bit about your experiences going in there doing the due diligence?
Dylan Terrill:We're at 14 people in Mexico. We plan on being probably like 50 by the end of the year. We have a small little portfolio. We are one of four Uber partners in Mexico. So there's just a ton of room to grow to serve the country, not only in Guadalajara, but thinking about other markets as well. So yeah, we have it working out for us and it's just exciting to think about a nice new hard problem to work on. I guess like tactically how we've thought about it is I am mostly based in New York. So why don't we. Have this sort of Mexico expansion and perhaps future expansion just report under me which has given me a cool like taste of operations that I didn't necessarily have before And then keep our coo Who's from uganda based in uganda focused on our african expansion that way it doesn't take resources away from Everything that is going on on that side but it's given us a lot of time as well to think about. Okay. How do we get and grow. Maybe not only our leadership team. So bringing on new people that are at the highest level, but also that senior, maybe director VP level to make sure that you know the business can operate without us intervening. Ideally, you know that would be the end state or the next phase where We don't necessarily need our sort of day to day intervention and things can run without us constantly in search of good talent that will allow us to focus on other things and replace ourselves and bring in those experts that know more than us. So I definitely am not like fluent in operating in Latin America. So of course we'll have to bring on someone that is super dedicated to understands the market ideally would be, located physically there that could operate the company on that side, and it could be, some people that we have on the team already, it could be somebody else time will tell. But I think that's just the natural evolution of a growing company is that, okay our role is dynamic. It should be like, we should be taking on different things and replacing ourselves with other more talented people. And surrounding ourselves with domain experts that can fill the gaps that we just don't even know yet.
Shikher Bhandary:Just wanted to congratulate on Asak had a raise I think early last year now thinking, okay, we have grown the team from four to 14 to supposedly 50 in the next few months. So how are you planning out this whole journey? You're probably, you've got your next. big problem to solve, which knowing you and hearing how enthusiastic you are about these things, you must be like, just so revved up to tackle this problem now.
Dylan Terrill:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, certainly having that, that raised behind us was definitely helpful. And then also being able to borrow money in the form of debt to fund acquisition was great. So we didn't use any of our own cash. And now we are, globally profitable. We have 160 people globally, so we have a pretty sizable team and. We kind of feel like we're at this unique position where we don't need to raise money to be able to grow. What we will do is probably raise strategically for, funding these expansion efforts for funding R. N. D. But not having to think about. Being on the hook for bad terms, which, we're exploring fundraising last year, and the market was really terrible now. Maybe that there's some stability, a light at the end of the tunnel. We might think about that again. But I think that's it's a good position for us to be in. And hopefully we can continue to be on that path where. We control our own destiny and don't have to be beholden to external third parties of which direction we need to go in. There was another company that we know really well that was even thinking about this acquisition opportunity before we went ahead with it and they couldn't do it because their board said no. And I don't ever want us to be in that position where, we're going to be dealing with third parties that don't necessarily have our best interest at heart that are thinking about themselves. And so hopefully we can continue to align ourselves with, very. Value or mission driven investors and third parties. And I think a way that we can do that is by being very careful of who we accept money from. So I'm sure we'll raise in the future. I don't know what that will look like. But yeah, certainly we want to just be aligned with the best people in the market.
Jed Tabernero:That's awesome. Great news. Dylan, I just have to say you're one of those people that. Through the stories and the problems that you've been solving throughout your career, it just seems like you like to go to these areas where people don't really expect those things like you mentioned in the end and you end up with something great. We've been reaching out to Latin American founders to learn more about that market. That's our kind of flavor of interest in 2024 as well. We've reached out to a couple of founders in Mexico as well. Hopefully we see you out there when we go and visit some of these founders. We had a Chilean founder on where we've had a Brazilian founder on. We're trying to expand more out in Latin America. So super excited to see you guys more out there as well, but best of luck. And thank you again for your time, man. This was really cool.
Dylan Terrill:Yeah, thanks, guys. This was fantastic. Yeah, going back to the beginning and bringing that forward. It's super exciting. So thanks for the time. As always this was super fun.
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