WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:01.500 --> 00:00:02.100 Mike Bifulco: Hello friends. 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:03.600 Welcome back to APIs you won't Hate. 00:00:03.690 --> 00:00:07.170 My name is Mike Biko, your co-host and APIs you won't hate. 00:00:07.170 --> 00:00:10.290 Co-founder leading you on this journey through API Tech in the world. 00:00:10.540 --> 00:00:15.850 I am super happy today to get to sit down with Sandeep Dineh from Meco to talk about the product he's building. 00:00:16.149 --> 00:00:22.799 And I think this actually may continue a bit of a weird streak I have where I have some lots in common with the folks who have been interviewing on the show. 00:00:22.919 --> 00:00:26.609 Maybe that's a bit of self-selection, but in this case, I think Sandeep is working on something that is. 00:00:26.774 --> 00:00:30.884 At least tangential to a world I used to live in . And he also happens to be a YC co-founder. 00:00:31.104 --> 00:00:32.485 Sandeep, thank you so much for joining me. 00:00:32.485 --> 00:00:33.144 How are you doing today? 00:00:33.714 --> 00:00:34.255 Sandeep Dinesh: I am great, Mike. 00:00:34.255 --> 00:00:35.065 Thanks for having me on. 00:00:35.605 --> 00:00:36.205 Mike Bifulco: Of course. 00:00:36.205 --> 00:00:36.385 Yeah. 00:00:36.385 --> 00:00:38.665 It's, my privilege and pleasure to be able to chat with you. 00:00:38.995 --> 00:00:39.745 Why don't we start here? 00:00:39.750 --> 00:00:41.095 So you, you are founder of mea. 00:00:41.585 --> 00:00:42.359 Tell me about Meco. 00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:43.199 What's the elevator pitch? 00:00:43.635 --> 00:00:46.925 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so Meco is an API for accounts payable. 00:00:47.045 --> 00:00:55.385 And so a lot of folks don't know what accounts payable is, but when you're a business, you got bills to pay and usually when you're at a certain scale, I. 00:00:55.385 --> 00:01:01.880 You have approvals and invoices and vendors to manage and this whole process that your accounting team is probably really familiar with. 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:07.400 And so we help our customers launch accounts payable products to their customers. 00:01:08.810 --> 00:01:09.140 Mike Bifulco: Got it. 00:01:09.140 --> 00:01:12.770 So a bit of a, whether that's a B two, B2B, or B two B2C or how, how does 00:01:12.860 --> 00:01:13.160 Sandeep Dinesh: B two. 00:01:13.160 --> 00:01:13.730 B2B. 00:01:13.940 --> 00:01:14.510 Yeah. 00:01:14.795 --> 00:01:21.585 So I think the best way of looking at that is Stripe has Stripe Connect really popular product for marketplaces. 00:01:21.675 --> 00:01:25.755 So let's say you have like Uber drivers they need to get paid. 00:01:26.135 --> 00:01:27.095 So you pay, I. 00:01:27.440 --> 00:01:29.510 Uber and then Uber pays out to the drivers. 00:01:29.850 --> 00:01:30.960 That helps 'em get paid. 00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:32.340 We help make payments out. 00:01:32.370 --> 00:01:38.890 So you have a bunch of customers that have their own vendors and they're managing their whole back office on your platform. 00:01:39.100 --> 00:01:45.260 We help you launch bill pay and accounts payable so your customers can start paying their bills on your platform. 00:01:45.725 --> 00:01:46.265 Mike Bifulco: Sure. 00:01:46.295 --> 00:01:46.745 Okay. 00:01:46.750 --> 00:01:48.515 That makes a ton of sense. 00:01:48.575 --> 00:01:54.275 And I think especially for someone my, like myself with a background primarily in engineering and less so on the finance and business 00:01:54.275 --> 00:02:00.125 side of things, I'm always fascinated to hear a bit about the history of how you got there and like what, what caused this to happen. 00:02:00.375 --> 00:02:06.640 And I also think we just hit a world record or maybe a, a show record for quickest time to me needing to give a disclaimer that 00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:09.470 in a past life I worked for Stripe on the developer advocacy team. 00:02:09.650 --> 00:02:10.400 Had a great time there. 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:11.060 It was a good job. 00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:12.080 I'm no longer at Stripe. 00:02:12.085 --> 00:02:16.954 But it's probably just worth calling that out to begin with since it'll likely come up here and there during the conversation. 00:02:17.494 --> 00:02:20.375 So, Sandeep, with that being said, tell me about how you got here. 00:02:20.375 --> 00:02:25.825 What, what caused you to you know, take a path that had you build, has you building an accounts payable product? 00:02:25.924 --> 00:02:26.254 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah. 00:02:26.254 --> 00:02:30.244 So in order to answer that correctly, I think we gotta go back around 10 years. 00:02:30.514 --> 00:02:33.754 So 10 years ago I pretty much just graduated college. 00:02:33.754 --> 00:02:37.374 I was working at my first job and I was really bored. 00:02:37.674 --> 00:02:41.064 And so I actually met my current co-founder at that company. 00:02:41.464 --> 00:02:45.514 And we did a few hackathons together and we did our first startup way back in like 2014. 00:02:46.414 --> 00:02:48.454 That crashed and failed real hard. 00:02:48.734 --> 00:02:50.264 But it was a great learning experience. 00:02:50.614 --> 00:02:53.514 And we've been working together for the past 10 years. 00:02:53.514 --> 00:02:58.824 But after that I actually joined Google on the developer advocacy team for Google Cloud. 00:02:59.214 --> 00:03:02.534 And so I was our early hire on the cloud advocacy team there. 00:03:02.979 --> 00:03:07.619 And yeah, that was a great place to start my career as an engineer. 00:03:07.669 --> 00:03:12.139 You know, I've been coding for a long time, building websites since I was a kid and all that kind of stuff. 00:03:12.139 --> 00:03:19.529 But I think just learning how some of the best developer advocates go ahead and talk about APIs and developer tools. 00:03:20.094 --> 00:03:24.294 And kind of really seeing Google Cloud grow from Yeah. 00:03:24.294 --> 00:03:29.154 They have a cloud platform, I think, to being in the same conversation as like Azure and AWS. 00:03:29.499 --> 00:03:30.879 Was a really cool experience. 00:03:31.259 --> 00:03:33.599 And so I did it about for about five years. 00:03:33.929 --> 00:03:40.439 And right before the pandemic me and my co-founder launched a fully bootstrap startup. 00:03:40.509 --> 00:03:41.949 So beginning of 2020. 00:03:42.469 --> 00:03:44.179 So we built that for about a year. 00:03:44.279 --> 00:03:49.439 And then I joined a small byc company as a lead engineer. 00:03:49.469 --> 00:03:50.729 And so I learned a lot about. 00:03:51.734 --> 00:03:55.104 Kind of the, the venture world and shipping fast and kind of. 00:03:55.584 --> 00:03:56.544 Doing that kind of stuff. 00:03:57.024 --> 00:03:58.554 And then I joined Stripe as well. 00:03:58.554 --> 00:04:02.004 So yeah, I think a lot of career similarities with you, Mike. 00:04:02.084 --> 00:04:10.204 And yeah, so at Stripe I was a engineer on the revenue recognition team, and so we were building some cool products for accountants. 00:04:10.594 --> 00:04:16.094 And so while I was there at Stripe, my co-founder was actually a product manager@bill.com. 00:04:16.814 --> 00:04:22.205 And so he was working for a company called Invoice to Go that did invoicing for small businesses. 00:04:22.234 --> 00:04:32.799 They got bought by Bill and one of his projects@bill.com was trying to build Bill dot com's account payable into invoice to go's platform. 00:04:32.804 --> 00:04:43.050 So basically trying to turn bill.com into an API into an embedded, uh, API, and then embed it into like an internal project for that. 00:04:43.950 --> 00:04:50.820 And the thing that he really realized was other companies were coming to bill.com and asking for this kind of functionality. 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:59.040 And bill.com really couldn't support them because their organization wasn't designed to sell APIs and developer tools. 00:04:59.610 --> 00:05:06.750 And so we started MEA because we saw this opportunity of like, if we are API first, if we're developer first, can we go ahead 00:05:06.750 --> 00:05:09.500 and help people launch their own accounts payable products? 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:14.250 In a, in a, in a way that kind of competes with all these different AP systems out there. 00:05:14.990 --> 00:05:18.919 Mike Bifulco: I'm really interested in all of this because it seems like there's a, there's a real confluence of things happening where 00:05:18.919 --> 00:05:25.050 you're both working at companies where, you know, opportunities are ripe in, in sort of the payments world, especially around this time period. 00:05:25.050 --> 00:05:25.200 Right? 00:05:25.200 --> 00:05:27.480 The past few years has been pretty crazy and, and all this stuff. 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:31.660 But also to be to have you at Stripe where developer journey is everything. 00:05:31.915 --> 00:05:36.445 And your co-founder at a company where they, they're desperately in need of a solid developer journey, feels 00:05:36.445 --> 00:05:39.725 like the, the birth of your product is a sensible outcome. 00:05:39.725 --> 00:05:46.015 From there I'm curious for yourself and your co-founder did you either of you have sort of like business education background 00:05:46.015 --> 00:05:48.120 or were you both sort of traditional engineers going into this? 00:05:48.735 --> 00:05:51.735 Sandeep Dinesh: So my co-founder has an economics background. 00:05:51.735 --> 00:05:52.815 He's not an engineer. 00:05:52.875 --> 00:05:57.165 Lot of product experience, sales support, customer service. 00:05:57.165 --> 00:06:01.285 So he's, he's had the whole go to market kind of experience from a career standpoint. 00:06:01.915 --> 00:06:04.535 For myself I technically have a business background. 00:06:04.565 --> 00:06:07.595 I graduated with a degree in marketing and computer science. 00:06:08.135 --> 00:06:11.345 I don't know how useful that degree in marketing was. 00:06:11.905 --> 00:06:15.055 Mike Bifulco: You a job in developer advocacy, I think it probably went a a really long way. 00:06:15.085 --> 00:06:15.415 Yeah. 00:06:15.490 --> 00:06:16.000 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah. 00:06:16.005 --> 00:06:19.310 So I think that really helped getting that job as a dev in Dere. 00:06:19.310 --> 00:06:28.250 But yeah, I think so to your point about kind of things just kind of converging together, I think learning about developer tools 00:06:28.255 --> 00:06:34.770 and dere at Google, learning about the accounting side of things at Stripe having my co-founder also super interested in FinTech. 00:06:35.700 --> 00:06:44.970 Having the startup experience prior getting into yc, all these things kind of just combined in a way that made starting meco pretty, pretty obvious to do. 00:06:45.030 --> 00:06:45.300 Yeah. 00:06:46.045 --> 00:06:50.910 Mike Bifulco: So you've, now come together with the idea you have people with, interesting backgrounds that sort of knit 00:06:50.915 --> 00:06:53.500 together to build something that makes a whole lot of sense. 00:06:53.800 --> 00:06:57.740 What was your story for chasing down your first actually, maybe let's talk about it this way. 00:06:57.740 --> 00:07:02.000 Your first use case, like what was the first thing you built and then how did you convince your first users to jump on? 00:07:02.655 --> 00:07:07.140 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so we started talking to customers before we had anything built. 00:07:07.250 --> 00:07:07.730 I think. 00:07:08.060 --> 00:07:13.190 We've gone down the road of like building a bunch of stuff and then figuring out you built the wrong stuff plenty of times. 00:07:13.340 --> 00:07:18.460 So we started having phone calls with folks through, in our network, through LinkedIn. 00:07:18.770 --> 00:07:23.050 We've been very fortunate that we've done a lot of people coming in talking to us through LinkedIn. 00:07:23.100 --> 00:07:30.810 So yeah, we had a lot of folks, we talked to them, try to really understand what problem they're trying to solve what's important what's difficult about this. 00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:35.730 And we kind of sprinted to create a demo. 00:07:35.870 --> 00:07:42.080 And so we had like a nice happy path of like, you can embed this into your, into your product and now your customers can start paying bills. 00:07:43.070 --> 00:07:52.640 And that first demo was basically an I frame that you drop in and the word I frame kind of like burns the ears of many folks out there. 00:07:52.640 --> 00:07:54.710 They hear that and they're like, I don't like that. 00:07:55.190 --> 00:07:57.530 But it was kind of the fastest way for us to validate that. 00:07:58.745 --> 00:08:00.335 Hey, drop this in, see if it works. 00:08:00.835 --> 00:08:05.425 We had an API, it was hand documented. 00:08:05.455 --> 00:08:07.555 Hand rolled pretty bad. 00:08:07.925 --> 00:08:11.255 But, you know, we just wanna validate does this, does anyone even care? 00:08:11.555 --> 00:08:13.805 And so we started getting folks who were interested. 00:08:13.835 --> 00:08:15.695 We started signing some pilots. 00:08:16.125 --> 00:08:19.365 And then we got started getting really serious about how do we deliver this product. 00:08:20.295 --> 00:08:21.525 So that was kind of the beginning. 00:08:21.575 --> 00:08:22.920 And I can go into more, but yeah. 00:08:23.715 --> 00:08:24.105 Mike Bifulco: Yeah. 00:08:24.135 --> 00:08:24.525 Okay. 00:08:24.645 --> 00:08:29.055 I'm, I'm already hearing things that make me think that maybe having a marketing background was probably pretty helpful there. 00:08:29.365 --> 00:08:33.075 But, but maybe also having built and been through the ringer with. 00:08:33.075 --> 00:08:36.165 PR past companies, especially bootstrapped ones is really interesting there. 00:08:36.535 --> 00:08:38.925 I talk about this a lot and I almost feel a little I don't know. 00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:43.095 I, I always feel like it's hard to really land this with people until you've actually experienced it in some way. 00:08:43.095 --> 00:08:47.335 But many first time founders will go and build a product with an idea that is, I. 00:08:47.640 --> 00:08:53.010 Whether good or not not told to enough people and then they don't go and chase down enough feedback before building the thing. 00:08:53.010 --> 00:08:53.130 And 00:08:53.545 --> 00:08:53.695 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, 00:08:53.940 --> 00:08:57.320 Mike Bifulco: you know, the, the trope for me is someone who talks about like, well, it's not ready yet. 00:08:57.350 --> 00:08:58.910 I haven't shared it with anyone 'cause it's not ready. 00:08:59.210 --> 00:09:00.005 Sandeep Dinesh: Never ready. 00:09:00.160 --> 00:09:01.570 Mike Bifulco: just now Yeah, it's never ready. 00:09:01.630 --> 00:09:02.740 Nothing is ever done, ever. 00:09:02.745 --> 00:09:04.570 That's the whole whole thing with software. 00:09:04.780 --> 00:09:06.490 What you've just described for me is it. 00:09:06.715 --> 00:09:08.305 Entirely the inverse of that, right? 00:09:08.305 --> 00:09:09.265 Like we didn't build anything. 00:09:09.265 --> 00:09:15.705 We went and talked to a bunch of people first, and then built something that was no, nobody's favorite idea, but at least better than what existed before. 00:09:16.025 --> 00:09:21.740 That, that's a skill that takes some time and is definitely a, a nuanced approach, especially as compared to, I don't know what I 00:09:21.745 --> 00:09:24.380 would call maybe the traditional, like first time founder thing. 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:25.530 And so. 00:09:25.900 --> 00:09:30.030 When you do that, what are the signals that you were looking for to even pursue further? 00:09:30.030 --> 00:09:33.300 So I'd imagine you got some early signals that people were using it and liking it. 00:09:33.300 --> 00:09:38.190 Is it, Hey, I want more, or, Hey, we think we could make this better for you, or, or find a thousand more of you, or 00:09:38.195 --> 00:09:39.840 what was, what was what you were looking for at that point? 00:09:40.230 --> 00:09:41.670 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so it's actually really funny. 00:09:41.670 --> 00:09:44.370 I think we went about Meco in a way. 00:09:44.445 --> 00:09:46.635 Completely different from our other products. 00:09:46.685 --> 00:09:49.895 So I think one thing is we are building financial infrastructure. 00:09:49.925 --> 00:09:55.205 So that takes quite a lot of time to build and it takes quite a lot of time to build trust in that product, right? 00:09:55.205 --> 00:09:57.545 So like, we're moving millions of dollars. 00:09:57.995 --> 00:10:04.385 You're not gonna wanna just trust who, random guys who build a product in a weekend to do that, right? 00:10:04.385 --> 00:10:07.990 So I think for us, we were really trying to figure out. 00:10:08.825 --> 00:10:10.925 Is there market demand for something like this? 00:10:10.925 --> 00:10:11.525 First? 00:10:11.985 --> 00:10:15.945 Can we find those people in a, in a repeatable process? 00:10:16.465 --> 00:10:19.735 And then what are those people's biggest like need? 00:10:19.825 --> 00:10:20.185 Right? 00:10:20.575 --> 00:10:25.045 And so at the end of the day, our product is pretty complicated. 00:10:25.095 --> 00:10:29.415 We call it like the eight components, and each one of those components can be used a la carte. 00:10:30.015 --> 00:10:31.335 By itself together. 00:10:31.765 --> 00:10:34.165 So it's a pretty like complicated platform. 00:10:34.195 --> 00:10:38.545 So the first thing that we really wanted to do was validate, Hey, are there people out there? 00:10:38.785 --> 00:10:40.795 This is like a market that even exists. 00:10:41.275 --> 00:10:45.715 And I think we did that by just trying to talk to as many people as possible in the industry. 00:10:46.075 --> 00:10:47.305 Are you building this yourself? 00:10:47.605 --> 00:10:48.505 We got a lot of, yep. 00:10:48.505 --> 00:10:49.885 This is on my roadmap for next year. 00:10:49.885 --> 00:10:50.605 For next year. 00:10:50.935 --> 00:10:53.215 I don't have any resources against it, but I wanna do it. 00:10:53.275 --> 00:10:55.135 And we're like, okay, that sounds really interested. 00:10:55.615 --> 00:10:57.655 It's like, do you wanna partner with someone? 00:10:57.655 --> 00:10:58.945 It's like, yeah, absolutely. 00:10:58.945 --> 00:11:02.675 If someone would build this for me, I would definitely wanna talk to that person. 00:11:02.675 --> 00:11:03.995 We're like, okay, that's great. 00:11:04.625 --> 00:11:07.545 And then the last challenge was how do we find these people? 00:11:07.575 --> 00:11:09.675 And I think for that it was really a struggle. 00:11:09.705 --> 00:11:14.675 'cause there's no like, list of vertical SaaS companies and that's who we primarily sell to is vertical SaaS. 00:11:15.095 --> 00:11:20.035 So it's really hard to find those folks 'cause there's a bunch of founders starting them all the time. 00:11:20.245 --> 00:11:28.115 They have a lot of deep expertise in like, let's say the construction space or dental or home services, right? 00:11:28.115 --> 00:11:30.305 And so they maybe they've worked in that industry for a while. 00:11:30.305 --> 00:11:35.265 Maybe they've run Airbnbs and they wanna start a business to help other folks in that industry. 00:11:35.535 --> 00:11:36.675 Like how do you find these folks? 00:11:36.725 --> 00:11:37.565 Was really difficult. 00:11:37.570 --> 00:11:41.885 And for us, we really try to solve that by being the most helpful folks. 00:11:42.210 --> 00:11:42.630 Out there. 00:11:42.660 --> 00:11:47.370 So a lot of people starting these companies don't have FinTech or finance backgrounds. 00:11:47.640 --> 00:11:51.530 And so we started writing content on how do you monetize this kind of like platform. 00:11:51.920 --> 00:11:57.110 What are your customers looking for when it comes to like payments and just trying to be really helpful. 00:11:57.140 --> 00:12:02.300 And so we actually wrote a 28 page guide on how to build Meco from scratch. 00:12:02.485 --> 00:12:03.350 And so it's like. 00:12:03.815 --> 00:12:07.235 If you wanna just build this yourself here is like the PRD for you. 00:12:07.385 --> 00:12:09.185 And yeah, we got a lot of hits on that. 00:12:09.185 --> 00:12:10.655 I think people were like, this is really cool. 00:12:10.655 --> 00:12:11.555 It was just a Google doc. 00:12:12.145 --> 00:12:15.895 And so that was, that was our first, I think, real sign of, okay, there's something here. 00:12:15.900 --> 00:12:16.675 Let's invest more. 00:12:17.665 --> 00:12:20.575 Mike Bifulco: I think that sends a strong signal too, that it's like, well, we don't have secrets. 00:12:20.575 --> 00:12:22.195 This is just a hard thing to do. 00:12:22.255 --> 00:12:25.225 Like you're, you're welcome if you want to go and, you know, go on this journey. 00:12:25.225 --> 00:12:31.465 But it's probably the sort of thing that you need a few people and many, many person hours of engineering time to get through. 00:12:31.465 --> 00:12:34.865 And even then your industry background probably helped quite a bit there 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:35.320 Sandeep Dinesh: Yep. 00:12:36.095 --> 00:12:41.005 Mike Bifulco: Right on., I'm super into that as a path to go and very, very much a show of strength there too. 00:12:41.005 --> 00:12:41.725 Like, cool. 00:12:41.725 --> 00:12:42.655 Here, have all our secrets. 00:12:42.655 --> 00:12:43.135 Good luck. 00:12:43.565 --> 00:12:45.845 So where, where does Y Combinator come into the picture? 00:12:46.505 --> 00:12:48.215 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so I was at Stripe. 00:12:48.265 --> 00:12:48.295 I. 00:12:48.880 --> 00:12:50.200 Basically just joined. 00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:53.780 I was about almost like a year in I felt like I was fully onboarded at this point. 00:12:53.780 --> 00:12:57.530 And my co-founder was, Hey, let's apply to yc. 00:12:57.530 --> 00:13:01.820 And we would apply to YC plenty of times for other ideas and like, Hey, let's throw in an application. 00:13:01.820 --> 00:13:03.710 So we threw one in very last minute. 00:13:04.230 --> 00:13:08.555 And then we got in, which is a very happy surprise. 00:13:08.605 --> 00:13:13.775 We took the weekend and we're like, yep, this is, we've been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. 00:13:14.190 --> 00:13:18.400 I don't wanna live my life thinking, what if I think this is a huge opportunity. 00:13:18.400 --> 00:13:19.570 Like, let's go. 00:13:19.570 --> 00:13:21.610 They're gonna give us some money, let's go try it out. 00:13:21.730 --> 00:13:23.710 And we just hit the ground running really hard. 00:13:24.050 --> 00:13:28.050 So we quit our jobs and started building, started talking to customers. 00:13:28.130 --> 00:13:33.420 Basically like as my co-founder was lining up these meetings trying to validate that idea like I was talking about. 00:13:33.765 --> 00:13:38.475 I was like, what is the smallest demo we can throw in front of people to kind of give them an idea? 00:13:38.475 --> 00:13:42.415 So we did Figma to start and then very quickly moved to like a clickable demo. 00:13:42.945 --> 00:13:47.175 And that was all before we actually started the, started yc. 00:13:47.205 --> 00:13:50.745 So we were winner 23 and so we were doing this in like November and December. 00:13:51.105 --> 00:13:58.005 And so YC started in January and, I think within the first month we signed our first contract. 00:13:58.135 --> 00:14:00.205 And so that was like a big validation for us. 00:14:00.730 --> 00:14:01.960 Mike Bifulco: yeah, of course. 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:03.350 Again, to, it is funny. 00:14:03.350 --> 00:14:06.350 I don't know this off the top of my head, but to clarify, winner 23 is. 00:14:06.740 --> 00:14:10.100 Starting January, 2023 ish, or was that into, okay. 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:10.595 Sandeep Dinesh: yeah, yeah. 00:14:10.775 --> 00:14:12.425 First three months of, yep, yep, yep. 00:14:12.905 --> 00:14:13.205 Mm-Hmm. 00:14:14.555 --> 00:14:16.715 Mike Bifulco: And so you've, you've obviously come a long way since then. 00:14:17.015 --> 00:14:22.995 One of the things that I found valuable when Kraftwerk went through Y Combinator was we were really focused for a few months during 00:14:22.995 --> 00:14:29.925 YC on set, set an ambitious and, and hard goal that is meaningful and do everything you can to build a narrative towards that. 00:14:30.175 --> 00:14:34.640 It sounds like you, you headed into YC with a working clickable demo and were maybe chasing down customers. 00:14:34.640 --> 00:14:36.260 What was sort of your North Star at that point? 00:14:37.130 --> 00:14:39.860 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so we wanted to close 10 customers, very aggressive. 00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:40.940 We did not get there. 00:14:40.970 --> 00:14:41.870 We got pretty close. 00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:41.945 I. 00:14:42.635 --> 00:14:51.725 I think again, our goal through that three months was can we kill this idea of like, what do we do to lose conviction that this is the business we wanna build? 00:14:52.235 --> 00:14:55.505 I think both of us are, you know, kind of mid-career. 00:14:55.575 --> 00:14:58.965 We both are married and all that kind of stuff, and so it was like. 00:15:00.270 --> 00:15:02.190 You know, it's not our first rodeo doing a startup. 00:15:02.190 --> 00:15:06.450 We know how difficult it can be and how easy it is to lose motivation. 00:15:06.690 --> 00:15:09.540 And so it's like, let's do that fast rather than slow. 00:15:09.590 --> 00:15:10.820 So I guess like fail fast. 00:15:10.820 --> 00:15:11.990 I don't know if you wanna call it that. 00:15:13.830 --> 00:15:16.170 But yeah, I think that was kind of the whole goal was like, I. 00:15:17.550 --> 00:15:21.600 Can we just lose conviction on this idea and kind of just shut it down? 00:15:21.690 --> 00:15:26.100 And everything that we did went the other direction of like, oh wow, okay. 00:15:26.250 --> 00:15:28.500 We've kind of gained conviction. 00:15:28.530 --> 00:15:35.310 And I think at the end of that, we were like, yeah, this is what we wanna spend a long time building because we think it's gonna be really big. 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:37.160 And I think we have the right team to do it. 00:15:37.430 --> 00:15:41.210 And so that was kind of our internal goal at yc, obviously. 00:15:41.550 --> 00:15:42.720 I think they talk about this a lot. 00:15:42.720 --> 00:15:45.330 You know, you have the two week check-ins with the group partners. 00:15:45.380 --> 00:15:48.890 And so we had pretty aggressive goals on trying to close new customers and leads. 00:15:49.400 --> 00:15:54.590 And so yeah, that was kind of like the external goal, but I think really internally it was, can we kill this idea? 00:15:54.650 --> 00:15:55.430 And not even launch it. 00:15:56.125 --> 00:15:56.415 Mike Bifulco: Sure. 00:15:57.305 --> 00:16:02.665 You're absolutely the first founder I've talked to who is, is going about this by way of like the debate me route. 00:16:02.670 --> 00:16:04.735 Like, you know, convince me this is a bad idea. 00:16:04.810 --> 00:16:10.235 I, I really like that, especially in the case where like you're, you're being forces you to be maybe intellectually 00:16:10.235 --> 00:16:12.490 honest with yourself which can be really hard to do. 00:16:12.490 --> 00:16:18.340 A lot of, a lot of people get almost delusional about their idea and we'll go a really long way before they decide that like. 00:16:18.910 --> 00:16:25.320 Oh, you know, it turns out the thing that I'm building is just not a big enough molehill to be scalable at, at the scale that we need it to be. 00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:29.890 Especially once you start taking on investment, that becomes a much, much bigger molehill to tackle too. 00:16:30.820 --> 00:16:31.090 Okay. 00:16:31.090 --> 00:16:35.860 So you finished YCS program at the end of last winter, so March-ish of last year. 00:16:36.020 --> 00:16:36.980 What, what's happened since then? 00:16:37.910 --> 00:16:44.435 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so I think we've learned a lot about what is kind of the, what is an MVP versus an MLPA minimum lovable product. 00:16:44.945 --> 00:16:46.475 So I was talking about the iframe. 00:16:47.285 --> 00:16:47.765 Yeah. 00:16:47.795 --> 00:16:48.875 No one likes that. 00:16:48.925 --> 00:16:51.415 Our API has gotten a lot more complicated. 00:16:51.585 --> 00:16:55.785 So I think you've had Danny from Fern on on this podcast before. 00:16:55.935 --> 00:16:57.585 So we are big users of Fern. 00:16:57.635 --> 00:17:01.685 We use 'em for server side, client side and docs. 00:17:02.015 --> 00:17:04.800 And so we basically moved our whole. 00:17:05.565 --> 00:17:07.275 API over to Fern during the batch. 00:17:07.275 --> 00:17:11.525 And so we were batch mates together, so very glad I met them early in the business. 00:17:12.005 --> 00:17:19.945 So I think one thing that we've learned is just how important developer experience and API documentation is for our sales process. 00:17:20.545 --> 00:17:27.225 And so I think a lot of folks in FinTech the bar is very low for good APIs in FinTech. 00:17:27.615 --> 00:17:29.835 I think Stripe is like way up there. 00:17:30.180 --> 00:17:35.610 And everyone kind of assumes that everyone also has like stripe level documentation, SDKs, all this kind of stuff. 00:17:36.330 --> 00:17:39.450 And no, it is like pretty bad. 00:17:39.630 --> 00:17:45.320 And so I think like the bar is low, but we wanna go really above and beyond to kind of provide that really good experience. 00:17:46.010 --> 00:17:49.675 And I think the big reason why is, well twofold, one. 00:17:50.750 --> 00:17:59.350 We sell to product teams, but a technical co-founder or VP of engineering or lead engineer, whoever it might be, depending 00:17:59.350 --> 00:18:03.550 on company sides, does have a very big say in the go, no go. 00:18:03.550 --> 00:18:03.820 Right? 00:18:03.820 --> 00:18:12.760 If they look at our SDKs and APIs and they're like, this looks like my team is gonna struggle to implement, I don't think they're gonna be serious about this. 00:18:13.765 --> 00:18:14.845 We are not gonna win that deal. 00:18:14.935 --> 00:18:15.355 Right? 00:18:15.455 --> 00:18:22.295 So like the features and all the check boxes might look really cool, but at the end of the day, because we are a embedded product, we 00:18:22.295 --> 00:18:27.095 are API first, we don't make money until you start using us, right? 00:18:27.155 --> 00:18:33.145 And so like that implementation's all about the technical kind of coupling of our service to yours. 00:18:33.145 --> 00:18:38.435 So the API SDKs are a huge part of our Go-to market movement. 00:18:38.435 --> 00:18:40.265 So that was a big learning. 00:18:40.265 --> 00:18:41.015 I think we. 00:18:41.630 --> 00:18:49.430 We're trying to build as fast as possible and the docs went outta sync and they didn't look good, and our guides weren't great and we invested a lot 00:18:49.430 --> 00:18:53.090 of time into like trying to make that onboarding experience really nice. 00:18:53.160 --> 00:18:54.240 And so that was a big thing. 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:56.510 I think Fern was a big help there. 00:18:56.510 --> 00:19:03.320 So for folks who don't know what Fern is, it basically lets us define our APIs in a Fern yaml. 00:19:03.320 --> 00:19:11.950 I think they also support open API specs and it actually generates our server side routes and client SDKs for a bunch of different languages. 00:19:12.385 --> 00:19:13.495 As well as our docs. 00:19:13.585 --> 00:19:17.815 So every time we make a change, all three of them are always in sync. 00:19:18.175 --> 00:19:23.515 And so we can get basically guarantee to our customers that like, everything is well documented, always up to date. 00:19:23.565 --> 00:19:26.655 And it's like what you, what you see is what you get and people really like that. 00:19:27.345 --> 00:19:29.115 So that was a big part of our investment. 00:19:29.355 --> 00:19:32.175 The other side on the dev side was our front end. 00:19:32.335 --> 00:19:34.680 So we talked about the iframe, iframes. 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:35.785 I, I love iframes. 00:19:35.885 --> 00:19:37.385 They let you move really fast. 00:19:37.445 --> 00:19:37.835 Uh. 00:19:38.855 --> 00:19:44.285 With things like JWTs where you can pass in custom props, you can actually customize iframes pretty easily. 00:19:44.285 --> 00:19:52.865 I think a lot of companies that deliver their solution with iframes do that, but I think a lot of her customers were like, this is even with, this is not good. 00:19:52.865 --> 00:19:54.425 I don't like, it's a black box. 00:19:54.425 --> 00:19:57.275 My, like, observability tools don't show me what's going on. 00:19:57.575 --> 00:20:03.155 If a customer has a question, I'm just kind of stuck on you guys to, to figure that out. 00:20:03.545 --> 00:20:07.995 And so we had built that iframe with react components underneath the covers. 00:20:08.235 --> 00:20:14.745 And so moving that from internal React components to an external library was a really big deal. 00:20:15.225 --> 00:20:19.845 And, you know, I think like react components as a delivery mechanism. 00:20:19.845 --> 00:20:21.795 I think like Algolia does a really good job. 00:20:22.545 --> 00:20:23.715 It's a company called Quill. 00:20:23.765 --> 00:20:24.815 They do embedded analytics. 00:20:24.815 --> 00:20:27.905 They does a really good job, but it's kind of like a, a new. 00:20:28.910 --> 00:20:31.040 Way of delivering an embedded product. 00:20:31.260 --> 00:20:31.920 And so. 00:20:31.920 --> 00:20:32.250 Mike Bifulco: think so. 00:20:32.250 --> 00:20:32.310 Yeah. 00:20:33.420 --> 00:20:35.730 Sandeep Dinesh: There's really not that much like best practices out there. 00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:37.200 So we've had to like learn a lot. 00:20:37.330 --> 00:20:42.910 So we're using storybook for a long time to do kind of a documentation, but that's really great for like 00:20:43.120 --> 00:20:45.490 UI libraries and that's not really what we're doing. 00:20:45.860 --> 00:20:52.330 And so we're actually migrating to a fully manual documentation for that where we put our components, we talk about how you can use them. 00:20:52.740 --> 00:20:56.070 All of our components take can take in a child component. 00:20:56.595 --> 00:20:59.085 Then we just pass you a bunch of hooks, right? 00:20:59.085 --> 00:21:02.575 Like that's not really a common use case for like UI libraries. 00:21:02.955 --> 00:21:08.985 So I think like that's been a big learning of like, how do we help our customers move fast? 00:21:09.045 --> 00:21:13.485 And that's the reason why they wanna partner with someone like us and not build it in-house is time to market, right? 00:21:13.545 --> 00:21:17.205 And so I think the backend is really complicated. 00:21:17.205 --> 00:21:18.885 That's, you know, kinda expected. 00:21:18.915 --> 00:21:21.975 We have a lot of good documentation tooling for APIs. 00:21:22.635 --> 00:21:26.925 But then the front end, the react component side, I think that's kind of like a new world that we're exploring and 00:21:26.925 --> 00:21:29.205 trying to build a lot of tool that kind of tooling ourselves. 00:21:29.955 --> 00:21:31.485 And yeah, so that's been a big learning for us. 00:21:32.085 --> 00:21:33.825 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, that's a really fair point. 00:21:33.825 --> 00:21:38.060 I don't think I've really heard it put that way, but it's definitely something I've felt maybe as a beneficiary 00:21:38.060 --> 00:21:39.590 of it, as an end user of these sorts of things. 00:21:40.215 --> 00:21:46.875 That many of the SaaS products that have come to love are ones where I essentially consume it through NPM install. 00:21:47.370 --> 00:21:49.080 And become an end user that way. 00:21:49.080 --> 00:21:51.120 And I can think of a few off the top of my head. 00:21:51.150 --> 00:21:56.440 Clerk does authentication very much in that way where they ship a bunch of React components that you just toss 00:21:56.440 --> 00:21:58.690 it into your React app and suddenly have authentication. 00:21:58.940 --> 00:22:00.200 Post hog does a really good job. 00:22:00.200 --> 00:22:01.640 They have some really nice React libraries. 00:22:01.640 --> 00:22:02.600 They'll let you add. 00:22:02.655 --> 00:22:08.215 Product analytics and do a whole bunch of tracking and ab tests and all this stuff that you know, in prior days would've been a 00:22:08.215 --> 00:22:13.625 much deeper build out with loads and loads of code and docs that you could imagine, and certainly a few others that I've used. 00:22:13.625 --> 00:22:20.655 And there's something to be said for that too, that, that is scaling your developer experience by way of taking advantage of the massive amount of time 00:22:20.655 --> 00:22:23.995 and love and care that folks from these other companies are putting into their. 00:22:24.005 --> 00:22:26.435 A deeply focused slice of the thing. 00:22:26.745 --> 00:22:30.020 You know, like authentication is something that I never wanna become an expert on. 00:22:30.020 --> 00:22:32.630 And I'm sure I've said that on the, the podcast a billion times by now. 00:22:32.630 --> 00:22:39.930 But being able to effectively hire out smarter people than me for a price that scales with my success is like, sign me up, let's do it. 00:22:39.930 --> 00:22:40.470 That's great. 00:22:40.865 --> 00:22:45.175 Sandeep Dinesh: The interesting thing with these like embedded, so clerk embedded authentication like the 00:22:45.175 --> 00:22:47.575 thing there is, it's the same for everyone, right? 00:22:47.575 --> 00:22:52.885 Like almost 90% of what you're trying to build with these embedded providers, it's the same as everyone else. 00:22:53.005 --> 00:22:54.835 And I think that's just kinda the same thing for us. 00:22:54.865 --> 00:22:57.625 We're say like, you know, 80% of bill pay is like the same. 00:22:57.625 --> 00:22:58.975 It's an accounting process. 00:22:58.975 --> 00:23:02.395 Like there are gap principles that everyone follows to like pay their bills. 00:23:03.220 --> 00:23:03.700 Mike Bifulco: Right. 00:23:03.805 --> 00:23:09.595 Sandeep Dinesh: Just add your secret sauce on top that's like in specific for your industry or your vertical or like your, your customer base. 00:23:09.895 --> 00:23:11.605 But why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? 00:23:11.635 --> 00:23:14.855 And I think that's kind of like the, the bread and butter of embedded SaaS, right? 00:23:14.855 --> 00:23:15.875 We're fully white labeled. 00:23:15.875 --> 00:23:21.335 You don't know that we exist, but we let you move fast and like not worry about like the things that you don't wanna worry about. 00:23:22.175 --> 00:23:22.475 Mike Bifulco: Yeah. 00:23:22.595 --> 00:23:28.655 And again, to that point, you, you meco is successful only when your customers are, and there's an alignment of incentives there. 00:23:28.655 --> 00:23:29.885 That's really interesting too. 00:23:30.065 --> 00:23:30.335 Sandeep Dinesh: I'll try. 00:23:30.830 --> 00:23:35.660 Mike Bifulco: Another case where maybe solving the boring problem, so to say is great for everyone involved. 00:23:35.910 --> 00:23:40.560 You can stay focused on your thing much the the way that, you know, say a clerk would be focused on authentication. 00:23:41.310 --> 00:23:43.680 So I wanna talk a little bit more about how Meco is built. 00:23:43.685 --> 00:23:49.940 So Fern is, is super interesting because they give you so much of that sort of love and care in the world of SDK Cogen. 00:23:49.940 --> 00:23:52.350 So now Meco is available sort of. 00:23:52.500 --> 00:23:57.440 Pseudo natively in a bunch of languages, I'd imagine as, as installable packages, SDKs, whatever you wanna call 00:23:57.440 --> 00:24:00.410 'em, and you get documentation out of it and all that. 00:24:00.650 --> 00:24:04.210 What, what is the underlying system that you're building then that that speaks to Fern? 00:24:04.210 --> 00:24:06.700 Like, what's your architecture look like, maybe what's the size of your team? 00:24:06.700 --> 00:24:07.300 Those sorts of things. 00:24:07.585 --> 00:24:10.395 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so bit of background on me At Google Cloud. 00:24:10.395 --> 00:24:14.195 I was on the Kubernetes team, so microservices were like my bread and butter. 00:24:14.735 --> 00:24:17.975 And so very specifically not doing that with Meco. 00:24:18.245 --> 00:24:20.165 So team is very small. 00:24:20.225 --> 00:24:21.785 It's basically on the engineering side. 00:24:21.785 --> 00:24:22.145 Right now. 00:24:22.145 --> 00:24:22.595 It's just me. 00:24:22.985 --> 00:24:29.415 So we've kept the team pretty small on purpose to move very fast, kind of find product market fit, and then start scaling it out. 00:24:29.985 --> 00:24:31.815 And so it's pretty simple. 00:24:31.815 --> 00:24:34.605 We are running on Google Cloud Run, so fully serverless. 00:24:34.765 --> 00:24:37.765 And our database is on CockroachDB, which is also fully serverless. 00:24:38.215 --> 00:24:40.705 So that's for folks who don't know what CockroachDB is. 00:24:40.805 --> 00:24:45.315 It is a Postgres compatible database kind of based on Google Cloud. 00:24:45.345 --> 00:24:47.535 Google Spanner and Spanner is a. 00:24:48.340 --> 00:24:55.420 Horizontally scalable asset compliant database that uses like crazy atomic clocks and all this kind of stuff 00:24:55.420 --> 00:24:58.450 to keep transactions always in sync as you scale out. 00:24:59.020 --> 00:25:04.010 And so we've kind of chosen technologies that let us scale by default because I don't wanna deal with that. 00:25:04.170 --> 00:25:06.210 So really simple. 00:25:06.210 --> 00:25:08.760 It's a monolithic TypeScript, no js backend. 00:25:09.395 --> 00:25:10.145 We use kind of. 00:25:11.315 --> 00:25:15.065 The, the normal tools, GitHub and Sentry and all that stuff for monitoring. 00:25:15.115 --> 00:25:17.725 But yeah, we kept it very simple just so we can move fast. 00:25:17.825 --> 00:25:24.545 I've worked at teams where, you know, everything was split out into its own microservice and it just kind of, as a small team, very hard to deal with that. 00:25:24.955 --> 00:25:30.535 So yeah, we just kinda, how can we move really fast and how it deliver a product that, you know, customers really want. 00:25:30.625 --> 00:25:33.305 And then we can think about breaking it down in the future. 00:25:34.550 --> 00:25:39.020 Mike Bifulco: Right, and you mentioned you, you're the only engineer, is it just you and your co-founder currently as well? 00:25:39.650 --> 00:25:40.190 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, full time. 00:25:40.190 --> 00:25:41.180 It's just me and my co-founder. 00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:41.420 Yep. 00:25:42.140 --> 00:25:42.560 Mike Bifulco: Amazing. 00:25:42.800 --> 00:25:46.300 Definitely very small and lean and mean at that scale. 00:25:46.300 --> 00:25:50.470 And what I, if you're listening to the podcast, one of the things I would encourage you to do, which I think is maybe a 00:25:50.470 --> 00:25:54.310 good data point to like put side by side with that is me's site. 00:25:54.570 --> 00:25:56.940 Does not convey a two person team even slightly. 00:25:57.190 --> 00:25:59.290 It looks pretty, pretty intense. 00:25:59.290 --> 00:26:00.190 There's a lot going on there. 00:26:00.190 --> 00:26:03.380 So you know, a, a applause is due to you and your co-founder. 00:26:03.380 --> 00:26:08.510 There's loads of stuff there, and I'm sure you're standing on the shoulders of giants in many ways by using lots of interesting tech there. 00:26:08.510 --> 00:26:14.675 But it speaks to what you can get done with, with some focus and maybe a bit of a marketing polish on things too. 00:26:15.015 --> 00:26:16.155 That's, that's super cool. 00:26:16.770 --> 00:26:17.700 Sandeep Dinesh: Thank you for the compliment. 00:26:17.790 --> 00:26:20.280 I think, yeah, definitely building on the shoulders of giants. 00:26:20.280 --> 00:26:23.310 I think like we try to use as much tooling as possible. 00:26:23.340 --> 00:26:26.460 We try to partner with vendors that can move us really quickly. 00:26:26.910 --> 00:26:32.430 But I think at a small, small team size, you know, our secret sauce is just customer support. 00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:39.330 And I think YC says this also where it's like, what can you do that like Stripe or Google can't? 00:26:39.900 --> 00:26:41.100 And that is just like. 00:26:41.820 --> 00:26:46.050 Really, really focusing on the customer and really delivering solutions to them. 00:26:46.470 --> 00:26:47.790 You know, we don't have a lot of red tape. 00:26:47.850 --> 00:26:50.130 If someone really needs something, we can ship it tomorrow. 00:26:50.230 --> 00:26:51.310 We wanna move very fast. 00:26:51.315 --> 00:26:55.290 We wanna be very thoughtful and, back to the original point of no secrets. 00:26:55.350 --> 00:26:59.070 I think like even if you don't end up working with us, we still want to make you successful. 00:26:59.100 --> 00:27:03.540 'cause maybe in the future you will, maybe you won't, but at the end of the day, we wanna move the whole industry forward. 00:27:03.660 --> 00:27:09.690 It, it's really painful when you see folks still using like pen and paper or checks or spreadsheets to do their finances. 00:27:10.110 --> 00:27:14.940 Like can we just move the world away from that is kind of like the goal, right? 00:27:14.940 --> 00:27:18.510 Like maybe it's us, maybe it's not, but let's move the world forward. 00:27:18.560 --> 00:27:19.550 Is kind of like the big picture. 00:27:19.550 --> 00:27:19.610 Yeah. 00:27:20.540 --> 00:27:25.520 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, you, you've painted a very cool story as well around like having a focused idea and building something 00:27:25.520 --> 00:27:28.970 that addresses a direct problem that you understand really well. 00:27:29.395 --> 00:27:33.895 Often on this show we talk a little bit about, like, talk about a problem, a project, a product. 00:27:33.925 --> 00:27:39.595 Fern was one, Danny's been on the, the show where we've talked to him before about what they're doing and sort of the pitch for API 00:27:39.595 --> 00:27:44.995 developers at that point is something along the lines of like, how do you know if you are someone who should be interested in using Fern? 00:27:45.205 --> 00:27:48.205 I would imagine there's probably a very direct story there for Meco too. 00:27:48.205 --> 00:27:53.925 So for, for a, for devs who are used to integrating with APIs and building products what's a sign that Meco might 00:27:53.925 --> 00:27:56.055 be solving problems that they should be interested in? 00:27:56.965 --> 00:28:01.760 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so I think the big one with MEA is if you're trying to build the financial back office for your customer. 00:28:02.370 --> 00:28:05.280 I think a lot of folks start with invoicing to start, right? 00:28:05.280 --> 00:28:06.870 So helping your customers get paid. 00:28:07.320 --> 00:28:10.080 Then kind of the next natural thing is banking. 00:28:10.260 --> 00:28:16.370 So helping them store those funds, manage those funds and then you can go into payroll, you can go into spend and 00:28:16.370 --> 00:28:18.530 expense management, and you can go into accounts payable. 00:28:18.920 --> 00:28:24.420 And so basically we wanna help you create that financial one-stop shop for your customer. 00:28:24.735 --> 00:28:27.465 And so that's money in money management and then money out. 00:28:27.495 --> 00:28:29.535 And so we plug into that money out piece. 00:28:30.045 --> 00:28:38.885 And I think the reason why a lot of folks don't really understand the opportunity in the money out side of things is I think when you're thinking 00:28:38.885 --> 00:28:43.805 about money in, it's like, Hey, Stripe charges me 2.7% plus whatever. 00:28:44.795 --> 00:28:45.305 Okay, cool. 00:28:45.305 --> 00:28:48.065 I can charge like a fee for invoice processing, right? 00:28:48.065 --> 00:28:48.395 Like. 00:28:48.755 --> 00:28:49.955 That's pretty like cut and dry. 00:28:49.955 --> 00:28:51.635 Like I don't understand how that works. 00:28:52.095 --> 00:28:58.125 When I'm storing funds, you know, I can make some float interchange interest maybe I can like give you some like credit cards or debit cards 00:28:58.125 --> 00:29:01.005 to spend and I can make something called interchange on those cards. 00:29:01.875 --> 00:29:07.365 But then when you get a invoice for a thousand dollars, you gotta pay a thousand dollars, right? 00:29:07.365 --> 00:29:09.675 Like there's no middleman to take a fee there. 00:29:10.155 --> 00:29:15.135 And so I like think a lot of people are like, there's no opportunity here to like, monetize the payments. 00:29:15.135 --> 00:29:16.125 Maybe I can charge like. 00:29:16.500 --> 00:29:21.990 Some SaaS fees, like 20 bucks a month or something to my customer to like have them manage their bills through my system. 00:29:22.680 --> 00:29:31.310 But kind of the secret here is that all these big account payable companies have found is your customer who's using your product, 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:36.530 really wants to keep cash with them as long as possible, right? 00:29:37.340 --> 00:29:40.250 But the folks they're paying wanna get paid as fast as possible. 00:29:40.550 --> 00:29:44.150 So we basically have a mismatch in, in incentives here where. 00:29:44.540 --> 00:29:49.010 The payer wants to hold onto money as long as possible, and the vendor wants to get that money as fast as possible. 00:29:49.190 --> 00:29:55.170 And so you can offer financing on both sides of that equation either accelerating the payment to the vendor or delaying 00:29:55.175 --> 00:29:58.320 payment from the payer to help both sides manage their cash flow. 00:29:58.710 --> 00:30:02.020 And that's really where the unlock comes in on monetization. 00:30:02.950 --> 00:30:03.850 Mike Bifulco: Oh, super interesting. 00:30:03.850 --> 00:30:08.870 So you're, you're running financial mechanisms underneath this then that people are keying into on both sides. 00:30:09.470 --> 00:30:10.070 Really cool. 00:30:10.070 --> 00:30:10.310 Wow. 00:30:10.315 --> 00:30:14.910 And so, man, I, I that's a part of the world that I know enough about to be scared of. 00:30:15.130 --> 00:30:20.500 Does this mean you also then had to go chase down, I'd imagine compliance and certification and all sorts of things to be able to offer those. 00:30:20.780 --> 00:30:21.710 What's that journey look like? 00:30:21.760 --> 00:30:24.660 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah, so I think we have a lot of flavors on how we do this. 00:30:24.690 --> 00:30:27.780 So right now we're using a lot of partners to kind of do those services. 00:30:28.110 --> 00:30:29.990 And so our big value prop is. 00:30:31.295 --> 00:30:38.885 one is gonna take your fancy financing product until they have a workflow that matches what their accounting and finance teams really want to use. 00:30:38.885 --> 00:30:39.125 Right? 00:30:39.125 --> 00:30:45.485 So we spent a long time kind of building those workflows, those react components, those backend APIs so that you 00:30:45.485 --> 00:30:48.155 can deliver a product that'll actually be used, right? 00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:49.265 Because if you just have like a. 00:30:49.620 --> 00:30:53.190 Pick a financing button, like it's not really, it doesn't fit into that workflow. 00:30:53.220 --> 00:30:57.090 So our first step is kind of building something that your customers will actually use. 00:30:57.520 --> 00:31:01.940 And then we work with a bunch of vendors to provide that financing, to provide those payment rails. 00:31:02.300 --> 00:31:04.340 And eventually we'll bring some of that in-house. 00:31:04.550 --> 00:31:08.630 But I think our big value prop is we will go ahead and integrate with all of these platforms. 00:31:09.050 --> 00:31:14.880 And so then you just have one API to implement, drop it in, and then you get best in class payment rails out of the box. 00:31:15.610 --> 00:31:15.900 Mike Bifulco: Yeah. 00:31:16.715 --> 00:31:18.245 Nice, clear story there too. 00:31:18.305 --> 00:31:19.205 That's fantastic. 00:31:19.535 --> 00:31:19.715 Okay. 00:31:19.715 --> 00:31:25.255 I do wanna ask, maybe the inverse of the question I asked before is you know, what, why would an API developer 00:31:25.255 --> 00:31:27.655 recognize that meco is something they should be interested in? 00:31:27.835 --> 00:31:33.125 I also think there's a good number of people that listened to this show that may be sitting in shoes similar to, to yours from 00:31:33.125 --> 00:31:36.460 a year or two ago, where they may be getting signals that they're. 00:31:36.595 --> 00:31:42.355 Experiencing things or learning things at work or seeing problems that might make their way into a good company at some point. 00:31:42.565 --> 00:31:43.795 Do you have any advice for people like that? 00:31:43.795 --> 00:31:47.035 For how to test an idea how to, how to prove something out as a business 00:31:48.175 --> 00:31:49.795 Sandeep Dinesh: That's a great, great question. 00:31:49.825 --> 00:31:56.045 I think experiencing that pain yourself at a big company definitely a good sign. 00:31:56.425 --> 00:32:02.215 You know, at Google and Stripe, we have so many internal tools that like I wish existed outside. 00:32:02.615 --> 00:32:09.395 Good, great example of that is, you know, both companies have like a launch process that you had to go through to launch anything public. 00:32:09.955 --> 00:32:14.245 And it's pretty, it's, it's, it's one's process, but it's like really well thought out. 00:32:14.305 --> 00:32:19.165 Like on the Stripe side, like if you do anything that touches an API, someone from the developer relations team will 00:32:19.165 --> 00:32:21.655 come review, make sure it's consistent across the board. 00:32:22.075 --> 00:32:25.870 So like that kind of stuff, like is there a product that you could build externally? 00:32:25.970 --> 00:32:29.150 There's also really simple things like, I think there's a company called Go Links. 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:31.990 We use 'em at mea I think like Google had that originally. 00:32:32.040 --> 00:32:38.610 And it's a whole company now where you just like go slash and you put a link name in and then it redirects you to a page and it's so useful and you're like, 00:32:38.610 --> 00:32:41.820 I had this at Google now I don't like, let's go build a company about this. 00:32:41.843 --> 00:32:43.763 And so I think like, how do you validate? 00:32:43.763 --> 00:32:45.798 That was kind of the question that you asked. 00:32:45.798 --> 00:32:47.418 I think having it yourself is great. 00:32:47.508 --> 00:32:50.808 And then going to, talking to your friends, going and talking to your people in your network, right? 00:32:50.808 --> 00:32:55.068 Like if you're an engineer and you're building a developer tool, I'm. 00:32:55.233 --> 00:33:01.293 I think you probably know some other engineers, like either work at your company, work, went to school 00:33:01.298 --> 00:33:04.683 with you, you worked previously with Met at a meetup. 00:33:04.683 --> 00:33:05.043 I don't know. 00:33:05.048 --> 00:33:05.283 Right? 00:33:05.283 --> 00:33:08.133 Like, but you probably know somebody, so just go talk to them. 00:33:08.243 --> 00:33:10.403 People like talking about their problems. 00:33:10.553 --> 00:33:14.218 I think that's something that especially first time founders are really afraid of. 00:33:14.458 --> 00:33:17.218 They're afraid of getting, being rejected, being like, I have this great idea. 00:33:17.218 --> 00:33:19.378 I don't wanna talk to anyone because what if they say, say it's bad? 00:33:20.428 --> 00:33:24.238 And for me it's like, that's the best thing then I don't know how to waste my time building this thing anymore. 00:33:24.238 --> 00:33:24.568 Right. 00:33:24.988 --> 00:33:29.568 Because you know, it's so easy to burn out building something that no one uses. 00:33:29.808 --> 00:33:31.368 Like you can spend years and years and years. 00:33:31.848 --> 00:33:36.918 Building something and then you launch it and then you, it just crickets and then it just feels super bad. 00:33:37.458 --> 00:33:42.978 And then maybe your next idea is gonna be the billion dollar idea, but you're just so tired from working on 00:33:42.978 --> 00:33:44.988 something that no one used that you don't even try it out. 00:33:44.988 --> 00:33:45.348 Right. 00:33:45.678 --> 00:33:51.648 And so my advice to anyone kinda listening who wants to dip their toes in startup is just talk to people. 00:33:51.648 --> 00:33:52.308 Validate it. 00:33:52.668 --> 00:33:55.158 Get your idea in front of as many people as possible. 00:33:55.408 --> 00:33:56.308 No one's gonna steal it. 00:33:56.308 --> 00:33:58.528 In fact, they might give you ideas on how to make it better. 00:33:58.708 --> 00:33:59.098 Right. 00:33:59.098 --> 00:34:06.138 And honestly, being part of yc something like that I didn't realize before I joined was, you know, it's a filtering function for really 00:34:06.138 --> 00:34:09.728 great founders and we're, we are fully in person in San Francisco. 00:34:09.728 --> 00:34:11.438 There's a lot of other YC companies here too. 00:34:11.798 --> 00:34:18.128 There's a lot of events where we meet up and I think talking to other folks, they give us ideas that we're like, oh my God, this is gonna. 00:34:18.968 --> 00:34:19.808 I didn't think of this. 00:34:19.808 --> 00:34:25.598 This is like a easy thing, low hanging fruit that just unlocked like some like big win for us, right? 00:34:26.078 --> 00:34:32.683 And yeah, just sitting in your, in, in your room coating is not going to to help you. 00:34:32.688 --> 00:34:33.818 You do have to do that. 00:34:33.818 --> 00:34:37.028 A lot of coating, but you also had to get out there. 00:34:37.028 --> 00:34:37.418 Yeah. 00:34:37.658 --> 00:34:44.019 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, that's, I, I will pile on and add to that, that at some point it's not about coming up with good ideas, it's about being 00:34:44.024 --> 00:34:47.648 able to execute on them and identify the problem space that matters. 00:34:47.923 --> 00:34:54.083 And one thing that I wish, like I get a lot of folks who ask me questions about starting a company or they wanna talk about an idea they have. 00:34:54.333 --> 00:35:01.308 And I, I always wish I could talk to people like a year or two or three or four before they, they start with pursuing a business to, to 00:35:01.308 --> 00:35:07.398 plant a seed with, with you, whoever you are, wherever you are, that one of the most important things you can do is learn how to find. 00:35:07.458 --> 00:35:11.598 People find the network, find the problem space, get embedded in the conversation. 00:35:11.848 --> 00:35:19.438 And for a lot of developers who are maybe a little more introverted or you know, reticent to communicate openly online that creates a problem. 00:35:19.438 --> 00:35:22.528 If, if you woke up tomorrow and said, I wanna start a startup, and you have. 00:35:22.718 --> 00:35:24.548 No you know, no following on LinkedIn. 00:35:24.548 --> 00:35:28.418 You don't have a public GitHub, you don't have a website, you don't have anyone who you talk to about these things. 00:35:28.423 --> 00:35:30.578 You're starting at a massive disadvantage. 00:35:30.798 --> 00:35:35.388 So I'm not saying you need to go and be an influencer, like, I don't even think that's even remotely the answer, but I do 00:35:35.388 --> 00:35:38.478 think you should be able to participate in open source, right? 00:35:38.478 --> 00:35:45.058 You should be comfortable with jumping into GitHub conversations, looking to Reddit for answers, helping people out diving into things and, and learning. 00:35:45.158 --> 00:35:50.108 And you'll start to knock out the bad ideas just as well as meeting people who have really interesting, good ideas and. 00:35:50.178 --> 00:35:51.438 Don't have time to pursue 'em, you know? 00:35:52.213 --> 00:35:52.483 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah. 00:35:52.483 --> 00:35:59.923 I think just to add on to that one, if, if you're doing a startup because you were like, I wanna try a startup, may, maybe not the best reason. 00:36:00.013 --> 00:36:00.583 I think like 00:36:01.608 --> 00:36:01.998 Mike Bifulco: Yeah, yeah, 00:36:02.233 --> 00:36:10.213 Sandeep Dinesh: the, to your point of like being in these communities, like you probably wanna care about this problem enough that you're already there or like. 00:36:10.783 --> 00:36:15.253 You want to, you like, you naturally want to go and like help those folks. 00:36:15.363 --> 00:36:17.883 And then like the startup comes after, right? 00:36:17.883 --> 00:36:20.553 Where it's like, oh, I see there's a bunch of people to help. 00:36:20.558 --> 00:36:22.773 I can probably build a business to help these people. 00:36:23.673 --> 00:36:28.413 Then it kind of makes a lot more sense versus like, I'm gonna take this and shove it down their throats and make them buy for me. 00:36:28.713 --> 00:36:30.373 Maybe not the best way to do it. 00:36:31.228 --> 00:36:36.478 Mike Bifulco: For all but the most extreme outliers, your startup idea at best will take 10. 00:36:36.538 --> 00:36:37.183 10 years, right? 00:36:37.183 --> 00:36:40.143 You'll be working on a problem and it has to be something you can be interested in for that long. 00:36:40.903 --> 00:36:41.023 I. 00:36:41.248 --> 00:36:46.288 Odds are, it's probably already something you're interested in or at least related to a problem you've had that would, would make life better. 00:36:46.568 --> 00:36:50.608 Otherwise you're you know, punching from the back foot or whatever the phrase is there. 00:36:51.128 --> 00:36:54.518 Sandeep be, before I let you go, I want to hear a little bit about what's coming next for Meco. 00:36:54.518 --> 00:36:55.103 So what are you working on now? 00:36:56.168 --> 00:36:56.378 Sandeep Dinesh: Yeah. 00:36:56.378 --> 00:36:59.518 So we are relaunching our React documentation. 00:36:59.568 --> 00:37:01.218 So stay tuned for that one. 00:37:01.218 --> 00:37:02.148 We're pretty excited. 00:37:02.208 --> 00:37:02.538 We're. 00:37:03.633 --> 00:37:05.493 Always trying to improve our developer experience. 00:37:05.493 --> 00:37:06.423 So that's a big one. 00:37:06.493 --> 00:37:10.343 We have a few cool payment partnerships coming out too, so hopefully we'll be announcing that. 00:37:10.793 --> 00:37:13.403 But yeah, aside from that, you know, just come check it out. 00:37:13.463 --> 00:37:21.503 If you are at all interested in FinTech APIs developer experience send me a note on LinkedIn or Twitter. 00:37:21.533 --> 00:37:22.343 Happy to chat. 00:37:22.473 --> 00:37:24.693 However I can be helpful, I'm happy to help. 00:37:25.728 --> 00:37:26.448 Mike Bifulco: I appreciate that. 00:37:26.448 --> 00:37:31.278 I will make sure I put both your LinkedIn and your Twitter profile in the show notes here for folks to find you. 00:37:31.668 --> 00:37:33.983 And where's the best place to find Meco online? 00:37:34.668 --> 00:37:35.653 Sandeep Dinesh: Mea.com. 00:37:35.713 --> 00:37:38.263 This is a, it's, it's exactly how it sounds. 00:37:38.263 --> 00:37:39.583 It's spelled M-E-R-C-O-A. 00:37:39.633 --> 00:37:41.763 And then we do a lot of content on LinkedIn. 00:37:42.283 --> 00:37:44.198 So we're gonna start doubling down on that as well. 00:37:44.228 --> 00:37:47.498 So if you want any of our content, you can probably find it there. 00:37:47.868 --> 00:37:49.908 But yeah, our website is probably the best place. 00:37:50.568 --> 00:37:50.928 Mike Bifulco: Amazing. 00:37:50.928 --> 00:37:54.178 That will obviously also be in the show notes Sandeep Dinesh from mea. 00:37:54.628 --> 00:37:55.858 Thank you so much for chatting with me. 00:37:55.858 --> 00:37:56.758 I really appreciate it. 00:37:56.938 --> 00:37:59.668 It's been fantastic to learn from you and really cool to hear about your story. 00:37:59.698 --> 00:38:03.268 Feel free to join us anytime to give us updates on where things go between now and then. 00:38:04.033 --> 00:38:04.363 Sandeep Dinesh: Thank you. 00:38:04.363 --> 00:38:05.263 Yeah, Mike, this was great. 00:38:05.263 --> 00:38:08.263 I had a great time, so I really appreciate you having me on. 00:38:08.788 --> 00:38:09.208 Mike Bifulco: Of course. 00:38:09.208 --> 00:38:09.718 Take care. 00:38:10.243 --> 00:38:10.693 Sandeep Dinesh: Thanks.