Empowering Kids for Financial Success with Kiddie Kredit Founder Evan Leaphart
Evan Leaphart founded Kiddie Kredit, a mobile app that teaches children about finance and credit through gamified experiences and tangible rewards. In this podcast episode, he shares his insights on the importance of empowering kids with financial knowledge.
Here are three things we dive into:
1️⃣ Leaphart's journey as an entrepreneur and the challenges of navigating the complex world of fintech.
2️⃣ The importance of instilling positive financial habits in children.
3️⃣ Leaphart's advice for fintech founders emphasizes the need to surround oneself with advisors, mentors, and key hires with domain expertise.
Please tune in to hear more about Leaphart's journey and his shameless plugs for Kiddie Kredit and the Miami Black Men Talk Tech event.
Also, watch the entire episode on youtube.
Links:
Kiddie Kredit
Website: www.kiddiekredit.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kiddiekredit/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kiddiekredit/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kiddiekredit/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kiddiekredit
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZ6i9a8iQ51lXvAnI5d3q7g
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Time Stamps:
Entrepreneurship and the importance of focus [00:00:00]
Evan Leaphart discusses the importance of focus for entrepreneurs and the need to have great people around you to cover different aspects of your business.
Introduction to the podcast and guest [00:01:14]
The host introduces the Fintech Confidential podcast and welcomes Evan Leaphart, co-founder of Kitty Credit, to the show.
The mission of Kitty Credit and the importance of financial literacy for children [00:03:22]
Evan Leaphart discusses the mission of Kitty Credit, which is to build a financially free future for all, and the importance of teaching financial literacy to children at an early age.
Financial Literacy for Children [00:09:24]
Evan Leaphart discusses the development of Kitty Credit, a mobile app that provides financial literacy education for children.
Money Scripts [00:10:02]
Leaphart explains the concept of money scripts, including the four types and why vigilance is the most beneficial.
Importance of Responsibility in Personal Finance [00:15:07]
Leaphart shares his personal experience with financial responsibility and the importance of avoiding pitfalls to protect oneself and those around them.
Importance of succession planning [00:18:12]
Evan Leaphart shares his experience with the probate process and the importance of having a succession plan and life insurance.
Advice for fintech founders [00:19:42]
Leaphart advises fintech founders to stay the dumbest person in the room and surround themselves with advisors, mentors, and experts to help them learn and grow.
Working with MX [00:21:20]
Leaphart discusses his mission-driven approach to partnerships and how working with MX has been a natural alignment for his team's goals.
This is a Production of Diamond D3, Media
ABOUT:
Evan Leaphart: As the creator of Kiddie Kredit, Evan is serious about teaching children and their families to have honest conversations about credit. Kiddie Kredit is a mobile chore-tracking app designed to teach kids about the importance of financial literacy. He combines a passion for financial literacy and innovation with a commitment to solving real problems that help the community around him. Evan encourages youth to follow their dreams and pursue their passions - to create great careers rather than jobs that make every day feel like work. Evan is also the co-founder of Black Men Talk Tech, which is an entrepreneurship collective that promotes collaboration between Black men and other members of the tech ecosystem. Black Men Talk Tech’s mission is to create a cycle of access, insights, capital, and inclusion for Black men in tech. The company delivers social and economic impact, high quality, and substantive content. Evan’s had previous entrepreneurial ventures and is focused on sharing all of his knowledge about tech, finance, and entrepreneurship with the next generation.
Kiddie Kredit: Kiddie Kredit’s mission is to leverage technology to educate and empower future generations. Kiddie Kredit is driven to empower families through credit education. Healthy credit fuels power, freedom, and access. The app instills healthy credit habits by rewarding activity completion with a scoring system that simulates FICO.
Tedd Huff: President & Founder of Diamond D3, a professional services consulting firm focused on global payments and marketing. He is also a video podcast host and producer of Fintech Confidential and Head of Corporate Strategy at Corvia.
Over the past 24 years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for Global Payments OpenEdge, Heartland Payments, Nuvei, and TSYS, among others, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.
Diamond D3, Media: A media creation, management, and production company delivering engaging content globally
Transcript
as an entrepreneur, like you continually grow
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and you, evolve and you put a piece here and then you free up space to think.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Your greatest asset as an entrepreneur is the ability to think.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And if you have too many things going on, you're gonna dilute that ability.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And if you just have great people that cover the product aspect for you,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the sales, the marketing, whatever your business entails, if you have
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:great folks around you, it'll help.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:The most common cause of bad customer experience.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Isn't that high tech.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:It's embarrassingly simple.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Yep.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:It's answering questions.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:In e-commerce, it's really easy to get bogged down with common questions.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Whether that's, where's my package, how do I return or exchange this item,
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:or just to cancel a subscription?
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Solvpath is an AI-driven customer support system that enhances the
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:customer experience with visual formats and self-serve technology
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:to empower your customers to handle their own support requests.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Get the best customer support system for your business.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Get Solvpath.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Get started by visiting getsolvpath.com.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Welcome to FinTech Confidential, bringing you the people, tech and companies
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:that change how you pay and get paid.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Evan, thank you for joining us today on the show.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Thank you for having me.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:So I wanna do a quick overview of Kiddie Kredit
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:because I found it quite interesting.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:It's a mobile app that is a financial literacy tool for children, that
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:their parents work along the side with them to encourage them
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:for the good financial habits.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:And you are the serial entrepreneur.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:I, did, when I was doing the research, I was looking at 'em like, . So this
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:guy just keeps building and building.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:And not only do you build, but you're also a mentor to, to, kids, to startups,
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:a whole bunch of things in that area.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:And.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:You also are the co-founder, and I'm, gonna read this so I don't say it wrong,
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:of Black Men Talk Tech, which is an entrepreneurship collective that promotes
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:collaboration between black men and other members of the tech ecosystem.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Now, after reading all that, I sit here and I'm wondering like, okay, so with all
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:of the things, seeing all these startups, you're in Miami, so you get to see all
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:the really cool stuff coming around.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Why did you choose FinTech and how did you fall into deciding to, do
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:what you're doing with Kiddie Kredit?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:It was a natural evolution for me.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you talk about starting many businesses, this was the thing I always wanted to do.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and just falling into FinTech was something that I learned along
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the way, came from a problem, I had messed up credit at 18.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:What happened to me, I didn't wanna have happened to anybody else.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:so that was what led to starting Kiddie Kredit in the first place.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And then as you start to evolve and say, Hey, how can we more effectively
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:teach upon this mission and make sure that they're actually understanding it?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And in order to do that, we're talking about finance.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You have to really like, at some point integrate FinTech into what you're doing.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:so it's just, it's been a learning journey ever, since these past couple years.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:So what was that?
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:you, you mentioned at 18, not, not having the best credit, what was the motivation
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:to go even further down earlier into the cycle with children with Kiddie Kredit?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Because I realized the, first conversation a lot
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:of people have around money is too late.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you a lot of families, a lot of individuals, they don't understand how
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:important credit is until they're trying to do something for the first time.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You're trying to buy a home.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You're trying to buy a car, you're trying to apply for a loan to start a business,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and then they pull this, number and you realize how much weight it has on you.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And you're like, man, I, didn't even really understand this.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:when I started to, really dive into this topic, I saw that studies show that you
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:start to form your habits around money between the ages of seven and nine.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So even though we're making steps in the right direction now, like with mandatory
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:personal financials classes in high school, you still already have some habits
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:around the way that you use your money.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:They're already developed.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So I was like, how do we do this earlier in a way that it's effective?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and I just found the common denominator to change habits being around chores.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:How would you define.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:For the audience, how would you define the mission of Kiddie Kredit?
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:I touched on it, but,
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:I'd love for you in your own words, to really dive into what the mission is.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I would say our overarching statement is building
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:a financially free future for all.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:because we're starting at, at, kids.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:And that could be a tongue twister man.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:There's a lot of tongue twisters in this
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Kiddie Kredit and Black Men Talk.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:It's funny, you talk about Black Men Talk Tech sometimes I get
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:black men tech talk and stuff.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:we didn't expect it to be a tongue twister when we created it.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But, no, it's, it's, really about early childhood education around the
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:concepts of finance in particular credit.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:if, you understand it, efficiently, it's a tool.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But if you don't understand it at all, it can be a detriment to you.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like you can, set you back seven, 10 years depending on how bad it got.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Yeah.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:So
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:we look at all these different data points, that you're
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:leveraging and all that fun stuff.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:When you started the journey with Kiddie Kredit, what have you learned
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:about FinTech from when you originally had the idea to where it's at today?
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:What was like, what's the biggest learning you've had about FinTech?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And just how many components of finance there are.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:it's not just, to the, everyday consumer like me a couple years ago, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:It's like you, you have a bank account or you have a credit card.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And you spend or you earn.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like there's just very simple components.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You weren't thinking about like the transmission of the payments.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like where are like interchanges coming from and how are these things split?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And who's owning different parts of,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:this entire ecosystem and then how many compliance things you
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:have to, take into account for how many regulation pieces there are?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So it was just a lot to really, dive into.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And we really got our first kind of crash course in FinTech last year.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:We attended the, this is accelerator called Falls FinTech, which
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:was ran by, Central Payments.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Yeah, no, I, know that crew
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:very
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:well.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Good folks there.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:So recently
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:there's been a lot of talk about the tightening of lending and the slowing
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:of the economy, and even though I doubt you've got a hot tub time
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:machine or a crystal ball to look into, I'm assuming that you can see
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:there's some opportunities for Kiddie Kredit as all of this comes along.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Can.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Look ahead about five years and explain where you see Kiddie Kredit
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:really playing in the personal finance
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:space?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:so I've always seen what we're building with Kiddie Kredit is
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:phase one of our journey, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So we're where teens aren't gonna use something named Kiddie, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And then that was by design, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So we figure out how do we, what is the evolution of our products?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So we, have some things in our roadmap for that.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:but I would just say in terms of credit space as a whole, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:We're, not.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:We're not building this so that you instinctively un understand a
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:FICO or a Vantage score at nine.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:We're just trying to shape habits, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And, those habits are agnostic to wherever we go in credit, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You understand the missed chores like a missed payment.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:The longer you've had a chores, like the longer you've had a credit card.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:These are instilling positive habits that will hold true wherever
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:we go in, in the world of credit.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:With that perspective, how, is
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Kiddie Kredit positioned to lead in that financial literacy tool?
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Ecosystem?
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:in delivering these very, and I'm, not meaning to put words in your
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:mouth, but a very gamified experience?
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:How are you, how are you working to continue to lead in that space?
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:I,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:it's important that you, I'm glad you
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:used the word gamify, because that's important when you're talking about
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the demographic we're trying to reach.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you can't just, I, see there's attempts at financial literacy sometimes
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:where you just throw lessons in an eight year old or 11 year old's face.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And you have to, earn the right for them to even want to be able
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:to do that in the first place.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:so like our design is basically saying we're doing this
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:through chores first, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You earn these rewards, which are called Bamboo Bucks, but then now we've created
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:a tangible reward that this kid can attain and they go, I wanna get this faster.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I've done all my chores for the week.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:What can I do?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Now just just at that point, not before, we've now developed the opportunity
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:to teach you to say, okay, if you wanna earn access to your Bamboo Bucks
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:faster, you can learn about some stuff.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So we've developed over 200 hours of educational content that meets multiple
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:national financial literacy standards, and we segment it into different age groups.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So if you're between four to seven, our mascots are a panda, you're a cub, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And then if you're between eight and 12, you're a panda.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And then, as we start to think beyond in teens, be like a giant panda, et cetera.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But, making sure that, content is relevant to your age group.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:If you're trying to teach the same thing to a five year old as a nine
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:year old, you're gonna miss the mark.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Same thing if you're trying to teach same thing to an 11 year old and a 14 year old.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You gotta meet them where, they're at.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And you also have to create a desire for them to wanna learn in the first place.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:So
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:during your panel the other day, there was, a comment that was made that
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:was relatively new to me, and I don't know if you mentioned or somebody else
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:mentioned it, but it was something about money scripts and I'm curious and
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:if you would, just help me out here?
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:What are money scripts?
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:And which are the most detrimental and why?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So the money script side, there's, four of them.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the, author Brad, who really coined his terms said, think there's money avoidance.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:There's there's money worship, there's money vigilance, and forgive
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:me cause I forgot the fourth, but vigilance is the most healthy one.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:It's essentially saying you take your money seriously.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you're not, like avoidance is I'm not gonna have a con,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:conversation about this at all.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I just.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:It's, it's too stressful, it's too much.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and if you start to have a conversation with kids about money early, so
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:they see it as a tool and something that they can take seriously, you're
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:really setting them up for success.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like you, for me, as a kid, I grew up with a single mom.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:My mom was a flight attendant, so she worked many days outta the week.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So a lot of times I was fending for myself and I understood the
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:value of money because I saw how hard she worked to get it.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I still didn't make the greatest decisions though, but I understood the value of it.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And, so I was, the moment that I could do anything to earn extra
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:money, I would, I got excited for snow days for different reasons.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I wasn't like, oh, I can go out on a sled.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I was like, Take out a paper, take out a pen, write your name and number
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:on there, and put it on every single windshield in the parking lot and tell
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:people you shovel their snow for $20.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So that was like my, that was my thing.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I've always seen it as a tool, to help me get the things that I, want.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So I, I have strong wants.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So I think I just there's a money status.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:There's money status.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Those ones.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:This is money status and money worship.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:So I knew you'd grab it eventually.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Just gimme some time.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Jet lag, I'm usually on Florida time.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:but yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So that was, that's always been there, but I've, always understood the
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:importance of, earning money to get the
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:things that you want.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:So I want to, you, do, you
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:mentioned that vigilance.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Is it the most beneficial, healthy
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Out of the four, like the, the author coins
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:that to be the most healthy of the four.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:It's like you're saying, you're taking it, you, you, don't worship it.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you don't see, you don't define your self worth to money.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you, don't avoid it.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like you, you actually, you take it seriously and you say,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Hey, like we have money here.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:We have a hundred dollars, or we have a hundred thousand dollars
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:or a hundred million dollars.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Whatever the case may be.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I'd love to be the third.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and then you and then you figure out essentially like, how do I use this in a
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:way that's going to better me, like in the current state and then also in the future?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And then also depending on who else you're responsible for, how can you
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:also put them in positions to win?
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:The most common cause of bad customer experience,
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:isn't that high tech.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:It's embarrassingly simple.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Yep.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:It's answering questions.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:In e-commerce, it's really easy to get bogged down with common questions,
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:whether that's Where's my package, how do I return or exchange this item?
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Or just to cancel a subscription.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Solvpath is an AI driven customer support system that enhances the
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:customer experience with visual formats and self-serve technology.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:To empower your customers to handle their own support requests, get
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:the best customer support system for your business, get Solvpath.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Get started by visiting getsolvpath.com.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:So as you can imagine, most people don't start out in that vigilant state.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:How would you see someone flipping the script into being vigilant
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:versus one of the other three?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I would say the, unfortunate thing in most
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:cases, is it typically takes, an event that causes like a seismic shift.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like you had a car, was repossessed, you had a home, the home was foreclosed,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you were married, you went through a divorce, you had health complications.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:it, many different things happened to folks where it just, it sets you back
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:from what was your financial norm.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You, you have these moments where you, they don't happen all the time, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:It's, career things too, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You lose a job and you're like, man, I could use this moment to just go back
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:into something that I may not want to do.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Or I could use this to actually take control of the rest of my life.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And I think that same thing happens with your finances.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:so hopefully for most people, it doesn't have to be that.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But I, from what I've seen is there's typically some moment
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:that causes this drastic change in their financial behaviors.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:What was yours?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:that's a great question
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:because it's still changing.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:like I would say, it, it became a greater sense of responsibility.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:I'm, married now, I have a business that has, employees I'm responsible
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:for, and you just get older.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:So I, wouldn't say mine was, this seismic shift, but I, had
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:things happen in my twenties.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Like I, I had a, car that was repossessed.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:I, learned the hard way about things that happened to my credit and, those
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:things I would never let happen again.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:So I would, I would say it was just, you start to develop a sense of responsibility
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:of what you need to do, and make sure that you don't put yourself in the pitfalls
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:to, not only at this point endanger myself, but endanger those like around me.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Yeah.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:So you mentioned earlier a little bit of jet lag.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:We are here at, the Money, MX's Money Experience Summit 2022, we're at
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Snowbird here in Utah, which is freaking
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:gorgeous outside.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:It's amazing.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:By the way.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:What do you hope that the attendees from,
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:this event, and even more specifically to the panel that you were on around
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:changing money norms and, identifying biases, what, was your hoping that
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:they would take away from that
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:discussion?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:one.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Bias recognition.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the Savvy Documentary was amazing and it really just talks about like, how much
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:injustice women have went through when it comes to finance in this country.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like the fact that you had to have your husband as an authorized user up until
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the sixties or seventies is, insane.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:so that first.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And then, so like looking at it from a macro level, I think from a micro level
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and understanding how people internalize the conversation, just start having
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:a family conversation around money.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I, think one thing I, I was talking about for me, you have to think larger
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:about money and not just how about how it affects you individually,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:but like those around you.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:talking about wills and things of that nature.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:You've mentioned something, it was real.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:So you mentioned like life insurance while you're sitting out there.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Life insurance.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Super important.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Yeah, and it was interesting
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:because I even talked to my wife about this, so she's here helping.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:and, it was interesting because you made the comment of make sure you check
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:all the right boxes.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Kind of help us understand where, did that piece come from?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:it was a real moment for me.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:startup founder, our lives were crazy, but last year my dad fell ill.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And, he had a condition, it wasn't a condition that you
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:would, that would kill you per se.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But he ended up, out of the blue earlier this year, passing away.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And in my situation it was a little easier.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:He was not married.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:he had a fiancee, who was absolutely amazing.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:but I was the only child, so like that whole probate process was a lot easier.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But if you have siblings in different places, and then you know, you have
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:a, you're, technically like still married, you're not divorced, like
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:those things can get very choppy.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So if you don't have a, whole like, succession plan and will and, all
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:that, those things set up, you can make it very difficult for folks.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:it was difficult for me and it was, and, it was relatively easy in comparison.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:setting up life insurance, don't think just about the now, think about the
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:future and think about, removing yourself from the equation and saying, Hey, if
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I was no longer to be here tomorrow, what would continue without issue?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And what would abruptly stop without a true succession plan?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:so yeah, it was a big lesson I learned.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Oh, sorry to hear about
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:your loss.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:He was a great individual.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:We're coming towards the
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:end of our, time together.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:You and I could probably talk for a long time about all these different things.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:If you were to give FinTech founders that one piece of advice on how to build
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:a successful company, and I know you spent a lot of time mentoring startups.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:I'm I'm really curious to understand what would that one piece of
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:advice be, especially in FinTech?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Stay
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the dumbest person in the room.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:, Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Yeah.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:You want to give a little bit of extra
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:background to that?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:you know that's a reverse conversation
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:of the, Henry Ford quote of always hire people smarter than me.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But it's basically like you want to find advisors, you want to find mentors, you
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:wanna make key hires, key contractors, people that just have domain expertise
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and they're great at what they do.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So, as an entrepreneur, like you continually grow and you, evolve
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:and you put a piece here, and then you free up space to think.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like your, greatest asset as an entrepreneur is the ability to think.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And if you have too many things going on, you're gonna dilute that ability.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:And if you just have great people that cover the product aspect for you,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:the sales, the marketing development.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like compliance, whatever, your business entails.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:if you, have great folks around you it'll help your learning curve greatly.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Like it took me like two years cuz I was, I was a non-technical founder.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I was coming into the tech world with this just like small business mindset, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I had a cleaning business that I sold.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I was one of the original Airbnb hosts in Miami.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But like, all these things were very, mom and pop type of concepts, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So just even, like minuscule terms.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:When it came to fundraising, like I, I didn't know what a safe was, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:When it came to product development, I didn't know what an MVP was.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So I, learned these things and it's man, if I just had the right people
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:around me, like immediately, you're talking about instead of a 24 month
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:learning curve, that's something that you handle in two to four days.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Oh, yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:advisors, mentors, and just
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:keeping smart people around you.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:So with that being said, having smart
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:people and great partners with you, can you tell me what working with
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:MX has meant for you and your team?
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Yeah.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:I'm a mission type of guy.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:So like when I, when I relate to people or companies, right?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:I try to see some of the things that they were, they're working on.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:And I just liked MX's approach, not just towards like funds verification, but also
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:like just overall financial wellness.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:and the more I started to dive into the product and understand like how much
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:more robust we can make it for things that we have coming in the future,
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:you know, it was just a, it was a natural alignment.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:And you guys will have a very cool summit.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:So it's just this adding to the cake
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:. Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:to, to participate in it as well.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:when we've talked about so much stuff, gone all over the place, is there
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:anything that you wanted to make sure that
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:you were able to express or discuss that maybe I haven't covered today?
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:no.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:I, could do the, shameless plug things and tell you to download Kiddie Kredit or
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:if you're in Miami, go to Black Men Talk Tech October 20th and 21st of this year.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:But nah, man, this has been cool.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:No, we'll go ahead and put the links to
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Kiddie Kredit into the show notes and all of the descriptions and everything.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:We'll also get the link to the podcasts.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:I think you got two podcasts going, one for Kiddie Kredit,
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:one for Black Men Talk Tech.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:we'll get the links and everything pulled together for you.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:Man.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and, go through this.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:This is something that I wish I would've had, when my kids were little.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:They're not little anymore.
d Huff | Fintech Confidential:. But it also gives me a little sense that, I may have done a few things right.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:From our conversations, outside of this man.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:You definitely have, man.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:So kudos to you.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:I appreciate
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:it.
Tedd Huff | Fintech Confidential:
:Evan, thanks again man, and safe trip home.
Evan Leaphart | Kiddie Kredit:
:Thank you, man.
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