SXSW Startups: Novo
The Forrest Four-Cast: February 26, 2019
Fifty diverse startups will aim to impress a panel of judges and a live audience with their skills, creativity and innovation at SXSW Pitch Presented by Cyndx. Winners in 10 categories will be announced at the Pitch Award Ceremony at 6:30 pm Sunday, March 10, at the Hilton Austin.
A finalist in the Enterprise and Smart Data category, which will pitch at 12:30 pm Saturday, March 9, Novo is a banking platform that provides better business deposit accounts to today’s companies and is powered by a network of FDIC-insured community banks. Novo is bringing small business banking into the modern age with easy-to-use tools for founders on the go. They call it “business banking that doesn’t suck.”
Founder and CEO Michael Rangel answered some questions about his company.
What is your competitive advantage?
We built Novo with a very unconventional approach. We are not owned or operated by a bank, we are an agile tech company that has partnered up with an incredibly forward-thinking bank partner to bring small business banking into the future, with the mindset of building products by founders, for founders. We are able to align ourselves directly with what our customers want, iterate quickly, and launch product constantly to keep our users happy. Our product is driven by our customers so our competitive advantage is exactly that: our customers.
Tell us a little about how Novo integrates with other business tools.
We connect directly with services that entrepreneurs already use for their businesses, like payment processors for ecommerce websites. We are also creating direct integrations to their accounting tools, enabling them to send international payments, and allowing them to link their external bank accounts. With all of a customer’s financial information in one place, Novo will become a business’s financial watchtower, where founders can pull in everything they need to manage their business.
Novo is currently limited to U.S. clients. Do you expect the company to go international?
The banking system in the U.S. is by far the most complex banking arena in the world. You have thousands of institutions that are all vying for the same clients while offering almost identical products. Our thesis is: by proving the model here in the U.S., the most difficult banking ecosystem in the world, we will be prepared to expand to other locations across the world. As a first step in creating an international presence, we’re welcoming founders and owners of U.S. companies regardless of nationality! Not just U.S. citizens.
What is Novo focused on achieving in 2019?
This will be a year focused on growth, growth, growth, from both a customer acquisition and an operations perspective. We are determined to take over business banking in the U.S. by not only offering a great product but also unparalleled customer service. We have corralled a lot of the best partners on our side of the battlefield and are looking to pull ahead of the rest of the pack in 2019 by wowing our customers.
Has Novo been involved with other pitch events and tech conferences?We’ve been involved in many conferences in the startup world like TechCrunch Disrupt, the Forbes 30 under 30 Summit, and TechDay New York to industry conferences like Money 20/20, Finovate, and the American Banker’s Small Business Banking Conference. We’ve had the opportunity to see and learn from both worlds. We see the benefits of being an agile tech startup and the limitations of the financial systems, and we are bridging the gap between those two ecosystems.
Novo is based in New York City. Tell us about the startup ecosystem there.
Love it. Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the U.S. The connectivity to industry-leading businesses and people, especially in banking, is unparalleled. And, we calculated not too long ago, there are something like 300 startups within a four-block radius of our office! The only downside my cofounder, Tyler, and I have been living together in a shoebox for a few years but, hey, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger…right?
If your team members weren’t involved in building Novo, what would they be doing?
We are huge fans of hiring people that are way smarter than we are. Nothing makes me happier than being in a room full of our team and being the “dumbest” guy in the room. So, with that said, if they weren’t at Novo I imagine they would be out building amazing things or holding very prominent roles at companies that do.
What has the startup experience taught you about life?
Building a company is one of the hardest things one can ever do in life. I tell people all the time that if you are not willing to sacrifice everything while building your dream, relationships, friends, free time, fun…everything, you shouldn’t do it. Ever. There are way easier ways to make money. But, if you have the courage, persistence, and grit to make it to the other side, it is the most rewarding and fulfilling experience you will ever have.
Name three people, in any field, alive or dead, you’d like to meet and tell us why.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk
And…Elon Musk
He has made some insane leaps for mankind across multiple industries, but what most people don’t know about him was his foray into banking. Elon launched X.com, one of the world’s first online banks, before merging with Confinity, which later became PayPal. Not sure he ever realized that dream of becoming the predominant online bank, so would love to chat with him on how Novo will.
What’s one piece of advice you wish you’d had that you’d give to others wanting to join the startup journey?
People sometimes get confused that launching a startup is a romanticized idea of making massive wealth almost overnight. But if I had one thing to say I’d say: starting the journey is like someone telling you: Get ready for war but you’ve got to find your own weaponry, ammunition, allies, and food on your own.
Look for more interviews with other SXSW Pitch finalists in this space between now and March.
Click here to see all 50 finalists for SXSW Pitch 2019, along with the links to their interviews on Medium.
Also, if you are an entrepreneur, check out all the cool panels and presentations in the Entrepreneurship and Startups Track, which runs March 8–12 at SXSW.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
