Feb 12, 2020
About this nugget:
This nugget was pulled from episode 240 from an interview with Mark Beeston, Founder and managing partners at Illuminate Financial. This nugget is on reading the market and taking action.
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Market conditions often change in little ways, but sometimes there are massive shifts. Reading the market and building a business model that rides the wave of change is very hard to do. To do this, investors look for signals of change and use those signals as a baseline to benchmark. Humans are always looking for patterns, we do this starting as babies. But, when in the cusp of a massive market change signals and patterns can be confusing and misleading. Causing us to have incorrect or short-sighted predictions.
As we get older and wiser we start to ask why more often, asking yourself why 5 times to a single question, can lead to the root of the truth. Take a look at a particular market where the current tech stack's obsolete, yet, still functioning. Start with "why is that?" When you get to your third “why” you might ask “why are they still using it?” This is where it starts to get interesting.
The post-crisis financial market showed us that the technology supporting it was obsolete. But obsolete technology didn’t drive the change we're noticing today. Massive industry de-leveraging, multi-jurisdictional regulations and a transition into a zero tolerance compliance environment did. The nuances in that understanding will influence massive bets. There is a difference between investing in new technology that will replace old, compared to new technology that could be the tech stack of the new market.
What is a nugget of the week?:
The host John Siracusa has recorded over 280 episodes as the host of the Bank On It & Before the A fintech podcasts where he interviews founders building the future of fintech and the VCS/Angels who fund them.
With each interview there’s this wow moment when the person interviewed has shared something really special, unique or a reminder on how founders or investors should think. So, here we are delivering those moments to you in the form of a bite sized nugget.
About Mark Beeston:
He founded Illuminate after a 25+ year career in capital markets where he had been both the consumer of capital markets technologies as well as the entrepreneur, operator, and funder of capital markets businesses. Prior to founding Illuminate, Mark was the CEO for the Post Trade Risk and Information business at ICAP (now Nex) where he oversaw the creation of ICAP’s own investment subsidiary. Prior to ICAP Mark launched T-Zero (now ICELink) during his time at Creditex before the company was acquired by ICE in 2008. He started his career with 13 years at Deutsche Bank in derivatives trading and management, including periods as COO for both the Global Rates and Global Credit businesses.
About the host:
John, is the host of the ‘Bank On It’ podcast recorded onsite in Wall Street at OpenFin, and 'Before the A' podcast recorded onsite in Flat Iron at Barclays/Techstars Rise NYC. He’s a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He’s in the center of the fintech ecosystem, keeping current with the ever-innovating industry. Stay in the fintech know by subscribing to ‘Bank On It’, ‘Before the A’