Solving Payments for the Marginalized, with Kosta Scholiadis.

In the latest episode of Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar, Vice President of Sales at Tyfone, welcomed Kosta Scholiadis, CEO and Founder at Street Wallet. The episode centered around building sustainable businesses that do good while staying financially viable, especially in the context of financial inclusion for underserved communities.

Kosta shared how his entrepreneurial journey led him to focus on solving practical problems for people often overlooked by traditional banking, like street vendors in South Africa who struggle with cashless payments. He explained why the best solutions are often the simplest, as real barriers—like lack of smartphone access or complex onboarding—can prevent people from participating in digital economies. Kosta argued that true impact comes from balancing purpose with profit, and that sustainable businesses must prioritize both to keep helping others.

Throughout the conversation, Josh and Kosta drew parallels between community financial institutions in the United States and informal workers in emerging markets. Both face the challenge of staying profitable while serving people’s real needs. The discussion closed with insights on leadership, culture, and the importance of building teams rooted in shared values and long-term vision.

Transcript

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[00:01:56] Josh DeTar: Welcome to another episode of the Digital Banking Podcast.

[00:01:59] Josh DeTar: My guest today is Kosta Scholiadis, the CEO and founder of Street Wallet. Now, I think I've used this statement in the past, but had I known I would've saved the first use of this for my intro to Kosta. Now, before I make the statement though, I wanna also highlight that this is why I am such a huge fan of long form unscripted podcasts.

[00:02:26] Josh DeTar: When you hear the headline I'm gonna give you in a second, you will almost undoubtedly get an immediate and likely negative interpretation of what I'm about to say. Being able to talk through it though is what gives the much needed context to understand why it's actually such a beautiful statement. So the clickbait headline is, Kosta wants to make a bunch of money one day, but why do we need to unpack that?

[00:02:55] Josh DeTar: Well, now let me bring in the quote that I should have saved for introducing Kosta. It's a quote from a Jay-Z song, if you can believe it. How can I help the poor if I'm one of them? That's why I got Rich so I could give back to me. That's a win-win. Kosta has an absolutely fascinating life story and a really genuinely beautiful outlook on life.

[00:03:20] Josh DeTar: And the purpose that we as humans to do good for other humans in our planet is so why the statement about making money? Kosta is gonna help me talk through. The best way to help people and to make an impact is to build companies that do good, add value, solve problems, but that are sustainable at the same time.

[00:03:46] Josh DeTar: And that's the key. If the company isn't stable, profitable, run well, making money, it's hard to continue your mission of doing good. So this all comes back to that deep driving desire to get outta bed every day with the guiding light of leaving the world a better place. Kosta wants to build success, but for everyone around him, he wants to expand his tribe of people that he's had a positive impact on, and he wants to set an example for others to do the same.

[00:04:18] Josh DeTar: Today we're gonna dive deeper into some of these statements that I've made, and at the same time, look at how this mindset has cost a focus on solving problems in emerging markets, like how to help folks who don't have access to collecting money for services easier. So with that loaded set of statements,

[00:04:36] Josh DeTar: Kosta, welcome to the show, man.

[00:04:38] Josh DeTar: I'm excited to have you

[00:04:39] Kosta Scholiadis: Thanks so much for having me, Josh.

[00:04:41] Josh DeTar: and this is like, seriously, this is why I really, really love the long form podcast. Right? And, and I think you kind of so beautifully brought that up when we were talking kind of before we hit record about, you know, a lot of times, when you kind of have the quick 32nd interview and the soundbite gets pulled from it, it usually lacks a lot of the context.

[00:05:05] Josh DeTar: And so a lot of times it gets misinterpreted. And I thought it was really cool how, you know, as we were talking, we were talking about so many different directions that we were gonna go with this podcast. This was never one of 'em. And now it's where I wanna start with. 'cause I think it's a really interesting thought process and statement.

[00:05:23] Josh DeTar: And I actually think, especially for our listeners from, you know, community financial institutions here in the us. It's actually a really kind of, directly correlating type of conversation too about this idea that, hey, we, we want to do good. We wanna be community financial institutions. You know, credit unions are not-for-profit.

[00:05:44] Josh DeTar: But at the same time, if you're a failing business, you can't help anybody, right? So you have to be sustainable, you have to be profitable, you have to do all those things. and I just love that you were super transparent about, hey, the only way to really come across to genuine is to be transparent about it.

[00:06:00] Josh DeTar: And you're like, so, hey, yeah, I wanna make a million bucks, but I want that to come with because I've added so much value to the world and helped so many people that that just kind of came along with it. That's not the guiding light. The guiding light is not that I wanna make a bunch of money and be flashy about it, it's that I want to be so successful in helping people that there's a reward that came with that.

[00:06:24] Josh DeTar: And I thought that was really cool. So. First off, I wanna start with, one of the other things that I've always loved about this podcast is I get introduced to folks that I just, I probably never would've had an opportunity to talk to. So, while it may be 10:00 AM my time, it's 8:00 PM Kosta's time because, where are you right now that you're calling in from?

[00:06:43] Kosta Scholiadis: I am calling from Cape Town South Africa. Really beautiful time of the year.

[00:06:49] Josh DeTar: Yeah. So, so thanks for staying up late and hanging out with me. But, so Kosta, start us off with this. So help me kind of unpack this statement. So, when you, when you were talking about like, Hey, I, I really wanna be successful and I want to build a sustainable company that builds revenue, what is the kind of the, under the tip of the iceberg that you really meant to say in that statement?

[00:07:13] Kosta Scholiadis: really what it's about, if I can give context rather than just, you know, high level comment is I always wanted to build a company because I always knew that that was the way to wealth and, financial freedom. but as I grew a bit older, I saw that I liked helping people, genuinely just helping people and. There are so many businesses that are still to be started that can do exactly that, help people. And if you get, if you're really good at building a business, you should put it towards something that can help people. So you'll get the reward of the financial benefits, but you, you will make an impact in this world.

[00:07:57] Kosta Scholiadis: And I think what's, I think more people need to move in that direction. Help people do, do you know positive, positive businesses that can actually help their clients in need in whatever way, shape, or form that you're helping the market.

[00:08:13] Josh DeTar: Yeah. And I think, I mean, if you look at, I mean, there's examples on both sides of that, right? Like, you have companies that, that really were designed to, to just make money, right? at whatever cost you have. businesses that really set out to do some good that then become really successful businesses and they're still doing good.

[00:08:35] Josh DeTar: And so there is absolutely a path to your own financial freedom and independence while at the same time, like you said, doing a lot of good along the way. And I love that, you know, you kind of wanna bring that as an example. Like, hey, if you're a young kid and you're sitting there like I was once and saying, Hey, I, I, I really would like to have, you know, a financially successful and free life.

[00:09:02] Josh DeTar: How do I build that? You really wanna show kids that there's a path to doing that by doing good. You don't have to take a different path. Like you can take the path where it also has a lot of good, and you're still even on that journey yourself, right? Like you even said this is like what idea number seven for you or something?

[00:09:23] Kosta Scholiadis: Exactly. So, I've always had this entrepreneurial idea path where it's, well, how can I solve this? How can I solve this? Or, you know, ideas are, are everywhere, but, it's, yeah. Idea number seven, I think I've worked in sports tech. I've built a sports tech platform. I, I was, my first idea was a restaurant reservation platform similar to Top Table.

[00:09:44] Kosta Scholiadis: The idea was if top table's doing really well, can I replicate that in South Africa? as I, you know, saw the real opportunity with all these big tech platforms was to make the real money is platform business build a platform business. And, it's the, the beginning part of a platform business is the hardest.

[00:10:04] Kosta Scholiadis: once it's successful, it's very resilient. But the beginning is by far the hardest. And, but I wasn't thinking that, I was thinking build a platform business. That is the only way. And, then I started seeing, coming from, uh, the African context, I think I've shared with you Josh. I was born in the Congo and then at a young age around seven I moved to South Africa.

[00:10:24] Kosta Scholiadis: I've had this worldview, that is, there's a lot of real struggle in this world. Uh, economic struggle. When I was building a sports platform, it was young footballers. When you're seeing 17-year-old kids. At the, you know, grasping at opportunities and desperate, when I say desperate, like desperate to make it.

[00:10:46] Kosta Scholiadis: And you know, they come from nothing. And this is, if they make it, they get some financial comfort for their family, not even for themselves. you re, it hurts to see. and I was working in football as coach as well in a competitive academy. And, that was where I built that platform.

[00:11:02] Kosta Scholiadis: And, um, I struggled to monetize it. It never took off. because, you know, you've got kids needing money from their parents. It was very hard to monetize. I do still believe there's an opportunity there. I might come back to it one day, but, uh, a lot of that knowledge, uh, trans we're, we're transferable to, to street wallets, which is, you know, doing one more, even more good.

[00:11:25] Kosta Scholiadis: it's putting food on people's table. And, there's people out there that are struggling, the world's going digital, they're getting left behind. COVID exacerbated the problem of no one carrying cash. And all of a sudden, you know, the why not build a business that can actually help the marginalized the people that are, you know, struggling in this world.

[00:11:47] Kosta Scholiadis: And I really do believe that, So we, we need to look like, look, look at business that way. How can we help? I've been challenged many times that whether businesses and the capitalist world can actually do good the way society should. But I think from all angles we should be looking at, at helping society.

[00:12:08] Kosta Scholiadis: And, I'll tell you something, it does on those hard days. There's no entrepreneur out there. There's no one who's building a business that doesn't have a hard day and get up and question whether I should be doing something or not. In those days, I feel so responsible still to make sure I get this right because, I know that someone else, one of my clients is in more need than my little petty moment in my head that's struggling.

[00:12:33] Kosta Scholiadis: It really, uh, so I I, it keeps you going, keeps you resilient. And, I do believe that that helps. That helps on the difficult days.

[00:12:42] Josh DeTar: You know what's funny, dude? I was, uh, I was flying back, back home last night from Florida. I'm on this six hour flight and, uh, and even, you know, a side funny note, my wife text me at one point through the flight and she's like, is everything okay? I'm looking at flight tracker. I think your flight is fine, but I haven't heard from you in like three hours.

[00:13:02] Josh DeTar: And that's crazy rare because I know you immediately get on the flight and the second you get wifi, you get on your laptop and you work the whole flight. And I haven't heard from you, so you're not on your computer. So what's going on? Are you okay? And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for once, which I, I literally, for whatever reason, I never do, I was like, I'm actually talking to the person next to me.

[00:13:21] Josh DeTar: And Kosta, it was interesting. I ended up basically talking almost the whole six hour flight with this guy next to me. And I mean, it ex it ended in this like exchanging a phone numbers and like, we're gonna be friends from this like crazy whole set of circumstances. But what was interesting was, you know, we were talking about tons of different talk topics and things and obviously we were talking about, you know, what I do for work and I was talking about, that I serve community financial institutions and why I'm so incredibly passionate about it.

[00:13:48] Josh DeTar: And we were just talking about some of the different stories that people have himself included about how community financial institutions have had an impact in, you know, our personal lives or within our communities. And you think about it, right? Let's face it, we've no stranger to talking about this on this podcast.

[00:14:09] Josh DeTar: Like money is a huge part of our lives. It just is. We cannot remove that from society at this point. Like, and so people need financial means. And I love that you've used the word too. I kind of love that thought process of it. Like money doesn't necessarily equate to happiness, but it equates to freedom in today's society.

[00:14:30] Josh DeTar: And freedom is happiness. and so, you know, to be able to give people financial freedom, they need people that are in their corner. They need people that are supporting them, that are helping them, that care about their financial success. And when we think about, you know, the US banking ecosystem, the people that are in their corner are the credit unions and the community banks.

[00:14:51] Josh DeTar: And where I'm going with all of this is, I think there's a direct parallel to what you're talking about and what you're doing. By saying, Hey, look at these credit unions in community banks. And this is the statement that I was talking to this guy on the seat next to me on the flight back with, and he was like, just, it was so cool to see how an awesome agreement he was to it, even though he's not in my industry or any of this.

[00:15:11] Josh DeTar: And I said, do like, I genuinely fear for the US and our people and our communities if community financial institutions cease to exist. Like I genuinely fear for that and that's why I'm so passionate about helping this industry and it's because they are the ones that are doing the good, they're the ones that are helping people with that financial freedom.

[00:15:36] Josh DeTar: But to your exact comment, like if they keep going out of business because they don't have a sustainable business, then all of a sudden that gap is now gonna exist in our market where they no longer exist to help people. So it is this weird, like, and I, I especially have this conversation a lot with credit union folks, right?

[00:15:57] Josh DeTar: It is this weird, like, yeah, you're not for profit, but you gotta make a profit. You gotta stay in business. And so we've gotta make money. And, and that's kind of the, again, that's why I appreciate that you're just like, Hey, I'm gonna be totally honest. I'm gonna be really transparent about this. We gotta make some money.

[00:16:14] Josh DeTar: We gotta make some money so that we can use it to do good. And I think that's why I, I've been really excited to have you on the podcast is, you know, you're, you're doing some really interesting stuff that I want to talk about, but I think there's such a direct parallel to, um, how community financial institutions think and how you're thinking.

[00:16:34] Kosta Scholiadis: And I'll, I'll add something, Josh. I just wish more people that were wanting to do good in society were also financially driven. We need more people like that, honestly, because there's people there that are just wanting to make money. Right? And they're usually the ones that are spending at the worst in their own capacity there.

[00:16:53] Kosta Scholiadis: whether it's on the own own capacity or even as a business, they're not, you know, they're not thinking about how to improve society. They're thinking about the bottom line. And I think you have to think of both. How do you improve society? How do you improve your bottom line? And yeah, sure. How do you spoil yourself in the process?

[00:17:08] Kosta Scholiadis: And, there's a, you know, there's a way to, to get a balance and, yeah. If anything from your podcast, I hope more people can hear that. if you are, you know, you have a genuine heart about helping people do it in a sustainable way. Help, help by building a business and, improve a lot of people's lives.

[00:17:25] Kosta Scholiadis: Yeah.

[00:17:25] Josh DeTar: Lot I wish I had more like direct examples to draw on, but I know there's tons of examples. You hear all of these founders stories where you know, you, you look at 'em and you're like, Hey, by all conventional, societal. metrics, they're super successful. They have the big house, the nice car, they have the good bank account, like they go on fancy vacations and all of this, but you talk to 'em and you learn about their story and you're like, oh my gosh.

[00:17:52] Josh DeTar: Like you, you started from a place of just wanting to do something really good and now that has grown and you're doing so much good. And they're like, yeah, I mean, this just kind of came with the doing good, but I never set out with this to be, you know, the primary driver. And now I'm, you know, you can always see the passion in them, and I see it in you.

[00:18:14] Josh DeTar: Right? And this is why I'm one of those people. I'm like, I think it's gonna be cool when I'm gonna, you know, see Kosta 10 years from now, and he's gonna be like, dude, I made it like I did some really cool stuff and check it out. You know, because those people, those motivations, I think they're deeper, right?

[00:18:29] Josh DeTar: And they help you through the resiliency more like, like what you were saying, right? If it was just. If I need to wake up today and get outta bed so I can make another buck, that's only so motivating. But if you're like, dude, I gotta wake up and I gotta get outta bed because there's somebody that needs me.

[00:18:46] Josh DeTar: And, and that's kind of a, a, a humbling cool. What I'm doing is helping somebody and they need that. And so there's a great privilege and an honor to be building a business that helps people through that.

[00:18:58] Kosta Scholiadis: Josh, I'm gonna just add some caveat here. It's easier said than done. And, uh, when you're raising funds and you're on a runway and investors on eating results. You, you start questioning a lot and you start, you know. Thinking, you know, how, how, what proportion should do good and what proportion should just make you the quick buck.

[00:19:21] Kosta Scholiadis: There is a balancing act and you do need to keep manage that. You need to manage, uh, how to reach milestones. You need to manage how to spend your money. you need to manage, you know, what projects to take on. So you might have a really cool idea to help, uh, an area in your business, but you, you have to put a pause on it because it's not gonna get, it doesn't help if your doors shut because you, couldn't, keep it sustainable.

[00:19:47] Kosta Scholiadis: So there's this, there is a balancing act and I there needs to be, a combination, you know, next to me in how I express myself. I need a partner in the business that. That it keeps very logical and stays very, uh, grounded. And I do, fortunately I do. and, I work with my partner Stephen Britto, he's grown through this, the stages of all tech companies.

[00:20:10] Kosta Scholiadis: And, we have a really good balance. So it's really important to find a good balance on, grounded, financial knowledge and, building a business financially, but then also maintaining that vision and, and having a backbone to stick to your vision. Because when you have that, people do follow the story they do, and it makes it easier to market, it makes it easier for investors to jump on board.

[00:20:32] Kosta Scholiadis: so it's really important to, to, to keep your backbone and your vision while having that grounded side to you. Yeah.

[00:20:39] Josh DeTar: You know, it's funny, I want to call out too, when, creating the introduction to Kosta as a guest today, and, and we were going over it and I, I told him I wanted to use that Jay-Z line. He was like. Yeah, I just wanna make sure, like, I haven't made it yet. I'm not rich. And you were like, this is a journey.

[00:20:57] Josh DeTar: And I I, and I think it's important for hear people to hear that part too, right? Like there's, there's joy in the journey and it's not just about the destination and you're like, I'm on this journey. But it's this combination of building a successful, sustainable company that, you know, creates financial freedom for myself, for my employees.

[00:21:21] Josh DeTar: I mean, you really talked a lot about highlighting your, the people around you, your tribe, right? And making them successful. But at the same time, like using that guiding light of we're, we're gonna think about creating businesses and products and services that do more than just our a, a fidget spinner that sells a bunch of widgets and, and yeah.

[00:21:43] Josh DeTar: Makes whoever came up with it, a bunch of money. but what it really add to society. I don't know if fidget spinners are a, a good example, maybe that did add a lot to society and it helps with people from fidgeting. I don't know, but you get where I'm going with this, you know, it's like, yeah. It's how can we do something that, that genuinely is having an impact?

[00:22:02] Josh DeTar: And so I want to actually kind of shift to talk a little bit about, you know, uh, hopefully people who have, you know, listened to our podcast, and more than one episode know, I, I really, really, really genuinely care about this podcast. Not just being a sales pitch and just being people on to talk about their product and why you should buy it.

[00:22:22] Josh DeTar: And, but I think that there's a really cool story behind the problem statement that you're trying to solve, Kosta, that kind of lends it to, we kind of have to talk a little bit about your company and what you're doing. So, you know, bear with us folks, but I promise this is not a sales pitch of Kosta's product.

[00:22:42] Josh DeTar: But there's kind of no other way to talk about it. so I, talk to me a little bit about how you got to this place and, and maybe even go back a little bit. Like you were saying, you know, you've gotten a, done a couple of different things and they were always with these specific problems, statements in mind of saying, Hey, I, I see a group of underserviced marginalized people that really need some help, and I know that I could have a huge impact in their lives if I could help give them some additional freedom in some way.

[00:23:11] Josh DeTar: That's kind of seems to be the common denominator across all these different things that you've started. But how did that lead to the current problem that you saw and how you're trying to address it?

[00:23:24] Kosta Scholiadis: So I have to go back one, one or two businesses to, to tell you where it got to. Street wallet.

[00:23:31] Kosta Scholiadis: I was in football coaching, soccer, coaching, and, while I was coaching, I, I, I wanted to take two paths. I wanted to be a ProCoach, and then I, at the same time, didn't take me long before the bug bit and I saw an opportunity in the tech platform.

[00:23:45] Kosta Scholiadis: I realized very fast that I would love to do both. If I could be two different people, I'd do both. but, I was helping footballers get coached the way I never got coached. And, again, same, same idea. Help players make it and at the same time win a few trophies. For myself as a coach, I was looking to actually go to the States and go work in the MLS.

[00:24:05] Kosta Scholiadis: It would've been great timing, actually, of like seven years ago, because now with the World Cup coming, I would've had a, I think it would've been the right time. and then,

[00:24:14] Josh DeTar: Hindsight 2020.

[00:24:16] Kosta Scholiadis: yeah, and those players that are, built a tech sport. It was called Sport Net and it was a platform to help young, ambitious footballers.

[00:24:25] Kosta Scholiadis: Get opportunities, at scale. And what I learned was, yeah, I had to rethink on how to use tech. I can't just push an app because the, some of these kids don't have data freely. in South Africa, data's expensive. it's not, you know, a lot of people aren't prepaid. They don't, they don't have all have contracts.

[00:24:45] Kosta Scholiadis: It's not just, you know, readily available data. You don't have coffee shops at every corner to, to, at least in areas where a lot of, the majority of our, our South Africans are with, with, with data wifi available. So. I had to rethink on how to use technology and it really forced me from coming up with cool product.

[00:25:06] Kosta Scholiadis: I did, I did the mistakes build, feature pushing anyone who started a business, you know, a first time founder when when they feature push, they think that that's gonna solve the problem. but you have to start thinking what is the customer actually want? And they want opportunities. They don't want your, your app, they want an opportunity.

[00:25:25] Kosta Scholiadis: So then it was, well, how do they get that opportunity? So, that COVID actually stopped my coaching career. I was coaching semi-pro and I had to make hard decisions. Am I gonna go tech route or am I gonna go sports coaching route? And, the season stopped and I had done something in e-gaming.

[00:25:46] Kosta Scholiadis: I was having some fun online, what do you call it? Everyone was playing video games. You know, Call of Duty, all of these games, fifa. And, I built something there and then an opportunity came where it was, I, everyone in South Africa at least has thought of this. How can I pay the street, uh, car guard?

[00:26:05] Kosta Scholiadis: Now, if you haven't traveled to South Africa, I'll give some context. there's a lot of people that self, self create jobs. So you go park your car down the road and it might not be a formal parking, and there'll be some guy standing there who threw on a bib, like think of a construction bib, put on a bib, and stood there and he's telling you, I'm gonna look after your car.

[00:26:24] Kosta Scholiadis: And you just accept the fact that this guy's gonna look after your car. He just self-created the job. They're everywhere in South Africa. And, You come back to your car and, just Bob, you, the guy will have looked off your car. There could have been someone who came to, you know, mess around in the area and he will shoo them away.

[00:26:41] Kosta Scholiadis: So it's quite, it's become part of the culture of South Africa. And, you often will give a tip, you'll take some cash out, you'll give a tip. And far too often in South Africa, people go, I, I don't have cash. In COVID exacerbated that problem. No one carries cash. very few people.

[00:26:57] Kosta Scholiadis: And so everyone's thought, how do you solve this problem? How can you use it? There's a company called SnapScan. There's, Zapper, there's a few companies that do QR code scanning, but these guys only like 5% maybe have it. They don't all have it. And then the tourists don't dunno what that app is. You, you probably have never heard of it.

[00:27:13] Kosta Scholiadis: So it's, there's just, it's de fragmented. And so these guys are losing out on income and since COVID, they've lost, I think some of them, 50% of the income's gone from, because no one carries cash. So it, I went down this journey of I can solve this and I'll tell you what. Those old guys in the banks, that was my little arrogant thinking was those old guys in the banks don't know how to solve this.

[00:27:39] Kosta Scholiadis: Right. It was, it started with that and it was, I have this knowledge from the sports ecosystem. I can directly transfer what I learned in the tech space and apply it to something even more meaningful, which is helping people earn a crux money, money that's gonna help them really get a decent income in their life.

[00:28:00] Kosta Scholiadis: And, yeah, and that's, how I got to Street Wallet to solve that problem,

[00:28:03] Josh DeTar: so, okay. I, I want to expand more on, on the problem though, so, and, because what I think is fascinating, the first time I talked to you,

[00:28:12] Josh DeTar: you were walking around New York and seeing just how many street vendors there were that were taking cash and, and different like, similarities between the South African kind of street vendor culture and what you saw in New York. And, and even you think about somewhere as you know.

[00:28:27] Josh DeTar: Quote unquote, like, put together and has all these different systems as the US there's still some challenges and struggles, and I think you found that pretty interesting to see, but it's compounded pretty significantly in South Africa. And you were talking about the challenge of, even like in the US I mean, our smartphone penetration is super high, right?

[00:28:50] Josh DeTar: Most of us have a smartphone. Most of us have at least some level of access to data, good wifi, internet, the ability to have a camera that can scan a QR code and different things like that. But you were talking about how, you know, in South Africa, that's actually a pretty big luxury for a large percentage of the population.

[00:29:10] Josh DeTar: So that creates a whole nother set of challenges, right?

[00:29:13] Kosta Scholiadis: Yeah, so I mean, the US context, I don't have Venmo. I don't use Venmo. It's not in my world, and so sure, I've got PayPal for online payments, but I, I don't have Venmo, so, so if someone shows me Venmo, I can't pay them. So there was, I did the. I did notice that. And the other option is a car device, right? The traditional car device is, is, is an option.

[00:29:34] Kosta Scholiadis: it's a really quick solution, but it costs money. It costs a lot of money. And in, in South Africa, spending $40 on a device is, is you need data for that device. It needs to connect to your phone, it needs to be charged. It, you know, you're out all day. There's a lot of mobile traders as well. So now you've gotta hang this thing in your pocket.

[00:29:54] Kosta Scholiadis: there's a lot of issues to it. you need to get KY feed, you know, you know you need to, they're gonna onboard you. And the more complex the onboarding is, which is usually the case with financial institutions, is more, less likely that someone's gonna bother. And in three days to deliver your device, by that time, a lot of these, informal workers, you, you've lost them.

[00:30:15] Kosta Scholiadis: They're not gonna sign up. So then what ends up happening, they stick to cash and, and. Many are really good, like really on top of it. They, they, they should be running bigger businesses. They're doing really well, but a lot of the guys are just, they, they don't have financial education, in the market.

[00:30:33] Kosta Scholiadis: Just building this business, by the way, I was navigating like, it was like I was in a forest looking for something and it's just difficult, putting together a street wallet, you know, which bank do I go to? What are the compliance? Now you are asking people, the layman person to try and figure out what the best option is for them.

[00:30:53] Kosta Scholiadis: It is not easy. So when, and, and not to say people can't solve these problems, but when their core focus is to solve something, sell a product, and that's what they're good at. To get them to also navigate finding the best solution for themselves, just to receive payments is not easy. So I think you've got this problem where,

[00:31:11] Kosta Scholiadis: you've got these solutions, really good solutions like Venmo on, Venmo's a really good solution, but to get access to Venmo is the problem, for the transaction to happen successfully. So what I've, you know, it's about trying to solve the, those problems, not just the product, not just the tech.

[00:31:30] Kosta Scholiadis: It's about solving access to the tech. and even more so in the African context because, not so much, the penetration of smartphones is very high, in fact higher than you'd expect. There's more smartphones in the market than population. And that's because it almost skipped the, the, the laptop world.

[00:31:50] Kosta Scholiadis: People have a smartphone before they have a laptop, but data access is, is more difficult. and that's a big, big hindrance too. It's an interesting world out in, out where I'm.

[00:32:05] Josh DeTar: So, one thing I want to kind of park and maybe come back to is, that's one of the things that I find interesting is you were talking about, you know, these, these street vendors are actually really, really good at what they're doing. They're really, really inventive and creative at coming up with solutions for generating an income.

[00:32:22] Josh DeTar: They should be doing more, but then they're just not financially savvy. And what's crazy is, is that that is again, a very real parallel to even, you know, we talk about how you'll get somebody who's a physician here in the US makes five or $600,000 a year relatively early in their career, but at the same time they're trying to pay back massive student loan debts for becoming a physician.

[00:32:47] Josh DeTar: And all of a sudden they're getting these big paychecks they have, and they're horrible with their money and. you look at 'em and you're like, dude, you're so smart. You became a doctor. Like you did med school. I did not do med school 'cause I was too dumb. Right. You did that, but like, you can't balance your checkbook really.

[00:33:07] Josh DeTar: You know what I mean? And it's just, it's because that's not your specialty, that's not your area of focus. That's not where you put your mental energy to. And so, you know, you see that across the entire wide spectrum. Like, and money is even so incredibly emotional that sometimes the emotional side of it detaches people from wanting to interact with it and things.

[00:33:29] Josh DeTar: And that creates its own set of problems. But like you're saying, I mean, these guys are super successful at what they're doing, but you know, you put two or three roadblocks in front of 'em for being able to capture a payment in another way than cash. And they're like, ah, nope, I'm out too much.

[00:33:47] Kosta Scholiadis: It, it is exactly that. And, just by the way, yeah. if the last 10 years have shown us, intelligence doesn't mean intelligence in this world that we live in, it's where your interest lies more than anything. If you're, I followed early on in my, journey, I read Richard Branson's book, Virgin.

[00:34:07] Kosta Scholiadis: We started Virgin and, made, he was an, a serial entrepreneur from a young age, and he, He talks about, finding, I've gone blank Josh, as I'm telling you the story and you gotta gimme a second.

[00:34:22] Josh DeTar: yeah. No, you're good. No, I mean, you were talking about how, Richard Branson, and you were talking about, the difference in, you know, being super intelligent in one area, but not

[00:34:34] Kosta Scholiadis: You got me back. You got me back. So, so,

[00:34:36] Josh DeTar: Okay. All right.

[00:34:37] Kosta Scholiadis: yeah. so Richard, Richard Branson, yeah. Will block. I was thinking too much of the story. Richard Branson didn't actually have a, he didn't consider himself smart when he was at, in school. And he, he actually explains how in science, he couldn't give a damn about what he was, what he was learning.

[00:34:56] Kosta Scholiadis: And, When he built Virgin Airlines, he suddenly learned about biofuels, and he got so interested in biofuels, and it got, it, got him learning. He was suddenly knew, knew everything about biofuels for his, for his airplanes. And it just shows you that where your interest lies and where your focus is, is where you will, you will, learn more and build more.

[00:35:21] Kosta Scholiadis: if your focus isn't on an area, I, I guess I'm, you know, we we're pivoting a little bit, but in, in a broader sense, just where your interest lies and where your focus is, where you're going to, expand and grow. And, in my world with who I'm working with, you're trying to alleviate a problem where their focus isn't.

[00:35:38] Kosta Scholiadis: but, I encourage people to be in the learning mindset because, the more interested you are in, in everything around you, the more you'll learn and grow in those areas. And that's probably why you've got such a smart physician who doesn't manage, money well, because, because they're, uh, focused on their career, not, not necessarily on financial savviness.

[00:36:00] Kosta Scholiadis: That, that's kind of something I I really learned from Richard Bran's journey, when I read his book. Yeah.

[00:36:07] Josh DeTar: Well, and that kind of brings us to one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is, you know, you were saying, okay, so let's go back to, you know, the problem statement and then how you were having to think about solving this, given the unique challenges there in South Africa. Right. You were saying that a part of this is like a lot of times as, as builders, as innovators, we think, oh, I've gotta build the biggest, sexiest, coolest solution that's got all the bells and whistles and flashy, and you were like, I actually have to build like the dumbest, stupidest, simplest thing on planet earth because every single barrier is another barrier to actually getting, you know, getting to the point of helping the person the way that I set out to do and solve the problem statement.

[00:36:52] Josh DeTar: Right? So for you, you almost had to think about it like, how can we actually make the simplest product possible?

[00:37:00] Kosta Scholiadis: It's, uh, very true. my notifications, Josh on my system are SMSs because that means no data. So, and I think in the US when you receive an SMS, both parties pay the payer and, the sender and the receiver. In South Africa only the sender pays. So we take the onus of the SMS going out and they, they don't need data.

[00:37:22] Kosta Scholiadis: one of the biggest fintechs in Africa is called Pesa. And, uh, read into it, it's in Kenya and um, they, the bank behind it is a service provider, a mobile service provider. And U they use USSD to send money. USSD is basically going star 1, 2, 1. And then, you know, it opens up that thing on your, phone.

[00:37:44] Kosta Scholiadis: You know, before when we had Nokia phones, you used code messaging. That's how they send money. And it's a whole bank because building an app that, that is gonna lack penetration in the market. So what does your audience need now In South Africa it's quite dichotomized, similar to Brazil, it's, you've got this like super wealthy pocket of people that are driving the economy.

[00:38:08] Kosta Scholiadis: That's super sophisticated in many ways. There are areas in South Africa's banking ecosystem that's actually better than Europeans in us. And then you've got this other world that is just not as sophisticated. so you're trying to build this thing that is simplistic for this user, also users, smartphone and app world.

[00:38:31] Kosta Scholiadis: And Apple pays for the payers. And, yeah, and it, it leads to how do you bridge that? How do you bridge the financial inclusion divide? And it comes down to, one word I can use is interoperability. So how do you create a fun a, a FinTech ecosystem that's interoperable because you have a society that is building, well, everyone builds a FinTech and creates a closed loop.

[00:38:58] Kosta Scholiadis: Venmo's a closed loop, as an example, you both need to have Venmo to make a payment. that, that makes it very hard. It makes it exclusive. so I go to the States, I can't pay with Venmo, so you've just lost the sale. so the, the whole thinking was how do you strip, strip, tech as far as you can, and then how do you make it as inclusive through interoperability.

[00:39:22] Josh DeTar: what do you think, you know, the next couple of years holds? So as. As technology evolves in South Africa as the financial system evolves in South Africa, how do you see this problem changing, staying the same? How do you think about, you know, what is, what does that street vendor look like today, but what does that street vendor look like years from now?

[00:39:49] Josh DeTar: And how are we thinking about, hey, we've got to, what we're again, what we're going back to the problem statement of we're trying to solve for, you know, just the way this country operates now and probably for the foreseeable future is a lot of people have to create their own jobs and their own income and their own living, especially within a certain pocket of the society, which encompasses a large percentage of them.

[00:40:14] Josh DeTar: How do we create a way for them to actually monetize the things that they're doing? Capture that and use it to create freedom through housing, through food, through sustaining their families. So how do you see that evolving

[00:40:29] Kosta Scholiadis: there I have a broader vision on Street Wallet that is, is past South Africa's borders, I think. Definitely starting in emerging markets. sure there are some use cases in, emerged markets, what the term is for it. but the world of street payments is step one. And, how do you get money into people's hands?

[00:40:52] Kosta Scholiadis: Then there is the word wallet, street wallet, which is holding the funds and using those funds in that process of paying people. There's also street data, both the data that's collected from the payments as well as data that through engagement from the payers. So we've got an opportunity to actually collect information direct from consumers that can get passed on to businesses.

[00:41:16] Kosta Scholiadis: And, so this world becomes. Street payments, street walling, street, data, street hiring. Now you've got a database of people on the ground who are conscientious, that are hardworking people, and, you can get them employment, because of that. So there's a world where you can uplift. there's remittance, you know, moving money across borders, A lot of foreigners, a lot of immigrants around the world that are, you know, living abroad, you know, sending money back home.

[00:41:42] Kosta Scholiadis: So it becomes this ecosystem where we don't have to do everything. We don't have to do the heavy lifting on everything. You can leverage entities to, to get the banking licenses. You can leverage entities to do the processing of the payments like a Venmo. you can leverage companies to help you with the data.

[00:41:59] Kosta Scholiadis: Now, with ai, data analytics is improving so fast. Remittance companies, hiring companies, you can start talking to NGOs and plugging in and connecting opportunities. That's where I believe Street Wallet will become Street Group. And, I do believe that this can be a big impact across many countries, uh, not just for the use case that, you know, we started talking about.

[00:42:23] Kosta Scholiadis: And I think the thinking behind it, you know, I hope, I'm not sounding sales bitchy here, but the thinking behind it is really just broader solving a real problem, which is, how do you help the marginalized society of the world? And I say marginalized loosely, it's a lot of very sophisticated tradesmen, but how do you help this, this lower income, bracket?

[00:42:47] Kosta Scholiadis: To become higher income. How do you help, potentially alleviate poverty? So we've even been thinking of ideas of solving the poverty problem in a way that's sustainable. How do you get people from being low income to, you know, high income and actually getting into like really sophisticated, uh, careers that that's, that's the broader vision starts off with just the foundation of a few payments that can then be solved by plugging in the right partners and creating an ecosystem that, that uplifts people.

[00:43:18] Josh DeTar: Yeah. You know, I mean, I think this comes back to, this is one of the reasons why I got really excited to chat with you is it, this really fascinates me personally and you know, again, because being in the us like we, we like to think of ourselves as pretty sophisticated. Pretty, yeah, I'll steal your tur emerged.

[00:43:34] Josh DeTar: I don't know, like we've kind of made it to some degree, like we're, we're pretty tech forward. We've got Silicon Valley, all of these things. We have a long established financial services. ecosystem, we've got tons of different ways that you can move money. but what's crazy to me is how many times I still see people struggling, struggling to be able to accept and use the money that they earn in the different ways that they earn it.

[00:44:07] Josh DeTar: And even in the US we still see heavily, or I guess largely populated pockets of people that are under or unbanked completely, right? That are still using things like check caching services to get cash to then have to go use cash to make payments for things, right? And you're like, man, there's, there's so many different opportunities for these people to not have to do it that way for this to be way, way easier.

[00:44:35] Josh DeTar: But why aren't they? Is the question, what is the barrier for them? And if we were to somehow remove that. Year. And if we were to somehow make it easier for them to access, you know, their earned wages and use those across all of these different, you know, places and ways that people move and solve money, then I, I totally agree with you.

[00:44:59] Josh DeTar: Like, I genuinely think just doing that alone, we'd actually be amazed at how much we would uplift that group of people into helping them towards financial freedom. And, and that's just the us right? And then to your point, let's start layering on. Let's face it like this is a, a global world. We are humans that move and we travel and we go to new places and we look for new opportunities in those different places.

[00:45:26] Josh DeTar: And you know, we have ties all over this world now. And so how many people are connected to other humans in other parts of the world in totally different banking systems with totally different forms of currency. And then how do you allow them to move that currency around to share and uplift their tribe, their nucleus family?

[00:45:50] Josh DeTar: But then if you can make it easier, how can you expand that nucleus family, that tribe and help more people? I know this sounds like really pie in the sky, kumbaya. It also sounds really easy to solve, but clearly it hasn't been because we're still here. Right? So I think there's, to your point, this goes back to the very Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[00:46:11] Josh DeTar: Go ahead.

[00:46:12] Kosta Scholiadis: I was, I was gonna say, there's something you're talking about that is for me, quite clear, is money and trust don't, don't often go together for most people. you know people don't, aren't even comfortable talking about money, to their friends. let alone trusting a bank to handle their money.

[00:46:31] Kosta Scholiadis: And you've got this world where, ha it has, you know, you, you sign up to a bank, you, before you know it, this is debit orders going off because you signed up to something and you didn't even realize that's happening a lot in South Africa. A lot of payments go off people's accounts 'cause they signed up to some.

[00:46:46] Kosta Scholiadis: clothing, account that they've paid for. And it's like taking off whatever amount it's taking off. And so people often don't want their money to go in their account because payments are gonna go off that they didn't even sign up to. They don't know how to turn them off. They don't know how to unsubscribe.

[00:47:02] Kosta Scholiadis: And so trust and financial institutions are lacking in many ecosystems. And I think the way you solve that is by building trust. Usually the, you know, how do you build trust then is the next question. And it comes to communicating. It's don't be a big bank, don't just be a big bank that talks to people or some big entity, even Venmo, which is a really amazing product.

[00:47:29] Kosta Scholiadis: And we're talking about Venmo a lot. PayPal. I've used PayPal a lot. it's never done anything for me. It means nothing to me, PayPal. It's just a product that I've used. I've got no brand association to PayPal. It's just this thing that you use right now when it's, when there's no brand attachment to something, you, you, one little issue that you've faced will lose trust.

[00:47:51] Kosta Scholiadis: And when people don't have a lot of money, they're even more careful then. So what tends to happen is you just stay away from that and that that PayPal thing doesn't work you. Right? That's what happens. People just stay away, to their own detriment. so what I've noticed is that, you know, there needs to be communication in a way that, that, that does things different.

[00:48:12] Kosta Scholiadis: I think you don't need to come up with any cool tech to solve these problems. You need to come up with genuine communication. So I think I was telling you, earlier that there's this thing called an a RC triangle. it's a RC. So in order to get affinity. Towards someone. You gotta communicate and share the same reality.

[00:48:35] Kosta Scholiadis: So you and I talking about something that we enjoy doing, if you like playing golf, and I like playing golf, suddenly we like each other, right? So, you are talking about the story about you are on the plane with, the guy and you chatted away. I'm sure that there were five different topics that you were, you were, um, you shared, things in common or found interest in each other, and that builds an affinity to the person.

[00:48:58] Kosta Scholiadis: It companies need to do that with clients and their, and their customers. They need to build a relationship. And, that's easier said than done, but I think that's where we've, tried to be a bit more, connected to our customers and that's built trust. we've lost customers because of issues where they felt like,

[00:49:17] Kosta Scholiadis: They weren't communicated too well enough, and that, that happens with most companies. But, but ultimately, if, if you can go back to the, the roots of communicate with your customer, show them you care in some way, shape, or form, suddenly builds, trust. And then the word of mouth spreads that this is the product that actually solves your problem, problem.

[00:49:36] Kosta Scholiadis: And then the, that trust word can go next to the money. in South Africa, I do know there's a distrust towards financial institutions, but, I do think there are parallels in, other ecosystems too.

[00:49:48] Josh DeTar: Yeah. Well, and that, like I said, that kind of takes us all the way back to literally what we kind of started with, the punchy, you know, Kosta wants to make a million bucks. Like, but the point is, is that there's a lot of opportunity there, right? That's really the underlying meaning is there's a lot of opportunity.

[00:50:04] Josh DeTar: 'cause there's still a lot of challenges. There's still a lot of people that need, you know, solutions that need solutions to the ability to accept funds and to use those funds to live. I mean, there's no other way to say it, right? Like, like we said, I mean, whether we like it or not, this world runs on some form of currency.

[00:50:26] Josh DeTar: and you need to be able to trade currency. For the necessities of life, let alone for the niceties that give comfort and pleasure and you know, that kinda money buys happiness. that freedom helps to buy that happiness. But there's still so much opportunity and literally every single market. I mean, I don't think anybody's got this thing a hundred percent solved.

[00:50:48] Josh DeTar: Right?

[00:50:55] Kosta Scholiadis: You know when, a new business comes out and you think, why didn't I think of that? And it's happened so often, especially with the app world since 2010. we, all these ideas came out. Platform businesses came out and you think, why didn't I come up with Instagram? Why didn't I come up with, the dating apps?

[00:51:10] Kosta Scholiadis: Why didn't I come up with every, every idea? If I can tell you now with ai, here's another a hundred ideas you just need to think for during the shower while you're showering, and you'll come up with five. It's just, how do you realize it and how do you simplify it? I do think it's not always easy for people to simplify their ideas and get it to market.

[00:51:30] Kosta Scholiadis: A lot of great ideas are either, too early or they are, complex. I think those are the issues that happened. I came across a, an interesting, explainer that said, what, what are the, the key factors of success? I think there were five, Five things they looked at. It was timing, it was the founders, it was execution, it was, funding.

[00:51:53] Kosta Scholiadis: And it was, one other category. It'll come to me. And the ones that stood out the most for success were execution and timing. So Airbnb took off because of timing more than anything. You could have put other founders there, and the timing was what was, was the most influential. And so a lot of, like, I, I often get reached out by, crypto companies.

[00:52:15] Kosta Scholiadis: And I'm just like, this, this isn't, it's too early for this, uh, at least for real practical use. I, I can see the value and I can see the, fact that it's a cheaper product, but it's too early for the simplicity of ux. I've just, I've put money into crypto. Sure. And I, it's hard for me even to manage these wallets and, uh, you can't get this to become successful in a world where the guys are just trying to make ends meet.

[00:52:43] Kosta Scholiadis: So, so it's about simplicity and, I guess timing too, and knowing you, you're at the right time with whatever product you're putting into the market.

[00:52:53] Josh DeTar: Well, one of the other things that you were talking about earlier was, even just then, then from the founder's mindset though, right? you have to have somebody that is both a, you know, high achiever. IE you could kind of tie that back to the, operational success and you've gotta have somebody that's resilient and a risk taker.

[00:53:15] Josh DeTar: Like if you have one without the other, it's really, really hard to build a sustainable, scalable business,

[00:53:22] Kosta Scholiadis: Yes, I do agree with that. I think it's, The success does correlate to both probably all founders being very, very, very good and high achieving. The most high achievers tend to do well, right? but I think the character trait in resilience is really important because that person never stops. It's just, it's like they'll keep pulling everyone in the right direction.

[00:53:45] Kosta Scholiadis: Any team building exercise, you always have that one guy that won't let you give up. You, you do need that. And, I do think that entrepreneurs do have a screw loose and to some degree are a little bit stu, a little bit stupid because no one in their right mind would do what, what an entrepreneur does.

[00:54:02] Kosta Scholiadis: I think the thing that gets you to keep doing it is the inevitability that it will succeed. Some, something will succeed. Not even, it'll succeed. I did seven business if, if you told me it'll take you seven businesses at the start, I would've said to you. I'm not, that's why No, the first one will make it, I wouldn't believe that.

[00:54:22] Kosta Scholiadis: But you look back and you go, life just pivoted that way. And I can tell you outright it's because it, I never had a fear of trying something new. And, then you've, what happened over those years is if you wanna use the reference of high achiever, more rather knowledgeable, right? I wasn't very knowledgeable at the age of 23.

[00:54:44] Kosta Scholiadis: I'm more knowledgeable now. So what happened was over those years, I became better at executing and I would like to think I'm achieving better than I was. So it's a combination of resilience and, executing and achieving. And then find partners that actually are, complimenting your skillset, sharing your values, and then both working damn hard to getting, getting, achieving the goals.

[00:55:11] Josh DeTar: Yeah. You know, I think that's something that, it seems to come up a lot. I love to have, it's probably no surprise to anybody who listens to our podcast. Like I love to have founders and CEOs on. 'cause I do, I I say this with all do love and respect. I absolutely think you have a screw loose. And I'm just genuinely curious to understand like, why did you do this?

[00:55:29] Josh DeTar: Why did you jump into this? And hearing people's genesis story, I think is just so fascinating to me personally. And, and so I love to have those conversations with people of like. Why did you jump into the pool without the floaties on, like, what possessed you to start this company? And same thing, like you talk to so many people and it is so incredibly rare to hear, oh yeah, you know, I just had this, I had this great idea.

[00:55:54] Josh DeTar: It didn't take much work. I executed it. The first one was super successful. I made a ton of money. it was pretty easy. Like, you never hear that story, right? You hear the stories of like, oh yeah, this is try number 32. it's not going so well, you know, but here I am and we're, we're gonna get up on tomorrow.

[00:56:11] Josh DeTar: We're gonna do it all over again. And, and you know, I think it's interesting. I remember back to, I saw this, I saw this Instagram post from this guy once and I think I wanna say the like headline of it was something like, it must be nice. and he was talking about how he drives a Lamborghini and he was like, the amount of times that I get people that make comments to me when they see me getting out of the car or something, they're like, oh, it must be nice.

[00:56:39] Josh DeTar: And he is like, yeah, it must be nice. It must be nice that I have worked a hundred hours a week for the last 20 years. It must be nice that just 10 years ago I was sleeping on a friend's couch because I had nothing, because I was pouring everything into starting whatever this thing was. It must be nice that I had to wake up every day at 4:00 AM to go to, you know, and he just went on about all the struggles and he was like, what a lot of people see is they see the tip of the iceberg and they don't see what it took to get there.

[00:57:12] Josh DeTar: And I think, you know, kind of a lot of what his point was was similar to kind of how you started with. Is, he was like, look, I'm not gonna be shy about it. I really wanted a Lamborghini. He's like, and I love the fact that now I have a Lamborghini. And he's like, but I worked my tail off to add value around me.

[00:57:29] Josh DeTar: And that built something successful. And yeah, now I, I reap a little bit of the reward of that, so yeah, it must be nice. And, and I thought it was just an interesting perspective. And look, not everybody's wired the same way, and not all of us are meant to be, you know, founders and CEOs. but there's absolutely, I think, a, a common characteristic of, of that resiliency and just, and being willing to say, this didn't work, but yeah, I know if I keep plugging away, it will.

[00:57:58] Josh DeTar: And, you know, Kosta, I don't know about you, but I think one of the things that I think about all the time is I wonder how many great ideas of things that could have had really cool impacts and positive outcomes for this world died. Somebody, somebody had the idea and they just didn't take it all away.

[00:58:20] Josh DeTar: 'cause they faced one or two road bumps and they just didn't get past them. Right. Or maybe they didn't have the other person at their side to say, you've got this great idea. I know how to help execute it. You know, I just, I wonder how many great ideas never, never came because of whatever challenges came in the way.

[00:58:37] Kosta Scholiadis: I find it quite funny, as you're saying that I think about, I've spoken to a lot of, young, younger guys than me, that, that will come, there's two things that they'll come to you and then say, I've got this really cool app idea, and I just, I laugh inside me because I just, no, you don't buddy. You don't know what you're getting into.

[00:58:57] Kosta Scholiadis: And, it is, I don't envy the stage you're in because you dunno what you don't know. and that's like the one thing. and then, I'll always be supportive. You know, I never wanna take that away if there's someone who has hunger, sure. But one thing that you know is, did the idea die?

[00:59:14] Kosta Scholiadis: What tends to happen with majority of people, especially people that are earning well, the more you are earning and the higher the achiever you are in your traditional career, if you are earning, I'm gonna use, uh, an extreme case. You came out of a good school and you're earning 150 plus K, right? Anything above that to give that up to go earn 90 k to do your business, because no investor's giving you money to earn less, right?

[00:59:43] Kosta Scholiadis: Like, just here as an example, people can't accept a lifestyle drop. Right for a belief believe that they're gonna build something bigger. So there's so many factors. It's the peer pressure, the, the lifestyle, keeping up with the, with the Joneses. It, it's, uh, it, there's, there's really real ones, which are, you have a family, you have to, you know, feed, feed them and, and have a certain standard of living.

[01:00:06] Kosta Scholiadis: So the, it definitely is easier to do it in your twenties. One thing I had the opportunity of doing is I tried everything. I, I just tried things in my twenties and I, like, I followed Gary VI really like Gary V, but he, he'll tell you the same, your first twenties, just try things. And, but it came at a cost.

[01:00:25] Kosta Scholiadis: a lot of friends who got into the finance world are bought the beautiful homes in London, I've spent time in London too, guys are buying their homes, but guys are, you know, setting themselves up, having families and, something that's very real and you gotta kind of check yourself on, mentally is something that I experienced at a point was financially as a man, you've gotta have your ducks in a row.

[01:00:51] Kosta Scholiadis: You do have to have some kind of stability when you wanting to kind of progress a personal relationship. not because you, you know, of any negative, uh, uh, association. Just because you need to have stability and when you don't have that, you, you're compromising a lot. So all of these things can pull you towards.

[01:01:11] Kosta Scholiadis: Not doing the, the idea you had, not taking the risk. So something that I guess I was fortunate in that I, navigated that and I just didn't care. I just didn't care. And, I was like, I'm going to do this because I know that this is the only way to achieve that like, target that I want to achieve.

[01:01:31] Kosta Scholiadis: It's, it is the only way. I haven't seen anyone else do it the safe route, so I'm not gonna do the safe route. I was fortunate, I had family members that have done successful businesses around me, and I knew that this works. I didn't have a fear of, building a business I had, but people, I think will fear losing what they have and the lifestyle and, you know, sitting themselves backwards.

[01:01:53] Kosta Scholiadis: And then also what people think of them if they fail. I think it's important to. Call that out because, that is probably what the, the number, the main few things that hold people back from, building that idea that, then died.

[01:02:09] Josh DeTar: Yeah. Well, I, again, that kind of comes back to, it was one of the things I really liked that you were talking about when we were talking about, you know, as we were just kind of writing up your introduction is you were talking about one of the things that's really, really important to you is like, there's almost this additional element of I wanna become really successful and make money.

[01:02:30] Josh DeTar: Doing a business the right way that builds up success with all the people that are a part of it. That helps, you know, leave the world a better place than I came into it at. It does all those things, but it also sets an example for kids around you and so they can see, you know what, like don't be afraid to do that there.

[01:02:53] Josh DeTar: You can actually pull this thing off. you can make it. Don't be afraid. Try. And I thought that was really cool that that was like an extra element of like your get out of bed in the morning as you're like, I got set an example for people. I gotta show people that you can, you can do good, you can make great businesses and you can build success out of that because that will help drive these next generation of kids to want to do the same.

[01:03:19] Josh DeTar: To want to build great companies that help people, that solve problems, that do cool things like. They need to see that motivation. 'cause if all they see around them is negativity and failure and that doesn't work, then a lot of those ideas die before they're even born.

[01:03:39] Kosta Scholiadis: Yeah, and you kind of have to, have you ever seen that, that post that you have everyone walking this way and the one guy walking the other way? It's. It's very hard to do that. It's very hard to walk the other direction on your own, looking like the crazy guy. fortunately I have had very, a lot of support.

[01:04:00] Kosta Scholiadis: You hear all these stories, people trying to make it in whatever, and they've got negativity around them. I actually had a lot of support around me. I'm very lucky. Parents, parents always. I've got Greek, Greek parents that, moved across world to, and, and worked very hard to give us a, a certain standard of living.

[01:04:18] Kosta Scholiadis: And, if you know any Greek families, you know that they're gonna put you under pressure a little bit to, do the, the safe thing. They, you know, I've got like a mother who always questions, even my business now, she's like, I worry about what you're doing. I'm like, mom, I've hit so many hurdles.

[01:04:32] Kosta Scholiadis: like what? What milestones? Are you still nervous? For me? Yes. I'm still nervous for you. I've fortunately had people that still supported me and it's important to be around, around positivity.

[01:04:43] Kosta Scholiadis: but at the end of the day, you have to walk another direction, uh, that the majority aren't walking. And, Josh, I tell you a random story that when I finished university, and I started my first hustle, I went all in instead of doing this. If I had to do it again, I'll do it differently.

[01:05:02] Kosta Scholiadis: I'd never advise going all in from day one, just get a job and then do it. And that, that's actually what I did with, my last product owner job. I was a product owner and then I was building street wallets and I was like, that was the best thing I did. 'cause it helped me fund it. I was earning a, a London salary.

[01:05:17] Kosta Scholiadis: It was very good. And, I think transitioned, but when I first started my first idea, I thought, I'm gonna do this. I'm the special guy, right? And I was earning, I think, like $200 a month. Yeah. I'm not even kidding you. And in South Africa it's probably worth $400. But it was just like, I was living at home still.

[01:05:36] Kosta Scholiadis: I, I remember getting beers and someone left the bill to me and my mate, one of my best friends, he, he knew, he knew how he went, I've got this, it's fine. I still, I've told him I've, I've appreciated that. and I think that's, I did probably do it in a more risky approach, but, what it did do is build resilience.

[01:05:55] Kosta Scholiadis: So you have to like build this, continually, build resilience and, Things that make you a fa a an entrepreneur and, uh, continuously not care what people think continuously. Think, what am I trying to achieve here? And it's difficult because not everyone's built that way and it's okay as well.

[01:06:11] Kosta Scholiadis: It's okay to actually do the safe,

[01:06:13] Josh DeTar: you actually

[01:06:14] Kosta Scholiadis: safe route. I actually think it makes perfect sense to do that. but if you have a vision, and you know it's gonna help people, I would, you know, encourage anyone to really chase that dream.

[01:06:28] Josh DeTar: I love that. And I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think, having diversity in our society is the best recipe for success, right? And so we're gonna need people that want to take different paths. And we need, the whackadoodles like you that want just are like, I'm gonna go all in. I'm gonna try that.

[01:06:43] Josh DeTar: We need that and we also need a few people taking different paths, you know? But, you know, if I might put some words in your mouth. I think really the takeaway from this is just, and especially maybe my, my takeaway for, our community financial institutions here in the US is just a reminder that there's a lot of value in doing good.

[01:07:05] Josh DeTar: There's a lot of value for the people that you're doing good for. There's a lot of value for the people you're doing good with and that are around you. And there can be a lot of value for you in a ton of different, you know, metrics from everything from the way it makes you feel and the, you know, the kind of, empowerment that you get from knowing the good that you're doing and the value that you're adding to.

[01:07:32] Josh DeTar: Hopefully being able to give you and your family and your loved ones that financial freedom. It's, it's really cool to be able to span kind of that whole spectrum and, and I think that's really the big takeaway from this.

[01:07:46] Kosta Scholiadis: Josh, the, the one sad reality that I'm, I'm aware that could happen and it's been on, it's played on my mind here and there is, it's not the genuineness at the start. I think most people are very gen. You look at all the top tech companies, all the guys you see started like, you know, the genuine goal. What happens is you raise funds, you lose shares, you lose control of the company.

[01:08:10] Kosta Scholiadis: You raise funds and an m and a company comes and takes over the company and that guy who's running the m and a company is not a, you know, there to help the world. He's there to make maximize profit and then suddenly. They reshape the company, trade a corporate out of it, and then he gets fired for whatever reason or moves on, then they hire someone else that someone else doesn't care about Street Wallet, but they're controlling street Wallet now.

[01:08:38] Kosta Scholiadis: So this is what happens is, is play investors down the road do take over and do reposition something, so then the vision falls away. And the ones that manage to stay at the helm, the founders do tend to keep those visions. That's why, you know, apple and Steve Jobs really stayed true to what he was trying to do.

[01:09:00] Kosta Scholiadis: But, you don't often get that. Often people exit and they go, I'm gonna start something new. And that, that project then loses its soul, because you know that that early stage story is gone. And, that is what's the biggest challenge in this, journey, when you do make it right. but.

[01:09:17] Kosta Scholiadis: how do you solve that? I dunno how you solve it. I've, it's been on my mind a lot. People ask me, what are you gonna do down the road? Are you gonna sell it to a bank? I'm like, I can't think of anything worse. But the real reality is it could be the exit, it could be that I stick there in the long run. but, that's the sad thing went down the road on, on, on a lot of cool projects that, that are being built.

[01:09:39] Josh DeTar: Yeah. You know, that's a really good point. I mean, shout out to our founders that I work for. You know, one of the things they talk a lot about, cva, our CEO talks a lot about founders' passion and how important the founder's passion and how deeply connected they are to the mission of what are we trying to accomplish?

[01:10:00] Josh DeTar: Like, what good are we trying to do with this? And they talk a lot about how when that founder's passion dies, that's when the company dies. And so, you know, it's not even just about what happens. In an exit event, what happens if one of these guys gets hits by a bus? What happens if that doesn't happen?

[01:10:22] Josh DeTar: But literally just the natural course of time takes on and eventually they pass on and they're no longer present. And here, how does founders' passion translate through the organization? How are there more than just the founders that have founder's passion, and how do you create culture within an organization where that that founder's passion is pervasive?

[01:10:47] Josh DeTar: Right. And then it's not as much about just the founder being present anymore, it's that that is so deeply rooted into the culture of the company that so many people have that founder's passion, that the founder's passion never dies. And that's kind of the, I, I don't know, almost holy grail of it in that thought process.

[01:11:07] Josh DeTar: If you ask me.

[01:11:10] Kosta Scholiadis: Yeah, that's probably the hardest thing is to transfer the, the culture down. There's an interesting thing that, how do you in culture is you've got the kind of leaders that I've followed. One of the books that, books that I've read were Richard Branson's, I've read, Steve Jobs's book, I followed a lot of Gary V very, you know, if you wanna stay positive, follow him.

[01:11:31] Kosta Scholiadis: He's just keeps you, keeps you very motivated. And then there's a really cool leader in, in Africa, in South Africa called V. He's done really well across Africa with his companies. And there's two types of like leaders. You got the people, people leaders, people driven leaders and outcome driven leaders. Like you can just think what type of leaders, Elon, what type of leaders, Steve Jobs. And then you think of Richard Branson and uh, the Gary V types. And you've got the people that believe. Outcome is outcome. I want 18 players. I want the best of the best. We need to get an output and we need to get it fast because we are trying to achieve a goal.

[01:12:13] Kosta Scholiadis: And then you get the leaders that go, I wanna get a culture of people that are super happy, that will do it for me. So Richard Branson believed, he didn't believe, make your customer happy, he believed, make your employees happy, they will make your customers happy. So, people driven leaders and, I think the culture that you wanna create, I think needs to be true to you.

[01:12:34] Kosta Scholiadis: Some people thrive in outcome-based, some people don't really wanna do the whole, you know, it depends what industry you're in and there's a place for it. and then you get, but it can be unpleasant. It can be very unpleasant to work in, or you can be people driven and people just are very, like, passionate and, behind the project.

[01:12:52] Kosta Scholiadis: And, you're trying to keep people's motivations up. And I think, whatever path you take. In building the culture, you hope to see it, you know, go right through with, you know,

[01:13:04] Josh DeTar: Go right

[01:13:04] Kosta Scholiadis: you know that if you go to, uh, an Elon Musk company, you have to perform. Uh, you know that if you go to, to Gary v's company, you know, he's got Va Vayner media, you have to be a good person to some degree.

[01:13:18] Kosta Scholiadis: He won't keep you if you are, are a crappy snakey person. Uh, that's from what I've learned from the outside. So that, that really is filters into the culture. And then you hope to build that on a bigger scale. You hope to, to, to see that through it, because it's an extension of you who built it and you wanna see that.

[01:13:38] Kosta Scholiadis: it lasts Not easy to do, I'm sure, but, it's something you hope to see

[01:13:43] Josh DeTar: I mean, the, the challenges have the reward, right?

[01:13:46] Kosta Scholiadis: I think that's true. And, I guess when you start bringing people in, you, you hear about how people hire and should you hire fast or should you hire, you know, wait for the right person. And it's easier said than done again, because sometimes you need a job done. But, uh, hiring the right person culturally is really important.

[01:14:05] Kosta Scholiadis: I, I've seen it be a problem, and when you get the wrong person, it can just, it can bring other people down. so yeah, it's important. It's just hard to get your, your job as an entrepreneur. Something that someone, one, the vui te are saying explains it beautifully. Your, if you leave the company for three months and it falls apart, you're not an entrepreneur, you're self-employed, and your goal is to build a machine. Your, your goal is to build a machine that is self-sustainable. And, the hard part is now you're putting people in place. That have to carry your vision out, and they're not you. They're different human beings from a variety of backgrounds, and so it's, it's probably the hardest thing is to maintain a culture across that delivers what you're trying to achieve.

[01:14:57] Josh DeTar: Yeah, man, I couldn't agree more. I mean, it is, it's so much easier said than done, and none of us are perfect at it. And then, you know, just we as humans, we're not perfect, right? And we all go through our different phases and stages in life. We all, you know, grow and learn and change and evolve and all of these things, but.

[01:15:15] Josh DeTar: Man, I tell you what, if I look back on, I, I, I don't even like to look back and think of the, the negative, but if I look back on like, some of the most amazing people that I've worked with, that I've hired, they were hired for who they were. It wasn't, yeah, sure. They had to have a certain skill set, right?

[01:15:35] Josh DeTar: You gotta like, you gotta be able to do the job to some degree. But man, I've, I've just, I've had the incredible pleasure of working with some people that I think, if we were all honest, would agree that on paper they may not have been the perfect candidate for it, but their culture fit and just who they were as a person and the way they approached it and the positivity that they brought to the team and the impact that they had on the people around them.

[01:16:04] Josh DeTar: Those are the people I remember. Those are the people that you look back on and you're like, I would hire that person a hundred times over again. I would give anything to work with that person again. Right? Like if you think about it, like think about your own own life, um, it's pretty rare where you're like, oh, I would love to, to hire that person again or to work with that person again simply because they just, they produced the expected outcome.

[01:16:31] Josh DeTar: Expectedly, or better than expectedly over and over again. You're like, I just genuinely loved being with that person and working with that person, and man did we do some really cool stuff together because of that. And I think that comes back to your, what was it? The, the a RC triangle. Right? That makes a lot of sense.

[01:16:49] Josh DeTar: I think that even kind of comes back to that. Like you, you have this shared reality and the same kind of driving light, and we may approach it very differently. And I think that's an important element of it, like having people around you that, that think differently, that act differently, that approach things differently to solve problems differently.

[01:17:09] Josh DeTar: But you have kind of that shared culture. I think those are the people you remember

[01:17:15] Kosta Scholiadis: You when I was working. I want to just add to that. When I was working in football and I was coaching some players, one thing I used to tell the players was, you can be the. The kind of egotistical character. I was very honest with my players and I, I never held them back. I actually, some of my favorite players are the ones that are too cool for school.

[01:17:40] Kosta Scholiadis: They're just, they're usually the better players. but I love getting them to be more connected with humans. I loved getting that kid that was so, like, detached and really good at what they were doing to actually see the people around them and actually care, because then they were gonna be real leaders.

[01:17:59] Kosta Scholiadis: and, one thing I, I would communicate to them was you can be that guy that like, you know, the, the, the, the main guy who thinks he's the main guy. You're probably in competitive sports, gonna get away with it. As a top sportsman, it's gonna make you look good and you might even get, a lot of, you know, you'll have aura around you great.

[01:18:21] Kosta Scholiadis: But when the going gets tough, which is inevitable, when you go through a dip, people won't have your back and they will turn their back and they'll get rid of you because you're a problem now you're not adding value and you're a problem. Whereas if you actually care about your surroundings and you actually connect with the people and you actually show that you care more about everyone than just yourself, when you do go through that, uh, performance dip, you will be given the chance.

[01:18:50] Kosta Scholiadis: It's happened for me too. I had a, I worked under a CTO that when I was a bit inexperienced, they guided me out of it and I, and I kept showing that I was willing to learn and I had a bit of resilience about it, and I got, and I got really good at what I was doing. but I just know that if I didn't have that personality to.

[01:19:08] Kosta Scholiadis: To wanna learn and be, you know, humble about it. I would've, been asked it sooner than later. The same goes in sports, and I think that speaks to culture. It's humility and, uh, accountability and willingness to learn. And people are willing to give you the chance, willing to work with you because no one's perfect and anything they do.

[01:19:25] Kosta Scholiadis: And you will go through a dip or you will get that job that, that, that you just feel like you're in your depth and um, or out of your depth. and I think culture is where, and your personality is what's, what keeps you going and saves you.

[01:19:40] Josh DeTar: Yeah. Yeah. And I think too, I mean, I, I like that sports analogy because you think about that person who is, who's the star player, right? Who's always the person that scores the winning goal and all of this, and everybody counts on them. How much better and how much more of a winning team do you create if option A, that person just focuses on themself and wanting to be the limelight and wanting to be the awesome superstar.

[01:20:10] Josh DeTar: And so they're really good at always scoring the winning goal, but they're the only one. Versus what if they built up the team around them and said, I want everybody to be as good as me. How can I help you? How can I help you? Now all of a sudden, instead of having one person who can score the winning goal, you got 10, you're gonna score a lot more winning goals when you got 10 options versus one.

[01:20:30] Josh DeTar: You know what I mean? And I think, you know, it's, it's kind of all of these culminations, why. You do, you see a lot of these, you know, highly successful people and teams are, are not just about, you know, themselves. It really is about building up the people around them. I would argue the, the most successful things I've ever done personally are not actually me.

[01:20:51] Josh DeTar: I've just been really, really fortunate to have really amazing people around me that have helped build it up that I, I just know I never would've been able to do without, like, I could never have done it myself. And so having a bunch of people that are all going back to that, you know, founder's passion to that alignment to we're here to do this.

[01:21:11] Josh DeTar: And especially if it's like deeply rooted back to something that's very emotional, that's very spiritual, that's, we're here to do some good. Like, that's a really strong bond. And if you get a lot of people aligned to that and everybody builds each other up and you've got a bunch of people who can all score the winning goal and also.

[01:21:29] Josh DeTar: Really care about if I score this winning goal, I'm gonna do a lot of good for a bunch of people around me. It's pr, like going back to what you were saying, it may not always be the first shot, but man, you always have that mentality. I tell you what, something's gonna succeed eventually. You're gonna be the Super Bowl team one year, I guarantee you, if that's your mentality

[01:21:48] Kosta Scholiadis: Very true. And I think more and more so the new generation needs that around them. Uh, there is a generation that is around 35 to 40 that were the last ones that could handle tough love. I give some examples like, I mean, I followed, you know, LeBron James is incredibly good. You watch, like I used to watch, Tracy Reley, all these basketball players, and you look at Ronaldo and Macy and you look at Vic, and you look all these sportsmen, this a level of resilience that even when, when they were kind of beaten down by coaches, whoever, they just got up, they just, uh, it was a generation that didn't need pampering at all.

[01:22:26] Kosta Scholiadis: And uh, there's a new generation where you need to put your arm around the shoulder. It's just the case. It's just what it is. And, I think. You, you, if you can, if you have the resilience, you can get quite a lot. It's, uh, I've seen it with sportsmen, the ones that, that, you know, you can have a go at and they still get up and go, right, you were right.

[01:22:48] Kosta Scholiadis: They tend to be the best. But, I think if you add to it a bit of nur nurturing you, you don't wanna feel like you're in fear on the field. Uh, there's a great example is Ronaldo, is that kind of, you know, Mr. Man star of the game to score the goal. And, but there is a shift you see in him trying to talk to the younger players.

[01:23:07] Kosta Scholiadis: He is trying to do that, but when he gets to the, the game, he, you know that he's the guy that's gonna try with the goal on the net. It's about a combination, right? And, you can always have different personality types. I've seen that too. Some players are not built to be the star of the field.

[01:23:22] Kosta Scholiadis: They're built to be really good support roles. And they win. They, they get. They get a lot of financial, benefit out of being that role. and I think it's about then the leadership also recognizing how to put together a team that has good balance, but ultimately humility towards the objective of the, of the greater team.

[01:23:45] Josh DeTar: yeah. Dude, this has been a, a very like uplifting and positive podcast. I really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun to kind of

[01:23:53] Kosta Scholiadis: No, I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it.

[01:23:54] Josh DeTar: through all of this. Yeah. And it was kind of fun to start with a little, uh, a little zinger of a, of a soundbite. But it is, I mean, I kind of wanted to come back to that.

[01:24:05] Josh DeTar: I I really do. Again, this is why I would hope anybody that's stuck around for the last goodness hour and a half listening to Kosta and I talk, like what you see is someone's heart when you get to talk to them long enough, right? You talk to somebody long enough and, and their true colors usually start to come out eventually.

[01:24:24] Josh DeTar: And so, you know, when I talk to somebody like you and you make the statement, you're like, oh, I wanna make a million bucks. I, I would like to be successful. I would like to be financially like secure and free. That's, that's something that's important to me, but it's not the most important thing. It only comes if it comes through.

[01:24:43] Josh DeTar: I, I really earned that through doing more good than even what it turned into the good for me. Right. I think that's what comes through when you get a chance to talk to somebody for a long time. And again, that's just why I really love this, you know, format of being able to talk to people because man, if we had, if we had done just a quick five minute interview and you dropped a statement like that, yeah, people are gonna walk away from it and they're like, look at this egotistical jerk.

[01:25:10] Josh DeTar: Like, he's just out to make a buck. But when you learn the whole story behind it, you're like, oh, all of that context, it matters and it changes everything. So, Casa, I just wanna say thank you for, for taking this much time to actually talk with me about, you know, what's under the water in the iceberg. but before I let you go, I got, I got two final questions for you, sir.

[01:25:33] Josh DeTar: So one, especially being a, a world traveler, where do you go to get information? Like how do you stay up to date on, on what's important to you?

[01:25:42] Kosta Scholiadis: when I travel across a lot of Cape Town and London, I do go to a lot of founder events and tech events. I do enjoy that. I read some business books I love, so help books, whether it's leadership books, whether it's other entrepreneurs. The Diary of a CEO is a book that I've, you know, gone through.

[01:26:02] Kosta Scholiadis: I actually watched some of Steve Bartlett's Diary of a CEO. Sometimes when I find an interesting listener. I love body language stuff. I love the content around, uh, Vanessa Van Edwards is really

[01:26:14] Josh DeTar: Oh, yeah,

[01:26:14] Kosta Scholiadis: you, uh, really cool stuff around how to, because that's, it's all self-help. How can you become a better leader, communicator, connect with people?

[01:26:22] Kosta Scholiadis: So I, I I try to absorb as much of that. Yeah, that's, and then, and then I follow those leaders I told you about. Um, you know, there's a few guys that I do like to keep an eye on.

[01:26:33] Josh DeTar: yeah. Well, and if. People wanna connect with you, if they wanna learn more about you, what you're working on, about Street Wallet, how do they do that?

[01:26:43] Kosta Scholiadis: LinkedIn's probably the easiest. my name is Kosta Sc, as you said it at the start, my name will come up and, uh, there's not very many, many guys with my name, so you'll find me easily.

[01:26:54] Josh DeTar: up and we'll as always have a, a link on the podcast webpage if you need to find it. But Kosta, again, thank you so much, man. This has been just a, a really, a really awesome way to spend a couple hours on a day is just chatting with you and, and hearing about your perspective, learning a little bit about some of how you see the world and some of the challenges and opportunities and, and kind of giving a, a cool, like different topic, but a, a neat parallel back to, you know, a lot of, I think what, our quarter listenership is for community financial institutions here in the us So thanks for coming and being a, a guest on the Digital Banking podcast.

[01:27:32] Kosta Scholiadis: Has been amazing. Thank you, and I learned quite a lot from you and, really interesting, subjects we got onto. Thank you.

[01:27:39] Outro: Thank you for listening to the Digital Banking Podcast, powered by Typhoon. Find more episodes on digital banking podcast.com or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.