On this episode, Sabine VdL talks to Mark Fidelman, founder of SmartBlocks.Agency, and a globally recognised thought leader with over two decades of tech-fuelled wisdom. Whether you’re a CEO pondering your next strategic move, a CTO looking to harness emerging technologies, or a CDO keen on transformative solutions, buckle up! We’re about to deep-dive into a world where the token is mightier than the sword. KEY TAKEAWAYS Over time you start to realise that there are certain types of companies that have longevity and others that have a short-lived heyday, like during Covid. I started choosing companies that I believed had more of the long-term runway. It was always fun to get in there and help companies that had 1 or 2 years of good ideas before the big guys came in or some other market factor took over and they died. This was fun but you’re not building anything. Ecommerce is definitely here for the long-term and so is crypto. Besides AI, these are the 2 hottest sectors. The crypto I tend to focus on is the tokenisation/fractionalisation of assets where you break up real estate or something really valuable and you allow the democratisation of that asset to anyone that wants to invest in it. The blockchain does all the management of all the limited partners who all get paid each quarter what that business has made, or will get a fractional share of the sale of the business/real estate, works of art, anything of value over a few hundred thousand pounds.  Tokenisation is much safer than crypto. There’s no such thing as ‘hacked wallets’ because everything’s white listed, it’s attached to you, so if somebody steals those tokens out of your wallet you can go back to the issuer and say “cancel those and reissue mine”, you can’t do that with crypto. To me crypto is Monopoly money, what I’m doing is real, with real money. If you were to invest £1,000 every single month in one of the projects that are paying 10-15%, in 10 years you’d have a £30,000 per month income for life – some of that is because the real estate was sold, but on average it works out this way.  BEST MOMENTS‘For young entrepreneurs the top 5 areas are AI, engineering (like SpaceX), cryptocurrency (find a niche), Ecommerce, and tools and technologies (SaaS-based products that solve a really nuanced problem that no one else is solving).’‘I chose tokens when I fractionalise businesses because it’s a lot easier to set up, then you have a blockchain that does all the management, you’re not working with the stock exchange or have expensive systems in place.’‘It’s the future, if you look at Black Rock, Bank of America, Citi, they’re all saying the same thing: everything’s going to be fractionalised. They’ve already tokenised billions of dollars of bands because you can then trade that anywhere in the world, you’re not subject to local laws.’‘95% of crypto is just a scam, they’re worthless, they’re not backed by anything, they’re just a big ponzi scheme. Though there are 5% that will change the future, we just need to better educate people on what’s what.’ABOUT THE GUESTAs the founder of SmartBlocks.Agency, Mark Fidelman is a pivotal player in crypto and ecommerce with a career spanning two decades. He's not just a veteran; he’s an industry influencer—endorsed by Forbes and celebrated as a Top 50 Social CEO by Huffington Post.Mark is a growth catalyst, having spearheaded initiatives for NFT trailblazers like WAX.io. His credentials go beyond mere business acumen; he's a respected keynote speaker, a Forbes contributor, and the mastermind behind the YouTube channel, Cryptonized!, where he dissects the hottest trends in crypto. You can discover what Mark’s about further below:http://twitter.com/#!/markfidelman https://www.cryptonized.substack.com/  https://www.smartblocks.agency/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fidelman/ ABOUT THE HOSTSabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: [email protected]: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Jerry Fetta, who is on a mission to demystify wealth management, making it accessible and relatable for everyone. As the brains behind Wealth DynamX, Jerry's fingerprints are on numerous success stories across the US, helping countless individuals lay the foundation for solid financial futures.Beyond his role as a financial expert, Jerry has penned three books. In the latest he lays bare the trials and tribulations he faced, both personally and professionally and how he overcame these, showcasing a resilience that's nothing short of inspiring. KEY TAKEAWAYS I grew up with a lower income experience, my parents didn’t have a lot of money. When I was 8 years old my parents got divorced, we lost our house, the car got repo’d and both my parents became homeless. I didn’t have a lot of examples of people succeeding with money or as entrepreneurs. At school I learned I wanted to be a business owner, to have control and try to right some of those wrongs that I experienced growing up. But, I really wanted to understand money. Sometimes, there’s an advantage to growing up without money. It instilled in me hard work and as an entrepreneur I’m a lot more comfortable with risk because I’ve come from a place where I’ve had nothing and am not afraid to go back there if I need to because I know what to do to rebuild from that position – not that that’s the plan!  We have a philosophy, as a culture, that we go to school to get the grades, then college to get the degree, then we get the job, then we save up n our retirement accounts, and then we try to pay off the house and build up a nest-egg, and at 60-65 years old we can finally enjoy what we’ve put together. My Mom was my first client and we did all that and at 60 she was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she passed away 6 months later. As a son it was a shocker, but as a financial professional I saw the plan unravel and I didn’t want to have that client experience again or experience personally, I want to enjoy life now. That’s really shaped the way my company works with clients. We're really focussed on how you can win with money today.  I have to do some form of hard work, I can’t just sit in my ivory tower all day. As CEO, my day-to-day is a lot of observing, I like to shadow my staff members and be present on their calls and Zoom meetings, watching and being a fly on the wall. I take notes, I see what’s happening in the organisation. I can then take that data and combine it with a lot of study. I do several hours a day of reading and studying business and administration and how to be a better business executive. With all that I can fine tune the organisation to make it better, and I’ll put that into a written plan. BEST MOMENTS‘Wealth DynamX helps families, individuals and entrepreneurs in North America achieve greater financial education, stability and freedom in the future.’‘I became a bodybuilder and thought I’d do that forever, but I started to get into the financial industry at 18, got all my licences and the rest has been a natural progression of evolving and growing and putting my vision into reality over the last 11 years.’‘School is necessary, we need to learn the basics, but I think it does a really poor job on two things and is an area where we can simply improve is telling people the purpose of school. It’s a very long period of our lives where we don’t really know why we’re there.’‘As a CEO/founder, you want to spend your time either in the marketplace with your people (watching, seeing and being part of what’s going on), or you want to spend it dreaming up new ideas, or spend it thinking of how to make those ideas become reality. I try to keep my time inside those zones.’ ABOUT THE GUESTJerry Fetta is a beacon in the world of finance, with a mission to simplify the complexities of wealth management and make it relatable to all. As the visionary Founder and CEO of Wealth DynamX, Jerry has dedicated his career to assisting numerous clients across the U.S. in building a solid financial foundation. Jerry's unique approach, rooted in authenticity and applicability, has set him apart in the industry.Get access to Jerry's free book "The Blueprint to Financial Freedom." https://jerryfetta.com/b2fpromo ABOUT THE HOSTSabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: [email protected]: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Megan Bingham-Walker, Co-founder and CEO of Anansi, a cutting-edge company on a mission to revolutionise the goods-in-transit insurance industry.Today, we will dive deep into Megan's journey as an entrepreneur, her vision for the future of goods-in-transit insurance, and the unique approaches and strategies that have propelled Anansi to success. KEY TAKEAWAYS This is not an obvious place for me to be because my background is very mixed. I spent a few years working with the Government, 5 years in venture capital specialising in CleanTech investing in early-stage startups. I got really excited there about what you could do with data and tools to improve industrial processes which a lot of InsurTechs now use. I really wanted to found a business in the area of machine learning and data and how you could solve problems using them. With my co-founder, we’re working to bring more continuous and enriched data into insurance products. At Anansi we built a platform to essentially automate the process for goods-in-transit insurance. The problem retailers face at the moment is that it’s a very manual process, they may not even know when an item is lost or damaged until a customer tells them, so even having an early identification of that is a big step up in terms of providing an excellent experience for their customers. There’s often a very big fraud risk. If you’re just one retailer you may only know about the fraud that you deal with, whereas from our perspective we work with multiple different retailers and different fulfilment centres, so we will be able to learn the fraud across the market and apply the learnings between the different retailers that we work with. Insurance is about information, essentially we are an information industry. The foundation of a lot of our products is in statistical analysis on top of the data that we can gather. The new aspect of what we’re doing, specifically on the goods-in-transit side, is bringing this transactional data so that we have a very quick turnaround of 60 days max between when an item is shipped and when we process the claim, and the contract is completed. This is what the industry has lacked in the past. BEST MOMENTS‘The biggest problem we’re solving for the retailers is admin.’"We've all experienced something going missing or getting damaged-in-transit, it’s the number 1 cause of customer complaints and never purchasing again. Having a bad purchase experience is a real decision point for consumers.’‘Anansi is a West-African folklore character – I have some family connections to West-Africa and the Caribbean – it’s a spider character which is the keeper of knowledge.’‘What’s exciting about the insurance industry is that there is so much opportunity for innovation and there are still so many areas where you can bring new data and processes, particularly on the claims side, to improve things that I think it’s a very rewarding industry to be part of.’ ABOUT THE GUESTMegan is an award-winning entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Anansi – a company on a mission to make goods-in-transit insurance faster, fairer and more flexible for retailers who thrive on bringing innovative new technologies to market. She is also an Ambassador of the charity Pump Aid which is empowering communities, transforming lives, with a mission to end water poverty in Malawi by 2030. In her spare time, she loves weightlifting, formula one, dancing, hiking, and skiing. About Anansi: Goods-in-transit insurance platform Anansi creates tailored, embedded, and low-admin insurance products for retailers, logistics providers, and marketplaces. Its open API and web app solution digitises manual processes, including claims, with parametric claim triggers automating repetitive processes. Its integrated platform uses Open Banking to allow customers to pay for cover and receive claims payments directly and instantaneously into their accounts. It is the only automated solution in a $33 billion market to offer data-powered signup, parametrically triggered claims and pay-outs when a parcel is lost or delayed, and a simple damage submission process. ABOUT THE HOSTSabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialisation of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: [email protected]: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Jacqueline Legrand, a name that resonates with transformative leadership in the global insurance industry. From orchestrating the radical transformation of Brokerslink to co-founding Maptycs, an InsurTech firm that is redefining how we perceive weather risk analysis and risk exposures, Jacqueline's legacy is nothing short of extraordinary.With her finger firmly on the pulse of digital transformation, she advocates for a harmonious marriage between technology and insurance. We're about to delve into a narrative beaming with transformative milestones, insights into the potential of geospatial analytics, and the challenges and triumphs of revolutionising an industry full of tradition. KEY TAKEAWAYS I started my career in  corporate with IBM in technology, after 8 years I moved to insurance, fell in love and spent a big chunk of my career as a broker working with big clients, complex property programmes  which is where the idea for Maptycs (mapping and analytics) was born. At the time it was difficult to have a handle on climate risks. I really believe that independent broker networks have a very compelling proposition today in the global brokerage industry because the local brokers are deeply rooted in  their local industry and culture, and they usually have steady teams and they are focussed on local services with a long term perspective which is not always the case with large alpha brokers. The big thing I’ve learned and will always use is: What is the vision and the value proposition for each and every stakeholder? What is the business model? What is the execution plan? What is the road map? Always with a realistic approach. Then I send that to get the buy in of the board – 12 guys who are each CEO of their own brokerage in 12 countries. Then I travel the world to get the story and the buy-in of each of the members at insurance markets. It was exhausting but fun and I enjoyed the journey. We saw an acceleration in natural disasters because of climate change, and at the same time an explosion of high quality location intelligence data. Now we could solve a problem that had to be solved now. Timing is key in any startup company. The challenge was with all these claims and losses – which is not stopping any time soon – and all this data that could be used to make better assessments, pricing, and risk mitigation, how could this be used with legacy systems that usually aren’t fit to integrate all this complex data in many formats? This is what we do at Maptycs; integrate the portfolios of our clients alongside a la carte external data.  BEST MOMENTS‘Make sure, as a global broker, you build programmes for your client/global reach manager that are not only in line with their strategy, but also align with the local market practices and regulations.’‘Your colleagues on the ground play a critical role, and you need them whether it is to negotiate local coverage or to work on a claim with the local expert or adjuster.’‘We really enable corporate insurance brokers to have a good assessment of their product risk exposure because now they can see either one location at a time or accumulation across their portfolio and they can mix and match their data with risk data.’‘Our tool really came at the right moment to help risk professionals to underwrite assess property risk and also for risk mitigation and for event response.’ ABOUT THE GUESTWith a footprint that stretches over 30 years across the global insurance tapestry, Jacqueline Legrand stands as a testament to transformative leadership in the industry. From the bustling markets of the US to the dynamic terrains of Brazil, France, and Portugal, her journey in C-suite and Board-level roles has solidified her as a luminary in the realm of insurance.As the CEO and co-founder of the groundbreaking InsurTech firm, Maptycs, Jacqueline is at the forefront of revolutionising property risk exposures. Through the lens of advanced geospatial analytics, she's reshaping the way commercial lines of insurance providers approach weather risk analysis. ABOUT THE HOSTSabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter: SabineVdLLinkedIn: Sabine VanderLindenInstagram: sabinevdLofficialFacebook: SabineVdLOfficialTikTok: sabinevdlofficialEmail: [email protected]: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media

Sabine talks to Michele Cimmino, CEO of Lasting Dynamics which, far from being a generic software firm, epitomises precision and coding to partners' distinct needs in order to ensure an exclusive synergy for mutual growth. Michael discusses visionary leadership at Lasting Dynamics, championing quality and innovation, ensuring a diverse tech mastery, and building a global force in the startup ecosystem. KEY TAKEAWAYS          Lasting Dynamics was started in 2013 with the idea that we wanted to provide the IT market with quality – an alternative to the many-chip-solution providers that were on the market then and unfortunately still are. They don’t always follow a totally transparent process of development and sometimes they deliver something that is not really what the customer needs. Now, Lasting Dynamics is not only a software provider but also is a group which includes real estate and educational academies. Large enterprises usually target a span of 12 months to deliver an MVP (minimum viable product), by the time an MVP is delivered to market in 12 months it’s already too late, it should be launched in 4-6 months maximum. You’ll get feedback faster, avoid waste in budgeting, and learn from the empirical experience of the data that is collected and the usage that’s made of the application so that it can be expanded. The mindset and execution should be agile. When you have good engineers that understand the practices about cybersecurity when it comes to every domain – front end, dev ops, back end – then it is easier to eventually be compliant with policies. Because, when you build something from the ground up, or start integrating the pieces into a digital product, with a forward-looking mindset you can definitely place everything so that you will not waste months in additional testing or getting a list of items to become compliant and then adapt. This is an engineering mindset called “bottom-up”. If you work hard and show commitment and demonstrate that you can actually bring value with your knowledge, experience, skills, even ramping up some situations that are sometimes outside of the scheme; so you have to adapt very quickly, that is in the agile mindset. React quickly to the problem rather than trying to prevent it, that’s agile. It pays be a lot in the way that customers started to trust us and gave us more and more responsibilities. Where other companies might see an upsell opportunity, I see it as a way to reinforce our business model and partner up to grow together.   BEST MOMENTS ‘I truly believe that if we want to stay in the insurance and even banking industries, the customer experience is everything.’‘Quality assurance is also about analysing the requirements, it’s not only about executing some tests, it’s about understanding what will be needed and how this can be provided.’‘The most important part of the game is to be transparent and loyal to your partner or customer. That always pays back.’‘I like the idea that the most important goal and value for everyone on a project should be the final result of the product and everyone should sacrifice a bit of personal interest towards that goal.’ ABOUT THE GUEST In the dynamic world of software engineering, few names resonate as powerfully as Michele Cimmino. As a master of full stack web and mobile development, Michele's leadership at Lasting Dynamics has carved a niche in the tech spaces of Spain, Italy, and Norway. Dive deeper at Lasting Dynamics and you'll discover a hub where innovation meets commitment. Not just confined to his role as CEO, Michele is a force in the startup ecosystem, wearing hats as a shareholder and advisor across Italy and North Europe. His mantra? Hard work and daily dedication as the unparalleled formula for tangible outcomes. A champion of quality, Michele's passion drives him and his adept team to consistently re-evaluate and refine their methodologies. They are agile, experimental, and always ahead of the curve, drawing insights from the latest in automation, innovation, and QA processes. His current explorations into Agile, OKRs, SCRUM, TDD, and the principles of Shu Ha Ri demonstrate a ceaseless thirst for knowledge. Lasting Dynamics, Michele's brainchild, isn't just any software company; it's a boutique, meticulously crafting code to fit partners' unique needs. This exclusivity ensures mutual growth, as they partner with only a select few each year. But there's more: The Academy, another feather in Michele’s cap, streamlines the onboarding process, a testament to his visionary approach. Moreover, under his guidance, the launch of SaaS platforms like Roundrush for workflow management and VetrinaLive for e-commerce adds to his impressive portfolio. With a tech stack that's as expansive as it is impressive, ranging from Node.js to Python, React to Vue.js, PostgreSQL to AWS integrations, Michele's proficiency is unquestionable. He's been at the helm of AI-driven mobile apps since 2015, dabbled in the realm of blockchain and cryptocurrency from 2017, and from 2019, has steered Lasting Dynamics towards Growth Hacking, seeking out every opportunity for growth. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.  Twitter: SabineVdL LinkedIn: Sabine VanderLinden Instagram: sabinevdLofficial Facebook: SabineVdLOfficial TikTok: sabinevdlofficial Email: [email protected] Website: www.sabinevdl.comThis show was brought to you by Progressive Media