Oxygen Founder & CEO, Hussein Ahmed, and Head of BD, Ryan Conway — Banking the Creator Economy
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In today’s episode, Ally Rae McCloskey sits down with Hussein Ahmed, Founder & CEO, and Ryan Conway, Head of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, at Oxygen. Oxygen is a modern financial platform designed for the 21st century economy — providing digital natives, creators and entrepreneurs pushing everyday boundaries a banking partner that understands how they live and work. Oxygen offers a seamless user experience for both personal and business accounts and is available on both iOS and Android. Its users enjoy no monthly fees, early direct deposit, simple transfers, and cashback rewards on everyday purchases. Businesses can easily control their finances with integrated solutions that are elegant, simple and secure. Their motto? Reject ordinary. Banking for the Extraordinary.
Hussein became acutely aware of the friction-filled banking options for freelancers and sole proprietors while he was independently consulting in the Bay Area. Despite his previous successes founding and exiting two companies, working at Amazon, and earning multiple advanced degrees, he recalls trying to take a loan out from LendingClub and being asked for 10 pages of documentation when they couldn’t verify his then less predictable income. Hence, the need for Oxygen.
In this lively conversation, Ally, Hussein, and Ryan cover a wide range of topics including:
· Redefining the Gig Economy beyond Uber drivers and DoorDash deliverers, and why Oxygen is focused on the on-demand workforce of creators: musicians, screenwriters, creator persona, lawyers, CFAs, video production, media agencies, etc.
“Since it’s a much higher LTV customer, the whole growth hacking from a Cash App or a Chime perspective won’t really translate well 1:1 to Oxygen given it’s an extensive experience…this person is transacting in large amounts, so they’re not just going to hop on the next app to get $5 or $10.”
· The material difference that aesthetics and design can make in customer engagement and NPS scores
· Lessons learned from their many marketing ‘experiments’ — from partnering with influencers to running ad campaigns on the back of muni buses
“People don’t self-identify as freelancers. From a marketing perspective, we’re really thinking about how we can speak to these people.”
· The near-zero margin for error when building something as intimate, personal, and critical as money management
“It’s not like a Twitter that can fail and be down for a few hours, it’s a highly intimate relationship you have with customers, dealing with their financials. It shouldn’t be taken lightly from any of those touch points from app, to support, to any other piece.”
· Finding the right balance of vibrant brand voice in a more serious industry
“We don’t really take ourselves too seriously. We want to have fun and want to have fun with you, but you can’t really do that as a bank, so how can you balance that act of you have to be perceived as a trustworthy brand obviously so you can’t really have too much fun in a bad way.”
· Why many neobanking startups are ‘doomed to succeed’ given the segment’s funding and press buzz
“If you look at the large VCs in the space, they’ve already invested in the Chime, Revolut, and N26’s of the world, so If you walk in now asking ‘let me show you a pitch of our challenger bank’ it’s like seriously, another challenger bank now, so that’s how some of capital markets views that play. And some other investors obviously with that same mindset ironically the opposite applies as well, like ‘I missed the boat on Chime, it’s a $30B company, so let me find the next Chime somewhere.”
· Reflections on their fundraising journey (most recently raising a $17mm Series A from Runa Capital, S7V, 1984.vc, EFG Hermes, Rucker Park, and Inventures, in addition to celebrity and prominent fintech investors including Frank Strauss, Global CEO of the Private & Commercial Bank for Deutsche Bank AG, William Hockey, Co-Founder of Plaid, Ankur Nagpal, Founder and CEO of Teachable, Peter Treadway, and NFL wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald) in a crazed capital environment
“It’s ironically becoming a problem that there are a lot of VCs now throwing money at this [challenger banks] market thinking that probably one of them will be the next Chime, so for us it was a hard decision to figure out when to raise, how much, and from who to make sure we aren’t following that kind of hype moment of FinTech investments and make sure that investors can see the difference”
· Why building a capital-intensive and reliable fintech startup that handles something as personal and critical as money doesn’t afford you the typical startup luxury of hiring hustlers to move fast and break things
“In startups you can see this mindset of ‘let’s get some hustler and bet on them, they’ll be fine’ but honestly in banking as you can imagine, you can’t really move fast and break things and find somebody who’s going to learn on the job. We tend to go for more experienced veterans.”
· And so much more!
Check out the Episode on the platform of your choice here → Spotify | Soundcloud | Apple
Hussein (@husseinthoughts) founded Oxygen in 2018 to bring banking into the 21st century, providing digital natives a seamless, all-digital experience that unifies personal and business banking in a way that makes customers feel in their element. As CEO, he oversees engineering and product as well the company’s vision and overall business strategy. Prior to Oxygen, Hussein cofounded and served as CEO of collaborative software company Transpose Technologies. He has started successful businesses, raised millions in venture capital and built and managed large cross-function teams in engineering, marketing and data analytics. For more than fifteen years, Hussein consulted and advised other companies on product design, go-to market launches and product marketing strategy. Hussein received his MBA from the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business and holds a PhD in Computer Science and Applications from Virginia Tech.
Ryan (@rsconway) is the SVP, Head of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships at Oxygen. In his current role, he leads growth and partner efforts focusing on product, distribution and revenue. Prior to Oxygen, he worked at Mastercard in Digital Partnerships, the face of the network to Silicon Valley where he owned global relationships with some of the most recognizable names in Fintech today. A payments veteran, he got his start coming out of business school with Worldpay, where he was fortunate to be join during a period of hyper growth that culminated with the largest IPO on the FTSE in 2015. He writes and speaks regularly on financial technology, startups and payments and is an active investor with Rally Cap Ventures focusing on their LatAm portfolio. Ryan received his MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and holds a B.S degree in Finance from Arizona State University.
About Oxygen
Oxygen is a modern, all-in-one financial platform designed for the 21st century economy — providing digital natives, creators and entrepreneurs pushing everyday boundaries a banking partner that understands how they live and work by offering a seamless user experience for both personal and business accounts in a way that makes them feel in their element. Available on iOS and Android (learn more here: https://oxygen.us), Oxygen users enjoy no monthly fees, early direct deposit, simple transfers, and cashback rewards on everyday purchases. Businesses can easily control their finances with integrated solutions that are elegant, simple and secure. Reject ordinary. Banking for the Extraordinary.
For more related listens, check out these previous episodes:
Fintech for the Future of Work with Craig J. Lewis, CEO & Founder of Gig Wage
Current’s Stuart Sopp on Banking the Under-Banked During Covid-19
Chris Britt, CEO and Co-Founder of Chime
Reinventing Financial Systems — Henrique Dubugras, Co-Founder/Co-CEO of Brex
Everett Cook, CEO & Co-Founder of Rho — Modernizing Business Banking
Noah Kerner, CEO of Acorns — Leveling the Investment Playing Field
Financial Literacy, Mocking Oprah, and Life Lessons with Neale S Godfrey
For more insights from our passionate FinTech community, check us out here:
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About the Author
Ally McCloskey is a first-year MBA Candidate at The Wharton School and Co-President of Wharton FinTech. She fell in love with the rapidly evolving FinTech ecosystem during her years in both wholesale and retail strategy, incubation, and partnerships roles at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Nowadays, Ally is focused on becoming a best-in-class advisor, partner, and occasional angel investor to early- and growth-stage FinTechs. On ‘campus,’ you can find her sourcing/dilligencing pre-seed — Series A startups as a Venture Fellow for both Pear VC and Republic, hosting episodes of the Wharton FinTech Podcast, and promoting financial inclusion as a Wharton Impact Investing Partners Associate. Originally from Connecticut and a Vanderbilt alum, Ally enjoys staying active (yoga, snowboarding, Peloton’ing, ice hockey), experiencing new cultures, and crafting. To get in touch, you can reach Ally on Twitter, LinkedIn, or at allymcc@wharton.upenn.edu.
