Parker Treacy On Raising $65 Million To Improve Logistics Efficiency With Telematics Systems

Parker Treacy’s entrepreneurial journey is a testament to the power of diverse experiences, calculated risks, and unwavering persistence. Born in Boston to parents from Canada and Hong Kong, Parker’s upbringing in a culturally rich environment laid the foundation for his global perspective. In this blog, we delve deeper into key insights from Parker Treacy’s podcast interview on the Dealmakers’ Podcast.

His latest venture, Cobli, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like International Finance Corporation, SoftBank, Fifth Wall, and Valor Capital Group.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Encourage a culture of diversity within your team, as it fosters innovation, creativity, and a broader understanding of global markets.
• Balancing external expectations with personal passions is crucial for long-term fulfillment and success in any entrepreneurial journey.
• Don’t shy away from calculated risks; they can lead to some of the most rewarding ventures and transformative experiences.
• A thorough understanding of regulatory frameworks and a persistent approach are vital for success in industries with stringent compliance requirements.
• Agility and the ability to pivot are critical traits for safeguarding your venture against unforeseen challenges and capitalizing on emerging opportunities.
• Recognizing emerging technologies and their potential for industry-wide impact can lead to groundbreaking business opportunities.
• Emulate Parker Treacy’s spirit of innovation, adaptability, and global vision to forge your own path in the world of entrepreneurship.

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About Parker Treacy:

Parker has started an automotive venture in two different countries, First Help Financial in the US and Cobli in Brazil. He is the youngest person to ever start an auto finance company with more than $150mm in originations.

Through First Help Financial, Parker has raised more than $65 million from investors like Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Cobli is the first company from LATAM to win the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition (2016).

Connect with Parker Treacy:

• Zoominfo
• Crunchbase
• F6S
• LinkedIn

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Already hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So today have I’m really really cool founder. You know a founder that now he’s on his second startup we’re going to be able to listen you know to how it is you know building a company in the us building it in Bra Brazil ah now there in in South america ah, but again, you know, really incredible story around building scaling financing the combination of lending and government. You know team dynamics how and why to go after certain industries on how to implement technology. So a very cool entry that we have ahead of us so without further ado. Let’s welcome our guests today parker tracy welcome to the show. So originally born in boston so give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up.

Parker Treacy: Thanks! All a hundred good to good to be here.

Parker Treacy: Is great is great as my folks are my dad’s canadian my mom’s from Hong Kong they they went to Boston to to go to grad school and never left and so yeah I was born in Boston grew up there and ah Boston was based my base until until about ten years ago when I moved to.

Alejandro Cremades: And you also went to boarding school How how was the experience of going to boarding school and dealing with your known uncertainty Now you’re not at your house. You know like and you can’t misbehave how how is that.

Parker Treacy: Move to sampala.

Parker Treacy: Um, it’s very is very cool experience. It’s um, just being just injected into into like a forced you know, solve your own problems type type culture is and it’s it’s really good for some people really bad for for others but it’s um I don’t know just Tommy. I a lot of independents of how to just solve things by yourself. How to interact outside the the scope and observation surveillance state of of living at home and stuff like that. Um, and it also kind of exposed me like my my folks who in you know are international and stuff like that. But. Exposed me to a lot of different people from different places in the United States different places internationally so it it was definitely like an eyeopening experience in in a lot of different ways and definitely shaped a little bit of like how I see how we see the world.

Alejandro Cremades: And what about math and economics where does the law for math and economics come from.

Parker Treacy: um yeah um I think it was probably a forced love I’d say more more than more than an an inherent. Love I think um, my family is very strict. Ah academically. And my dad is a ph d from mit use. Ah he was a professor there for for quite some time and it was always just put into my brain that like anything that is stem right? like science or or math is good. Everything else is like superfluous should be thought of as a hobby so folks on those things and grown up I never really had like. That much perspective on like what’s good and bad like even in high school and college. You couldn’t really differentiate on like white computer science is better or worse than like a spanish major I just knew that the smartest kids did science and math and I want to be like the smartest kids and I thought the even smartest kids did did math so when it when it went to university and that’s what I what I focused on. And there’s typically 2 paths in math. Theres the the applied part should be like you know, applied maths and and statistics and theory and logic and stuff like that and then there’s the theoretical path which is like set theory and real analysis and and stuff like that and I just kept flying I thought the the smartest kids would do the theoretical route. Which are typically kids trying to go become professors go to grad school and go professors. So I even went like the theoretical route. Um, and I would say would just be kind of like blindly following people I looked up to as opposed to like some inherent value I saw or some inherent love with math I definitely when I graduate kind of like but I’m like oh my goodness. What was I doing not like.

Parker Treacy: Computer Science or industrial engineering is something like practical and useful and stuff like that. Um, so yeah I think it was just basically following people I looked up to like following mentors and and following that pathway more than following my heart. So.

Alejandro Cremades: So so being academics, you know your parents and and that push for for growth and for learning I mean in your senior year you decide that it’s time to build a company. You know like I would assume that when you have you know folks that they are in the in the Academia world. Probably they push you more into the certainty right? and and and versus you know, perhaps the uncertainty of building a company. So how was that you know you launching a business at the same time as. Being at school.

Parker Treacy: Um, there’s a launching is is probably ah, an aggressive word for for what I was doing but it’s um I did do an independent study like the economics department for like putting the pieces together and stuff like that if and a few buds wanted to start the company with me. But I would say it’s it was a mix of 2 things. It was mix of like 1 um I just didn’t have good enough grades to get like an elite job right? I like a Mckinsey or Goldman Sachs or something which at the time that was like the the heavenly jobs to get um and I didn’t I also didn’t know that pathway I didn’t understand the like the internship and. Networking part that that’s that’s critical getting those jobs first is like my job perspective to prospects were like kind of shitty and that didn’t get me excited at all and then second is my dad is just really pushing me. he’ just like part. You should start a company was like awesome. Don’t really understand what that entails but like let me study it academically and I’ll figure it out. Um. And and and that was it right? It’s I started with um you know a few like hypotheses that I thought that it thought made sense I would say graduate from from university like with ah I would say with a pretty good like true north what we were trying to do and. Yeah, it took us less than 1 year to launch the product which I was in retrospect’m shocked. It took us less than a year to launch the product.

Alejandro Cremades: So what do you think you know took you guys so long and what ended up becoming first help financial.

Parker Treacy: sure sure so it’s um, well first off I think that speed of market was like like a record because first how financial is an auto finance company. We are a regulated entity. Um. Ah, today iss regulated by Twenty seven twenty seven different regulatory bodies at least once per year like including the cfpb division of banks and and stuff like that. So the fact that like a non-business major was able to get to market in like ten months um I think that’s that was pretty exceptional. It took me longer to launch copli. Um. And I had ah you know an Mba for Harvard at that time. Um, but the um yeah I think the ideation part was um, not having any frameworks and just being like really really hungry to get cash in the door and get cash flowing flown to the bottom line was a true north that. We just use commonsensically like at the time. Yeah, we weren’t reading startup blogs I didn’t understand what pc was I and even understand it like it can’t basic accounting where we’re getting started but just the the common sense of like generate more revenue than your costs are was a pretty useful true north for those first few years of just keeping costs down and. Mean laser folks and product market fit like we can act we we can make all these words very very academic now but just like make sure revenue’s more than cost was was our entire true north.

Alejandro Cremades: So then so then we think with the company was first help financial. What ended up being the business model. How are you guys making money there.

Parker Treacy: sure sure so the the thing that got me excited is I want to create at the very very beginning I want to create a bank for recent immigrants right? I just saw like at the time like 30000000 recent immigrants to United States very few products were catered to them and stuff and stuff like that especially looking at looking at. Um, immigrants on like the less acculturated side and um, like for example, if you just take ushispanics I think it’s like the fifth if us s hispanics were their own country. It would be the fifth largest gdp in the world like I’m I’m actually shocked more businesses aren’t focused on the segment and that was it. We’re like look it seems like. Ah, really, really big segment I had grown up doing lots of summertime manual labor jobs and I was a kid those manual labor jobs with like the irish and portuguese who were like the the immigrants at the time and by the time I was in college finishing my time of doing these like you know, ah you know landscaping. Was a stone mace and a furniture mover and all this sort of stuff. It had been replaced by people from Mexico and Brazil I mean in Boston they’re they’re all brazilians and so something I had kind of like interacted with these people like a ton and had some sort of like like a cultural affinity for how things happened. And I I kind of had a firsthand account of like how shitty it was to get a credit card to get a loan to get a bank and all these other things so would start out as kind of like a newbank chime like big financial service platform we became just an auto lending platform I would say.

Parker Treacy: I would say it’s actually kind of the path of least resistance from a technology capital and regulatory standpoint meaning that like I was able to launch with just off the shelf tech. Um, the regulatory was not federal. It was state level. So I just had to get regulated by division of banks of each state that we operate in which at the beginning was just Massachusetts and um. Promise I promise you state regulators are much easier. State regulators are typically like old women who you who want like want to have a coffee with you when you’re submit submitting an application federal is very very differenting. Um. And and finally from capital like you only needed I think like two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to launch a lending business in Massachusetts I was like I I can I can put that together whereas if we yeah if we needed $10000000 that would have been dramatically beyond my ability to ah to raise.

Alejandro Cremades: And you guys were able to fully bootstrap the operation I mean obviously now you know with a company that we’re going to be talking about cobli you know is is has been a little bit different. You know the experience on how you guys have gone about really capitalizing the business but how has it been you know, boosttrapping a company.

Parker Treacy: Yeah, so we did raise friends of family. Um, so wasn’t like a full full boots strip is it is a lening company like our inventory is money right? Um, yeah, it’s it’s just I didn’t even understand at the time I didn’t even understand there was a different perspective.

Alejandro Cremades: Like this one? yes.

Alejandro Cremades: Yeah.

Parker Treacy: Like the concept of raising money the concept of raising venture capital money was I didn’t understand those things conceptually when we first started. Um, we first started ramping up and started making some loan just to prove that like you know we’re having loans that performed and all this stuff and then it came 2008 where we were definitely burning money. Um, and. Subprime crisis has happened and we’re you know an alternative finance company. We just fit right in the thing of like high risk lending. Absolutely not so we actually tried to raise money in 2008. Unsuccessfully, at that point I like get rid of the whole team cofounders left I fired everyone I was like for 2 years me and literally one and a half employees and we were profitable and just I kind of used that time to just figure out a way to get debt into it because right because it’s we needed lines of credit kind these revolving debt facilities that are designeded for non non-depository financial institutions and right before business school I was able to I was able to get 1 from from Wells Fargo and then um. Yeah I would say the big The big challenge was really capitalizing a very good performing book of loans and obviously once Wells Fargo came in. Obviously there’s still like ups and downs et cetera but we we created a pretty good pathway to to having like a very highly diversified capital base for what the company is now which is which is one of the biggest. Independent auto lenders in America.

Alejandro Cremades: Now 1 thing that is really incredible. Is you know when you were in it. You know we’re talking about you got started like about 2006 then in 2010 you decide to do your and Nba at Harvard I mean I’m sure that at this point you were probably able to teach. You know at Harvard you know, given your experience already with with building a business. So why going to harvard at that point to do an Mba program in parallel as building your business. Ah.

Parker Treacy: Um, yeah yeah, I don’t think I could have taught it out of the time. It’s um, it’s well so we tried to raise money in 2008 and we failed because there was the world was ending for on sense purposes like both my co-founders. Also went into Mba and I just played the nbas I didn’t know what else I was going to do like it was it was unclear if I was going to stick in the business or go and and so like my only backup option was was that like no one is hiring I didn’t have other business ideas. The business wasn’t invalidate. We just didn’t have any money. When the business is like chugggged along with like a single employee like we were profitable with like like ah like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of revenue we were like making money but there there’s no ability to scale to bits and so I was doing 2 things I was trying to obviously we’re still like growing really really slowly but I was both hustling for money and applying to the and Nba because I would either look. I got in in the Nba packup plans the Nba if I was able to raise money. That’s an awesome plan too and where I was able to do both and so I kind of I did the Nba was managing the bays at the same time obviously had to hire a team and and stuff like that to to lead as I was like not super du into the into the day to day. Um, but that was it. It was just ah, it was a backup option because we weren’t able to raise money in 2008.

Alejandro Cremades: So then you end up doing the Nba how was the and Nba what what kind of things opened up during the Nba that you’re like oh my god I can’t believe this you know I’m definitely gonna be applying this kind of stuff to to my business.

Parker Treacy: Um I don’t think the and Nba was a place for um, inspiration to me. It was like I you know my my knowledge was an inch wide and a mile deep right? I knew and and I knew a tremendous amount about auto finance and I knew absolutely nothing about the rest. The rest of the world about other types of businesses. You name it. And so to me it was kind of like filling in all those gaps that like someone who works at a bank or consultant company just gets this really really broad education on how many different I had none of that I was just an extreme specialist in something that’s relatively obscure I’m sure you’ve never met people in the ah in the out of finance world before and so that was it I I want to I wanted to to um. Kind of fill in a lot of gaps and knowledge that I clearly clearly had and obviously want to have fun to meet people and that was really useful and I would say the 1 thing that kind of changed my perspective is look first off financial at the beginning was just purely brazilian company. All of our employees are brazilian all all of our customers are brazilian. I would say a ton of our dealerships right? because remember the dealer we we do origination only through car dealerships right? So we know, direct sales presence a lot of our dealships were brazilian now and I had this like completely brazilian work experience which is kind of funny and then when I got to hbas it was kind of back the time when when the term bricks was. Originally coined and you know just Brazil Rush in in China back when Russia and China were still thought of as you know as wholesome good players in in the world economy and I was like this seems so super cool I so went down there a few times for the for The first time I just started getting really excited about a few few different macro things and I saw.

Parker Treacy: There’s a few different business models that I thought were really inevitable and I thought if I moved down there I’d say 50% I’m going to get just an incredible experience right? It’s like worst case scenario is going to be like you know 3 chapters in my future autobiography. Best case scenario I’m going to create this like really amazing business and be able to do tons of things at across border. Um, and take advantage of these macro trends I thought were pretty pretty inevitable in in Brazil and yeah, global blue is very much piggybacking off a lot of things I learned at at at first off financial um and the Nba was definitely certainly like it just lubricated my pathway of getting into there right because I could plug into the Hbs network down there and. Um, yeah I had a brand behind me and people took seriously and stuff like that and that was ah I say a very very important part about me um, me kind of getting my feet wet in a very very new place.

Alejandro Cremades: So Let’s talk about you deciding that it’s time to pack the backs and and start a new company I mean always he at this point you know first help Financial. You know what say you know on a good path. So I’m sure that that decision you know of you know. Kind of like turning page. You know on the operator side day to day was not an easy one to start coli.

Parker Treacy: Um, it was I mean Turnney page like like leaving the operation of first self financial. Yeah um, ah yeah, that definitely is.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s right.

Parker Treacy: It tons of we. There’s tons of issues on on that on that transfer like we had. It’s leadership. Ah, let me just put it this way I was the first Ceo and our current Ceo who’s been the Ceo for 10 years who’s been incredible. Um, we had 3 ceos between e and I and this band of like 4 years um, yeah, the first one is just lack of cultural alignment. Um, big time and I was like leaving and coming back and then the guy quits well sorry sorry our first Ceo was actually was in like 2009 and we fired him because he was just such a bad Ceo. We thought we’re gonna like. Bringing someone who experienced we found that most the people from out finance company are I just not as much for thinkers not as analytical as like you or I might be and just we brought it in. It was just like it’s got just applying like the old school playbook we’re we’re not trying to do the old school play but we’re trying to like you know it’ say our model’s not disruptive from an academic sense of the word. But. We’re trying to do everything better like think about like what like you know Elon Musk did to just let me take a manufacturer apart and put it back together in a better way to create a better product. That’s what we were trying to do I just wanted to do the tradition so c o one fired cotwo was came in when I was was at business school. Tons of super smart guy but tons of cultural issues. Um, he quits we hire another Ceo again like and a guy from the traditional industry. Um, we fire him and I would say.

Parker Treacy: I was starting to go down in Brazil in like 2013 and 2014 and then when the final one was fine I’m like oh my god I think you have to go back like you have to be the Ceo and then we we put in our current ceos like kind of an interim Ceo at the time and it’s just been an absolute match pain habit. So that transition I think I’d read a case study and how not to to do it. A. A passing the baton of of leading an organization because that was that was a hot mess. There’s like I said 3 ceos between me and a current Ceo. Um, so anyway that was super Bumpy. We survived. There’s definitely like moments where I thought that bumpiness could have created a downfall for the company but we survived and and. Been been super thrive and I say last like 8 to 10 years have been exceptional for for the biz. Um, yeah, and then I jumped back into founding from from from very early stage where just getting your hands very dirty being the you know head of product head of sales head of finance. All. And 1 position right? off the bat all over again.

Alejandro Cremades: So then let’s talk about cobli koli the idea of koli comes in knocking you know, tell us about the incubation and and bringing it to life in Brazil.

Parker Treacy: Yeah, so the um, the inspiration for Kolu is definitely based off of a lot of the experience I had first off financial. So first help today about 70% of our loans are small businesses so they work working vehicles. So a little bit of an understanding of how fleets of how fleets worked and had a little bit of that that ah that touch point. A lot of auto there’s a lot of tracking so I’d actually have played around tracking devices to see if we want to like track customers to to minimize the linkousines and stuff I’d actually bought a lot of things off like Ali Bobin tried to make these kind of like home makeshift tracking devices and in general I there’s a bunch of iot companies that were being started at the time right in the early um yeah early twenty ten s and I just had a sense that iot was going to become something very big. It was going to become in my opinion kind of a definitional technology of the next next ten years right just generally saying look the digital world will clearly grow and there needs to be some sort of bridge to connect the offline world via sensors. To interact with the online world and whoever can build that bridge is kind of is going to be on to a very big opportunity and and that was it I would say it’s probably 50% of faith 50% if I already had a bit of an experience of it. Um, and and that was it so we you know we we built an Mvp test a few different goto markets. Um, and then we’ve launched formally in in 2017 so koble is um, yeah, six and a half years into into operations now.

Alejandro Cremades: So what is the business model. How do you guys make money for the people listening to get it.

Parker Treacy: sure sure so we are what’s called vehicle telematics right? So we put a series of different sensors onto the vehicles of any company that uses the vehicles to operate um which are highly varied, but our biggest segments are telecom companies. So I think of like. Your comcast guy with the ladder on a top of a sedan going to do servicer installation energy companies pretty pretty similar type type market right? A guy going to do service installation something physical last mile delivery companies think of Amazon that sort of profile. Um, lots in agriculture. Um, lots in third partyy services whether it’s a security company or third party cleaning services company and stuff like that. That said we work with everyone we work with local Lia. We we work with Dhl and so we work with a huge huge range of companies. But it’s typically in the service and installation place and pc three. Pain points that we try to solve right? The first pain point is I want better visibility on my operating slas right? I want to understand like um, what’s you know? what is the average time of spent at the client what sort of clients. Do we show up to late um is the technician doing certain services that that he should or shouldn’t be doing. Second is around cost savings right? I want to minimize. There’s 3 cost savings. It’s gas total cost ownership of the vehicle and and typically everything based around labor law and driving compliance and the third um pain point that we solve is driver safety which is also can be thought of as a euphemism for driver compliance right? Make sure.

Parker Treacy: Using a seat belt not spliting a cigarette that has someone who’s unauth right? You know in the passenger seat and stuff like that and how we do that is we put a range of different sensors. The basic sensor b gps and Accerometer where is the car and how the car moving then we have a bunch of different sensors everything based around like sound. We’re shortly launching temperature stuff. Um, driver id stuff and then the the sensor that we most utilize is actually camera right? So the dash camera where we put a camera actually onto the windshield which records the driver thinking and basic things like facial recognition and stuff like that and facing externally which everything from accident reconstruction. To validation that the customer arrived at the correct customer at the correct point and you have all this video footage and to us is if you think of it of saying how do we get sensors into more things that are offline. We we do believe videos like the final frontier of sensors like the the amount of intelligence we can get from a single image versus like a Gps. Um, location point it’s night and day right? So our our our vision is cameras are fundamentally like especially in logistics cameras we’re going to create fundamentally a surveillance system that can recognize and optimize a lot of things just through just through machine vision. As so yeah, like I said it’s very much a ah camera based company. The majority of what we sell to these to these operations nowadays.

Alejandro Cremades: And what about fundraising because you know this time around you did things a little bit different when he came to capitalizing the business.

Parker Treacy: Yeah, it was um because there was so much upfront cost so much more upfront costs to this business than a first self financial I definitely started the company with like the whole like almost a curmudgeon. Type type perspective on fundraiser like let’s yeah, we don’t need that you know I I came in with a little bit of capital um to to bootstrap and stuff like that. But you just kind of got to the point of like look you do need to spend a lot of money in building that that Mvp that a technical mpp and look it sas is like it’s like. Buying bonds right? You spend money today just to receive a series of cash flows in the future that have a good ah roi that hopefully have a good cash cash payback but it does create a cash dislocation that is very very hard to manage you if you’re playing growing fast as I think with saas companies. It’s very very hard to truly boosttrap a saas company. Unless you want to grow very slowly over a long period time and that’s typically hard if you’re in if you’re in a decent competitive space. Um, and so we launched 2017. We didn’t raise our first money until until 20 we raise a series a series a 2019.

Parker Treacy: And yeah, and then you you definitely kind of get onto a ah fundraising train which you need me, be sure that you’re managing growth and growth efficiency effectively which I think we’ve done that mostly effectively. We definitely in moments where I look back on them I think I could have managed things more more efficiently. Um. Yeah, and the cope is much more around the traditional venture track.

Alejandro Cremades: So tell us about also founder and founding team dynamics. How was it. You know this time around.

Parker Treacy: Yeah, so I mean first self financial I I I had a bad founder dynamic. Um, right? because I think it was few things was first is I think the three a of our found we wanted different things. Um and we had no complementary skills and we none of us really knew what we were doing so there’s. Lots of clashes there. Um and then for this for the second time I I found it fantic because like he’s he’s brazilian so he lots of local dynamic knowledge that that I didn’t have and he brought something to me who’s much more operationally minded than I am like I’m much more like inductive reasoning. Ah, get more excited about I’d say shiny objects on the rise and than the operation clearly, you need a balance of those things you need. Someone’s like pulling towards some sort of true north. You also need someone who’s actually making sure that the operation is is is good functioning and that was the synergy that we that we actually put together that I don’t think I could have explained that at the time when when. And I just found that in a personal dynamic was was we we a good working relationship. Um, yeah I’d say that that dynamic is really really important if that you have a very very clear synergy and in general I find the internal external perspective and more important synergy than a sales and product synergy. Which is usually the one that vcs that feces will will bring up pretty pretty frequently. Um.

Alejandro Cremades: So obviously you talking ovcs and and raising money you know vision is a big one. So if you are to go to least to sleep tonight and you woke up in a world in which the vision of Coli was fully realized what would that world look like.

Parker Treacy: Yeah, I’d say it’s we will be you like? Well it’s it’s it’s mission and and kind of where the company wants to what wants to be right? like it’s it’s poor. The mission that is you know, big, inspirational and not and and not about money. Right? to like we want to be we want to be the largest um iot company and fundamentally digitize a mass offline worlds who can interact with the internet in in a highly connected manner and we think that can bring you know cost down that can bring service levels up it making business more efficient making supers happier e etc. Sort of remission standpoint is that so really connect connect all offline things we can interact with the internet where I want the company goes look. We want to be the biggest vehicle telematics company Latin America right today we have we have a little less than 100000 vehicles in our base for light vehicles. We’re the largest telematics player in Latin America um in the next 2 to 3 years. We should become the largest telemanics company in Latin America across all sorts of vehicles and then in the next five years we want to put a million vehicles into our base about 60000000 commercial vehicles in in Latin America and so it it is just that the tip of the iceberg but it’s it’s. The amount of things that we can do once we’ve really become the largest generator of of this sort of offline data is is pretty exciting. So for example, few of the dash games today. Our dash gas cover every five days

Parker Treacy: We cover 95% of all public roadways in Brazil we have a video camera we footage of that. Um, come next June we will have that every 24 hours and in less than 2 years. We will have real time video footage of 95% of the public roadways of Brazil. Every three and a half hours and so we’ll fundamentally have the most the largest surveillance system that exists for public roadways and in in Brazil obviously then and then then Outris leave american just bad things we do. It’s like where are people where are lost vehicles where are lost things. Um, how can we optimize kind of visibility around different roadways. Um, so look I think we can be fundamentally disruptive to to mapping technologies to security systems around people around freight and and stuff like that and certainly completely. Reconstructure how insurance is priced operate and and stuff like that. So we we do believe that kind of the data that we generate. Well we monetize our system and insights that that we have the business that the date itself can be something that’s by itself. Super super and super interesting.

Alejandro Cremades: Now we’re talking about the future I want to talk about the past but with a lens of reflection. Let’s say you were able to going I put you into a time machine right now and I bring you back in time I bring you back to 2006 you know to maybe to out of those classrooms in duke.

Parker Treacy: And.

Alejandro Cremades: Where you were starting to think about what would be an idea you could bring to life and let’s say you’re able to sit down next to that younger Parker and you’re able to give your younger self one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why you and what you know now.

Parker Treacy: Um, yeah, so I would say the first is just insanely common and insanely commonsensical. So tip First is um, be really, really good at at planning. I I even to this day I’m a bad planner I think our team has become a very good planner but the more clarity you can have over what you’re trying to do over the next year and therefore allocating resources in the most effective way as opposed when haphazard weekly as things come up. Putting money behind it or something I’ve done successfully my career I think planning and operational strategy is one of the biggest superpowers. Any founder can have right? just cutting through bullshit and focusing I do quite a bit of seed investing today when a founder comes to me and says Parker. Um. Have one customer and I’m going to sell to that customer through one channel and I’m going to sell 1 product to them and assuming the founders smart guy guy god I almost don’t even care what you’re selling just that level of focus in competent hands is a superpower. Typically you get like oh we have 3 products we’ve 9 different customers. We 3 different channels for which we sell. It’s not possible, right? like you can’t you can’t accumulate enough learning repetitions for that level of focus right? So I think just focus and focus just comes down from really good planning understand the mechanics of what success looks like.

Parker Treacy: Um, and it’s very very hard I think it takes years and years to master. But I would say that’s that’s by far the the first one and then the second one is um, distribution is typically more important than than product and it’s very very hard to build build a business on the back of small tickets. Um.

Parker Treacy: Just take a saas example like if you look at um, 60% of publicly traded saas companies are essentially enterprise only companies and eighty five plus percent are midmarket on up and that means like you know a dozen you know twelve fifteen percent are s and b only. Right? And you just get It’s so hard to build a business on the back of small tickets because the sales efficiency is worse. You have to have such incredible volume to make the business big and stuff like that and so if I were to say design it in a perfect world I would say something where you can sell the enterprise. As soon as humanly possible with as few dads as humanly possible I would say that is the best pathway to starting a company that has the perspective of being something very big.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it. Parker for the people that are listened that will love to reach out and say hi. What’s the best way for them to do so okay.

Parker Treacy: Um, yeah mean I’m not super active on on on social media. But I would say um, ah, honestly, super ab I mean email in there or or something I out of say like email or Whatsapp is the easiest way to to get in contact.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing! Well hey parker thank you so much for being on the dealmaker show today. It has been an honor to have you with us.

Parker Treacy: Thanks, Excellent! all and thanks so much for having me.

*****

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