Tate Hackert On Raising $50 Million To Give Employees Better Control Over Their Paychecks

In a recent episode of the Dealmakers’ Podcast, Tate Hackert, the visionary founder of ZayZoon, shared his remarkable journey from a small town on Vancouver Island to the helm of a groundbreaking fintech startup. Through his candid anecdotes and insightful reflections, Tate reveals the pivotal moments that shaped his path, offering a blueprint for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Tate’s venture, Zayzoon, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like ATB Financial, Export Development Canada (EDC), Framework Venture Partners, and Export Development Canada.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Resilience is forged in the crucible of community; embrace the lessons of hard work and passion from your roots.
• Seize unconventional opportunities – even a second mortgage at sixteen can spark a game-changing venture.
• Understanding diverse financial perspectives is the cornerstone of building solutions for true financial wellness.
• Global perspectives fuel innovation – immerse yourself in new environments and networks to broaden your horizons.
• Serendipity often paves the way; cherish unexpected encounters and the potential they hold for transformative partnerships.
• Adapting from founder to leader demands self-discovery and a strong support system; surround yourself with the right team.
• Networking prowess and a compelling vision can turn unconventional funding routes into the lifeblood of your startup’s success.

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About Tate Hackert:

Co-founder and President of ZayZoon, Tate Hackert, was born in Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario, and sees himself as a British Columbian at heart since his family moved to Vancouver Island when he was younger.

Tate attended the University of Victoria to study Economics and finished the final semester at the City University of Hong Kong.

Tate is the brain behind ZayZoon, developing the idea of providing access to funds before payday in 2013. He feels gratified knowing “we get to improve the financial health of people each and every day.”

One of his favorite ZayZoon experiences involves a business trip to Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, where he helped film a Holiday Inn Express testimonial video. Wearing a ZayZoon shirt at the local Walmart, someone saw Tate and exclaimed, “Hey, ZayZoon! I use that!”

Tate is learning Spanish, loves to travel, as well as participates in activities that require him to be fully present and focused, like martial arts or a difficult hike.

Tate admits he’s happiest when he’s “in the sun and close to an ocean, lake, or river.” Also a musician, Tate enjoys listening to and playing music of all types, with the flavor of May 2021 being Lana Del Rey, Alexisonfire, Mike Posner, and Lamb Of God.

Connect with Tate Hackert:

• F6S
• Crunchbase
• TheOrg
• LinkedIn

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the dealmakerr show. So today. We have another exciting founder. You know we’re going to be talking definitely about building scaling financing. You know in this case, you know what they’re doing the difference between racing for equity racing for debt. All of that good stuff. You know we’re going to be talking about what happened you know what they did in covid. Methods that are not the traditional ones that you’re used to seeing in Silicon Valley you know going after super angels and then you know perhaps you know, opening it up to external institutionals. But again you know a lot to really think about a lot of get a lot you know of information that is going to be inspiring. And without further ado. Let’s welcome our guest today Tate hackard welcome to the show first.

Tate Hackert: Um, thanks man, Thanks for having me that was quite the intro.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in Waterloo canada so give us our walk through memory lane. How was life growing up there.

Tate Hackert: Absolutely so I was born in Kitchener Waterloo at about 4 years old though a family and and myself obviously moved to Vancouver Island Vancouver island if you don’t know it’s the westernmost point in Canada um, and it’s just spectacular. Summers are amazing. Winters are a little bit rainy and dreary. But what a great place to grow up living now in Calgary. But yeah, certainly canadian through and through and I’m sure you’ll you’ll hear it a lot throughout this podcast.

Alejandro Cremades: Now 1 thing that is very interesting here is that very early on you really got into the whole business side of things. So how how did that happen? okay.

Tate Hackert: Yeah, certainly so you know growing up on Vancouver island um, it’s an interesting place. You know I think if you have a lot of drives. You can make a lot of things happen. Um, and fortunately for me I was surrounded by you know. Amazing people, amazing people in the community had a lot of friends that grew up just down the street for me and were all sort of had that same sort of drive and and passion to to do things other than just the typical um kind of 9 to 5 and as well with my parents right? So ah, growing up grew up on a farm. Learn very early on the the value of of hard work and work ethic and what that looked like and um I think it’s interesting looking back now because for so so long I thought of work as this like linear. You know you put 1 hour in you get 1 hour out because that’s you know, ultimately. Working on on a farm or working in the blue collar industry is is what happens and took a long time to to shift that to kind of thinking in the knowledge work realm where you’re really creating exponential lift in in the labor productivity that you do but in any case, yeah, so you know I was fortunate enough to to work. In the commercial fishing industry from a young age and that gave me some money in my pocket and when I was sixteen years old I started lending that money out I did a second mortgage for someone which is just a fancy word for someone needed a mortgage. They couldn’t get it through the traditional means of a bank.

Tate Hackert: And so I lent them that a year later I got a check back with interest and I thought wow this is ah a pretty cool way to make money and I went crazy with it I put an advertising up on Craigslist I I started you know anyone that wanted money I would chat with them in the local coffee shop and. Um, ultimately decide whether or not they were worthy of ah you know getting a thousand dollars two thousand dollars for for a short period of time. What was really interesting about that. Is you start to learn a ton about people and you start to you know as a 16 17 18 year old kid I’m interacting with people. 2 or 3 times my age and and really understanding their life story and where they’re coming from and what they need money for and it took me down this entire journey I went through university I went to university and um did sort of the traditional route of education. But I also did a lot of. Ah, nontraditional things in there as well and dove deep into the research realm of Payday loans overdraftes and ultimately you know that research led me to to what I’m doing today in the fintech space.

Alejandro Cremades: And I guess say while you were doing this. You know at 16 and also speaking with people that are like twice your age. What what did you learn about money.

Tate Hackert: So it’s interesting because you know I kind of think of money in in two ways. There’s there’s your balance sheet capital and there’s your cash flow capital and from a balance sheet perspective. Um I had some decent funds. Ah, from a cash flow perspective I didn’t have much at all right I didn’t have a consistent paycheck that I could pull from um and so when I’m seventeen years old talking to someone that’s making $80000 a year needing $2000 to get by for sixty days it just didn’t compute because. 17 I thought $80000 a year was the most money you could make in the world I thought that was wow if I had a job that paid me 80000 consistently throughout the year that’d be incredible and so I think like first and foremost it was really interesting to understand like people’s budgetary habits. Um, how they think of money. how they ah how they think of prioritization and tradeoffs. Um, it’s it’s interesting to me what people would be willing and not willing to give up in order to have money for a certain period of time and I think that all just again lends itself into um. Like the the focus on financial wellness financial health and ah personal financial management that you know, kind of my career has taken me down.

Alejandro Cremades: So you got your degree in the university of Victoria but then eventually you end up in Hong Kong so in Hong Kong actually that’s where you got your feet wet there in the venture world in the startup world. So I guess. First and foremost what do you think changed. You know in terms of your worldview when now all of a sudden you’re coming out of Canada you start to see that there’s a world outside of Canada especially being there in Hong Kong and then and also how did you get into the venture world.

Tate Hackert: So when I went to university I went to university a couple hours away from my hometown and it’s sort of like a rite of passage for anyone that grew up in my place like in in my hometown. They’d they’d go these 2 hours south to this city called Victoria anyone that’s been to Vancouver Island ah would know Victoria. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place and um, Victoria’s business and and economics program had an amazing ah an amazing opportunity or an amazing. Um, yeah, you could go to on exchanges in other places and. When I saw that I’m like oh well I’m definitely going to go in exchange and I saw everyone kind of doing the typical Europe thing and I thought ah Hong Kong would be neat like that would be such a culture shock and if I’m going to do something I may as well do it and and you know get some life lessons out of it as well. So. That’s where I ended up just for my last semester I think it sounds a lot cooler that I went to you know school in Hong Kong but ultimately it was it was my final semester and a little bit of school that that I did over there. Um, and when I was over there. You know unlike I think most exchange students. I went there in my final year most go in their first or second year they’re really caught up in having fun with the other students. Um, and for better or for worse I I wasn’t I was really focused on like okay these are my final four months of school I really want to like set myself up for what’s next.

Tate Hackert: And so although I had a ton of fun over in Asia I spent the majority of my time really digging into like what’s the next year of Tate’s life going to look like and at the time this is twenty thirteen the startup ecosystem was really hot. You had companies like snapchat airbnb um insta like they were all launching and startups was really cool at the time. Ah, and so there was all these meetups around Hong Kong for interested startup entrepreneurs interested tech people and for me like coming from a small town. Going to this big city with this whole ecosystem available. It was mind-blowing and I realized that I could spend my entire days simply learning from people and I did this a little bit in Victoria as well. Um, you know I skipped class a lot more than I probably should have and I ended up. Just booking coffee dates with local entrepreneurs and I think when I went to Hong Kong I did that you know times 10 booked coffees with with anyone that I could attended all these meetups and networking events learned all I could about this you know technology industry fintech industry. And eventually um, quite early on actually in in Hong Kong I got ah a job at a startup ecommerce company and that was really my first sort of introduction to to tech in a professional capacity.

Alejandro Cremades: Now tell us about then you know when you got into into the tech world in that capacity I mean obviously you started more on the business development side of things. So What happened like how. Why did you come back to kind of that. Also like when you came back to kind of that. How do you now? get into the fintech you know world as Well. So walk through those sequence of events that needed to happen.

Tate Hackert: Certainly man I I well I came back to Canada ah because you know Canada’s home but I I moved to calgaryary because of a girl I mean what? why else would you move to Calgary and and so. Um, yeah, at the time I was I was dating a girl ah that that we both went to university with she was from calgary and so it just made sense to move out here and um, you know throughout that time in Victoria I had connected with individuals in the fintech space and. Specifically 1 individual that after became a board member for myself. Casper Wong out of out of Toronto when I moved to calgaryaries I said to casper hey I you know I think I’m ready to embark on this next journey of fintech I have this idea I have this really. Terrible logo and and this company name and and I and and you know I I think I can make this happen. Do you know anyone in Calgary that would act as a co-founder with me and he said you know I know of a guy.

Tate Hackert: Send me your pitch deck see if he’s interested in this don’t know what’s happening. Um, and so sure enough sent sent them the pitch deck and and that’s darcy tour. My my co-founder and and zazin’s Ceo and so Darcy and and myself co-founded zazoon. You know a number of years ago now. But at the time it it worked super serendipitously because Darcy was just in the process of exiting his company that he had been cofounder and president for a number of years. He was just in the process of exiting that and I came along with this idea and an initial couple customers. And ah or initial couple I guess intended customers or customers that had some intent of of using the service if we had it and convinced them to come on board and we we took it from there.

Alejandro Cremades: What were those initial conversations like you know when you guys were getting together I mean was that like brainstorming or how how were you able to enroll and really put together this founding team.

Tate Hackert: Um, a lot of so so Daria is ah ah 2 decades older than me. Um or not yet. Yeah 2 decades older than me and so a lot of it for me was just understanding. Wow you know here I am in this office with this. Adult um mind you I’m 23 years old at the time but 23 fresh at a university in a brand new city. It feels quite fresh, right? So a lot of it’s just trying to understand. Um, exactly what to do I suppose but you know I I think what I did and and what those brainstorming sessions looked like was. Mainly hey like here’s my experience here’s the conversations I had in the coffee shops with all these people that needed funds here’s the research I’ve done on the short-term money industry. Um I know that there’s a solution here to be had I know that there’s definitely a problem here. And so like can we make this solution and ah one of our initial conversations that that we had was around this payroll company that um that I was wanting to partner with and for a bit of context. You know the the company that we have today Zazoon. We provide earned wage access to employees and so how that works is we partner with payroll companies distribute through the business and then ultimately the employee chooses to to use us to get money early and so there was this payroll company that was interested in using us through some conversations.

Tate Hackert: Conversations I’d had with them and so you know with with darrs it was man fly out here with me. Let’s let’s let’s see if if ah like let me show you that this is real um and and like if this is real and if if you feel that it’s real. Then like why wouldn’t we dig into this. We know that the problem’s massive. We know that we’re both smart individuals and so if you have ah you know two smart individuals and you have a massive problem I mean there’s there. There’s got to be something there and that’s that’s really what it was um now of course you know that. Massive problem and the solution that we thought was so easy. Took you know seven or eight years to to actually come to fruition and and and become something we added another cofounder along the way as well. Um, but but yeah, it was a pretty special moment in those early days. Certainly.

Alejandro Cremades: And I guess for the people that are listening to get it. What ended up being the business model of say Zoom how are you guys making money.

Tate Hackert: Certainly so an employee chooses to come in and access about $100 from from zazun they do that 9 or 10 days before their next payday because they’re short on cash. They get that money ah in a number of ways we have a zazoon. Debit card which is completely free for that employee to access funds. We have a gift card solution where they can take their money early in the form of a gift card to about 400 different retailers again completely free and then if that employee wants to send money to their own account via venmo or direct to their. To their own you know bank account through through transfer we charge them a $5 fee to do so.

Alejandro Cremades: And they I guess you know Also what was the process. What was the journey of I guess capitalizing the business. How did you guys go about raising money for this because I guess just so that we know how much capital have you guys raised too late.

Tate Hackert: And we raised a little over $50000000 to date. Ah, and that that came together across a number of rounds. Um, you know, being in Calgary Calgary is an interesting city. It’s it’s for those that don’t know it’s it’s um, sort of like the Houston of the north very oil and gas heavy. Ah, lots of old money. Not a huge startup ecosystem. Although it’s it’s changing and getting better now. But back in 2013 or 2014 I guess once I got to Calgary um 142015 when we were starting to raise capital. There wasn’t really venture capital available to us or or not none that was interested in us. Anyways, right? We’re not Stanford grads um were based in Calgary not San Francisco and we had an idea that although was super novel um was also. Incredibly new and seemingly arduous by way of the b to b to c business model and so having takers for that was was quite difficult to find um and so what we did is we we did what we do do best and and we leaned on our network. We. We have an incredible network and I think. Um, you know going back to ah my days in university and even prior to that I’ve always been focused on putting network first I remember my dad told me a quote when I was probably seven years old we were coming home from a hockey practice and we were in a ah.

Tate Hackert: Local coffee shop early morning and there’s someone ahead of us. Um, that that I I knew from the other team but didn’t say hi to I remember my dad said what are you doing like why don’t you say hi to him I said well I don’t know like why would I say hi to him I I don’t really know him and my dad’s like. You always need to run for mayor like always be mayor which was basically his way of saying you know like talk to everyone say hi to everyone. Um, and so I digress a little bit but you know I think that’s that’s sort of um, something that we’ve we focused on immensely at zazoon. And it’s helped us with investors and it’s helped us with clients and um, kind of all the way through to the end customer. Um, and so from a money-raising capital perspective. It. It was exactly that it was go to our network go to the oil and gas capital that was looking for diversification. That was looking for an interesting tech play to get into and scrape and crop sort scrape and claw together a million bucks by way of a bunch of $50000 checks from high net worth individuals and what’s beautiful about that is when you show results and when you. Have great communication as a company and you’re continually updating them and you’re executing on what what you say? you’re going going to do. You can come back to that well and we came back to that. Well a lot. We raised our first almost $25000000 um, exclusively from.

Tate Hackert: High net worth super angels.

Alejandro Cremades: I Mean that’s a lot of money. So I mean how do you really go to raise it to that level and then at what point do you realize? hey maybe we need to open it up to institutional investors.

Tate Hackert: For us. We really saw the need for institutional investment because we’re looking ahead. Um, we’re we’re seeing that that well has been amazing for us and we’ve had an incredible. You know support group by way of these super angels ah, but if Zazoon wants to be a $10000000000 plus outcome of a business you eventually take that leap into you know deeper pockets and and and bigger capital pools and. Also expertise that comes with some of the venture capital firms or or um, institutional financing where they’ve seen this story happen many times before um and and they can be in board meetings and talk to you about how they’ve seen other companies. Do it or analogies. Um that you can perhaps draw from. And so that was really what we got excited about and in our last round we ended up raising through ah through a venture capitalist for for this reason. Um, and and I you know I think it’s it’s a really really amazing thing for us and it’s going to be a very amazing thing for us.

Alejandro Cremades: So Then I guess for for you guys you know in this case obviously vision is a really big one now when you’re sharing it with with this investors. So if you were to go to sleep tonight. And you woke up in a world where the vision of sasoon was fully realized what would that world look like.

Tate Hackert: Yeah, um, it’s it’s quite simple. We’re we’re going to save 10000000 employees $10000000000 and that manifests itself in ah in a number of ways today we provide earned wage access which helps save employees money on payday loans and overdraft fee and. We objectively um or or you know we we quantitatively know that that is in fact, true. We do both self-reported data survey data to to customers and we also analyze their banking data through through plaid um to to see you know how much did they use Payday loans and overdrafts. Presazoon and and postazoon and so that’s sort of you know 1 example of how we’re saving money. But I think what’s really special about what we do and what any what any company does right? that that that really focuses on the customer and and sort of finds that thin edge of the wedge is we’re providing a. Solution to a really really specific and big problem that that person’s having and we are creating an immense amount of trust in a consumer s most vulnerable moments and if we can do that very well and if we can provide an amazing product experience. Um, customer service experience and actually execute on you know, expectations versus reality and and match those 2 as closely as possible then that customer is going to be a customer of ours for life and that’s going to allot us the ability to really provide um other services and offerings to that customer right.

Tate Hackert: Um, and again, ah what those services and offerings look like um you know we we have some of those in the roadmap and and I think it’ll be an exciting 2024 certainly but but you can be certain that it’s um, you know all in that mission of how can we save employees money.

Alejandro Cremades: So obviously this has been a tremendous journey. You know we’re talking about close to 10 years and I’m sure you’ve learned a lot now as a founder too. You got to keep growing so that you’re not outpaced by the company. So I’m wondering how do you think that you’ve changed. You know. Ah, you’re perhaps a a from a cycle’s perspective how you’ve changed from a founder to more like on the operator side and then also how you are thinking to about nontraditional education you know type of mentorship to really grow and self- develop yourself and. Whether it’s for you or whether you see for all other people as well tell us about this. So.

Tate Hackert: Amen so there’s a lot there and it’s it’s very tough um it’s funny you bring up the you know your development as a founder and I’m sure that this is not unique to me I’m sure it’s something that all founders experience. But yeah, it is ah. It is tough. Um I’ve had a couple so so you know we’re we’re ah just over a hundred people now. Um, which by by all stretches you know isn’t a large company. Ah but it feels large as as a startup it feels big. And and I would say that there’s been a couple pain points along the way for me personally I think you know early days as a founder you do everything early days. We call it swivel chairir so the product is only you know halfbaked a customer comes in to access money I’m on support. Helping that customer through the signup process that customer accesses money. There’s an email that goes to them. Well guess who’s sending that money I’m going into the bank account sending them a transfer manually and then sending them a notification that says hey thanks so much for using us. You know, thanks for being a customer and so. You’re’re you’re you’re doing that on one end of the spectrum on the other end the spectrum you’re negotiating financings. You’re doing these crazy business development deals with with large large companies. Um, we launched with you know uber canada really early on and in in ah in Zazoons. Um.

Tate Hackert: Lifetime or lifecycle. But ah so so there’s kind of 2 ends of the spectrum there dealing with these massive conversations and dealing with the the sort of nitty-gritty of a business. Um, however, as the business grows like naturally. Those things go off your plate and you as the founder focus on higher impact items. Ah, and so you you start to strip away the sales you start to strip away the customer support. You start to strip away the marketing and the product and eventually you bring in. You know, competent leaders to to lead each of those functions. Um, and you’re more and more hands off. That’s really difficult. It’s really difficult to be hands off and it’s sort of like a punch punch in the guts at first and so the the sort of I think it. But 25 employees I felt that first where I was like all right I I don’t really know what my purpose is here anymore I need to figure it out I need to figure out how to stop from getting my my ah you know, stop from getting my dopamine or my satisfaction from being in the weeds. And start to understand what it means to manage I think that was um, you know at 50 employees was another threshold where that was you know, maybe 2 or three x ah of of that same feeling again needed to have a bit of a reset understand exactly all right like.

Tate Hackert: Where do I live in this organization. What where can I provide the most value and then it again just before one hundred employees. It wasn’t until maybe six months ago or you know 5 four or four months ago that I felt comfortable again because there were a few month period there where it’s like all right. Like what am I doing. Where’s my impact I feel kind of stupid I feel like we’ve hired a bunch of experts and I’m not an expert in and in any of this. Um I’m not really getting my dopamine kick from executing on something and and doing something I’m not in the weeds I’m not getting the praise from from people for saying you know a great job doing that. Um, you’re kind of just you know you got to put one foot in front of the other and and make sure the team’s aligned and and that’s a like really difficult to define. There’s a lot of ambiguity in how do I make sure that the team is aligned. How do I make sure that the team is is you know? ah. Heading towards that mission. Um, and there’s a lot of like grind in that as well, right? So I think like for me, it’s just been leaning on my cofounders Darcy and and Jamie and and understanding. You know, like like we all got each other’s backs and um. We’re here to work through it and figure out where we all fit in this organization and and how that can how that can work. It’s talking to other founders that have been through the same thing and understanding how they define their rules but yet it’s really interesting. Um, you know on on the on the nontraditional education route. Ah.

Tate Hackert: Again, like talking to other founders. Um podcasts lots of reading. Um I always find it really interesting, especially talking with with younger entrepreneurs or university students. Everyone relates sort of. Learning something with a set course. Um even internally here at zazoon. We we talk a lot about our our staff or our team talks a lot about um, continuing education and what’s the budget look like for continuing education and well hey like. There’s a course that I want to take for this or I’d like to do this I’d like to do that and of course I want to promote that but my initial reaction is always well have you explored all the other avenues to actually get that education in a better way. Um, we have an amazing group of board members. We have an amazing you know I have an amazing network of founders if you want to learn something about x certainly there’s someone that you could have a half hour coffee with that I guarantee you is going to teach you more about x than you’re going to learn in a. three month online course put on by the local college guaranteed and so I think it’s just like shifting that mentality of a certificate doesn’t necessarily mean education knowing something means that means education and knowing something can be done through. Um you know, being a really good mentee.

Tate Hackert: Leaning into leaning into a mentorship network reaching out to individuals in the community listening to podcasts writing things down. Um and and you know sharing it with a group of peers.

Alejandro Cremades: So talking about lessons here imagine if I was to put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time back to perhaps you know 2014 when you were thinking about or even 2013 where you were starting to incubate the idea here. Let’s say you had the opportunity of going back in time and having a chat with our younger Tate. What would that be that one piece of advice that you will give to your younger self about launching a business based on what you know now.

Tate Hackert: More confidence. It’s always more confidence. It’s ah, especially as a I was going to say especially as that founder. But you know what? it’s especially as anyone um imposster syndrome gets yeah and you. You you know, deep down you you know your gut you can confirm your gut 10 times over ah you know throughout 10 different situations and for whatever reason on that eleventh time you still think you don’t know the answer even though you have 10 examples of where you really excelled at something and so I think just having that confidence. Um, and and understanding that ah you know you’re’re where you are for a reason you’re you’re exactly in the right place. Ah and also understanding that you know exponential growth isn’t easy to isn’t an easy concept to grasp. Um, and so when your business is growing or when yeah when your business is growing. You know four x in a year like you as a person probably need to grow 2 or 3 x to keep up and so I think just like understanding from from a young age like a the confidence that you you got this. Ah, and b the understanding that growth takes work and it’s supposed to be hard and it’s not just the business that’s growing. It’s it’s you as well. Um, and you need to put that time into that and you need to like if you’re feeling stretched like make the time to talk with people and understand how you can.

Tate Hackert: How you can excel yourself.

Alejandro Cremades: I Love it. So for the people that are listening Tate. What is the best way for them to reach out and say hi.

Tate Hackert: Probably Twitter yeah at Tate hacker on Twitter quite active on there and certainly feel free to drop me a Dm or or whatever else.

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

Tate Hackert: Thanks so much aleandro.

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