Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Alex Nikityuk founder and CEO of Maroo Payments. Platform for the wedding and events industry. Alex, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm really excited to dive deep into your background, your experience, and get to know what your, what you've got going on at Maroo.

Julian: But before we jump into that, what were you doing before you started the company? 

Alexey: Hey, Julian, pleasure to be here and thanks a lot for inviting me on your podcast. Before starting Maroo, I worked for a year and a half at Ute here in London, where I'm currently based. My responsibility just included building their corporate finance function, financial modeling, and I was also part of the core team raising series D back in two, 2020.

Alexey: Before Ute I spent seven years working in general electric company, also in corporate finance. I initially started in Moscow, Russia, but then, you know, it moved to pretty much globally. So all over the. You know, our family moved, you know, to China, to France, to uk you know, bunch of states in the US back to Paris, then back to London.

Alexey: And my first work workplace was pro and gamble. So I did a couple years there after graduation from the university. 

Julian: That's incredible. How was the experience like moving to different countries and, and also were you doing the same job function at, at each kind of career stop, or was it with the same company? Tell me a little bit more about that. 

Alexey: It was more like, It was something like internal audit function. 

Alexey: Yeah. So my job at GE it included various, various projects. So it, it, the range was between implementation of, you know, e p systems and the massive you know, scale businesses to just pure financial audit to. Supply chain, you know, improvement projects.

Alexey: And then yeah, and it was a pretty interesting experience because we were moving all over the place as I mentioned together with my family. And yeah, I mean, we, we had a chance to see like how such a global business like junior electric is, is built. Mm-hmm. And how. How it works on the scale. Yeah. The whole planet pretty much. 

Julian: Yeah. How, how, when, when looking at business, obviously now you're, you're within the start space and but you know, we are working within the corporate level and how different. It's each environment and, and I guess what are the components that a company that's global has to kind of get involved in or, or think about when building business and connecting with relationships and, and working international and globally that, you know, say startup doesn't necessarily have to focus on.

Alexey: Well, so it's, it being a part of the bigger company gives you perspective how things should work on the scale. So it, it actually was very nice transition for me coming from like a massive organization first to Ute because, you know, it was kind of, Taking more risk but then like scaling a bit or going a bit lower into like more focused type of work.

Alexey: Yeah. And then like when I started my own company it was like highest risk, but like super narrow. So I think it just gives your opportunity to understand kind of how the end stage should look. Yeah. And then kind of connecting the dots when you start something yourself, like this is where I need to go.

Alexey: And like you kind of already know the reverse engineered like that to get. 

Julian: Yeah. How, how should, you said, you know, it gave you an insight on how companies should scale or should work at that scale. How should, how should they work? How, how should they be organized and strategized at that level? . 

Alexey: Yeah, so it's mainly about like what departments should be there, how they should be com, you know, communicating between each other.

Alexey: It's also interesting to, to to see the difference between, you know, in every company there is its own culture and there is also like, One or two departments that are the, the strength of the company. Just to give a perspective, our example actually in Proctor Gamble's, usually HR and marketing. Yeah. Ng, It's engineering and finance in revenue.

Alexey: It's actually product and well, product and engineering. So, And for those departments, they have power, they have negotiation power at the table, and like they drive their initiatives and have the strength. So it's also good, like when, when I started Mero, just looking like which departments should be, you know, stronger and you know, what should have, what part of the company should have allow their voice.

Alexey: I would say you know, we're building payments of from tech products, so engineering function and like perspective is, is really strong at the same. Our market is very emotional. So wedding and events like you come to remove emotion from there, which is why marketing and everything related to, you know, brand and design of the product is essential.

Alexey: Otherwise will be just another like, horizontal solution that's, you know, that's already present on the market. 

Julian: Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. And going to your experience at Volute and, and I was reading a little bit about your background and you were part of, kind of the core team that raised a series D, which is, you know, a huge success.

Julian: It's a massive round 500 million. What goes into the strategy and the planning around that that's different from previous rounds that you had raised amongst that company? . 

Alexey: Well, to, to be very transparent, this was the only fundraise I had. So I can't, you know, judge, at the same time I can compare, you know, what was serious D at versus, you know, receipt and sit from financing with my own company.

Alexey: So obviously, you know when on the later stages you have much more data. To back, back up your story, you can actually paint it only through the data, through the charts. And especially like if it's, you know, going top right corner, it's so much easier to articulate, you know, your, your strength and you know, your attraction.

Alexey: Which, and like my responsibilities included, like taking those historical data and projecting it into the future. Basically take into account various strategic initiatives that the company was taking at that time or. You know, for example, expansion, original expansion, product expansion yeah.

Alexey: So like, you know, introduction of different yeah, like new segments on the market and you factor it on into the model and, you know, produce the end result where we think we're gonna be. You know, at the next fundraiser, like at the next milestone, and this is what it's gonna be. In terms of, you know, much more early stage fundraise, which, you know, the experience I had, so for example, our proceed fundraise, I spent like around 260 meetings with investors and I think at the first hundred I just got straight.

Alexey: No, just like, because, so it's, it was. Kind of company experience because you kind of like, I, I started and approached it in the beginning, like with this Revolut bravado, just like, Hey, you know, I can, I did this, so I can do that too. And reality is like so much different. Like you have, like in that case, in, in my case, I had the idea on a napkin and every, nobody kind of believed in it.

Alexey: So it took a while. But it was, it was interesting kind of also Experience and learning journey. Just like to grow your skin, make it like much, much thicker being okay with like, hearing no 400 times and just like keep pushing regardless of what's, what's happening around. So it's been two years, like pretty much exactly two years.

Alexey: Since, since, you know, we started the company and yeah. We're in a much better place right now. Yeah. You know, we, we didn't announce it publicly, so that's kind of exclusive for, for your podcast. But you know, we, yesterday, yesterday night actually, we hit our mill arr you know, Incredible. Which we spent 10 months, you know, going to it.

Alexey: So we are kind of very excited, you know, internally and yeah. Can't wait to, to share it with the broader, you know, That's 

Julian: awesome and congrats on the success and, and it sounds like there's been so much work that's, that's done. And I love and definitely wanna dive into kind of the work and, and, and what's involved in the success of, of Maroo.

Julian: But one last question in regards to your experience raising money that, that was different from obviously the Series D is what changed? Did anything in, in your strategy change after hearing the. You know, knows that, that you receive from you know, from the different investors. I think a lot of people think about you know, one direction and just kind of using that strategy, that initial strategy that they, that they've built.

Julian: And the initial pitch, you know, everything that, that is encompassing their their, their product pitch to get the investors and, and moving forward with that. But is there anything that you would kind of recommend to founders as they move through this process? On, you know, either changing or, or adjusting to to see success.

Alexey: So in terms of changing, definitely improve your pitch. So, With every presentation, with every call with investors. I like, I always noticed what worked, what did, where people got hooked up on, like something was not clear for them. So like, I, I improved the way how I was saying this. Or for example, when I made a statement and the person, or actually five people, like asked me multiple times, like, what executive do I mean?

Alexey: In the next poll, I just started saying it differently, like providing more explanation, like making very clear upfront. So, and you know, you just kind of do it again. Like in my case there was 260 polls and like in the end it just like, you know, a song very fluent, very like clear, you know, you just keep pitching and people just see the drive.

Alexey: You know confidence and passion about what you're doing, and you know, it, it, they just, they just feel it. Yeah, and well, they, they follow in terms of what's not to do, I would say don't change your pitch based on investors' feedback. Basically don't change your idea of what you're doing.

Alexey: Like based on this, you're like, I have so many, like, I had this collection of emails when I sent to people and when they were telling me like, you know, if I would be your friend, I would just like, I would recommend you to drop this idea and do something different. Like this is, this will lead you to nowhere.

Alexey: And or just people like telling me like, this is small market. Or like, it's not gonna go anywhere, this kind of stuff. So don't treat on this, it just like not your people and move on and keep pushing with, with the vision and idea you had because otherwise, you know, your product will be just you know, patch blanket.

Alexey: You know, like stack with, of ideas of different people, which in the end, like nobody will need it or it'll be needed by like this small group of people, that small group of people, but not a cohesive, scalable platform that you can, you know, grow over the next I like five, 10 years. 

Julian: Incredible. Yeah. That, that's, that's great advice.

Julian: Diving into Maroo, what inspired the idea? 

Alexey: Yeah, it's it's, it's actually funny story. So I left her a little at the time was, I had first time in my life, I had one month gap between, you know, jobs. So literally nothing to do. I was just like chilling. And the friend of ours, she got married in New York at the time so August, 2020, and she called my wife.

Alexey: Shared all the issues she'd been through, like during the wedding planning process, her wedding planning process and also how com, how difficult was it to pay for the wedding As, and you can imagine it's like midst of covid. It just started so kind of like a mess. And I was like sitting and thinking like I've been following cla.

Alexey: Firm for quite a while, just from the professional standpoint. And I was like, Why can you buy Peloton bike for like 3,500 bucks? Finance it over like two years, but you come do the same for $3,500, you know, wedding photography invoice. So what I did, I quickly built the lending page. You know, just, I think at that time I called the company Wet Plan or like, Wet pin.

Alexey: Wet pin. And I also, you know, did some market research. Learned that 90% of ladies in the US within one or two days after being engaged they make an Instagram or Facebook post, and then 76% cases they used three her tags. Engaged proposal. I said yes. And basically what I did, I went through Instagram and Facebook messaged everybody who I found like those posts at that time saying, Congrats guys.

Alexey: Beautiful rain. You know, you're beautiful couple. By the way, I started this company, it offers 0% APR financing if you want to check it out here. And I, I think I sent around 300 messages until basically Instagram blocked. And then I got 92 responses within a couple of days and that kind of made me think, alright, there is a interest of people, you know, there really is something potentially can be needed.

Alexey: MGF just started digging within the two, three months. I engaged a friend of mine. From Revolut just to build a very, like, rough prototype. And we processed first few transactions mainly from the money I, I borrowed from my debt. So it was kind of fun journey in the beginning. But yeah, I mean after that, you know, and Imperial, I was doing all those investor calls.

Alexey: And within six months, like by the end of six months we closed our first round. Of 800 K. A lot of angel investors you know, few funds, couple of funds and one including basically White Combinator. So we were accepted to Summer 21 Veg which was pretty exciting. And you know, it's also very important to not in the, in the beginning of 2001, I met my co-founder her name is an Winka, so she spent 15 years in the weddings industry in the U.S.

Alexey: Worked at the company called The Knot. It's basically a global leader in the wedding space. And she worked there since 2005, kind of building and growing the platform with, with original founders. So kind of like celebrity in the market, like everybody knows Ana and she knows a lot of people. So it was kind of blessing, you know, for us to, to meet cuz you know, I bring this finance kind of expertise.

Alexey: She brings weddings expertise and it really like made a very good match in just to push that particular product forward. Yeah, and as I mentioned, like we started as a, by now pay later or like planner or our firm full weddings idea. That's the idea we went through, which, you know, through ic. But we quickly realized that B npl or by now pay later, is just the one payment method and we kind of shoot ourselves on the foot by offering only one, one option.

Alexey: And we decided was do zoom out and start just offering digital checkout experience for the industry. because the typical, you know, transactional flow in the wedding spaces, checks and envelopes with cash. You know, some like maybe transactions like fragmented card and so on. So we took decision.

Alexey: Let's make a BPL as one of our payment methods. But in addition to that, let's add bunch of new kind of contemporary payment methods that will help. To improve drastically improve payment experience, both for the couples, but most importantly for the businesses. Cuz I want to make sure it's also like very clear.

Alexey: You know with couples you have pretty much a hundred Well we hope a hundred percent short. Like they don't come back. Yeah. So, and you have them over like 12 to 15 months at Mac maximum cuz they got married and they're out. So for us, the biggest, the main focus is actually the. So the wedding planners, venues, transportation, photographers, videographers, entertainment like flowers, any other provider in the market.

Alexey: It's a pretty large market, so 600,000 businesses only in the us. And the total US weddings market is a hundred billion industry. So there are 2.1 billion weddings every year, regardless, like crisis, non crisis, which makes pretty, you know, agnostic to external events. And with average cost of winning between like 40 to $50,000, that's, that's what makes this hundred bill you know, number.

Alexey: Yeah. So basically right now, just kind of, you know, to to conclude, we started with vpl. Right now we kind of transitioned to be more like a finance platform, like platform for wedding, you know, professionals, wedding and events professionals. That's, at the moment we're just working on improv. The payments experience.

Alexey: Yeah. And there, there is a lot of items that, you know, we, we, we do, so we do invoicing, we do payments payroll, international payments, lending, So not lending, sorry, Factoring. Mm-hmm. . So what we call book now, pay later. And we have some other cool products in the pipeline that we're gonna launch in 2020.

Julian: That's incredible and, and I love how you've transitioned the product through just the experience of the consumer and realizing that. And I love the idea of of, of kind of taking a step back and seeing the broader view that not only is it, you know, paying now and, and or booking, now I'm paying later, but.

Julian: It's the idea of offering a seamless kind of payment process for an industry that has been probably the same for I don't know how many years. Probably for 10 plus, 20 plus 70 years. Right. So and, and it's kind of modernizing that process. I feel like some of the best and a lot of the most successful startups I've talked to kind of find themselves in that kind of service and technology piece where it's, it's not necessarily disrupting something.

Julian: You know, you know, kind of an incumbent, but it is kind of offering a easy and more efficient way to complete processes in a certain kind of ecosystem or, or a service like weddings and wedding planning. So it's incredibly to see the success. And, and I'd love to hear more, like, tell me more about the traction.

Julian: Who are you working with? What kind of partners? Obviously congrats on the, on the you know, the recent one Mill arr. That's, it's incredible. What's gotten you there and, and what are you kind of focused on in the near. . 

Alexey: Yeah. I mean, a lot of grind. That's what took it there. . So we, as I mentioned, like we started with the BPL and like we gradually introduced new products which started, you know, monetizing over, over a period of time.

Alexey: Well in terms of kind of the, the current. Offering, You know, we are being asked a lot, so like, you know, why it's a problem, Like what problem you're solving because, you know, businesses accept payments right now without a problem. Like Stripe Square, sum up whatever, like Venmo, PayPal. There are major players in this space, but the coolest part about us is like, we're solving problems such as there is a couple who is getting.

Alexey: They get invoice from a photographer. At the same time. This couple has a wedding planner in between who actually manages those invoices, but the payment is done by the father of the bride. And like all this complexity around this payment, like process visibility on this invoice, control of the status, like when it was seen, when it's buzz due reminders and so on, that's what we, you know, what we handle.

Alexey: Both for, for the couple and for planners and for. dads Wherever is needed and for the, for the end and the service provider. In terms of, you know, what's, what's coming next you know, we are currently just optimizing the the, the payment experience for, again, for both sides cuz to be honest, like first year was just like, let's go quickly past go to market.

Alexey: I, I would say like we cared not much about, we didn't care a lot about The cost side of things. So now the priority is like, let's just optimize the margins because we can clearly see, you know, we increased our platform monthly tpv by 161 x within 10 months. So you know, there is a massive volume that's coming through the platform right now.

Alexey: Yeah. So we have a lot of data to, you know, look at improve and yeah. The key focus at the moment is just optimizing underlying costs. Yeah. 

Julian: Yeah. No, that's incredible. And how do you, in terms of this experience based on the past experiences, what's, what's exciting or I guess different about, you know, you were working in a corporate environment, you were handling a lot of different, not only financial, but logistics and auditing and, and kind of, And, and learning a lot about kind of on a, on a grander scale, how companies work.

Julian: But what's, what's, what's got you really excited about this opportunity and, and building your own company that you know, that, that, that is different from your past experience. . 

Alexey: Yeah, you can ask my friends. They will tell you, like, I always, you know, regardless where I work, whether it was G or everybody, I had a list of ideas.

Alexey: I always like writing them down, thinking like one day I'm gonna get to them. But obviously due to a lot of, you know, work that I had, each and every like project that I worked on never had time. And it just happened to be like one that kind of like really made. You know? Mm-hmm. . Cause I, I, I'm, I feel that I'm a relatively creative person, just like, you know, I, I like art, I like, you know, sometimes to draw, I'm very into like, product design just because, you know, I, I like this stuff.

Alexey: At the same time, you know, you, you can ask folks like, I'm, I love financial models like building connectivity because it's also kind of, you know, creative pro project, but it, it makes sense like financially, so you understand like the dependencies. Solvency checks, sufficiencies and stuff like that. So I, I really like in this role, in this business that, that kind of combined both like, you know, one of the coolest or interesting aspects of Marooro, especially from like design perspective.

Alexey: It should bring two, two things. One, it should give you trust as a user that hey, you are actually like making payment for $50,000 for some, you know, you know, for financial transaction. Like you're giving that 50 k. And it, the platform on which you're doing this should translate this trust and like confidence, like everything's gonna work properly and so on.

Alexey: At the same time, people need to remember and like be reminded they're actually paying for their wedding. So there should be something emotional that, that should kind of create the response in them. Yeah. And like connecting those two, it's one hell of a task. Yeah. For, for us in the beginning and like for our designers right now.

Alexey: So I'm, I'm really, you know, excited about this challenge because for me it kind of bridge. Two parts of my personality, like emotional, creative, and like analytical. Yeah. and financial.

Julian: How do you, how do you create that, that experience but also, you know, do kind of, I dunno if it's the dirty work, but of, of the, you know, the transactions that are just necessary, the necessary just like transactions.

Julian: How do you, how do you connect those two? Cause that's difficult. It sounds something that's they don't, I guess naturally go and coincide together. And that they would need some kind of effort behind that. But how do you do that? 

Alexey: Yeah. Luckily again, I have a great co-founder. Yeah. So AA again, she has this field of the industry of people who are going through the wedding planning process.

Alexey: She knows, like, you know, everything about the typical couple that that's going through, like a bright that's going through the payment experience. You know how stressful it is, how, you know, what's, we, we at some point when we just started to actually draw the emotional kind of Corolla coaster. How people feel depending on like the engagement period until the wedding date and like what emotional stress they experience over this period of time.

Alexey: And like when we can approach those peop, you know, those couples and like when is best to give certain communication, so on. So to answer your question, it's. My founder, she brings really, you know, that's you know, industry specific knowledge on the visuals, on the brand, on the design. And I, I guess I'm more like a, clearly like a finance guy in this case who, who ensures that, you know, transactions actually goes from like point A point B with all the participants being involved in the right.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I love that cohesive relationship. I, I have that with, with my co-founder as well. And, and just talking to other founders, it's so valuable to have that, that relationship and, and kind of compliment each other and the, and the skills that you have. Tell me about what are, what are some of the biggest risks that Maroo faces today?

Alexey: Biggest risks? I feel we started growing faster than we anticipated where basically like, you know, hitting the ceiling of like our internal capacity both from the. You know, engineering perspective. So that's why we, for instance, rebuild the whole backend and front end of, of the platform because like all the mono type of code that was built in the beginning very quickly, you know, it wasn't sustainable anymore.

Alexey: So just like making sure that we, we he victim transition that's. The biggest risk I see. I would say just in general, kind of the, the, the trust factor cuz like we're a new, new company coming into like a market that's pretty well established. Again, the, the benefit for us, there is not many players in our field, like vertically specific.

Alexey: Yeah. You know, we have a couple of competitors, but other than that, There is just horizontal players such, you know, take like CLA firm strip and square or PayPal. But yeah, so I, I guess the biggest risk for any startup is execution. Yeah. So how well you can prioritize, how well you can execute, which is, again, I like this.

Alexey: Well, I, I feel good about the streets because it's internal and it's pretty much like all in our control. So as long as we get the team on board with the vision that we have and the goals. We set for, for the company for this and next year. I don't think like there should be anything stopping us. Obviously market environment is, is difficult, but I'm glad that we pivoted away from being solely focused on the bator to a more like a broad cohesive.

Alexey: You know, platform that solves a much bigger problem than just like, you know, financing. There, there is just so much more value that we bring into the process that gives us this, you know, significant lever not to be dependent on like, or being worried too much about rising, you know, interest rates general kind of collapse, looks like the global economy, like, you know, in regions, something's happening here and there. Yeah, so I would say those are kind of the. 

Julian: Yeah, Well, if everything goes well, what's the long term vision for Maroo?

Alexey: I would say my ideal state of things will be like, you know, like when we think about travel, the first thing we go is Airbnb. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So like, Oh, I'm, I'm going like to, to travel. I'm going to check Airbnb rates. So I wanted that in the future. For people when they get engaged, the first thing they do is they create more account and they start organizing their financials, you know, in place on the platform.

Alexey: They start planning their payments to their vendors, like adding them into their, their favorites and stuff like that. And like planning their budget. Cuz you know, our key focus is and will always be a financial part of the wedding planning process. We are not interested to go into. Emotional component of like choosing the colors and the theme and like this type of stuff.

Alexey: Because first of all, there are just so many other platforms. Secondly I don't think like we can bring much value. I feel like our core expertise is like FinTech payments. Mm-hmm. Just like making the, one of the biggest problems in the wedding space, like payments, you know, making it smooth. Yeah. And yeah, I just like, I guess I wanna make sure that in the future, you know, when, well actually, not even when they engage, but like when the guy is thinking about like, order, whatever one partner is thinking about proposing to their partner they create an account with us.

Alexey: Yeah. If they need extra like money for the ring, they can approach us up front or then like once. You know, got engaged, they start creating and building their profile, adding their parents as a, I dunno, contributors to the wedding budget. You know, adding guests if they want for cash registry and stuff like that.

Julian: Incredible. Now I love that. I always like to ask this question not only for, for selfless research purposes, but also for my audience what books or people have influenced you the most?

Alexey: A lot. But the most recent I really liked is built by Tony Padel. You know, there is a lot of like, you know, American literature, business literature that's like have one or two ideas in the book.

Alexey: They just keep tossing it like over 400 pages and you're like, Guys, I already got it. Like, you know, I don't need another anecdote to support this idea. So in, in, in his book, In in Builds I really like that there's just like every, every article or every chapter, it has, its its own standalone idea and it, it's really relevant for different, like, moments in your life or, you know, entrepreneurial journey or interaction with the team and so on.

Alexey: So like, you don't need to read it like from the beginning to an end. You could just jump in the middle. And you're gonna get the value and you can go back. So I keep coming back and forth, like with the book, I read it once, but I'm rereading some articles again and again cuz it's just so helpful just kind of reminding yourself.

Alexey: Yeah. You know, one of the recent aspects, you know, we Yeah. Brought up with my team was like, you know, he, he's talking about the fact that the company should be focusing on one. Like in our cases, you can imagine have couples would have genders and you know, you always kind of, you need to take site, unfortunately.

Alexey: Mm-hmm. and like, it's very important because, you know, he's saying like, the moment the couple, the company's trying to like take, see it on both chairs, that's when it starts going to an end. Yeah. And yeah, those kind of reminders is really helpful. 

Julian: Incredible, incredible. Well thank you so much Alex for being on the show.

Julian: I know we're at time here and I, I super appreciate not only. Your experience and the knowledge you brought to the table and in regards to scaling and, and seeing how the larger organization and structure of a company kind of boils down to what you're doing now at Maroo. And, and you know, it doesn't surprise me that you're having so much success.

Julian: And, and I hope to hear that Maroois the Airbnb of, of wedding and wedding planning. Last little bit. I always like to ask my guest, where can we support? Give us your LinkedIns, your Twitters, how can we get involved? How can we support Maroo in your. ? 

Alexey: I don't know. Just, yes, if you can, like our posts on LinkedIn, our news stuff will be incredible. If you have any friends in the US who's getting married, and I'll let them know about Moroccos we can help big time. 

Julian: Amazing. Amazing. Well, Alex, thank you so much for joining the show. I, I, I appreciate it and I can't wait to share this with my audience. And I hope you enjoyed yourself, but thank you again.

Alexey: Thanks Julian. Really glad to be here. 

Julian: Thanks.

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