Meow

Business banking built to extend your runway with a 4.55% / $125M FDIC Checking Account and 5.4% U.S. Treasury Bills.

My job is to do whatever it takes to help the team win.

Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

Goldman Sachs

Leveraged Finance - Technology, Media, & Telecom

Investment Banking Analyst

Yale Entrepreneurial Society

• Launched Yale's Eli Speaker Series (monthly fireside chats regularly drawing 150+ attendees)
• Hosted conversations with Michael Seibel (Y Combinator), Emmett Shear (Twitch), Kevin Ryan (MongoDB, Business Insider), Bing Gordon (Kleiner Perkins), Peter Boyce II (General Catalyst), Jenny Fleiss (Rent the Runway), Sander Daniels (Thumbtack) and Barry Nalebuff (Honest Tea)

https://elispeakerseries.buzzsprout.com/

Director of Speakers & Podcasts

Currently building the Costco for financial services with Meow. 

For fun, I write on Twitter to 200K friends.

twitter.com/chrishlad

Proud to announce I'm now the Chief Revenue Officer at Meow.

I don't care much for fancy titles. But we have a massive opportunity to build the "Costco for Financial Services". 

This means delivering ridiculous value at the lowest cost for our customers. Costco did it for retail. Meow does it for financial services.

Excited for the opportunity to build our go-to-market machine.

Onward!

Chris Hladczuk

Enjoyed writing this piece with Business Insider! 

Discussed...

• What I love about Goldman
• "The Game" that all ambitious people play
• 3 questions I needed to answer before joining a startup

(Link in the comments)

---

"In hindsight, I believe investment banking is an underrated skill in startups and more generally, in tech. Most engineering types see banking as a bureaucratic waste of time compared to building products that serve customers. I see it differently. There's no better battlefield than a big bank to develop the grit, stamina and intensity associated with operational excellence. 
But beware the credential treadmill. If you have startup builder ambitions, you need to get off soon or you're doomed to run in-place forever."


READ: Chris Hladczuk explains exactly why Meow is building the "Costco for Financial Services."

What does the future hold for Meow?
"We have a hundred year vision. It's very grand. And that's part of the reason why we're called Meow, not "Treasury Services" or something like that. We don't want to constrain ourselves to what we do now. We have a massive vision that goes well beyond treasury services."

https://lnkd.in/eW6MHUaW

Open article: He Left Goldman to Join a Fintech Startup on a 100 Year Mission by thebigbet.beehiiv.com

https://thebigbet.beehiiv.com/p/chris-hladczuk-meow

Investment banking is underrated in startups. 

You learn to...

• Work super hard
• Run through brick walls
• Context switch like crazy

All essential for startup building.

I love it when people do risky things.

Like Chris Hladczuk: the Yale grad who left investment banking at Goldman to work at a relatively unknown startup called Meow.

He was on a career ladder that most people can only dream of climbing. 

But he jumped ship to run Growth at Meow because he saw a massive opportunity in the fintech space:

Build the “Costco of Financial Services.” 

- Slash every fee. 
- Fight for every extra basis point. 
- Pass every cent onto the customer. 

This “midwestern mentality” flies in the face of what other high-growth, venture-backed fintech startups do. 

Chris and the small, but mighty, Meow crew reject the Silicon Valley approach. 

For them:

- No spending to grow. 
- No sexy branding or slick design. 
- No acting like financial services is a high-margin product. 

Instead: obsess over customers.

How? 

Give them the highest yields, with the lowest fees, and the best possible service. 

That’s the(ir) path to profitability.

Loved writing up this week’s profile on Chris and the Meow team. 

Check it out here:

https://lnkd.in/gSy7XXKW


http://thebigbet.beehiiv.com/p/chris-hladczuk-meow

The worst way to apply for a job:

• Go to Indeed
• Find 10 open jobs 
• Drop in your resume
• Wait for the phone to ring

The best way: 

• Make a list of 10 targets
• Find 3 contacts per target
• Send cold emails 
• Sell yourself
• Then apply

If you’re out of the loop - the US government has a $31 trillion problem. And only a few days to fix it before tanking the economy.

Here’s “Debt Ceiling for Dummies” (and where I think we go from here)🍿

Alright, so here’s the deal:

The US has until June 1st to raise our $31.4 trillion debt ceiling.

If we don't? The US defaults and the world goes wild.

But how did we get here? And what happens next?

Let's get to it...

US government money = you pay them taxes and they spend it on stuff like social security

But picture the gov’t as your buddy who is addicted to credit cards. He can't stop.

And he laughs at you every time you send him your favorite budgeting app...

But when the gov't doesn't have enough money from taxes?

They take out loans called U.S. Treasury Bills. You buy them. You earn interest.

We all win. Until….

They hit a "debt ceiling" where they can't borrow more money.

So what do they do?

1) Cut costs
2) Raise the ceiling
3) Default

In 1917, we invented the debt ceiling so the gov't couldn't print money willy nilly.

And over the last 100 years?

Congress will fight about their credit card addiction.

But have raised the ceiling 108 times or ~1 time per year.

WAIT, what if this time is different?

If the US defaults, we got some big problems.

This includes:

1) Government shutdown leading to payment delays for social security, medicare, etc

2) Debt gets more expensive. If you can't trust them to pay you back, will US debt be as cheap? Rates will rise beyond 5%. 

3) Financial crisis + chaos.

Businesses cut jobs. Economy becomes wildly uncertain. Unemployment jumps.

But will this happen?

Argentina defaulted in 2001 and they never recovered.  Greece did in 2012 with no bailout til 2019. Russia did in 1998 and hit a recession. But the world's reserve currency?

Nope.

A more likely "doomsday" is a 1-2 week delay for Congress to get their act together.

But...

In the end, we have front row seats to a $31 trillion game of chicken. No one wants to blink first.

But they will.

Or we're all headed off the cliff together.

---
Follow me Chris Hladczuk for more take on finance, fintech and startups. We're building Meow to help startups get more yield on their cash.

DM me if you want to chat treasury!

#startups #finance #debtceiling 

What I wish I knew as an ambitious college kid: 

1) Willpower is overrated. Successful people just build systems to make hard things easier to do.

2) Building a great network is not cold-emailing Bill Gates for a 5 minute conversation. Focus on meeting peers and people a few steps ahead.

3) Add another zero to whatever you define as your success metric.

4) Comparison is the joy thief. To improve, compare little stuff like writing tactics. To be miserable, compare big stuff like career path. 

5) You have no concept of real "risk". The worst case scenario is nowhere near what your mind makes up.

I've lost $100s of millions in sales by forgetting this:

Idle time kills all deals. 

After your first meeting, every passing second makes a deal more likely to die.

Your contact will get fired. They will find another product. Or just get busy elsewhere.

Urgency matters.

This is what it means to obsessively serve customers.

This is all we care about Meow.

Appreciate you - Ian Tracey

Whenever you're annoyed learning something new, remember this:

If you join a startup as an employee, you're like a VC who can't make other bets. 

3 questions to ask before joining:

• What's the worst case scenario? 
• When I'm 80 and look back on life, will I regret not doing this? 
• Will my pace of learning be higher or lower?

No one talks about this. 

In 2006, Elon published "The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)".

At the end, he simplifies a 40 year mission into a 4 step plan:

1)  Build sports car
2)  Use that money to build an affordable car
3)  Use that money to build an even more affordable car
4)  While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options

Baller.

Every ambitious college kid is obsessed with "career optionality".

• Collect big brands
• Collect transferrable skills
• Collect a network

It's smart. 

But you're just prolonging the inevitable question:

What do I want to do with my life?

 

Why you should be terrified of your customers according to Chris Hladczuk...

This is a short clip from our full conversation → https://lnkd.in/et8MRQ-j

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