Anh-Tho joins the show to talk about her origin story, from working in fin-tech in Africa to starting her own start-up and having to pivot to find the right market fit for the company.

We discuss the how to minimize regrets to enjoy life to it's fullest and how even embracing the things that are the scariest can help you live life the way it's meant to be.

Discussed Links

• Lago (Anh-Tho's company)
• Anh-Tho's Twitter: @byAnhTho

Welcome to episode 27 of the web joy podcast.

I'm your host Eddie in this podcast, we interview guests about their origin

story and what makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community.

I hope you enjoy today's episode.

You need to date ideas straight away with Anto.

Welcome back to another episode of Web Joy Today.

I'm excited to have Anto with us today.

Say hi to the community and you know, if you don't mind introducing yourself.

Hi, web Joy community.

Um, Sam, I'm Anto.

I'm, uh, the co-founder and c e o of Flaggo.

So Lago is, uh, we company, we do an open source alternative

to strip bidding, and I've been involved in FinTech for more than.

10 years now B2B SaaS.

And before that, I, uh, worked in a corporate stuff like

McKinsey and that kind of stuff.

And, um, that was great to learn how to make slides, but I

actually didn't really like it.

So yeah, that's who I.

That's great.

So you mentioned you've been in FinTech for a while.

What does that kind of journey look like?

Right?

Like where did you first get involved?

How did you decide you wanted to be in FinTech and I guess what were some of

the highlights along the way to, until you obviously started your own company?

Very different, I'm sure, than when you got.

Yeah, for sure.

Actually, my, my first job in FinTech, it wasn't called FinTech

at the time, it was in Africa.

I worked on mobile money project, so it was about like using feature

phones, so not smartphone, so very cheap phones for the underbanked

population, like, More than the majority of people in in Africa so that

they can do mobile money transfers.

Like someone who earns less than one USD per day would need to transfer money to

the village so that their family could like buy food or, or stuff like this.

and as they didn't have a bank account, they needed to either to use like informal

means, like asking the bus driver to like, uh, transfer the mo the money,

which is like expensive and not very safe.

Or they could use like feature phones to do this and transfer

money via s m s, like text messages.

So it was like a whole different, like FinTech area.

It was in the stripe area.

But I really loved it because I think it was the intersection

of technology and social impact and also a sustainable business.

And I think like to have a lot of impact, you need to be a

sustainable business as well.

So I started to work like in this continent, in this area.

It wasn't fancy, it wasn't called FinTech.

And I really loved it.

So it was like mainly in thei, in Congo, in Kin Chasa, and I

was very young when I went there.

I was the only like female expert working on this new project.

Nobody really understood it.

I had like some crazy meetings at the like Central Bank of

Congo and that kind of things.

So, yeah, I, I really like enjoyed it.

And then at some point I wanted to get back to Yuba because

my personal life was there.

And honestly, it's really tough to be there on your own when you're so young.

And there are like, as I said, not so many female people there.

And, um, like exact position.

So, uh, I went back to Paris.

Everything wasn't exciting to me, like in terms of jobs.

And I ended up like doing management consulting.

Honestly, I didn't know what to do with my life.

Like mobile money was super exciting in Africa and then in Europe, like working

for a mobile network of per like, you know, working on like triple play and that

kind of things didn't seem like exciting.

So I, I really looked.

For job for a few months.

And at some point I, I was like really not doing much and I got an

offer from McKinsey to join them and do like management consulting.

So I thought I'd better do this because at some point I need to pay the rent.

So that's how I ended, I ended up there.

It was a great like place I met a lot interesting people and some

I'm like, really close friends are are from McKenzie and it was.

I think the, the greatest things was to me like this ambitious and uh, really

smart people and everything was you.

You had so much like support functions to help you.

There's one consultant for one support function, so they really

like help you focus on your job.

So that was interesting.

Uh, but at some point I missed like building things and I feel like

where can I find the intersection between like strategy and building.

And I thought that was startup while staying in, uh, Europe or at least

like, um, living wherever I wanted.

And I felt like startups were, were really interesting and, um,

especially B2B SaaS, uh, because I felt it was like very data driven.

So I talked to a friends, so one of my friends, he's.

Now the CEO of Hugging Face, it's um, the GitHub from machine, machine learning.

I dunno if you heard of it, but Create Company.

At that time he was working for a B2B size in Paris and he

introduced me to other founders.

And I, uh, finally joined another B2B size called je.

At the time it was acquired by me afterwards.

So, yeah, that's how I ended up in like b2b.

And then like my latest position before like, um, I found my own

company, like Lego was at Kto.

So Kto, I think it isn't very known in the us Uh, actually it's like Brexit, but

for Europe, I was the first Mian VP Grove.

Uh, I grew like Emma r from like zero to tens of minions.

And now it's like, uh, for the latest round it was like,

uh, valued at 5 billion.

That's, see how it goes now , but with all the market like turned down, I

don't know, but it was quite successful.

And then with like former, like Kto, uh, employees, we wanted

to like build something early and build something together.

And my co-founder of Lago is from Kto two.

So I met my cofounder there and we just wanted to build something early.

So we decided we wanted to build something together.

So we applied to YC straight away.

Uh, first idea we got was to build a no-code data tool for growth

teams, because that's what we've done at con, like doing like

growth and using a lot of data.

Yeah, that's how, uh, Lego was born.

So as I said, like Lego is a different business now.

This is because we pivoted like a few minutes ago, so I can talk more

about that also if you're interested.

I love that.

Right.

You had.

One idea.

And so often I think a lot of people who aren't involved in startups think

that someone just starts a business and that's what the business is,

and it grows and it does its thing.

But like so often startups exist because of their pivots.

So yeah, I, I'd love to hear, so, yeah.

How did that kind of pivot come to be, and how did you all end

up doing what you're doing?

Yeah, I was, um, talking about it.

He, um, so is, uh, like tech French foot for Europe and I was

like showing the story about like how the attitude is different in the

US versus Europe about pivots and I think like the US are much more ahead.

Like, I dunno, I'd Lovet have your opinion as well, but at least around

yc, like people are really positive about pivots and investors as well.

Like, they're like, at least you learn something.

And the worst thing is seeing like a founder claim to be original idea

because they're afraid to change.

So if you feel you've tried and now you want to change, like just change it.

Whereas in Europe, like it's a bit like what you first described.

What does the idea change over time?

And I'm like, like it's the natural like path.

But yeah, for the story of Flaggo, so I think the first idea we had

was, so we wanted to build the internal tool we had at Kto and

we're very data driven growth team.

And I think the specificity of our setup there was that in my teams, we

were like 15 people when I left and I had three engineers and we were.

Indefinite from, uh, the tech team and we had this really good relationship with the

tech team and they let us do like whatever we wanted, like with boundaries for sure.

But, uh, we're very independent, so we built the tool we wanted, uh, at the time.

And like shifted during like YC started to sell it to people and what we ended

up like discovering was that there were very few teams, like we were at con,

meaning when a company grows, usually this data, like modeling data segmenting is.

Like goes through the data team and the data engineering team

and none of the growth team.

So it's not really useful to have Noca tool for like marketers if it's the

data engineering team that does the job.

So that's what we ended up like discovering.

So of course it seems obvious when I stated this way, but.

Wasn't that obvious at the time.

Another way to say it was maybe we're like a bit ahead of the time,

like maybe growth teams in three years would be more data driven.

And also one hypothesis that I made that was not right was that the US

market and the US teams, uh, growth teams would be more data driven.

And we met a of them.

And actually it wasn't really the case.

Oh, uh, either.

So they all said they wanted to, but at the end of the day a lot of data

engineers said, I don't want the growth team to touch data cuz they'll mess

up all the modeling and segmenting.

So I dunno if it's something you've seen, but so we feel like yeah, we are building

for a very small niche of people like us.

So either we decide to, uh, become a dev tool and to be a tool that

data engineers would use, or we can also do something different.

So we chose like option B, um, and we went through.

Honestly a rollercoaster of feelings during six weeks.

Like, I think pivoting, it's hard because you, so I describe it as um,

it's like as if you're married and then you have a very hard breakup, a divorce,

and usually you do, I don't know, it depends on people, but you don't date

someone like, Seriously afterwards.

And when you pivot, like investors are like, okay, that's great,

but now what do you do ? And you need to come up with answers.

Of course, not like the day after, but a few weeks after

you need to have an answer.

So you need to like date ideas like straight away afterwards.

So we had a lot of ideas.

We even thought about green b2c, that the team, we.

People on the team at the time, but we ended up like looking at all the pain

points we had as a team at Contour.

And one of the things that really emerged was like the pain points we had around bi.

So at Contour we had built, um, our own billing system.

Uh, we had looked at strip billing charge all the existing like solutions.

And, um, it, it didn't really like, uh, match our.

So we ended up like building it.

Like we thought it would take like one backend engineer for three months,

but actually at the end there were like five or six backend engineers

like working on it full-time.

And we saw a lot of different companies like doing this as well.

So that time we thought we need to make sure like that wast a need That was.

Specific to our team.

And we also felt that there was an inflection in the market

because the pricing models are like more usage based today.

So there was other things around with the subscription economy like 10 years

ago now, I think it's more like usage based economy are mixed, like hybrid

pricing between subscription and usage.

So we thought there was like this inflection in the market.

And the second thing was, now we always talk about product led

growth, but product led growth.

Usually they're selfer.

So it's the same like pricing plans for everyone.

But there's also then like sales led.

So once someone from a big company, like an individual contributor starts

using a dev tool on the side, usually what's great to do is the sales team

like starts like pinging the, the this team from the big company so that

they can like sell a bigger plan to.

So there's also also this mix in product led growth around like self-serve

and sales led, uh, plants that we needed to address around billing.

So for this reasons, we, we feel like the existing solutions, like

of 10 years ago around like the subscription economy don't really work.

Uh, that's why the lot of companies like we are building

the beginning as we've done.

So we decided to switch and that was like, uh, at the beginning, beginning of this.

I think we'll, we'll definitely dig into, you know, Lago

a little bit later in the podcast.

That's been a really interesting journey, right, from like, I love how

you mentioned in your start it was the, when you're working in Africa,

it was the intersection of Right, like working with people and finance.

Right.

It like, it was really funny cuz you started talking to him.

I was like, this doesn't sound like FinTech at all, but of course it is.

But like, Especially being in the US where I'm at, like everything

about FinTech is all about big corporations and money and like yeah,

a little bit more icky of a FinTech.

And so that was so inspiring to hear like, wow, that's a great way to start out.

Like helping people send money using the technology that they have.

That was really kind of a nice inspirational start and you know,

and then very practical, so many of.

People think that we choose perfect career paths, but like oftentimes it's

like, Hey, I need to pay the bills.

Like what can I do to pay the bills?

And that gets you into a

company.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But about like FinTech.

And today it's a bit more fancy, but.

That's still like a lot of businesses addressing the, you know,

international remittance like issue.

You know, like people, I don't know.

Someone in the US with family in Nigeria for instance, would have a

hard time like transferring money for a low cost, and I've seen some.

Interesting applications of stable coins to do this for cheaper cash,

for instance, in the US is doing this.

And I found it really interesting and inspiring as well.

So yeah, there are a lot of inspiring things to do in FinTech

and what I love about financial services is everyone needs them.

Everyone needs financial services and health and food, I think.

Yeah.

So yeah, at least it, it helps having impact

on people.

So, you know, one thing we, we always like to talk about on this podcast is

what's something that brings you joy?

So yeah, you had kind of like a, a way that you approach your life that

you had kind of shared with me, um, when we were preparing for this.

And so I was just kind of curious.

Yeah.

Like kind of how you make choices and kind of how that that leads you

to, to kind of live your best life.

So first I'd like to share like a little bit of things about my family.

So they.

From Vietnam and where that country, because of war, some of my family

lives in California and some of my family is in France, in Canada, they

went where, wherever they could.

So my parents wanted me to go to the best school and to get a's of the time and to

get a great job in the corporate company.

So I think.

They were like the most proud of me when I was doing management

consulting at McKinsey and I hated it.

So it was a hard time for me because I really liked that they liked what I

did , but I really didn't like what I did and I, I finally like decided I.

It's basically they're proud of me for sure, but sometimes, you know,

parents I've talked about about it with a lot of other founders and

some of them also have immigrant parents and like why they successful,

like unique cons and all of this.

And I felt like my, my parents don't acknowledge me.

, they don't even understand what I do.

I send a tech French article, they don't get it, and I'm

like, oh my God, I'm not alone.

So , yeah, a framework I have now is mobile.

Like minimizing regrets I think.

And I think I wouldn't like regret if I set up making this for

instance, I would have, uh, always wondered, can I do something else?

Is it worth it?

Um, that my family's happy, but I really unhappy in my job every day.

I'm not really proud of what I do.

I don't know if I want to do it.

I don't want to make partner and I work like 15 hours a day to do this.

So I had the same like framework when I decided to be a founder,

cuz uh, being a founder is scary.

So I was a, a very successful company, could have stayed like everyone wanted to.

Taught me.

I came to a point where I had a team so I could like, maybe not like rest.

I mean, there's no rest in the startup, but it's a bit after

like service visa receipt.

It's a bit more chill than from zero to one.

And being a founder from zero to one is a lot of like pressure.

But I thought, I would always wonder like what I would have been, what I would have

experienced as a founder and I would be regret not trying to, to be a founder.

So I think what brings me joy like every day is, Just knowing that I

wouldn't do it differently if I could.

So maybe it's hard and of course it's hard to be a founder and there's

a lot of like changes, but I know I want to do it and I want to live

this experience like to be fullest.

And I love my team so well.

Like a lot of things that I wouldn't do differently.

And I think that's what I apply to my framework every day.

But it's, it's hard to.

To find the balance as well, because you have to mitigate like long term,

short term and uh, midterm stuff.

I think a lot of people are always wondering, so I get a lot of messages

from friends who are working like in a like scales or like corporates and are

asking, should I like create my company?

Am I ready?

Isn't it too hard?

And I'm like, Listen, I have no idea.

So it's pretty useless to talk to me.

But if, if you're going to regret it in five years, like maybe you should

try and worst case scenario, like you can go back to your corporate job.

I mean, I can probably join another FinTech as an employee

if I want, like, um, in a year or two if I wanted to or join a vc.

I mean, the opportunities that we're here for.

Before I started Lego, I think would be here for me after Lego,

so, and even maybe better ones.

So that's how I think about it.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think like the feeling of being in the right place and if

I could like not doing the things differently is, uh, pretty powerful.

I think that people are more likely to regret not doing something.

Then they would regret trying something and it not working out.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people are afraid of things not working out and

one of my friends, he like created like two free companies and one

ended up like being a huge success, but he was like, you know what?

All my photos before, like everybody forgot about them.

Like, because like nobody cared.

So.

It's okay, and I survived, and that's how he managed to do

something great afterwards.

The good thing is if you fail, like there's a high probability that no one

will notice, so, And also they're like highly publicized, fades, like, I don't

know, WeWork for instance, and the guys have survived and they're still raising

phones anyway, so at the end of the day, like people survive to this, it's fine.

Yeah,

no, that's a, that's a very good point.

It's interesting.

I also feel like sometimes people get stuck.

In what they're doing, right?

Like kind of a sunk cost fallacy, right?

I've invested so much time at this company or so much time on this career track.

If I were to go and do this startup or go and do this job change, like I'm kind

of having to start back at the beginning.

And I feel like sometimes that can also hold people back.

That fear of, well, I've invested so much in this pathway, can I

really start another pathway?

Yeah, I think it takes a lot of courage and humility too, because you,

you're going to do like crap stuff and you're going to be junior, even if you're

senior in another like, career path.

So yeah, for sure.

I, I think one thing greater like entrepreneurs or startups is that

you're always learning something new.

You're always junior to your new job and you're always doing like quite ay stuff.

So yeah, there's no

ego.

And I think another thing about doing a startup is people have to oftentimes

wear so many more hats, right?

So in most situations, to your point, most companies are gonna be happy to

hire someone back if they went and tried to startup and it didn't work

because you've had to do so many things during that, that like you've

gained more skills, not less, you know,

. anh-tho: Yeah.

And I think one of my personality.

Characteristic is I get bored like very easily, so I can't

stand still in a corporate job.

So the only thing that can still is startups.

So yeah, I think also if you have, for people who have that

kind of personalities, like startups is the best because.

I prefer like to learn new things all the time and even like fail and try again

than being bored in a corporate job.

So yeah, that's something you, you must have witnessed, I guess.

. eddie: Well, cool.

Well, you know, as we wrap up each episode, you know, we always kind of give

a chance for the guests to kind of share something that they're involved with.

Um, obviously no surprise to anyone listening to this, you probably

want to share a bit more about your.

Yeah, of course.

So we have like B2B and product LEDs to set up a billing

system and invoicing system.

So we're, we're not a payment company.

So what we do is we will, uh, help you set like plan subscriptions, usage based,

and calculate how much each customer owes, like every month, a week, or year.

And we will connect to your favorite like payment gateway.

And we will also like, um, find the invoices for you and we open source.

So that means that you can connect, uh, Lego, our API to any like

other tool that you want to use.

And you can even like focus your code and build on top of it if you want.

Because one other thing we discovered we've billing is there are a lot

of educators, depending on your.

Like geographies, business situations, business models, and we want like

every like , like be able to build on what we've been at our Lego.

How do you all plan to make money or how do you all

operate on an open source model?

So we wrote a blog post about like, um, the engineering nightmares about

bidding, because a lot of people think bidding is easy, but it's not like once

you're, uh, an engineer who did bidding like you, you know, the s and the details.

So we wrote a blog post around it.

He posted on Hack Can News, and we were like, number one on hack

can use for more than 24 hours.

Like, we had a lot of comments.

So we talked to a lot of companies, like hundreds of companies.

And a lot of engineers just told us we would pay for it.

Like, we like the open source approach because we were, we are able to look

into the code and see how it works.

And we like the, the fact that it can be self hosted in case we, we need to

build on top of Legos that we don't need to wait for you to like, Do

another integration or stuff like this.

And we think, and we validated that people are ready to pay for billing.

They're used to paying for billing today.

Usually they pay like, uh, a cut on their revenues, like Stripe billing is like 0.4

or 0.8% of revenue on top of the, of the billing of the payment processing fees.

Charge me is kind of the.

So there's a market for people I used to pay.

They just resent like what they call like renter pricing, like percentage and

revenues when bidding is just a SaaS and they recognize like the value of bidding

and nobody says, I don't need bidding.

So we know people are, are ready to pay for it.

One, one of the ways we want to monetize is like selling the cloud versions.

So it's exactly the same product, but it's hosted by.

So that it's easier to deploy and then for like many of the like open source

models that, you know, the community might, might be aware of for like, um,

support models for like partnerships, models or like o other ways to monetize.

But yeah, we we're not so worried about like monetization, to be honest, because

people are so, like, used to pay for billing and pay a lot of, a lot of money.

That's great.

Yeah.

I, I always love when a company can say, Hey, we're gonna build this thing,

we're gonna make it open source, we're gonna make it available to people.

And then, right, like, there are so many other ways you can make money

without, like, hiding the source code and like keeping it to yourself.

So, no, that's super encouraging too.

Just see, you know, how companies can do, can do a good clean business.

Gets

me excited.

Yeah, exactly.

Try to be as open as possible as well.

I, I, honestly, I've always wanted to do something open source, so it's also

like, The founders being excited about open source and being an open company.

So we try to be, just be transparent with users and the

best ways to just open our code.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today.

It's been just a pleasure chatting and, and hearing about you and your company.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

Thanks for joining us for episode 27, you need to date

ideas straight away with Anto.

You can find out more about Anto on her Twitter.

At BI.

Anto.

You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as well as a link

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