S01E06: Pav Gill - CEO & Founder at Confide

you're listening to season one of the get started podcast the podcast show set to reveal fintech's brightest Founders we've kicked off with nine fintech leaders recording live at Europe's biggest fintech show Money 2020 stay tuned and email us at contactget started. media if you'd like to feature uh welcome to the latest episode of the get started podcast today my guest is pav Gil uh we're here at money 2020 pav hello pav if we could

begin with do you mind please uh introducing yourself your role and a little bit about confi please sure thank you for having me my name is pav Gill and I'm the CEO and founder of confide it's a whistleblowing software and corporate investigations platform that enables organizations to carry out corporate investigations from start to finish with no loss of audit trails and when you were first setting up conf five what would you say was the the core Mission or or vision of your company

well I'm better known for being the wire card whistleblower so you know I've seen things as a lawyer by training you know I've worked at law firms I've worked at in-house firms from wire card to wise and crypto companies as Chief legal officer and I've seen how poorly generally any kind of organization manages internal reporting cases so whether it's a HR issue or it's a data breach or it's a financial crime whistleblowing type situation you know organizations can definitely improve as

to how they deal with these cases and I've also seen it from a whistleblowing side so I thought why not put all that experience in my life's journey in that sense into a product that would benefit organizations people and lawmakers and it struck me at some point last year in fact just in this this exhibition Hall uh in the Ry in Amsterdam and yeah so that's how confide was born uh in August last year and yeah never looked back since great stuff and and so at this point how you know how big is your team

and and I guess uh you know how many how many people are you up to well we launched uh officially in March or end of February really uh but effectively March and we've got 15 Engineers working full-time um that's myself you know CEO I do a lot of the investor Outreach and client Outreach and then I've got Ryan who's my co-founder uh he's in charge of all things product and Tech so now we we're going to move on to sort of a a section we have on every episode which is the started in seven questions uh we

ask the same seven questions to sort of every founder to try and uh find out their personal perspectives on a number of these sort of topics now I think we've touched upon a little bit of of the first question and what we've just spoke about with uh you know your past experience as a whistleblow wire card and how it sort led to you setting up confi but maybe you you know given that we're at money 2020 if you could maybe expand a little bit on that moment here last year you know what what that was like when you decided yet you know and setting up confir if you want to talk a

little bit about that sure so I was here at the r last year um I was keynote for The Institute of internal Auditors annual conference and one of the questions that the members in the audience the audience members sorry they asked was so are you going to do anything exciting with your life and and I said yeah I'm thinking of creating this company it's called confide this is what it's meant to do and it's funny because after the event in the networking when the networking started um instead of everyone coming up and

asking the usual wire card questions they were asking things like oh do you have a website is there a sign up page and these were people from you know attendees from Qatar from Africa from Asia and and all that so that immediately kind of validated at that moment the business idea and that's when I went back and I told Ryan like look we should really do this the idea being confi behind confi you know confide is a very powerful word because often times in a speaking up situation when you when you want to raise a concern you don't

know who to confide in or you're over confiding in the wrong person or you just may not be you may be restricted in confiding right like legal privilege ndas and stuff so I think that word should resonate with a lot of people in that situation and the aim of the company companies who actually minimize external whistleblowers from being created so if they trust something in the company a good process a software keeps them safe and Anonymous they would then use it and hopefully the company would sensibly manage it and not get taken by surprise when you know these

individuals are forced to go outside the company to the press to social media uh to Regulators just to raise a concern that wasn't dealt with internally and obviously that that sort of inception moment sounds that moment last year M 2020 sounds like a you know really positive and exciting moment along your journey I'm just wondering sort of outside of that are there any other sort of moments or experiences as the you know on on this journey we' confir that you would love to repeat again um not yet so far I think it's fun

like I think the launch we did with Sky paror I think that was a very fun uh moment it was well executed um it was in The Shard at the end of February in London I think that was great we got all the good journalists involved so yeah if there's anything like that I would like to see that happen again at some point maybe when the company has reached you know specific milestones in its growth Journey then yeah that would be something definitely worth going through again you know thank you and

I'll make sure you get your bonus for the uh for the Skype par mention so just on the flip side of that then I guess you know has there been any moment so far on on a journey and obviously confide is quite a young company but you know any moment that you you hope to never repeat again yeah I think it's very important that at the start of your founding Journey you don't get too distracted by fundraising from you know venture capital and and those kinds of big money sources of funding I think the

risk is that you get you get way layed of your original purpose and Mission so I think it's very important that Founders um to the extent necessary get maybe Angel Investments or they bootstrap and they really put that effort into developing the product and once the product is sound and it's live and you know customer acquisition is already um being followed with the pipeline growing and I think that would be the right moment to then think about

things like VC funding and bigger sums we can move on to motivations and obviously everyone has you know different motivations I know you're you know it seems like you're driven by not just uh so an ambition to be successful confi but there's you know a real Mission and purpose there um so just wondering I guess in your own words why is your biggest motivator and why perhaps does it motivate you so much I think the biggest motivator is just being allowed to speak freely right I

think every human being should be allowed to speak what's on their mind obviously in a not in a unchanneled crazy way but in a in a way that's genuine to an extent so if someone some someone has a concern it could be any kind of concern in any kind of place even in a workplace they should be able to raise it without feeling that they would be punished for that or that would be backlash for raising a genuine concern so I think you know when you look back in a lot of societal areas

everyone's always being told historically to keep their heads down you know just not raise not speak too much not raise too many issues you know just keep that in check which I think to some then is unhealthy and if you look at what's happening in the in the last couple of decades I think the movement is really toward speaking up we saw that with the black lives mattera Movement we saw that with me too uh Occupy Wall Street uh the whole ESG thing as well the environmental aspects which are ongoing with all the demonstrations we

see for climate change so I think there is that tendency to now want to really speak up for what you feel strongly about or what is genuinely a concern that is affecting you and so the mission is really to have organizations create those safe environments to allow people to do that without repercussions in an adverse way on their um professional job status and and job security no I think you know the next one we spoke obviously about the successful launch event you guys had at

The Shard you know the sort of incredible initial interest that's already developed in confided so I imagine we you kind of know the answer to this one but I guess in your opinion you know did you expect confi to be more or less Successful by this point in its admittedly quite short life cycle I think success can be measured in different metrics so yeah from a PR standpoint it was extremely successful I'm more focused now on getting confiding to organizations out there I think with that word with the fact that

the technology is way more advanced than any other competitor out there from a whistleblowing product standpoint um I think the potential is great what we really want to do is De democratize whistleblowing and access to these Solutions so initially we started off with saying and strongly believing that because it's a premium product the pricing should be premium but I think now we've kind of through that Journey learned that look it's more important that people actually have this product than not have it right so whatever it

takes to get it to these companies is what we are focusing on even if that means you know we are giving it for a non- premium pricing for example because to me it's really important that everybody has this in place so that workplaces can become safer and Business Leaders can stop being taken by surprise when they read something bad happening about their company in the news or through external means just to pick up on that I as a found that you know trying to navigate that path and build a

successful business in that early stage how important is that flexibility that you've just spoken about there you know being able to slight slly change tact or change you know profile of uh audience or whatever it needs to be to I guess make those adjustments to uh to sort of yeah to break throughout do do you see that has been you know a really important thing it is and that's why when I uh mentioned earlier if you do get massive funding early on that could end up being challenging if it's

impacting your financial model that you received that funding upon right on the basis of rather that could not that would result in you having to explain and create other Financial models to meet those targets whereas if you're not in that situation then you have that full flexibility to say like based on learning so far we are reasonably comfortable from an angel investment standpoint we think based on surveys and actually speaking to customers this is what they require so we need to now

Focus the product on that side of things make it actually uh something that you know fix fixes operational problems of day-to-day people who would use it so I think that kind of flexibility is critical because you're not hampered by targets and financial models which would be the case for you know if you get huge amounts of funding and stuff as a risk I guess leading off the back of that and you know as you just described there that's a you know a way that companies can you know very easily especially

startup companies very easily become unstuck aside from that you know in Europe opinion why why do so many startups fail to break through or you know fail to succeed you know is there a sort of a single reason or yeah I guess I think it really boils down to having a good sales strategy right and a business development strategy so it you could have the best kind of um product out there but if there's no one who's going to put it in everyone's faces uh get

people to try it get the pr get the marketing get the sales Channel and funnel growing then it's just not going to work out because either you'll run out of money or you'll just not have customers that are in that pipeline to validate your idea and product so I think that's where again a lot of learning experience is coming in um in a very short time and that's where I think potentially companies would startups would have failed and also I think startups would have failed if they had very aggressive targets to have been to

to to meet uh whether those were set by investors or or other parties or they set it for themselves I think that's also where it fails and now funding is even more is even more difficult to get right so I think that's also a key and of course if you are startup in the fintech OR regulatory environment and if you haven't dedicated enough of the resources to Legal risk and compliance or governance aspects then that would very quickly create a risk that a risk environment that you could actually hit

and come crashing down quite fast and a final question this doesn't have to relate to fintech or or Tech this can you know can answer this one kind of however you want you know in 10 years time again in your opinion what do you think will be fundamentally different about our lives I think AI would be a huge part of everyone's lives um I I think machines would be blending very much with human uh life and behavior right whether it's

environmental or it's work I think careers would be impacted I think we'll even have new kinds of careers pop up you know it's crazy but people are already starting to kind of get into romantic relationships with ai ai bots so you know we could even see a huge change in the dating space or in the relationship space so I think yeah I think that's what I think in 10 years will happen it's exciting it's also apprehensive at the same time but it's

exciting right we we we all have and because of that we all have to evolve regardless of age to keep up with what's happening you know if you're a parent you also want to know what what your kids up to what technology they are U engaging in and so I think in a positive way technology has really forced everyone regardless of age to um adapt and and and that's that's a nice thing to see and yeah of course AI is a huge theme here this week in M 2020 I think

it's on pretty much every second uh board that's plastered up around the the venue so with money 2020 in mind obviously we're here this week you yourself have a you know a a background at this the event it's it's played a big part in kaad sort of History so I guess we wanted to you know focus on this week and our issue of the week segment on M 2020 and I guess what events like money 2020 and broader events mean to the fintech community whether they still as

relevant today as they met where maybe a few years ago so I guess just to start with you know why is an event like money 2020 important to the finch sector um it's important and this is my first money 2020 event so I've never actually been to money 2020 this is the first time um I think it's from what I see and this is Day Day one of the event I mean it's a great place to bring everyone in the ecosystem together and whether you have a booth or you're just

an attendee or your speaker I think the biggest benefit of the event is really the ability for you to go and speak to people you've never spoken to before or met and really built those relationships whether it's personal or it's professional um especially and I think this venue for the event actually is a great Forum to do so when would you say is the right the right time for you know a stter finder to you know consider coming to an event like money 2020 because of course you know

there is there is a cost attached to it it's not a you know a cheap thing to come to so when when I guess those those Milestones to say okay I can actually now you know go to an event like that and really generate value you know back for for my business I don't think there's a uh there's a particular stage in the growth cycle of course like as companies get bigger and they're going through series A B C or getting listed and stuff the booth sizes tend to be bigger and fan

here but I think you know even if you're a startup like confides um you would generate a lot of value right uh just by making yourself known being present being to an extent extroverted and really meeting people and I'm an introvert I generally have to force myself to do this but I think once you start doing it uh and you realize that everyone is in that same kind of situation as well right everyone also is here to network at mingle then I think you would you would reap the rewards from that kind of uh that kind of

strategy uh in money 2020 or any of these kinds of events and I guess just to you know to close on M 2020 you know what are your big Ambitions this week you know what is a successful uh week look like here for conf it's again about you know making Partnerships getting customers and I think we have been successful already in day one where that's concerned and I'm really grateful to actually see that like it's taking place live in front of me right it's not being done over email or over Zoom call

so I think that is quite um positive and it really motivates you to want to do more so you know if this is what we achieved in day one I really want to achieve more in day two right and then build on that momentum going forward well I'm sure I'm sure it's going to be a very successful uh week for confi so uh yeah pav I'd like to thank you so much uh you know for your time today obviously uh uh you know a lot of really interesting insights I guess just to close out you know if there are any sort of final thoughts you

want to you know share or maybe let people know where they can find out a bit more about confide and and yourself yeah definitely our website is uh www.con platform.com and you can find us there or you can find us on LinkedIn um under confi or you could just you know hit me up on LinkedIn as well under pav Gill thank you thanks for having me I should just note pav has a Wikipedia page as well as you can you can always look him up on there too pav thank you so much for your time it's been

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